Halloween!

I LOVE carving pumpkins. I had a couple of girlfriends come over and carve them with me. I'm really slow, mine is in the middle, next to theirs which were finished way before mine.

So I stayed outside for another hour or so to finish my pumpkin. My heart sank when the boy came in and said "ohhh, that's a really cool jack-o-lantern. Where are the eyes?" 

Please tell me you can tell it's an owl. You can tell, right? 

At work we had our annual costume contest, the prize being a half day at work. Everyone gets the half day, so it's all in good fun. 

I made a jelly fish costume out of an umbrella and some plastic bags around the house. This is how it came out: 

There is an entire Flickr pool devoted to jelly fish costumes here. Totally fun to "swish" around in, and best of all, it cost nothing!

I can sense us getting older when I would rather go eat a pumpkin-themed French dinner than head over to the university's annual bash with free alcohol. If we decide to go out tomorrow, I might have to purchase that hot pink dress I saw at Target today to go with the jelly fish. 

Otherwise, I'll take pictures of the pumpkin dinner and post them for all of you. 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Bridesmaid Dresses from Saja

[All images from Saja Wedding]

I got an email from Saja today informing  me that they launched their new weddings website!

I visited Saja last year on our trip to New York. It was the first place I went to try on dresses.  I wasn't even engaged yet, but they were so nice and helpful. Plus, I loved all of the dresses!  

When I opened the website today, I became super excited that they have these kelly green bridesmaid dresses! Sister 2 is also a Saja fan, so these dresses are likely candidates! You can see them "in action" in the last photo. 

If you're looking for your wedding dress and want to stay below the $1,000 mark, I highly suggest giving Saja a try. You can view all their beautiful wedding gowns here.

To see real live people wearing them, go here. 

My Dress Arrived + Updates

+Thank you so much to everyone and your suggestions on where to go on our honeymoon. There were many places mentioned that I had not even thought of, so I really appreciate the time everyone took to lend me some advice. We're still debating, one of these days we'll make a decision and then I can go crazy planning all of the fun sites we'll see and good food we'll eat.  

+Thank you also to everyone who gave me advice regarding my mom. I told her that we have a cat and that basically clinched it. "Ooooh yeah. I forgot you had a pet. Never mind!" Now I'm looking for an apartment/condo to rent close to us the week of our wedding. Anyone willing to give up their La Jolla apartment for my parents?

+If you notice on the sidebar, that vendor list is getting pretty full. We have cake left, and music. I'm looking for a good bakery/baker in San Diego County. Thank you to reader Larissa who has already given me three places to try out in the next month!

As for music, we're going to talk to our venue about a sound system for an ipod/laptop set-up. For ceremony music, we want live music, just haven't figured out who will be playing!

+I picked up my dress this weekend. (!!!!) Thank you to my friend Jenny, who was kind enough to accompany me, help me put my shoes on, and take pictures. 

It is sitting in my closet, taunting me, and won't be altered until May. The shoulders have to be taken up a lot, and I really hope keeping the dress up won't be a problem. They showed me a photo of a bride who had ties added to the back so that it would stay up, and I immediately cried "nooooo! The back is the best part!"

It also felt really tight, and when I mentioned it at the store, the associate told me "don't worry, this is how it's supposed to fit--pain is beauty!" 

Oh yay.

[PS: I brought the shoes with me!]

Giving (or not giving) gifts

The boy's birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, and as we were sitting trying to figure out where to go to dinner on his special day, I realized that it's been a very long time since I bought him a present that he didn't pick out for himself. We just don't give gifts to one another unless 1. the other person says "I want that please buy it for me." or 2. a friend tells one of us "he/she wants that, you should get it for her/his birthday." 

I'm pretty sure neither one of us will be giving each other gifts the day of the wedding, but I was curious if that's really popular among other couples. Are you planning to give your SO a gift, or did you give your SO a gift on the wedding day? Have you fallen into the 'we don't buy gifts for each other' category like us? 

Our florist+mismatching bridesmaids dresses

[Flowers by Rae Florae, photos by Susan Yee of En Pointe Photography]

We booked the very talented Paula Rae of Rae Florae to make the bouquets, bouts, and aisle decor. I requested a lot of flowers that I originally thought would not be in season, but Paula made my day by saying we might be able to grab some that bloom late--including peonies! Our requested flower list included peonies, dahlias, ranunculus, anemones, and sweet peas.

