The Storm - Morning/Afternoon October 4th

The following morning, mom and I headed to Beauty Oasis to get our nails done. Grandma tagged along too, even though she's not a woman that enjoys getting her nails done. So grandma sat in a nearby hairdrying chair while mom and I hopped into a massage chair to begin soaking our feet.

Mom opted on a lavender shade for both her toes and fingers. She is a huge fan of purple. Not only was her mother of the bride dress to be purple the following day, but she was wearing purple jeans with a purplish plaid button down while sitting and having her nails done. Haha!

I decided for a more natural look. I picked out a pinkish-nude color for my toes and settled on a french gel manicure look for my nails. I RARELY get my nails done, so I didn't even know what a french gel manicure was! So this was something the nail artist recommended to me. So I trusted her. All I had really specified to her was "something clear".

It was a nice, relaxing hour. Grandma promptly fell asleep in the hairdrying chair. And the ladies at Beauty Oasis were very friendly and conversational... even though I'm pretty sure my mom rarely understood them. Their Korean accents were pretty thick. Haha! We couldn't have been happier with how our mani/pedis turned out though!

Afterwards, my mom and grandma crossed the street to meet my uncle and granddad at O'Malley's. And I walked further up Main St. to Hennessey's so I could pop in and say hi to James' family. Their flight had landed while I was getting my nails done. They were enjoying a discounted breakfast courtesy Pacific Inn since their room wasn't quite ready. Here, I met my niece Cecelia for the first time! She was born back in May.

I decided it would be nice to eat breakfast with them as well. But first, I needed to head back to the hotel to pick up my dad. I'd agreed to meet him at 10:30 at his room. And since he doesn't use a cell phone, I wasn't able to update him on what everyone was up to and have him just meet us there.

By the time my dad and I got back to Hennessey's, James' family was finishing up. I forget: when you have small kids, you don't have the luxury of a leisurely breakfast. Lol. But no matter. This gave me some more 1 on 1 time with my dad.

Afterwards, Dee headed out on his own again and I met up with James and his dad back at O'Malley's to watch another Pirates/Cardinals game.

I had intended my uncle and granddad (big Cardinals fans), mom and grandma to be there along with Jim, James (big Pirates fans), and me, but there was a misunderstanding. It ended up being just the 3 of us. 

The 4 of them, minus my uncle, made it out after the game instead and we had a pleasant lunch on the patio of O'Malley's.

We then headed back to the hotel again, nothing in particular planned til the rehearsal dinner that evening. My nephew Jameson decided it was a good time to take a dip in the pool. James, Jim, and I thought so too.

Norm, my mom, Dee, Gretchen, and later Keely and Cece joined us poolside. We chatted and enjoyed a few beers together.

With about 2 hours left til the rehearsal dinner and exhaustion settling in for all of us, we all headed back to our respective hotel rooms to try and grab naps.

We would be heading back to Main St. to eat dinner at Walt's Wharf at 7:30.

To be continued...

Calm Before The Storm - October 1st, 2nd, and 3rd

Tuesday and Wednesday continued the relaxing trend. Mom, James, and I continued mainly just to watch movies at the apartment. (I introduced mom to Orange Is The New Black. She has a striking resemblance to Kate Mulgrew and it's hard for me not to think of my mom anytime Red has a scene in that show!) But we did head out to run a few errands too.

During the day, Matt the best man started texting us back and forth to try and figure out what his wedding outfit should be. James and I had given him very general guidelines on his outfit: Tan pants and a shirt in the same color family as the matron of honor's seafoam colored dress (Pastel purple, yellow, blue... didn't matter to us). We were surprised that Matt was a little pickier than we expected him to be. He wanted to make sure the khakis were the same shade as James', that the shirt didn't clash with the pants, and that the shirt was bright enough, etc. Lol.

We all settled on that teal shirt you see in the picture.

Tuesday night we headed out to the 3rd Street Promenade to help James finish up some wedding shopping at J. Crew. He didn't have a shirt for the wedding either. Haha! But luckily we had one of the employees help us out and found James a great shirt/tie combo. We also had J Crew send Matt a pair of khakis that would match James'.

We then picked up some stationary for a handful of thank you notes I realized I needed to write before the wedding.

