Turning Lemons Into Lemonade

So you know how everyone has those stories about what went wrong at their wedding? We to do, sort of. There were small things that went wrong on the day-of, but honestly, I didn't even notice most of them (and the ones I did notice, I didn't care about). But there was a last minute planning/design emergency that totally freaked me out. But in the end, it ended up making things even better.

On the Monday before the wedding, my friend Laura and I went to the Marston House around noon (approximately the time that the ceremony would take place on Saturday) to check a few things out. Laura would be helping the rental company set up chairs, tables, etc. on the big day. Plus, I was concerned about the sun -- we had initially planned on facing the house, but I was worried that we might need to adjust based on where the sun would be at that time of day.

And my worries were dead on. Once we got there, I realized that if we faced the house, we'd all be staring directly into the sun. So, last minute change of plans, and we decided to flip the opposite direction and face the fountain. Which meant calling the rental company to adjust the placement of the chairs and coming up with some last minute decorations for the fountain.

I know what you're thinking -- that doesn't sound like a big deal. It wasn't. What was? Because the musicians required a shady spot to sit, I was planning on having them sit under the small roofed structure on the west side of the garden. When we got there that Monday...I saw this:

WTF? A beat-up plastic fence in front of some caution tape? A support pillar about to fall over and crush someone? This was not going to work. Since the property is still technically owned by the city, I know calling them would be useless (when have you ever known the city to fix something non-essential in less than a week?). We rented an umbrella for the musicians to sit under, and began brainstorming options for covering up the deteriorating structure. Some sort of curtain? Attaching swags to the plastic fence that the city put up? Then I found it: the rental company had white lattice panels in their inventory. Three of those covered up the caution tape and plastic fencing perfectly. We chose not to decorate the lattice at all because I figured the less we did to draw attention to it, the less likely it would be that anyone would notice that there was something wrong. And that was exactly the case. I don't think anyone even noticed the panels, let alone that there was something crumbling behind them.

I hope my family doesn't mind me posting this picture of them -- it's the only photo that shows the lattice covering up the damaged structure (in the background). As you can see, it looked just fine.

However, the best part about the last minute changes was the decorations that my sister made for the fountain. From day one, before we even knew the when and where, I was daydreaming of having some sort of hanging floral strings, like these. Upon consulting the florist, we learned that, because it would involve so much labor, these would be really expensive. And I didn't trust my last minute DIY abilities (since you can't make fresh floral elements very far in advance), so I just shelved the idea. But my sister kicked into super-maid-of-honor mode, and after a trip to the wholesale flower shop, she spent the Wednesday before the wedding string these beautiful garlands. We also took some of the leftover flowers and scattered them in the fountain's basin. It look absolutely magical.

Best. Party. Ever.

We did it! We're a couple of married folks now! The wedding was...perfect. Seriously. I kept expecting things to go wrong, and nothing did. At least, nothing that anyone noticed other than me.

We're already getting lots of great photos back from our friends and family, so I'll have plenty to share with you in the coming weeks. But tomorrow, we jet off to Barcelona, so I'll be absent for a little bit, enjoying some quality honeymoon time.

In the meantime, please enjoy this photo taken by our good friend Spencer Tuck. I think it sums it all up nicely.

P.S. Sorry for all the typos in the last couple of posts. I think my mind was elsewhere :)

'Twas the Night Before...

In 13 hours, I'll be walking down the aisle. It feels totally surreal. I'm nervous and excited and so many more things...mostly thrilled at seeing all my friends and family and how happy they are to be celebrating with us.

Right now, I'm enjoying a bit of zen-Candice time, at home all by myself. I know most people would think it's a little odd to want to spend the night before the wedding all alone, but having a little quite time after a very, very busy week is pretty nice. Over the past week, there have been last minute clitches, many of which I will share with you after the big day (though a few things cropped up that gave me momentary panic attacks, they're actually kind of funny. They'll be even funnier one day looking back). There's been lots of crafting, a small amount of crying, and a ton of laughing. And eating. Here are a few moments from the past 2 days:

I can't believe how quickly the last 9 months have gone by! See you on the other side!

Five Days to Go...

The purpose of this post is not for me to complain about how much I feel like I still have to do before this Saturday. Or that I feel like everything is going by WAY too fast. Or that my to-do list keeps getting longer instead of shorter. Or that I'm worried that my skin will break out or my dress won't zip up. Or that there are, of course, crazy last minute glitches that I was really, really not prepared for. It's really not about that, I swear.

