My name is Karissa, I'm 29 years old and I have been a labor and delivery nurse for 5 years now. I was born and raised in the desert of Southern California. My fiance (Richard aka Ozzy) is 29 and grew up in the same area as me, yet amazingly we didn't meet until just a few years ago. We met through mutual friends at a bar. Over the next couple years we became close friends. Even ended up working at the same hospital. I never imagined he thought of me as anything other than a good friend. 

    Then one day while I was procrastinating getting ready for work I was texting Ozzy. We were commisserating about the opposite sex and how over relationships we were. Then  I get a text "how come we never went out?". My reply "cus you never asked"...A few months later Ozzy moved in.

    We both work the night shift and one night, about a month after Ozzy moved in, I was home alone while Ozzy worked. Ozzy somehow managed to get off work early and came home around 4 in the morning. Apparently he had an epiphany at work and decided he couldn't wait to ask me to marry him. So he did, at 4 in the morning at our home. Luckily we had champagne on hand to celebrate. Of course we quickly figured out neither of us really like champagne and grabbed a Mike's instead. Now I get to be one of those lucky people who gets to spend their life with their best friend.

   Now since everything moved so quickly in the beginning we've decided to give ourselves plenty of time with the wedding. We were engaged on October 26th of 2010 and will be married on June 3rd of 2012. Long engagement but we're big on reducing stress as much as possible. Our wedding is being held in Riverside, Ca at Wedgewood banquet center at Indian Hills golf club. We are having a daytime Sunday wedding and our colors are red, yellow and orange. The one thing I am very insistant on is that the feel of the wedding be very bright, colorful and happy.

The rings

E-ring pics

The bridal set

My step-father Carter walked me down the aisle and gave me away

My nephew Alexander was my ring bearer. Since we were short one groomsman he walked down the aisle with his mom (MOH).

My handsome Hubby with his Uncle (our officiant) and his best man Ryan

Mr. and Mrs. Osborne

Our adorable flower girls Kayla and Rylie

Our beautiful (and yummy) cake by Cucamonga Cakery Company, the flowers were provided by Events by Floral Sensations

Our first kiss as husband and wife

My bouquet with the memorial charm of my father

 SO excited, I finally ordered our save the dates. I got them from magnetstreet.com. They have so many to choose from. These are mini magnets that I bought with a carrier card that will be red. We also got the place cards, table numbers and address labels/seals in the same pattern. The best part about this site is that colors and wording are completely customizable. I can't wait to see what they look like!

This is how they came out with the carrier cards

I also ordered the matching place cards and table numbers. I like that the place cards have a little thank you note from us and our contact info.

I kind of stumbled across my dress. I know I have a hard time finding anything I like when it comes to clothing and I'm not exactly a dress kind of girl. So I decided to do a little research and go to different shops in the area and narrow it down to a few different dresses to show my bridal party. On my third appointment I found THE dress! I completely fell in love. This dress has everything on my list of details I wanted. It has a minimal sweetheart neckline, beading along the bodice that flows along one side and down my train, and a corset top with lace up back. Of course it was discontinued and only the sample was available. Luckily it just happened to be in my size and I got it for a great price.

A close up of the beading

Unfortunately the bridal shop ruined the dress 9 days before the wedding by steaming it with dirty water. Luckily my amazing in-laws offerred to buy me a new one. This is the dress I ended up with

I actually love this dress more than the original and it goes with my accressories and bridesmaids dresses better.

                                 I'm currently trying to grow my hair out so it will be long enough to curl but still cover my back tattoo. I know they have make-up for that but I'm only concerned about masking it during the ceremony. I'm thinking I'll do a half-up do with the side swept bangs. With an elbow length veil and maybe some hair crystals.

For the make-up I want something very natural that will make my eyes pop (they disappear when I smile).

I also love Adele's eye make-up at the grammy's this year

The earrings

The necklace

 Bracelet

 My veil

The Shoes

My garter set purchased from etsy.com

My weddinng day scent

Love struck by Vera Wang

The bridesmaids dresses are by Alfred Angelo, style 7138 in cherry.  I love the one shoulder with the little rosettes

These are the jewelry sets I bought for their attendants gifts. My jr bridesmaid/little sister Kaleah helped me pick them out.