Unfortunately we left the Promenade shoeless. James still needed his wedding shoes , I needed some good sturdy (and waterproof) walking shoes for our Irish honeymoon. So we decided we'd need to head to the mall the next day. We left the Promenade, grabbed dinner at West 4th and Jane, and headed home. 

Luckily we found just the things we were looking for at Westside Pavilion. James found his shoes, I found my shoes, and I also picked up more stationary as I realized there were more thank you notes I needed to write. I had COMPLETELY forgotten to give the casting directors at Central Casting a heads up on my upcoming nuptials and honeymoon. They were gonna wonder where I've been for an entire month!

So my Wednesday evening wasn't QUITE as relaxing unfortunately. I had to hand write and address 18 thank you notes that night I thanked them for all the work they've given me so far this episodic season, informed them of the wedding, and told them I'd be back and ready to work by November. KILLER writer's cramp kicked in about half way through, but I pushed through and finished. GLAD it's done. 

Thursday I thought was gonna be a super packed, kind of stressful day. My dad, uncle, AND grandparents were scheduled to arrive this day. But Thursday ended up being pretty relaxing too!

I took a run in the morning to clear my head. At noon we packed up the car and headed down to LAX to pick up my dad. Then we continued down the 405 to Seal Beach to check into the Pacific Inn. It was a fairly uncomfortable drive. We had to fit 4 suitcases, 4 people, and all the wedding stuff in my little Honda while trying not to wrinkle anything. Mom and I were holding stuff in our laps in the backseat...but we somehow managed!

Who should be pulling into the hotel parking lot the exact same time as us but my uncle Norman! His flight had also landed around noon-ish, but in Orange County. And he decided to rent a car for the weekend and drive himself up to Seal Beach. The timing couldn't have been more perfect!

The 5 of us walked over to Main St. and ate lunch together (Beachwood!),

got settled into our rooms a bit (watched some of the Cardinals/Pirates game),

then I headed out solo with my dad. Thursday afternoon was the ONLY chance for alone time I would have with him.

So we headed over to nearby Belmont Shore in Long Beach and took a stroll together. While we were out I managed to squeeze in a few last minute errands. I needed to pick up a few thank you gifts and drop off a few decorative things at the reception site. My dad got a chance to drop into one of his favorite cigar shops. We also grabbed some Starbucks. 

After about an hour, we headed back to the hotel. Dee was pretty jet lagged and needed to turn in early. Back at the hotel, my mom and uncle were taking it easy also. So James and I headed back to our hotel room to relax too.

FYI, James and I were in the admiral suite, which happened to be room #323. 3/23 is my birthday so I took that as a good omen. :)

We headed back out at 8 to meet with our officiant Alan.

The meeting with Alan was short and sweet. We just needed to do a talk through of how the ceremony would go since there was no rehearsal. So James and I definitely had a few questions, like where everyone would be standing and what the hell we were supposed to do with the rings. We also talked a bit more about the vows. We decided it might be nice to inject a few humorous/nerdy bits after all. So Alan took care of that for us and we were on our way. 

Since Norman and my mom had graciously agreed to pick up my grandparents at the airport that evening (their flight got in around 10:30 that night), that allowed James and me to have one last date night as singles, just the two of us.

We settled on Simmzy's, one of our favorite spots when we lived in Long Beach. And if you must know, our last meal together as bachelor and bachelorette was the chili verde mac and cheese. We really enjoyed ourseves I'm glad we had this alone time. :)

Back at the hotel, we decided to stay up a bit longer and say hi to my grandparents once they arrived. They both seemed pretty energetic considering it was nearly 2 am in the time zone they flew in from! I think they were just excited to see everybody. :)

James' family would be arriving early the next day. Also, I had an appointment for a mani/pedi the next morning. So we both headed straight to bed.

To be continued...

**Louisa**

Where did the week go?!

So guess what... I'M MARRIED!!!

I was warned that this would happen. The closer you get to a wedding, time would pass at triple the pace. So all my grand plans of blogging up until the day of the wedding got thrown out the window VERY quickly. There was just too much going on. I didn't even have time to LOOK at my computer, much less sit down to write a blog on it.

I AM going to try to recount as much as I can though while everything is still fresh on my mind. What I may try to do is write it all down in a notebook, then type it in when I'm back from the honeymoon. Because I DO want to try to disconnect from the internet as much as possible during the trip. But at the same time, I don't want to start losing memories from wedding week.