This post is a public reminder to myself to enjoy the next four days. And to help keep focused on that goal, here's a picture from Sunday's wedding shower (that's right, I said "wedding" shower and not bridal, because it was a shower for both me and JT. Contrary to popular belief, a wedding also involves a groom). The shower was a wonderful moment of just enjoying and not worrying. I give you JT and our friend/officiant David cracking up at....something.

Thanks to Spencer Tuck for capturing this and many other great moments. I highly recommend making friends with people that are talented behind a camera. You will reap many rewards.

Welcome to Our Little Corner of the World

I've gone back and forth about the whole idea of guest welcome baskets several times. At first, I was all excited about the idea of making them. I remembered the weddings I'd been to, and thought that the welcome baskets I'd received as an out of town guest checking into my hotel made me feel way more appreciated than any little favor handed out at the reception. Thinking about ways to cut costs, I thought "I'll skip the favors and just do welcome baskets."

As time went on, JT and I decided on doing some sort of favors after all (actually, we made a charitable donation in lieu of favors). And guest welcome baskets seemed like a waste of money. We're on a pretty tight budget, and expenses kept cropping up like weeds. As we shopped around, we realized that putting together little baskets would set us back way more than we anticipated. Would a little basket in someone's room really make that big of a difference?

Ultimately, I thought it would. We are really fortunate that a lot of our friends and family are flying in from different corners of the country to be here. It may have been an expense, but I think it will be a nice way to say a small "thanks for coming."

So what's in the baskets? I won't tell you everything, because I don't want to spoil the surprise completely for those that will receive them, but you can see a few items here. Our cat, Banjo, was "helping" us put them together over the weekend.

Everyday I Write the Book

My sister has been full of great tips and suggestions when it comes to planning the wedding, but one of the best tips she gave me had to do with the infamous wedding binder. All of you brides out there know you have one -- that binder full of contracts, emails, and pages torn out of magazines. My sister had one when she planned her wedding. So what was her advice? Don't just put all of your wedding documents and inspiration into a plain plastic binder. Put it into some sort of scrapbook, and instantly the tool becomes an album that you can enjoy long after the wedding is done.

I found a generic black faux-leather scrapbook at Michael's, one that has a binding that can be opened up so that you can add and rearrange pages. The pages also have plastic cover sheets. I guess the purpose of these would be to protect your scrapbook pages, but more importantly, those plastic covers were the perfect pockets in which to stick the important wedding related paperwork. I divided it up into sections (ceremony, flowers, fashion, etc.) and began gluing pictures found online and in magazines to the pages. Once the contracts started coming in, they got tucked into the plastic pockets on the adjoining pages, nestled in between design inspiration.

I bought a fancy green pen, and sometimes I even scrawl ideas directly on the pages. And in the very front of the book, I glued in a checklist pulled from Real Simple Weddings and thrill at checking things off that list. It's become like a cell phone or or a security blanket -- something I simply can't be without for very long.

License to Wed

Ever wondered what the process is to get a marriage license in San Diego County? Well, I can tell you!

First, you have to call the County Assessor/Recorder/Clerk's office and make an appointment. Walk-ins are not accepted. They only take appointments between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, but we had no trouble getting one for 8 a.m. the next day when I called.

You have to go online to the County's website and download the forms first. When you go to the appointment, you have to bring the completed forms, IDs for both people, and $50 for the fee. Your appointment will go something like this: You'll walk up to the counter, excited, expecting something important to happen. They'll ask you your names, check you off the appointment list, and tell you to take a seat. You'll sit in a gray waiting room, half decorated with white lattice stapled to the wall for that "wedding" look, for 15 minutes.

Then someone will call your names and ask you to take a seat at Window Number X. There, someone will check your IDs, type all of the info from your paperwork into a computer, print it out, have you check it, have a supervisor check it, have you sign on the dotted line, hand over your money, and PRESTO! You now have a marriage license in your hands.

Your wedding must take place and your officiant must complete and return the license has to be completed by your officiant within 90 days of being issued. Regarding the officiant, I learned something interesting in this process. We don't belong to a church, so we didn't want to get married in a church or by a clergy member. So we asked a good friend of ours to officiate. We had known other people who did this, and they had their friends get ordained online (there are several sites that do this -- our friend went through Universal Life Church). However, I discovered that you don't even need to do that. There's a form that you can complete with the County to become a "Deputy Commissioner" for the day, entitling you to perform marriages on that day only. It's just a simple form and a small fee, and any person of your choosing can officiate!

