WOW!!!! THAT WAS SOOOOOOOO MUCH FUN! I was sooooo stressed out and put so much time into the 3 months of planning for this wedding, but it was soooo worth it! Everything went off without a hitch and everyone there had a blast! Thanks for all the advice and amazing inspiration PW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My FI and I have been dating for 6 years and living together for about 5 and a half. We both have a lot of divorce in our families, and so we were pretty wary of marriage. We attended a friend's wedding in Hawaii in 2007 and my FI brought up the whole marriage thing. I said I wasn't ready and that I'd let him know when I was ready. I loved him, but I just wasn't ready to marry him. Last August we attended my cousin's wedding and it suddenly felt right. I felt absolutely positively ready to be married to him. I started researching like crazy and after 3 days of non-stop wedding research I decided to bring it up to him...that's right, I hadn't told him yet...oops. So he comes home late from work and I sit him down and tell him I'm ready. I cannot tell you how excited he was! It was so cute! I wish I could have planned it better and really proposed to him, but I just couldn't wait. So I guess our proposal story is a little silly. Whatever. We love each other. That's what counts.

Anyway, in September my Mom agreed to pay for the wedding and we set off on planning. We found a great location and were about to put down a deposit when the stock market crashed! My Mom lost a ton of $$ and couldn't pay for the wedding anymore. That TOTALLY sucked! It took me many months of moping and being depressed before I could serioiusly think about the wedding again. I know it sounds lame, but when you do that much planning and it all goes away, it's kind of disheartening.

After telling people for months that we wanted to get married but didn't know how, we finally started figuring out how. We don't have much money, but we adjusted our budget and went back to the drawing board. In March, I found a restaurant that fit our new budget. We were so anxious to get married that we decided to keep our original time frame and get married right before our birthdays in June. ...that's right, 3 months to plan the whole thing! :-) Woo hoo! WE'RE SOOOOOOO EXCITED!

Our babies: Booda & Molly

I knew I didn't want a diamond...and I LOVE the color blue, so a sapphire seemed like a logical choice. I have a friend who is a jeweler downtown and makes custom rings (Mervyn at LA Diamond Factory), so off we went. My FI knows how picky I am, so he was happy that I wanted to be involved in the process. We looked at several rings and stones and came up with a game plan. After a few weeks here's what they made for me and I LOVE IT!!!

And a couple months later we picked out our bands:

YAY!!!

I thought I wanted a sheath. ...a simple lace sheath.
Like this one:

this dress was on sale at David's Bridal for $350 and I really liked it a lot!

One day I was randomly looking at dresses on Craigslist, & this listing caught my eye:

Wedding Dresses. Closed down bridal store. CHEAP, NEW GOWNS! - $200

(btw, the listing is still posted there)

Anyway, I went to her apartment and looked at her dresses. I didn't see any sheaths and everything looked a bit dated. I decided to humor the woman and try a few things on. Nothing...nothing...then wait, something in the corner. She found a dress that had fallen underneath the rack (in its bag of course). Anyway, she pulls it out and it has SLEEVES! I was like, yeah right! What the heck, I tried it on. ...no way! It's not even a sheath! ...but it looks GORGEOUS ON ME! :-)

So maybe it needed a little alteration. There's just something about it...and the price was amazing! No, not $200 as advertised, but $500 ain't bad for a Jasmine Couture...who knows what year it's from ;-) Whatever. I LOVE IT.

I took it down to Mahtab. Yes, I drove the 60 miles down from Hollywood, but SO WORTH IT for the best and cheapest bridal alterations in SoCal! The first thing she did, while I was standing there trying it on, was cut the sleeves off. She said she hadn't seen sleeves since the 80's! No, the dress can't be that old...can it?

and tada...

...didn't even know I wanted to be a princess till I became one. :-)

I could not afford $400+ for makeup and hair!...which is typical for Los Angeles. I found some decent salons, but it was too complicated to work everything out for an 11am Sunday wedding. Enter Susue Chhuor. Not only does she have amazing reviews and a great portfolio, but she's $260 including the trial! PERFECT!!!...not to mention the PW discount.