So stay tuned for that! Come late October there will hopefully be a flood of blogs about the wedding, and hopefully a few about the honeymoon too.

Tomorrow we leave for Dublin for our 10 day Irish honeymoon! See ya when we get back!


**Louisa**

T-Minus 4 Days Update!

Unlike in my last entry, I am very pleased to say I have NOT been running around like a madwoman over the past week and a half. All the errands I've been running have been minor. It's mainly crossing Ts and dotting Is, finalizing time schedules and payments with all our vendors, etc. 

Wednesday was my last day of work until the wedding and honeymoon are over. And I DID end up having to turn down a job. But I was 100% definite that I did NOT want to accept any work the week before the wedding. I've been trying my hardest to just sit back, relax, and enjoy my free time. Some days I've succeeded in doing this and some days I have not. Haha!

FLOWERS

My paper flowers from Etsy arrived last week! They were made by Dana of Dana's Paper Flowers. They turned out fantastic! They are even more beautiful in person than on the website!

DRESS

Went to a final fitting for my wedding dress and picked it up yesterday after it had been steamed and cleaned. Linda (the tailor) gave me a big hug, wished me a blessed wedding, and sent me on my way! (Again, the alterations place I used was R & L Tailoring.)

MARRIAGE LICENSE

We were in and out of the Old Orange County Courthouse in 10 minutes, license in hand. The people working here are incredibly efficient!

RECEPTION WALK THROUGH

Met with Greg and Lexi, event coordinators at our reception site (Tantalum), and did a final walk and talk through. I also found out that Greg and Lexi themselves will be the servers on the big day. Nice!

HOTEL ISSUES: RESOLVED!

My wish of last minute hotel cancellations came true! Both the best man and matron of honor were able to get rooms at Pacific Inn Friday night before the wedding!

DOUBLE BACHELORETTE

The first celebration happened Thursday night with my girls Lindsey and April. Lindsey and I took a nice long exercise walk to Santa Monica. Midway, we stopped at West 4th and Jane for some Oktoberfest beer and brats. Then we walked back to my place, met up with April, and continued the beer and food fest!

Yes, this was the FIRST alcoholic beverage I had consumed in nearly 2 months. Taking that first sip of beer after so long almost brought a tear to my eye... SO amazing. 

Saturday night, Sophie and Pam drove up to LA for bachelorette part 2! Our original plan had been dinner and drinks on the 3rd Street Promenade. But after driving around Santa Monica and finding nothing but full parking lots (Note to self: NEVER take a car out to Santa Monica Saturday night. You'll be sorry.), we abandoned that plan in favor of something a little more chill. We settled on a great little restaurant called Nook that is just down the street from my apartment. And afterwards, we did some dancing at Mom's Bar, a great dive that is only a block from my place. It was a great night!

*gasp*

I know what you're thinking. Where's the male strippers? Where's the debauchery?!?!

Meh.

While I sometimes feel like getting crazy, that's not usually my party style. I'm a low key gal. So the best parties for me are also low key. Meaning both parties were PERFECT. My friends know me so well.

Sophie, Pam, Lindsey April... you're the best. :)

That's all the updates for now!

We had originally planned to do a meeting with our officiant down in Long Beach on Friday. But we postponed it when we realized we'd be in Long Beach anyway starting Thursday. So we save ourselves a commute! We'll just meet with Alan on Thursday. 

My mom arrived Sunday night. Luckily she's totally fine with my wanting to do nothing the next few days. We've basically just been sitting around watching movies all day!

It's the calm before the storm. Right now I'm just enjoying the calm...

**Louisa**

T-Minus 2 Weeks Update!

I've been running around like a madwoman this past week and a half! I finally had to take a day off work last Wednesday. I had really been trying not to do that, but the fact that some of the vendors I'm dealing with are ONLY in Monday-Friday made it impossible. 

So Wednesday turned into an errands day/rest day. And it turned out to be a GREAT decision. Once I had finished all my errands for the day, I went home and took about a 3 hour nap. Obviously I needed it...

Since that day I've found that though I'm still running around a lot to get everything finished, I'm much more at ease with everything that's going on. (Remarkable what a day off can do!) I've finally learned to let the wedding be what it's going to be. To just relax and allow myself to experience this special time -- the good and the bad. 

Here's some updates on what's been going on recently!

