We work together and were friends for a few years before we ended up "together."  After dating for one blissful year, he put together the proposal of a lifetime on January 7th, 2009.  It involved me in a helicopter, the scoreboard at Angel Stadium, and the most beautiful ring I've ever seen!  FI had it custom designed by Liberty Diamonds in Irvine (also in downtown LA). 

Here's my gorgeous ring on my ugly hand (haha):

We want to get married ASAP but also want to celebrate with all of our close family and friends, so we decided on October of 2009.  Planning a wedding in 7 months has been crazy, but I can't wait for The Big Day!

Since we were in a hurry to book a date for our wedding, we didn't look at a ton of places.  We went to some of the typical hotels and country clubs in the OC but most of them were too expensive or not exactly what we were looking for.  One day we toured The Grand Newport Plaza (catered by The Turnip Rose) in Costa Mesa and were smitten.  They have a bunch of incentives for "off season" and Friday/Sunday wedding dates, so we booked them for both our ceremony and reception.

I feel like I've gotten lucky with a lot of my vendors.  They've all been wonderful so far!

Dress: "Aspen" from Modern Trousseau, purchased from The White Dress in Corona Del Mar

Florist: Leanna Henry at Bella Blooms

Photographer: Brandon Kidd

DJ: Jason Jass at Visions Entertainment

Cake: Rockwell's Creative Cakes in Orange (included with our catering package)

Veil: Candi Merle

Hair and Makeup: Katie Vollmer from Beauty and the Beach

Alterations: Mahtab (awesome!)

BM Dresses: Amsale (color - Plum) from Mestad's in MN ($50 cheaper than the stores in the OC and no sales tax!).  UPDATE:  BM dresses arrived early and in perfect condition!  I'm so glad I found Mestad's...the girls saved money and the service was awesome (ask for Grace).

B-Pics/Pinup Pics: Stacy (makeup) and Carol (photog) from Iconic Pinups

Chair Rental: Chiavari Chairs 4 Rent

Our colors are eggplant and fuchsia with touches of black, silver and maybe some red for accents.

We're trying to do an "old Hollywood glamour" theme, too.  FI loves old movies and I love vintage-inspired fashion and decor.

Colors:

 My first Polyvore board attempt:

Wedding Inspiration Board

I am a shoe and handbag addict.  Seriously...I think I need professional help.  In the meantime, I managed to buy THREE pairs of shoes for the wedding.  *sigh*

My splurge: Raspberry silk shantung Manolos! (Sorry, I can't find a bigger picture)

Dark purple Stuart Weitzmans (got them on sale at Nordstrom)

Cute and comfy bridal white Dyeables (got them on sale, with no tax, and free shipping on Shoebuy.com)

Am I going to spend half of my wedding day changing shoes???  Perhaps.  I might use the purple Stuarts for engagement pics.  Hmm.

My two girls tried on this dress and fell in love with it.  However, it cost waaaay more than I wanted them to spend so they looked around for something else.  I told them they could pick any style they wanted, as long as it was in eggplant or even fuchsia.  They didn't find anything that they liked nearly as much, so they both decided to splurge and purchase the Amsale dress.  I felt so bad about the cost, but they both insisted that this was THE dress.  Luckily I found a way to save them some $$$ (see vendor list above).

Here it is!  (The color they are wearing is a much darker purple, though.)

They will be wearing silver shoes (of their choice) with the dress.

I love flowers, and I want the flowers at the wedding to really "pop."  Most of them will be fuchsia and red in color.  We're planning on using dark linens, so the flowers will stand out against them.  I am so in love with peonies, but they're not in season on my wedding date.  I told my florist that I'm willing to pay extra to have them imported for my bouquet!  The rest of the flowers will be orchids, calla lillies, dahlias, ranunculus, and maybe some garden roses (they look similar to peonies).

I love these garden roses as substitutes for the out-of-season peonies:

I wish I could have these centerpieces!

This is similar to our color scheme (black tablecloths with bright pink floral centerpieces):

Bouquets I love:

All of the above photos are from www.theknot.com

I love the look of silver chiavari chairs with the black linens.  Let's see if we can squeeze this into our budget.  *crossing fingers*

FI and I both like these round menu cards:

I bought silver chargers from Big Lots and will be selling them after the wedding (hopefully).  I found a "circle cutter" tool at Michael's so we're going to attempt to DIY these.

If I had an unlimited budget, this would be the exact set up at the wedding:

Unfortunately, just about everything in this picture is WAY out of my budget.  =(

These were the biggest pain to make, but they're finally done (and only a week late, LOL).  I need to take pictures of the finished product, but in the meantime, here's info on the vendors I used in case there are any DIY'ers reading this.

1. Anchor Paper Express
They have a great selection of different colors, weights, and sizes. I bought 12X12 silver Stardream paper. It was sent quickly and they even included some scrap pieces, which I'll use for labels or belly bands. I also needed some dark purple cardstock but they only sell packs of 250 online so I e-mailed Tom in their customer service department and he immediately set up a special order page for me so I could place an order for 100 sheets. Their customer service is outstanding! I always get a quick response from them and their products ship quickly. Bonus: they're based in MN, so there's no tax for us CA brides! Also, you can order samples to make sure you're ordering the right product.

2. Paper and More
I used them to buy my black, linen square pocketfolds. I found them to have the best prices. Their color selection isn't as big as Cards and Pockets, though. However, they have great customer service and cheap shipping. I ordered 2 packs of the pocketfolds and they only had one in stock so they upgraded me to overnight shipping for free and gave me 10% off the 2nd pack when it finally came in. (I only had to wait about 2 weeks for the 2nd one to arrive.)

3. Envelope Mall
Great selection of envelopes for low prices! And again, there's no tax for CA brides. =)

Hope that helps some of you DIY'ers out there. I especially love Anchor Paper because searched all over for reasonably priced 12X12 paper and they were the only ones that had it for a low price.

We had the actual invitations and inserts printed at a local print shop, but we used a Canon Pixma printer to print all the envelopes and monogram stickers.  We got the printer at Walmart for only $30 and it's awesome!

If I ever get around to doing these, this is my inspiration...FI would love the pin up look!

http://freshpics.blogspot.com/2009/04/hollywood-celebrity-pin-ups.html

Here are some of my faves from the site:

I want "Old Hollywood Glam" hair and makeup, but I'm not sure if I can pull off the red lipstick.  I might have to find something a little more subtle for the wedding day.  I'm planning on wearing my hair down with finger waves (I think that's what they're called). 

This is my inspiration...I love Scarlett's hair and makeup in these pics:

I bought a sparkly hair comb to wear on the side that looks similar to this:

But now I'm thinking of wearing a silk flower with some small feathers...if I can find one I like!

I bought these earrings from Nordstrom, but I'm not sure I'm going to use them:

PW'er Amberly1001 turned me on to these beauties from Haute Bride, and I think I'm going to share them with her:

LOVE THEM!!!  The cushion cut and halo design match my e-ring, too.

Here are some of my favorite pictures so far.  All of them are from our wonderful photographer, Brandon Kidd (www.bkiddphoto.com).  He put up a slideshow online for us just a few days after the wedding so that we would have something to look at before getting all the edited pics back.  He also played the slideshow at our reception, which our guests loved!  (Please credit Brandon Kidd if you use any of these pictures.  Thanks!)