{a few snapshots}

This past weekend still feels like it was a dream.

 Here are a few snapshots taken by our friends. 

Can't wait to share more details soon!

{april 28, 2012}

After almost ten years together, we are going to make it official. 

Tomorrow, I will marry my best friend.  

{our wedding vendors}

With just a few more days until our wedding I thought it might be fun to share all the people who are helping it come together.  We spent countless hours searching for, interviewing, meeting with and selecting these vendors.  Every single one of them as been a joy to work with so far and we cant wait to have them with us on our big day.

Photography: 

EPLove- you can see our engagement shoot with them here.  We truly loved working with Roger- we were laughing at his jokes for our entire shoot!  Absolutely cannot wait to have them capture everything for us.

Videography:

Videography was a total last minute decision for us (as in we decided to do this last week) and Nick Radford has been totally amazing working with us to get everything together super quick.

Day-of Coordinator:

April from The Bride & I is so so so much more than a day-of coordinator. I honestly don't even know how we would get to this point without her and I know we certainly wouldn't survive the wedding without her by our sides.

Florals:

Our amazing friend, Chelsea is handling all the wedding flowers and centerpieces for us.  In addition to making awesome floral arrangements, she runs a super cute clothing site called Novel Surplus. (go. buy things.)

Styling:

I have always loved Lauren's blog and sought her out to style all the countless DIY projects we have been creating over the past couple months.  What's the use of making so much wonderful stuff for your wedding if you can't relax on the day of because you are setting it all up!?!  I don't have to worry at all knowing Lauren from A Fabulous Fete will execute everything exactly how we are envisioning it!

Catering:

Mike & Laura at Simply Elegant are really great. Not only are they making our dreams of having a wedding served family style come true, but they are doing it all at a very reasonable cost and accommodating our various recipe requests!

DJ

KC of Vox DJs did our friend's wedding and he was beyond great so we knew it would be perfect for ours.  This guy lives and breathes weddings- if you are in the LA area, I highly recommend him and his team!

{taking a little break}

 

As you may have noticed, there has been a significant decrease in the amount of posts over here. This is all due to the fact that our wedding is fast approaching in less than two weeks and most (okay- all) of our time is going towards tying up all those last minute details.  While we were able to get a lot of big projects done way ahead of time, there are just some things that you cannot do until the last minute such as the seating chart and table assignments. 

Anyways, I do have some fun posts planned with a few sneak peeks before the wedding and maybe even some guest-bloggers while we are on our honeymoon! After we get back from our honeymoon, I promise posting will return to normal and I have some extremely exciting to news (not wedding related) that I can finally announce in May!!

{bachelorette gift bags}

The past weekend, I had my bachelorette party at The Parker with all my favorite ladies.  We had a truly great time sipping cocktails poolside and dancing the night away.  Before heading out to the desert, I put together some small gift bags as a "Thank You" for all my friends' hard work with my bridal shower and bachelorette planning.  I purchased some simple canvas tote bags and used iron-on transfer paper to affix a big red fabric heart on the side of each bag.  Then I filled each one with a mini champagne, lolita glasses, confetti and my favorite lipstick.

My girlfriends truly spoiled me this weekend.  I was surprised with a decorated hotel room, another set of fun gift bags, pink poufs for each girl to wear, champagne cocktails and of course, a veil to wear out on the town. Here are a few snapshots from our weekend....

 {custom gift bags from The Wedding Chicks put together by Eva & Kristen}

 {champagne cocktails put together by Heather & hand made pink poufs put together by Kay}

{bachelorette}

This weekend, I am headed out to the fabulous Parker Palm Springs for my bachelorette weekend with all my favorite ladies.  First I will be wrapping up some wedding details with our coordinator and bakery.  After that,  I cant wait to be poolside with a cocktail in hand and dancing the night away in this little outfit:

ASOS white skater dress

ASOS multi zip tassel clutch

Paris Hilton gold bow d'orsay pumps

{breakfast for dinner birthday party}

 
As promised, I am back with the full recap from the breakfast for dinner birthday party we hosted for our dear friend Kay.  With Kay's direction for the color scheme and food, we set out to create a breakfast themed cocktail party rather than do a sit down dinner.  We made everything in mini form like mini egg Mcmuffin sandwiches, french toast bites,  mini donuts and a cereal bar so that guests could mingle and snack throughout the evening.  To make sure people didn't go hungry, we also cooked up some chicken and waffles which were served later in the evening.  We purchased Trader Joe's frozen belgium waffles and topped each one with a fried chicken strip from KFC.  

Although we had beer and wine available, the main drinks for the party were a do it yourself Bloody Mary Bar and a Bellini Bar.  Besides the McMuffin sandwiches, bacon skewers & snickerdoodle birthday cake, everything was purchased ready made (most items were frozen) to make the party a quick and easy set up.  We also tried to pick breakfast items that are just as yummy cold as they are hot out of the oven since we knew there would be no way to keep everything at the perfect temperature.  My favorites from the night were the individual servings of french toast with maple syrup and the cereal bar!

For the decor, we kept everything pretty simple with a few printed labels in the color scheme and some festive drink garnishes.  Using a roll of kraft paper and some sheets of cardstock in our desired colors, Kay & I created a huge paper chain to serve as the statement decoration above the main table.  This was by far the easiest party decor I have ever created and although it doesn't photograph well, it really makes an impact in person.  We simply cut the strips of the paper into 2 inch wide strips about 12 inches long for the colored cardstock and 20 inches long for the kraft paper and then stapled each loop onto the next.  I really loved the result and think this could make an awesome photobooth backdrop or canopy over a dinner party table.

 {the birthday girl}

 {chalkboard instructions}

 {bloody mary fixings}

 {bellini fixings}

 {cereal and champagne for the win}

{pancakes and bloody marys}