CAKE

Taking care of our wedding cake is something we kept putting off and putting off. Finishing off other details of the wedding was just more important. And I figured if we were getting a simple wedding cake from Ralph's they shouldn't need more than 3 weeks notice right? WRONG.

I called the manager at Ralph's Bakery at 6 am last Monday. (Yes. You read that right. 6 in the morning. Because work started at 7 am for me on Monday. It was the only time I had available to speak to her.) Unfortunately they need at least A MONTH to do tiered cakes like that. 

Damn. If only I had called a week earlier...

But I didn't freak out. A wedding cake is not essential to a successful wedding. So the manager and I chatted a bit and decided the best option for me would be to order several cakes. Great idea! I've seen pics on pinterest of weddings that had done a dessert sampler type of thing instead of a traditional cake. It would allow you to pic out several flavors of cake instead of just one. Guests can pick their favorite flavor. EVERYONE'S HAPPY.

So on my day off, I drove down to Long Beach to the Ralph's Fresh Fare that's one building down from our reception site and ordered some cakes! I decided to save some space at our reception and only display one cake -- THIS will be our "wedding cake". That's the one James and I will cut, feed each other, and what not. The three other cakes we've ordered will be stored and cut in the kitchen at our reception site. The pre-cut slices from these cakes will be brought out once we've cut our wedding cake.

The flavors we decided on are double chocolate, red velvet, vanilla w/ strawberry filling, and a marble cake (which will be our wedding cake). Total cost? $86.96

Pretty happy about that. Not many brides can say their wedding cake was under $100. :)

And because our bakery is so close to the reception site, the event coordinator at Tantalum has offered to pick up the cake for us the morning of the wedding!

One less thing to worry about!!!

REHEARSAL DINNER

I made reservations this week!

Although we're not having a rehearsal of the ceremony, we still decided to have the traditional rehearsal dinner. Our families have not really met each other yet, and dinner is a perfect place for them to get more acquainted. Plus we really wanted a good meal the night before our wedding. 

Picking out a restaurant for said rehearsal dinner was a no brainer: Walt's Wharf of Seal Beach. Pretty much EVERYONE in our respective families has eaten here at this point. My uncle Norman, who will be in attendance at the wedding, was the person who originally recommended this place to James and I (he was stationed in Long Beach in the 90's). It then quickly became one of James and my favorites. So since then, anytime we've had family in town, or just needed a good excuse to eat, we've gone to Walt's!

It is really some of the freshest fish I've had in all of LA and Orange County. Plus they've got an extensive wine list!

POSTER OF CARICATURE

Reason #572 of why I love Costco: 20x30 posters created for you in 1 hour. Cost? $20.

Enough said.

We're displaying the poster at the entrance of our reception.

(The caricature. Not the pic of the Costco guy from Idiocracy.)

DRESS

I've been to 2 more fittings since my September Update blog entry. Linda at R & L Tailoring is great, incredibly thorough. We got off to a rocky start, but she's MORE than redeemed herself. I would use her again for future tailoring needs.

My final wedding dress fitting is on Thursday!

RING

The wedding band I ordered for James came in this week! I picked it up yesterday.

HAIR AND MAKEUP

I have now done practice runs of my wedding hair with Kelley and my wedding makeup with Cocoa. Both of them understood EXACTLY the look I was going for. So these practice runs really took no time at all! Kelley and Cocoa are awesome!

And since both ladies are friends of mine, they want to doll me up for my big day free of charge!

*gasp*

Oh, but you bet your ass these ladies will be getting a nice gift from me. How kind of them! :)

BACHELOR/BACHELORETTE PARTIES

A little update on the bachelorette party. Since my actor friends weren't able to make their schedule work for a weekend bachelorette thing, they are now trying to arrange something some weekday this week.

So now instead of one party, I'm having two! My friends care that much about me. :)

And as for James, he just got back from Vegas with a handful of his closest friends. He is currently passed out in our bedroom. So he obviously had a good time. Hehe. 

HOTEL ISSUES...

I kinda thought I was all finished with the hotel stuff. All of our family members that are staying in the Pacific Inn with us booked their rooms months ago. Only my matron of honor and James' best man hadn't booked yet. But it was recently brought to my attention (*cough cough* Sophie *cough cough*) that people usually reserve blocks of hotel rooms when they're having a wedding. You'll also get discounted rooms that way.

Oops.

I really had NO IDEA people did that. I've been to like 4 weddings my entire life. I don't know how these things work.