So that's it. Pretty quick and painless. No waiting period, no blood test, just some very light paperwork. It's kind of anticlimactic, the actual process, but seeing that marriage license in your hands is just a little bit thrilling.

Guest Blog: Bridal Bizarre

Guest Blogger Laura returns with her recap of the San Diego Bridal Bazaar! As a fellow off-the-beaten-path kind of bride, I knew she would be both amused and shocked by some of the wares being paraded, and her summary says it all!

When I heard commercials on the radio for a San Diego Bridal Bazaar at the SD Convention Center, I knew I had to get tickets. The complete list of vendors was listed online, and included chocolate fountains and dove releases. That's right, doves.

Walking into the convention room was quite an experience. Upon entry, a cascade of bubbles showered over you, and you were given a respective "bride" or "groom" name tag to wear. I chose not to wear mine, thereby keeping a bit of mystery as I flitted through the vendors.

To be fair, the Bazaar wasn't all bad. I was very excited with the gift bag I received from the local representative from The Knot. It contained Crest whitestrips, coupons, a microfiber cleaning cloth, and an edition of the Southern California Knot magazine. I also enjoyed the plethora of free cake samples and the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park booth. The zoo was another venue I'd been interested in and it was very cool to just be able to walk up and ask questions instead of emailing back and forth or playing phone-tag.

On the flip side, there were....well....some duds. One part I'd been looking forward to was the fashion show. I was bummed to see more of what I'd seen online at mainstream bridal gown stores. There weren't any dresses that smashed tradition or hinted of innovation. Sequins, ill-fitting busts and miles of taffeta crisscrossed along the runway.

This was one of the few dresses that I thought was at least a bit cool, and it was in the "mother-of-the-bride" section.

Here was another dud. As a modern chick, I cringe when I see images like these where the groom gets dragged off into marital horror. But if you dig the association with being a terrible she-orge, this cake could work.

Guest Blog: Laura and the Great Venue Search

I'm still across the coast, in the state that they claim is for lovers, so for today's post, I'm very pleased to welcome guest blogger Laura! Laura is a good friend who recently got engaged and is just starting to begin planning her wedding. I hope having another bride's perspective on the process will be helpful and entertaining!

For my fiance and me, one of the first steps in planning our wedding is finding a great venue. We really want to pick a spot that had a lot of personal meaning for us. We're also not religious, and since that means we won't be having a church ceremony, we wanted to find a place where we could hold the ceremony and reception in the same area.

My first venue idea was a local organization I'd contacted earlier in the year for a birthday party rental. While the birthday party didn't end up taking place there, I still had their price list and was excited to set up a meeting with their event staff. When I contacted the event coordinator, however, I was given a whole new price list, the special "wedding" price list. Basically, because the event was now a wedding, their venue rental went up by 30% along with other misc. charges. Sadly, the price increase didn't come with any new perks either. I have to admit I was tempted to say it was a birthday party and I'd just happen to be wearing a white dress ;)

For some couples, the idea of paying extra to hold their wedding in a meaningful place might be just fine. For my fiance and me, however, we opted not to. We're leaning toward another local venue that has a flat fee for birthdays, company parties, and weddings.

Here are some of the resources for cost-savvy SD venues that we've been using:

- The City of San Diego website. They have this wonderful list of parks and other public areas that are popular for wedding sites: of parks and recreation areas. Best of all? They’re super cheap.

-The Balboa Park website. It’s not as detailed, but still gives some good ideas. The site also lists all the museums/venues in Balboa Park, and you can contact the venues individually for their rental options.

Check back soon for Laura's summary of the San Diego Bridal Bazaar (with pictures)!

Details, Deposits, and DIY

With less than four months to go, we are spending a lot of time buckling down on details. I've been flooded with fabric swatches lately -- for the bridesmaids dresses, for the table runners, for the ceremony accessories. Of course no two greens could ever match, right?

Speaking of table runners, that bring me to another point: DIYing stuff. Earlier I posted my concern about DIYing, specifically who can set up all your DIY stuff when you are getting ready. Friends and family have generously stepped forward to handle things. My buddy Laura will be setting up the beverage service at the ceremony (not sure she knows the extent of that yet!). My sister-in-law to-be has offered her help sitting up items at the reception, as has my florist.