PS, she ROCKED the trial! Susie is SOOOOO great to work with!

then I found these cute hair clips on www.1928.com

purple is our wedding color and there are butterflies on the side of my e-ring

the scrolls match my dress

simple and classy...I'll give one to each of my bridesmaids as well

A friend of a friend is doing our flowers and giving us a LOT more bang for our buck!
Here's a sample of our centerpieces:

And here's a sample of my bouquet: (she's going to switch out the green flowers for purple)

So, I LOVE COOKING! ...and I'm a little bummed that our location won't let us bring in any outside food. I've decided to sneak some in. I'm planning to make homemade truffles and use them both as favors and escort cards. Hopefully the banquet manager won't freak out. I'm not planning to say anything in advance and hopefully it will be okay. They can't remove them. People won't know where to sit.

Here are the recipes I'm making from the Epicurious website. I've never tried them before, but they sound so good and I can make them 1-2 weeks in advance and freeze them:

TRUFFLES #1: Triple-Chocolate Hazelnut Truffles
YUMMY! THEY ARE EVEN MORE GORGEOUS ON THE INSIDE :-)

TRUFFLES #2: (haven't made these yet, but they sound delish!)

Here are the boxes I'll put them in:

(actually, I've added cute little gold ball accents to this design...stay tuned for pics)

Cute right?

We wanted an outdoor wedding. We're hippies!...at heart. We went to Burning Man!...once.

Anyway, outdoor weddings can be very very EXPENSIVE. I looked at parks that charge $2,500 not including ANYTHING. That means we'd have to bring in rentals, food, etc. We don't have any friends with backyards big enough for 80 people. We also have a lot of older relatives that will need flat & even ground, restrooms and reasonable temperatures.

Long story short, we found a restaurant with a ballroom that includes practically everything for very reasonable prices. Both the ceremony and reception will take place in the same room.

Still working on a few things, but here's most of it...

Front and back of my 4.5" x 11" programs: (designed in Illustrator and used a tree from istockphoto, fonts are Liana and Myriad Pro)

Table Numbers / Menus: (menu text created in Photoshop, everything else is hand-cut & glued with a glue stick, dried pansies = # of vegetarians)

Photo Sharing Cards for thank you cards and reception: (designed in Illustrator, printed as business cards w/ rounded corners on recycled cardstock using Got Print = $15 + no shipping since I picked them up in Burbank)

Cardbox: (pre-decorated, purchased for $7 from Ross, FI cut hole in top and I decorated it with ribbon and pearls)

Guess I'll tell you a little about our honeymoon, since we're SOOOOO EXCITED!!!! (I'll post more details & pics when we get back)

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA HONEYMOON - June 2009

Night #1 - after the wedding
We're taking the train from LA to Santa Barbara. FYI, the train is DIRT CHEAP ($37.40 TOTAL for both of us!!!). ALSO, there's is a great website with discounts in SB if you take the train: www.santabarbaracarfree.org. Then we're walking over to our awesome B&B and staying for 2 nights.

Nights #3 - #5 - wine country
Then we'll rent a car and drive up to Healdsburg (NW of Napa, Santa Rosa, etc.). I've read amazing reviews about this place and will tell you all about it in a couple weeks when we get back. For FI's b-day, I'm taking him to Cyrus. This SUPER-FANCY-AMAZING restaurant has 2 Michelin stars! ...this meal is really more for me, but since my b-day is 3 days later and we won't be in Healdsburg anymore, we're sort of trading ;-)

Nights #6 - #7 - Redwood National Park
This is REALLY far north, but I saw Huell Howser go on the Fern Canyon trail once and I've always wanted to go. ...plus, my aunt found this AMAZING hostel (rated #2 in the world) where you can get a private room for $60 per night overlooking the ocean...and you're actually in the national park. SO COOL!!!

Nights #8 - #9 - Mt. Shasta
We're actually staying at a cute B&B in McCloud which is super layed back and cozy.

Then we'll drive down to Sacramento and fly back to LA.