No biggie. So Sophie, being on a tight budget, tried to take care of getting the rooms discounted for us. But after a few rounds of phone tag with one of the employees there, I decided to take care of it myself. I was too late to reserve any blocks of rooms, but Pacific Inn was able to give all of us involved with the wedding a discount! They were very friendly and helpful!

So I tell Sophie to call and make her reservation. They'd give her a discounted room or we would help her pay for it or something! But she calls to reserve and boom -- NO VACANCY. The hotel is now completely full the weekend of our wedding. My matron of honor's got no place to stay. Same with the best man.

Aaaand that's why people reserve blocks of rooms. It all makes sense now... *facepalm*

This isn't a HUGE tragedy by any means. Both Sophie and Matt (the best man) live locally, about 20 minutes from the wedding site. It just would be nice to have our best friends as close to us as possible during this special time... AND be able to let them enjoy themselves, i.e. DRINK, without worrying about that 20 minute commute at the end of the night.

But everything will work out and be fine in the end. And who knows, maybe a room or two will open up. People cancel reservations. You never know...

That's it! All our wedding details are now a go! The only thing we have to do now is some double checking with people and finalizing minor details. And that's what next week is for.

To be continued...

**Louisa**

The Bachelorette Tango

Remember back in the spring when I said my matron of honor Sophie was planning a bachelorette party?

At the time I said to her, "Hey, you don't even HAVE to throw me a bachelorette party. But if you insist..." And Sophie DID insist. "...it doesn't have to be anything big. It can be something as simple as a girl's night out at a local bar." But Sophie said that wouldn't do either. She wanted to do something more special for her bestie!

So I suggested maybe a spa weekend or a wine country type of thing. Something a little more on the low key side. Because I've already been to Vegas TWICE this year. I did NOT want to do it again!

So I gave her the emails of a couple of my friends. And let them plan amongst themselves.

I already knew this was NOT going to be an easy task for Sophie to get everyone on the same page. First of all we live all over the place -- The Valley, LA, Orange County. An in person brainstorming session was NOT going to happen. Second of all, we have drastically varying work schedules. Sophie's a school teacher, meaning she is only free on weekends. And the rest of my friends are mostly actors, meaning they're only free on weekdays because weekends are for plays and improv shows. SOMEONE was going to have to take off work to make this happen...

Then on top of all that, in enters LIFE...

I ended up unexpectedly moving from Long Beach to West LA over the summer which was a huge time suck. Plus the rest of my friends also had life shake ups of varying degrees. Hey. It happens. So the planning process was put on hold.

Fast forward to now. Bachelorette party still hasn't happened.

Sophie says, "Why don't we just do a girl's night out or a girl's brunch or something?"

:)

Well that WAS the original idea...

So there you have it! We've come full circle in the wheel of bachelorette planning. We're back to the first idea that popped in my head months ago: Girls. Drinking. Locally. And that's fine by my because it happens to be one of my favorite activities!

The bachelorette party MAY be happening closer to the wedding date than I would have liked (the weekend before!). And it MAY end up being just Sophie and me that show up (Life. It's still happening.). But we're sure to have a good time no matter what!

It's way more than I asked for anyway. I wasn't even sure I WANTED a bachelorette party...

Thanks Sophie. :)


**Louisa**

The Dreaded Crunch

I am now understanding very well why people hire wedding planners.

Even with as simple as James and I have kept things, it's still way more work than I would have imagined. I'm tired of dealing with all these people. I'm ready for it to be over with and have my free time back already.

Without going into specifics, several things have not gone according to plan this past week. It's taken all my strength not to throw something at someone. And I am not one to anger easily. I have a VERY long fuse.

Thank God for my fiance who is great at talking me down when pushed to that point. And thank God for my dad and mom who are great at putting things into perspective. I had great conversations with them both this past week.

I have a bad habit of setting expectations. And when a person doesn't behave like I originally expected or events don't unfold how I had imagined in my head, I flip out.

But as my dad pointed out during our conversation, things will ALWAYS go wrong while putting together a wedding. That is the norm. So if you EXPECT things to go wrong at some point during the process, it won't catch you off guard when it does. And if nothing DOES go wrong, then, well... that's a blessing. :)

So I'm working hard to step back, calm myself, and let the wedding be what it's going to be. There WILL be surprises. There WILL be stuff that goes wrong. But people will love the wedding no matter what.