One thing that we are not DIYing is setting up the ceremony chairs and tables. When I started getting quotes for the rental items, I asked how much more it would cost to have them set up by each company. The cost was usually minimal, 40 cents per chair, one dollar per table. Oh wait, you want your tables and chairs delivered? Well, that's gonna cost you. Oh, and you want them delivered and picked up at a specific time? That's gonna cost you even more! But ultimately we decided it was worth the couple of hundred dollars to have the piece of mind of not worrying how to schlep 80 chairs down from a rental warehouse the day before the wedding.

What will not be worth the extra cost? Having the table runners sewn for me. The quote that I got was more than three times the cost of the fabric itself, for sewing a very simple item. That one will definitely be DIY, even if my sewing machine isn't that good.

Finally, we just confirmed that we will be having our rehearsal dinner at The Linkery -- yay! I need to get them a deposit check, so I'm off to take care of that now.

Piece by Piece, It All Falls Into Place

We officially have only four months left to go. The little details, like when chairs will be set up at the ceremony site, are starting to become the focus of our attention.

On Monday, a found a woman through Craigslist that had 120 assorted mason jars that was willing to sell them all to me for a low price. They are all different shapes and sizes, and as you can tell, some are very, uh, antique, shall we say. Which will be really cool, once they have been cleaned off, that is.

Going over the schedule for the ceremony, getting my dress altered, finalizing the wording for the invitations...these are all on the upcoming to-do list for me now. Crunch time is going soon, I can feel it.*

*On a pleasant note, JT says that the closer it gets and the more details fall into place, the more exciting and great it feels. And I really love hearing that.

The Joy of Planning

Tomorrow is my birthday. Since it falls on a Thursday, I wasn't planning anything big to celebrate until the weekend. Several weeks back, JT and I decided that we would celebrate by spending the weekend in LA relaxing, eating and shopping. Recently, upon learning that this was how we were going to celebrate my birthday, a friend of mine asked "And you won't do any wedding related stuff, right?"

A month ago, I would have said "exactly." Those wedding related details seemed so daunting, at times even draining to figure out. But given the recent barrage of tragedy, wedding planning has taken on a whole new focus. It's a breath of fresh air, a joy in each day.

At the very beginning of the planning process, I had a bit of a breakdown. I was totally stressed that vendors I had approached were either too expensive or not at all interested in working with us. I began to think that we could never have the type of wedding that we wanted in San Diego (which led me to start this blog). But gradually, things began to fall into place. And with bad news after bad news descending on us in the month of June, wedding planning to a back seat to dealing with overwhelming feelings of sadness and fear. At first, I felt extremely guilty wanting to do anything wedding related. Part of me still does and always will.

But another part of me is grateful for the reminder of why this wedding is important. And for putting into perspective why obsessing about details is not. And for reminding me that wedding planning should be joyous, should be relished and enjoyed, not filled with stress and anxiety and animosity. I truly hope that every bride from here on out will remember that.

I know, I know...my post got a little personal today. I guess that's what birthdays will do to you!

If I Had a Photograph of You

JT and I are lucky to have the families that we have. Granted, both of our families have really been put through the ringer lately, but seeing how they have been coping with having everyone's world turned upside down just reminds me of what amazing people our families truly are.

From the beginning, we've been trying to find small ways of honoring our families. Neither of us is religious, but we decided to include a reading from Corinthians to pay respect to those members of our family that are still active in the Catholic church. Recently, we decided against having a travel registry in favor of a donation-based Stand Up 2 Cancer registry to honor not only my sister but also the other family members that have battled the disease.

At JT's brother's wedding, he and his wife honored their families by placing family photos throughout the reception. The photos were a wonderful tribute (and it seems a popular one, as suggested in the above real wedding photo by Twin Lens via Style Me Pretty), but we'd like to find a way to honor the family without copying that idea exactly...and so far, I have no ideas. Other than photos, what would be a great way to show those people closest to you how much they mean to you?

In the News

I'm slowly recovering from the mental fog of this week. The crazy thing about timing is that while JT and I have been putting aside a lot of wedding related discussion to focus on what is going on with our families, our wedding plans have been getting much attention online.

I was thrilled to see that our save-the-date cards designed by Inkfancy were featured on Brooklyn Bride this past week!

