Playing Dress Up: Part I

My sister, my brother in law, and my itty bitty niece were visiting this weekend. When my sister got married, we all (I have two sisters,) went to Vera Wang in New York and she tried on a few drop-dead gorgeous gowns to get an idea of what she wanted. It was a fun sister experience. So, since I wouldn't have the opportunity to spend quality sister time for awhile, I said "screw it!" to the budget and made an appointment at an incredibly cute boutique that sells designer wedding gowns in Del Mar called Bliss Bride. Budget? What budget?

I was a little nervous since I'm not exactly a Park Avenue kind of girl, but Anne at Bliss Bride made me feel so comfortable. The shop was gorgeous, and they close the entire store down for each bride. I got to try on as many dresses as I wanted and take pictures. Anne even added accessories to me (a necklace and a veil) so I could see the entire ensemble.

After trying on many dresses, I came to some fashion conclusions: 1) I look best in a long dress. I did try on some short dresses, but they just made me look shorter. Long was more flattering. 2) I want something unique, but I found that the simpler designs just looked more flattering. I certainly don't want anything too...boring. 3) How am I ever going to stick to a reasonable budget for a wedding dress? After trying on these beautiful gowns, do I have any more money to carve out of my savings for a dress like this? Is it worth it?

I'll stop babbling now. Here are some pictures we took at Bliss Bride:

[Me wearing Amy Kuschel's "Parfait" with the big sister. This was the favorite out of the 10 or so dresses I tried on. I will probably look for a similar silhouette, even though it seems to be a pretty conventional silhouette for brides these days. It was definitely the most flattering. What you can't see in the picture is the absolutely gorgeous bead work and embroidery on the bodice. I was surprised by the stunning details.]

[Amy Kuschel's "Parfait" on the model, image from Amy Kuschel]

[Me wearing Amy Kuschel's "Margherita" and sporting a veil. I must say, I have been pretty anti-veil and will probably end up wearing a flower or nothing at all in my hair. But I did have a moment of "oooooooh I feel perty" right when she put it on me. Wow, now I REALLY look like a bride! Holy cow! It looks like I'm ready to go to the altar in this photo.]

[Amy Kuschel's "Margherita" on the model, image from Amy Kuschel]

[Me in Christos. I like this dress! No one else did because of the "weird strap" but I felt like the strap and rosettes gave it a bit more punch than the Margherita]

[Dress from Christos' 2009 Spring Collection, image from brides.com]

[Oh, Claire Pettibone. How I love your bohemian stlye. At the shop I LOVED this dress and proceeded to twirl around and admire the ginormous rose at my chest. I thought, wow! This looks different than all of the other hundred strapless dresses! This is what I would want to break the bank for! This is what a designer dress should feel like!
But when I got home, I realized that it was a bit too funky for my taste and would probably suit someone taller. And then the boy got a look at it and referred to it as "The Tree Dress". ...Hilarious, isn't he?]

[Claire Pettibone's "Lalique", image from brides.com]

Gung Hay Faht Choi!

[My niece can't get enough of her very first red envelopes. PS: There's $$ inside. Don't ruin the surprise for her. She's still mesmerized by the envelope part.]

Happy Year of the Ox, everyone!

My First Inspiration Board

{ya gotta click on it to make it bigger because unfortunately it is itty bitty on this page}

[First row: Cake by Bakery Bar, published in Portland Bride and Groom, via Snippet & Ink; Sprinkles Cupcakes; The Small Object cake topper; strawberry cake by Bakery Bar.
Second row: cakes photo by One Love Photo.
Third row: cakes photo by Jessamyn Harris; cakes and cake stands by Oh Happy Day; dogwood cake by Maple Sugar via Snippet & Ink]

Oh dear, just looking at all of these cakes at once gives me a sugar high! Here is my very first inspiration board, all about cakes. I am thinking we'll have more than just cake, perhaps pie, cookies, and candies will also make an appearance. Maybe I'll make an inspiration board for each dessert category because I'm just that ca-razy about planning my wedding right now.

Other things I am ca-razy about:

The Small Object: I would love to invest in a cake topper and keep it in a boxed frame for our future home. You can check out all of the adorable toppers on The Small Object's flickr site.

Snippet & Ink: I seriously don't know what I would do without Kathryn's blog. Probably cry because all of the world's prettiest images would be lost in Internet land and not formatted in gorgeous boards for my eyes to feast upon.

Here's to many more inspiration boards...for the next 17 months! I know you're excited!