For the centerpieces, my sister and I are going to do potted plants/flowers. Paula alerted me of this awesome non-profit that will deliver our flowers to hospitals, senior centers, hospice centers, homeless shelters, and rehabilitation centers. It is San Diego-based and called Blooms From The Heart. Now we don't have to worry if people will bring them home or not!

I fell in love with these yellow bridesmaid bouquets, and the awesome mismatched dresses! Aren't they great? I love the pop of color and hope our wedding is filled with such beautiful bright hues.

Help with my paper

[CHOW]

Well, this isn't wedding-related, only Mo-related, but perhaps some of you out there have 10 minutes to kill and want to answer my questions? Yes? 

Do you use CHOW? If so, I'd love to chat with you and ask you a few questions for my paper. Just leave me a comment if you'd like me bothering you. 

=D

Temperley London Trunk Show

Ah New Yorkers. I like to skip around taunting all of you about San Diego's steady, dry 75 degree weather, but really, deep down inside I'm crying because of all of your fashion resources. So while I make fun of you for all the effort you go through to go grocery shopping, you can go to the Temperley Trunk Show and admire these GORGEOUS dresses. I'm pretty much in love with the first two.

Temperley Fall Trunk Show

Temperley London Boutique, NYC

453 Broome Street, 2nd Floor

New York City

November 7th & 8th

12 PM-5 PM

Other vendors will also be in attendance (in case you are planning a New York wedding,) and you can also enter your name into a raffle for a whole bucket full of bridal treats:

• $400 Temperley London Gift Card valid towards wedding gown purchase
• $250 Ceci Gift Card valid towards wedding invitation design
• $750 Christian Oth engagement photoshoot
• $250 Visions Floral Design Bridal Bouquet
• Full set of MAC Make-up brushes

See the Temperley London Bridal Collection here.

Conversations with my mother

Her: Hey, so, I was thinking about your wedding, and you know how my friends are coming all the way from Hong Kong for your wedding?

Me: Uh-huh.

Her: Well, tell me what you think, I was thinking it would be much easier if we gave your apartment to them, because we have so many people, and I will pay for a hotel room for you guys for a few days.

Me: Why don't you just pay for the hotel room for them to stay?

Her: Because we can't all fit in one hotel room! Crazy! What will they do, sleep on the floor?

Me: Mom, my apartment has one bedroom. How much more privacy will that give 5 people? One of them will have to sleep on the floor! And, we might even spend the night before apart, we haven't decided on what to do yet.

Her: Ok then I'll pay for two hotel rooms. Or, oh I know, you can just stay with a friend! Why don't you do that?

Me: This makes no sense, why don't you use that money to rent a condo for the week or get them two hotel rooms?

Her: Think about it, ok? Ok. I have to go, cooking dinner.

*click, dial tone*

Would you give up your apartment a few days before the wedding and move to a hotel room? I really really don't want to, especially since I know our apartment will be a dumping ground for all our diy and random wedding stuff. I just don't want to tell my mother that. Here, I'll give you her phone number. You can call her.

Honeymooning: where would you go?

[Taken on our trip to Paris in 2006]

I am posting this question on EAD, but I thought I'd open it up to Pink Argyle too.

We have no idea what to do about our honeymoon. Here are some issues:

1. We are having a Chinese banquet one week after our San Diego wedding. That immediately rules out skipping town right after wedding #1.

2. We probably have to wait to have our honeymoon because of work and school commitments. Until when...I have no idea. I hope it's not too long after. =/

3. We'd like to be able to pay for it without selling all of our possessions or begging our parents. Australia was on our list, but looking at airfare and hotel, it just looks like it's going to be too expensive to go down under. It's still a possibility, we'll just really have to budget and probably wait longer to have our vacation.

Places we have been: Paris, London, Rome, Florence, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Bangkok, Hong Kong

We want to go somewhere that we have never been to before with really good food and beautiful scenery. South America and Africa don't thrill the boy. He's a big fan of Europe, I suppose I'm ambivalent and a little scared of how much money Europe will be since I'd like to stay somewhere decent and not the hostel I stayed at when I was 20.

Perhaps you have ideas that we have not thought of yet! Where would you go?

I bought them.