And I was really touched to see Fight the Fondant discussed on our florist's blog as well.

These little bits of internet appreciation helped with what was a very difficult week, which is why I'm making an effort to return to regular posting more quickly than I thought I would. My posts here are a tiny way of grounding myself each day. I never intended for this blog to be personal*...I meant for it to be a helpful guide for other brides, a demonstration that you can navigate the beach-ceremony-hotel-ballroom-wedding scene that is San Diego in your own unique way.

But over the coming months, you may begin to see more personal aspects creeping in. Particularly about reconciling weddings with difficult family times, trying balance joy and fear, hope and despair. I'll try not to get too off topic and keep up the fun wedding planning tips and stories, but I hope you'll indulge me the occasional philosophical discussion on how to plan a wedding in the midst of pain and turmoil.

Thanks to everyone for the support! More fun things to come soon, I promise.

*If you want to see a truly personal blog about what my family is going through, please visit my sister's blog: bits of myself.

The Wedding Website

So we've officially passed the 6-months-until-the-big-day mark, and I'm starting to feel a little panicked about everything that we have not done. I've been so busy working that we haven't gotten nearly enough wedding tasks done in the last 3 weeks. JT & I are blocking out next weekend as "wedding planning only." Things that need to get done include registering, meeting with the florist, collecting addresses and finalizing the invite list for our Save-the-dates (so that we are ready to mail as soon as they are printed), and many more little things.

One thing that's almost done is our wedding website. I started looking around at all the free wedding website templates back in February, thinking "OK, most of them are cheesy looking and kind of ugly, but I'm sure I can find something that will be decent." Um....wrong. I found absolutely nothing that I actually liked, at least in the "free" realm. I did find some options that, if I was willing to pay $20 or $30, I could customize to make more palatable. But considering I already shell out money for my domain name and my little corner of the internet, I figured why not just piggyback off that and have one of my many, many talented friends help me with the site?

So that's what we did. The lovely and amazing Laura has been hard at work putting together this little beauty for us:

You may recognize Laura's work from this blog -- she also designed the sweet little owl that greets you when you visit. Now we just have to work on getting all the content on the pages.

And in case you are wondering why I just don't provide a link to our website so that you can see it in all its glory, because this is a public blog, I'm not going to be linking to our finished wedding website. I have to keep some things private :)

Gown Secrets: Ordering and Alterations

OK, believe it or not, my wedding gown in hanging in our guest bedroom as I type this! That's right, I've already got my gown in hand. We haven't registered yet, sent out save-the-dates, or booked our florist, but I have a gown.

So let's take a look at a couple of gown shopping myths. #1: You need to order your gown at least 6 months in advance. While I can't say that this is completely false, it's definitely an exageration. I was under this impression, and clearly, it was not necessary. I started looking pretty much as soon as I knew the "when" and "where" of the wedding, around the beginning of March. I went to a LOT of stores, and tried on probably close to 50 gowns. I know that I am an indecisive shopper, and I knew that simply deciding on which dress would take some time, which it did. It took a good month of shopping to feel like I was comfortable with my decision. But once I placed the order, which was early April, it took about a month from the time I placed my order until the dress arrived at the shop. Obviously, it will vary from designer to designer, but you don't need to feel panicked when you hear/read from "reputable" sources that if you haven't ordered your dress a year in advance, your ruined.

Myth #2: You need to order your dress too big so that it can be altered to fit you perfectly. I think that this myth is the result of bridal salons that have in-house alterations and can get more money out of you by getting you to spend unnecessary amounts on excessive alterations. I had someone in the biz tell me this. When I got measured, they told me that I was one size on the top and a larger size on the bottom (I do not think this is unusual for most women), so I should order the larger size. I said that based on the cut of the dress, I thought the smaller size would work. I asked them to consult with the designer. The designer agreed, the smaller size was ordered, and today, when I tried on the gown, it fit (nearly) like a glove. Yes, I will probably get some minor alterations done to make it fit perfectly, but I could easily wear it as it is now. And the shop that I purchased from actually doesn't do in-house alterations, so they didn't really have anything to gain by putting me in a dress that was too big. Plus, now I can use whomever I want to do the alterations, and hopefully get them done without too much expense.

I have so many pictures of my gown purchasing trips, but I can't show them to you yet because I can't risk JT seeing them on the blog! So you'll all just have to wait patiently until after the wedding for my recap.