Sunday at the Movies: Slumdog Millionaire

[Dev Patel and Freida Pinto in Slumdog Millionaire]

If you haven't seen Slumdog Millionaire, you need to go see it. NOW. It was a beautiful (albeit difficult to watch at times) story...that probably made me cry twice in two hours.

Watching it made me feel guilty coming home to a mountain of wedding magazines on my coffee table. But you should still go see it.

Manohla Dargis and Roger Ebert think so too.
Roger Ebert's review
Manohla Dargis's review

Are You My Venue? #2: Orfila Vineyards

[The {permanent} tent all lit up with globe lanterns.]

[The ceremony site overlooking the vineyard and mountains.]

[You can also have tables set up under the grape arbor, which I think looks very pretty. And, how great are those pumpkins??]

[Here you can see the dance floor and the chivari (chiavari? shi-vahr-ee?) chairs that can be rented. The boy actually cracked me up during the venue appointment by asking "What are Chee-uh-vahr-ee chairs?"]

[All photos (c) Orfila Vineyards]

Today was the second venue that I visited and the boy (yay!) came with me. We headed north to the Orfila Vineyards in Escondido, just minutes down the road from the Wild Animal Park. I think we chose an unfortunate day to visit, because it had just rained so the grounds looked a little mucky and the sky was grey. BUT we did have a great appointment and had lots of photos to look at so we could envision what wine country would look like in June. It would look gorgeous.

There are a lot of positive aspects of this venue: 1) the tent where the reception would be held is permanent. It comes with the site fee, which is pretty reasonable in comparison to other places I've seen online. 2) the site fee also comes with valet parking (wheeee!) 3) they already have rental packages to choose from, so we would not have to search for an outside rentals company. 4) the bar quote is pretty reasonable, and they understood that 50% our guests would not be drinking. 5) Emma, the event coordinator who gave us a tour, was so nice and answered all of our questions. She didn't balk when I asked more specific $$ questions and she was just very relaxed and made us feel at ease. 6) the boy liked the pinot he tried.

And then there's the bad: 1) I would really like to have the option to choose my own caterer, but Orfila, like every other venue in town, has a list I have to choose from. 2) It is 30 miles inland and may be very hot in the summer. I don't want the guests to melt during the ceremony.

3) This is a concern for all San Diego venues that I did not mention for the Darlington House. Since we are from N. California, everyone we know still lives up north. Therefore, we'd be making everyone, perhaps 90% of our guests, travel just for our wedding.
How badly do we want it in San Diego? And, would people actually show up to our wedding if we had it in San Diego? Would everyone hate us for having to fly down south for the weekend? Is it selfish to make a majority of our guests come to us?

Bottom line, Orfila Vineyards is a very pretty venue and we liked our meeting with the event coordinator. We've got five more venue appointments (holy cow) so this is definitely on the 'maybe' list.

The boy told me immediately after the appointment that he would be very happy if we had our wedding there. We shall view more venues and see.

Help Support San Diego Public Libraries

Do you live in San Diego, or close enough that you shop in San Diego? Do you buy books/magazines/stationery/games/other fun things from Barnes and Noble? Would you like to help our public libraries? Did you answer 'yes' to all three questions?

Then please support San Diego libraries by presenting this voucher when you purchase items at Barnes and Noble!


When: February 14-15, 2009
Where: Any San Diego Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble will host a two-day book fair to raise money for the San Diego Public Library. If you mention the Library at time of purchase or bring in the pre-printed voucher, we will get a portion of sales, 15% or more, depending on sales.

All San Diego area Barnes & Nobles are participating.

Proceeds from this fundraiser will go toward books and materials for the Library and to support One Book, One San Diego.

For more information, please visit: https://www.supportmylibrary.org/events/77

******
I think I'm going to hold off buying wedding magazines until the 14th. =)

Shameless Plug: Modern Artists Go Fish for Art

[Images from Birdcage Press via Amazon]

Even though I have lived in San Diego for a good year and a half now, I just managed to visit the San Diego Museum of Art. It was small, but definitely had a few gems in its collection, and it was a nice way to wind down the week with the boy.

I hope none of the curators at SDMART read this, but the real highlight of the day was seeing a product I had worked on last year in the gift shop. I didn't even realize this was out yet!

It is a card game to teach modern art, and I worked on it at the tail end of my last job.
I am SO excited that it's in the gift shops, and I am really proud that I helped produce it!

For more information (or to buy a copy!) visit Birdcage Press here.