And most importantly, WE will love the wedding no matter what. It's our day, dammit! Nothing else matters! 


**Louisa**

September Update!

Less than a month now! Here's what we've finalized in the past month!

JAMES' RING

Labor day weekend I took James shopping for a wedding band. We only needed to check out 2 shops before he found a ring that he loved. And because I've been working such long hours recently, I bought the ring with my own money.

It felt really good to buy James something for a change. He's bought so much for me over the years...

FLOWERS

I had originally planned to pick up flowers for my bouquets and boutonnieres at Trader Joe's the day before the wedding. Have you priced wedding floral packages recently? RIDICULOUS. But then I realized trying to put together floral arrangements last minute is going to put a lot of unwanted stress on me during an already super stressful couple of days. My solution? Paper flowers. Beautiful, inexpensive, and they will never die. Thank you, Etsy!

HAIR AND MAKEUP

I am very fortunate to have friends that are extremely skilled at both of these things! My friend Kelley is going to do a practice run of my wedding hair this coming weekend. The following weekend, my friend Cocoa will try some wedding day makeup out on me.

MARRIAGE LICENSE

We haven't actually picked up the license yet. But we did make an appointment to do so. Orange County has a really handy website. You can fill out the paperwork, set up an appointment time, and select a pick up location all online. It was so simple!

We'll be going to the Old Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana. Fun fact about this courthouse: The exterior might look familiar to some of you. That's because it doubles as the Briarcliff asylum on American Horror Story: Asylum. Good times. :)

WEDDING DRESS

Had a couple of small hiccups with my wedding dress. It arrived on time and in good condition and everything! But I learned that the boutique (Bonny Bridal of Brea, CA) only does appointments for alterations on Tuesdays 12-7. OUCH. Since I live and work in West LA, this was just not doable. I would have had to take off work 2-3 consecutive Tuesdays to drive out to Brea, which is 80 miles round trip. I'm already taking off work essentially the entire month of October for the wedding and honeymoon. I NEED those 2-3 work days.

So I drove out to Brea to pick up my dress over the weekend, thanked the girls at the boutique profusely (they are AWESOME), and Monday I took my dress to a local alterations place: R & L Tailoring. Their reviews are fantastic! Several reviews even mentioned it was the most reasonably priced place for wedding dress alterations in LA! And Linda, the main tailor, is sweet and very friendly. But even with a sweet shopkeeper, awesome reviews, and "reasonable pricing"; I couldn't help but be frustrated that the alterations on the dress will end up costing me MORE THAN THE ACTUAL DRESS.

Frugal Bride - 0

Capitalism - 1

Aw well. You win some, you lose some. I had initially set my wedding dress budget at $500 anyway. Now it IS a $500 dress. :P

ACCESSORIES

As I mentioned in the last blog, I found my dream shoes a couple weeks back. But I was still needing other accessories to finalize my wedding garb. So I did a bit of shopping while I was out in Brea over the weekend. 

I started at Bonny Bridal, but unfortunately they no longer had the hairpiece I had my eye on when I originally tried on my dress. :(

No biggie. I headed over to David's Bridal. Though I hadn't had any luck with their dresses, accessories were a different story. I found a great earring/necklace set and a hairpiece that was 40% off!

To top it off, my matron of honor is loaning me a bracelet to give me my "something borrowed". And I ordered a garter set online.

My wedding day outfit is now complete!

VOWS

James and I had originally discussed with our officiant doing something a little nerdy/a little silly for our ceremony. But the more we thought about it, the more we liked the idea of a short, but sweet, fairly traditional ceremony. Great Officiants had a lot of ceremony samples that you could pull from on their website. We found a style that spoke to us, told our officiant Alan about it, and also set up a final appointment to meet up with him in person. Since we are not having a rehearsal, I thought it would be nice to at least do a "talk through" of the ceremony. 

We've also re-started communications with our photographer and the event coordinator at our reception site just to make sure everything is in order and we're all on the same page about everything. 

Still to do...

CAKE. I know, I know! This is something I started researching a LONG time ago. It surprises me too that I still haven't finalized something. Our first choice is still just using the bakery at Ralph's Grocery, which is only a couple businesses over from our reception site. We're not planning to do anything complicated with the cake, so I'm sure 3 weeks will give the bakers plenty of time.