I thought I was so smart to have found the shoes on endless.com. Apparently a lot of other people are smart too, because the color I wanted sold out over the weekend. So I just bit the bullet and bought them from Anthro today. They only have two sizes available for now, and one of them is my size, so I thought this might be a sign.

The good thing is that if I hate them, I can return them in the store. Let's hope I don't hate them, because I am so tired of looking at shoes.

Thanks so much to Carolina for pointing me in their direction!

I should also mention that I decided to buy them because instead of saying "looks good" or "okay" like the boy usually says, he saw them and said "oh...those are really pretty."

That was the clincher.

The pumpkin in the pumpkin spice latte counts as my vegetable, right?

[Phlox Flats from All Black, sold through Anthro and Endless]

My dress was supposed to arrive on September 30th, but still no word from the dress shop. No worries, because I still don't technically have shoes, and the way I've been treating my body, it's as if some higher being told me last week that eating poorly and not exercising is the best thing to do right now. Pumpkin spice latte, yogurt with oreo cookies and salami sandwich? The pumpkin in the pumpkin spice latte counts as my vegetable, right?

So basically the fact that I feel gross lately makes me unenthusiastic about putting a really pretty lace dress on. Maybe I need to call them still. I'll put it on a post-it.

Ok enough babble, here's the meat of the post. My good friend just sent me a link to the lovely shoes you see above, which I love and am thisclose to buying for the wedding.

So let's say, you're me, your groom is only an inch taller than you, and you're wearing this dress.

Would you buy them? And if you answer yes, and you read the reviews and see that other people indicated that it fits snugly, would you buy one half-size up? Do you like how the title of this post has little to do with the content?

ModCloth Carving Contest

[Template for this adorable pumpkin can be found here]

Submit your pumpkin to the ModCloth Pumpkin Carving Contest and win some freebies, like a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (which I am currently reading.)

I'd like a corgi carving template please.

Happy 7 Years

Today, the boy and I celebrated being a couple for 7 years. The funny thing is that we both forgot, until last night when I realized "hey...doesn't something special happen on October 5th?" Luckily, the boy canceled his plans and I skipped aerobics so that we could have a romantic dinner together. We had some pink champagne too, but the toasts we did at first were appallingly bad. 

Me: "So...I guess we decided to be a couple 7 years ago? Remember I walked to your dorm while you were doing laundry, and you were annoyed I was there because you had a lot of studying to do?"

Him: "Um...yeah sort of. Not really."

Me: "Here's to you not being annoyed with me anymore!"

*clink*

...a glass of champagne later and some lobster potstickers...

Me: "Here's to working so hard that we forgot our own anniversary!" 

Him: "That is a bad toast. Do another."

Me: "Like what?"

Him: "Like...here's to another year!"

Me: "That's lame, just one more? Having some commitment issues lately? Hmmmm?"

Him: "Well then you do it."

Me: "Hey you know what, this will be our last October 5th anniversary. Like, never again are we going to celebrate October 5th, because July 3rd is going to be our anniversary, thus making October 5th void, isn't that uuuuuhhh-mazing? And we almost missed it!"

Did I mention I can't really drink alcohol and that I get tipsy in 2 seconds?

Him: "Yeah, I guess that is kinda funny. July 3rd is going to be it from now on."

Me: "Ok let's drink to that!"

Him: "Ok."

Me: "Here's to getting married in 9 months, and our new anniversary date of July 3rd. Good bye October 5th, dating was fun."

Him: "Here here."

*clink*

Looking for a Venue in San Diego?

[The Martin Johnson House at UCSD]

[This deck was gorgeous.]

[See the haziness in the background? That's the ocean.]

[The view from the porch. No joke.]

I never really found that many venues I liked in San Diego. Don't get my wrong, I'm beyond stoked about the vineyard, and I love the privacy, the accessibility, the large grounds, and the tent. But there really wasn't much competition to the vineyard, the other venues just didn't fit the bill.

But if I were to pick a venue today, The Martin Johnson House would be in the running.

For anyone out there in the San Diego area, this is a gem of a venue. The other night I accompanied the boy to a graduate school party here, and the first thing I thought was "this would be FANTASTIC for a wedding". And lo and behold, UCSD rents it for weddings!

Really beautiful place. We won't be getting married there, but maybe you can. =)