Move along just to make it through.

An entire year has gone by since my last post. Funny, it's also the day I happened to have a desire to create a new blog. I never did our wedding recaps. What happened? Life. So why not capture it? Coming soon ~ I hope you'll check me out: and that's why I love you so. ♥

How sweet it is.

I was so surprised and very honored that our wedding was posted on Style Me Pretty!!

photo by Ohana Photographers

Thank you to SMP for the super sweet post and to our lovely coordinator, Paola Spagnoletti of Just Chic Events, for submitting the entry. We could not have pulled off the wedding we envisioned without all these wonderful vendors, whom we love and would highly recommend:

Day-of Wedding Coordinator ~ Paola Spagnoletti of Just Chic Events

Photographer ~ Chris Austin of White Haute Photography

Second Photographer ~ David Baxter of Ohana Photographers

Lighting and drapery ~ Mars and Nancy of Flowers on Mars

DJ ~ Michael Antonia of The Flashdance

Make-up ~ Julie Han (aka miss cakeface)

Bouquets and boutonnieres ~ Liza of Letters 4 Lilly

Cake ~ Laurie Mura of I Believe It's Cake!

Maybe I'll get around to the recaps one day soon...

Pre-party (aka rehearsal dinner)

We had our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner the evening before our wedding. I wanted to keep that evening free in case we had last minute things to do, but it wasn't possible, due to venue issues (a whole other post to come).

Our day-of wedding coordinator, Paola of Just Chic Events is so organized and patient (we have a talky group of friends and family). The rehearsal went smoothly and quickly thanks to her.

We wanted the rehearsal dinner somewhere that was relaxed, fun, and not too expensive. Our first idea was Lucille's bbq but unfortunately it does not exist in nor around downtown LA. So, we went with Korean bbq at Road to Seoul.

Family + friends + all-you-can-eat K-bbq + beer = fun rehearsal dinner.

The restaurant gave us a Choco Pie to congratulate us on our wedding. :)

Soon to be married.

After dinner, the girls and I checked into The Standard Hotel - Downtown LA.

The Wow Room.

Big Foam Foot.

A fab way to spend the night before our wedding!

Showered with love.

A week after returning from the most amazing bachelorette trip to NYC, my bridesmaids along with my mom, threw me a lovely bridal shower at Marmalade Cafe' in El Segundo.

the best bridal party

mom and sister

We had a delicious brunch followed by super cute and yummy cupcakes by my oh-so-talented friend, Laurie Mura of I Believe It's Cake!

red velvet is my fave.

Laurie also made our gorgeous wedding cake, which I will be showing off on here soon!

I loved going around and chatting with each of the tables.

The weirdest thing for me was opening presents in front of so many people! It was like re-living my kindergarten birthday party, with a few sexier gifts.

I feel incredibly lucky to have the most amazing bridesmaids, family, and girlfriends. Thank you, thank you, thank you. ♥

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of.

Two things I love to do more than anything with my girlfriends are shopping and eating. What better place to do both these things than in New York City?

For my bachelorette trip, my three bridesmaids and I headed out to NYC. I had so much fun and words cannot express how thankful I am to my wonderful bridesmaids. Unfortunately, the other three girls in our group weren't able to make the trip out and they were dearly missed.

Rather than a silly penis veil (which so would not go with any of my outfits), the girls had me wear the Chubby Bunny for Hello Kitty bow headband in the limited edition black sold at the Three Apples event at Royal-T Art Gallery. It was fabulous.

It was ridiculously cold but so worth freezing our LA asses off. We managed to accomplish a pretty good balance of

touristy stuff:

ice skating in Central Park

Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center

posing for pictures in Times Square

more posing in Times Square

controversial Obama ad

Empire State Building

walking across the Brooklyn Bridge (this is how I saw the Statue of Liberty :P)

shopping:

Dylan's Candy Store

just a few purchases from my faves: boutiques on the Lower East Side, Brookyln Industries, Top Shop, Marc Jacobs accessories, Uniqlo

eating:

pizza at John's Pizzeria

delish dinner at the Stanton Social

best bread ever at Bruschetteria on the Lower East Side

McDonald's french fries are so damn good after a night of drinking

Serendipity frozen hot chocolate

The Burger Joint

and drinking:

Stanton Social

W lounge

Silhouette fun at the W

NYC is amazing. This was my first trip out, but definitely not my last. Thank you Emily, Maryn, and Tritia for the fabulous and unforgettable bachelorette trip.

It's official...

...because it's Facebook official. ;)

This girl

is MARRIED.

Was it a perfect night? Hell no. Was it an amazing night? F*N YES!!!!

SO much more to come.

Be our guest be our guest be our guest.

One of my biggest projects for the wedding has been the invitations. The insanely expensive type of invitation that I wanted was not in the budget. I have a love-hate relationship with Adobe Illustrator. It has amazing functions but some things are just so damn complicated. After designing it, I let it sit on my computer for a few (several) months, since invitations did not need to go out until December. I figured the easy part would be printing and sending them out.

Well, December crept up quickly and I ran into several issues during the printing. First of all, the paper was too thick to print on our own printer. Gah. Thank you, mrs. a, for letting us borrow yours! Then, the yellow I used in Illustrator was printing brown the on the printer. Gah. Finally, though I set the size on Illustrator to the size of the paper, it was getting enlarged in the printing. Gah. I am easily frustrated, especially when technology does not work. Lucky for me, I have a very patient, computer-savvy, perfectionist fiance'. He spent several painstaking hours fixing each page. Thank you, mr. c for doing everything for me that I don't have the patience for. You spoil me.

While he printed, I made address labels and return address labels. We used our customizable stamps by Stamps.com purchased from Walgreens during the summer upon a deal alert from this guy.

4 different engagement photos taken by our wonderful photogs, Chris and Erinn Austin.

After printing, we folded each page and perforated the RSVP postcard and it was ready for assembly. I went back and forth on how to bind it. I tried ribbon, I tried thread, I tried staples. I know it wasn't the best looking option, but I went with staples because it was the easiest and I was already behind in mailing them out.

i love this thing. thanks, mrs. gb.

ready to assemble.

The invitations finally went out last Tuesday, with, of course, one more complication. Unfortunately, when mr. c went to mail these out, they weighed 1.2 ounces, 0.2 oz over the 44 cent stamp rate. Gah. So, he had to purchase 17 cent stamps and stick them on each envelope:


I am completely happy with the final result:

it reads: leave us a message...but nothing boring.

Invitation Cover: Kelly Paper Solar White Classic Column $32.59/250 pages
Invitation Pages: Kelly Paper Solar White Classic Crest $21.90/250 pages
Envelopes: Kelly Paper Pewter Class Crest $55.95/250 envelopes