I also bought them and my mom monogramed robes to wear while we are getting ready. The white one is for me =)

I'm thinking my bridesmaids will have solid yellow bouquets and my MOH and I will have mixed bouquets of red, yellow and orange flowers. Not sure of what flowers yet but I know I want some kind of lily, gerber daisies and some roses to be incorporated

When we started looking at venues I had the hardest time even getting any to respond to my inquiries. I work nights so I have to do almost everything by e-mail. My mom actually suggested we check out Wedgewood banquet center at Indian Hills Golf Club. We fell in love with it immediately. I knew I wanted an outdoor ceremony and an indoor reception and didn't want to spend an extravagant amount of money. Well the whole staff there is great. They offer package deals including everything from invites, flowers, cake, food, dj, even a hotel room for the wedding night. Linda (the sales person) really worked with us to create a custom package and even let me pay for the deposit in installments since I hadn't been planning on booking a venue that day. The florist they work with is amazing and I can't wait to see how everything comes together

This is the ceremony space in the hills of Riverside. The florist is going to line the aisle with flower petals and put bunches of flowers on the chairs lining the aisle connected with red, yellow and orange cascading ribbon.

Directly to the left of the ceremony space is the banquet hall. I love that we will be a 20 second walk and nobody has to worry about transportation. Guests can go directly from the ceremony to the cocktail hour in the reception room. 

Guests will be greeted in the foyer by the photo booth

Since my father passed away when I was 12 I wanted to find something to have with me during the ceremony to remember him. I think these bouquet charms are a great way to keep him close and have him with me as I walk down the aisle (btw, that pic is not my dad, just the one on the website) =)

 This is how mine turned out.

This is the back

My centerpiece prototype. We are just changing the little pink flowers to all yellow so it will brighten up the arrangements. I love the circus roses, we are going to scatter thier petals around the cp's since we won't have any other table decor

sorry, took this in the car on the ride home =)

The cake serving set

the engraving...very hard to get a pic of engraving off a reflective surface

For the shoes, my something blue

by the entrance to the ceremony space I plan on having a table set up that will hold the guest book, programs, bubbles, TOJ packets and water bottles in our personalized party tub

Our programs

The water bottle labels and party tub

(right now it is being used to hold everything I have to take to the venue)

Our toasting flutes and napkins

Had a hard time with the glare but they say our names and wedding date

This is the other side

The napkins

Our monogram cake topper which is actually going to be on the second tier. We're putting fresh flowers on top

(silly I know but I totally get a kick out of the fact that we have the same initials but reversed =))

The flip flops to wear on the beach on our honeymoon

This is the bottom. In case you can't read backwards it says "Just Married" so when I walk on the sand it will leave little "just married"'s everywhere I walk

Ozzy and I have several family members that have passed on and wanted to do something to remember them at the wedding but didn't want to have 6-7 memorial candles sitting on a table. We found this memorial tree online and recieved it from my mom for Christmas. It has small frames that hang all along the tree for each person. I love that we'll be able to use it as a special decoration in our home after the wedding

The ring bearer pillow

For the cake table, it will be surrounded by flower petals.

Near the entrance to the ceremony space I'm going to set up a welcome table with bags for guests to collect all their favors, a party tub of water bottles with personalized labels, tears of joy packets, bubbles and then the ushers will hand out the program fans. I put these together to hold the tears of joy packets and bubbles.

This is my DIY card box. I'm not normally a very crafty person but after a couple hours and a few burned fingertips This is how it turned out. I'm very happy with the end result.

Everything I've done so far

Finally got my tears of joy packets all done. I wasn't comfortable buying ribbon online, i'd rather see it in person but I had a hard time finding enough one kind I liked for all the packets so i mixed and matched a few different ones that i thought went well together. This is how they turned out

My mom hosted my bridal shower on March 18th. It had a kitchen gadget theme. She found these adorable invites, the rsvp is a recipe card (not pictured).

It was so much fun. Of course it was the one day we had a crazy storm and had to drive through snow and hail to get there but everything turned out great. I got lots of cool kitchen stuff (including a new Calphalon pan set from my mom). It was at a P.F. Changs's which is one of my favorite restraunts. My mom did an amazing job. All the girls I work with said they are going to hire her if they every have a shower.

These are the invites we have for the rehearsal lunch. I was so happy when I found them. We have red gerbera daisies in the centerpieces and they were super cheap from vistaprint.com

We are leaving from LAX the day after the wedding and heading to Kauai,HI. Staying for 8 days and 7 nights at the Outrigger Waipouli Beach Resort on the east side in a 1bedroom 2bath condo.  I can't wait!

              The Resort

While we're there we are going on a intertubing tour, a sunset cruise on the napali coast, an airplane tour and a Luau of course. I wanted to do the ziplining but FI vetoed that one