We've also got to make some reservations at a restaurant for our rehearsal dinner. (Even though we're not having a rehearsal, we still want a dinner dammit!) We'll also need to get the caricature of us enlarged to poster sized so we can display it at our reception.

Oh! And since pretty much all of my friends and family have seen this wonderful caricature, I feel safe in sharing it with the blogosphere now.

Also, here is our wedding website: http://www.theknot.com/wedding/James-and-Louisa

And here is our Honeyfund registry: http://www.honeyfund.com/wedding/jamesandlouisa

Enjoy!

**Louisa**

I found my shoes!!!

I love how the universe gives you EXACTLY what you're looking for sometimes. Even if it's something as simple and insignificant as a pair of shoes.

When I first picked out my wedding dress, I immediately envisioned what my perfect wedding shoes would look like. But I was skeptical as to whether or not the shoes of my daydreams existed in real life. So I didn't fret too much about it. 

Fast forward to Wednesday August 28th, 11am, West LA Marshall's -- I walk inside and what do I see on display right by the entrance? My dream shoes!!! I'm not kidding, these were a dead ringer for the ones I pictured in my head months earlier. And they were half price! Double score!!!

Thank you universe. You are awesome. :)


**Louisa**

Pre-Wedding Health Kick

As is traditional for most brides to be, I am currently in a pre-wedding health kick. Why? Though I'm not necessarily trying to lose any weight (I am not overweight.), I would like to tone up a bit. But the biggest reason is I just want to look and feel my best on my wedding day. And when do I look and feel my best? When I'm exercising regularly and eating healthy. I have so much more energy and am overall just happier!

GYM ROUTINE

Over the past several years I've learned to love working out. Especially cardio. Ooo I love me some endorphins! I'm a regular at any of the many high intensity classes at 24 Hour Fitness and a HUGE fan of running. But I'm definitely a slacker in the strength training department. Because I hate it. :P

So last month I signed up for a handful of sessions with a personal trainer to help reinvigorate my workouts. She gave me a lot of cool exercises that will help tone my upper body (my problem area) and core. And best of all, these are FUN exercises that don't FEEL like strength training!

We did a lot of use-your-own-body-weight drills and balancing exercises (Try doing dead lifts while balancing on a Bosu ball. Not easy!). This made me very happy as I've always been a little intimidated by the machines at the gym. Some of them look kinda like the exam table at my gynecologist's office. Not cool.

It's been tricky getting to the gym every day with the long hours I've been working on set recently. (14 hour day yesterday. Eugh.) But regardless, I try to do SOMETHING everyday. Even if it's just a quick run around the neighborhood and some crunches. 

So far I've lost 5 lbs. of body fat!

DIET

It's a well known fact that if you REALLY want to see the fruits of your labor at the gym, you have to watch what you're eating. I usually eat pretty healthy, but portion control can be a problem. I've had to stop buying peanut butter. It's good for you in moderation, absolutely. But I have NO discipline around the stuff. Just try and stop me from eating the whole jar! So it's bye bye PB for now...

But this will be my biggest challenge diet wise: drinking. I'm a German girl. So a nice tall beer is a constant companion. Why does something so delicious have to be so bad for you? It's not just the calories you're taking in, it's the terrible things it does to your body!

I went 3 weeks without a single drink at the start of my training sessions last month just to help kick start my metabolism. But here's what I didn't expect to happen at the end of 3 weeks: my skin positively GLOWED! Alcohol had literally been sucking all the life out of my skin.

So if I want that glow on my wedding day too, I'm sorry to say that alcohol is out for the next 6 weeks. It's gonna be SO HARD. All the Oktoberfest brews come out this time of year. And those are my favorite! But the results will be worth it.

And hell, our honeymoon's in Ireland, one of the greatest beer countries there is! What a perfect way to reward myself after 2 months of hard work!

That beer is gonna taste SO GOOD...


**Louisa**

Invites Are Out!/Website Woes

We got our invitations delivered from Vistaprint last week and they turned out GREAT!

The first wave of invites has been sent. The second wave will be sent out today. A third wave will hopefully follow shortly thereafter as we continue to collect addresses. And then a few stragglers/people we overlooked will get invites. Then we'll be DONE!

The invitation process has been the most stressful wedding detail so far. It will be a HUGE relief to be done with it!

On the website front, we discovered a minor glitch with the RSVP section earlier this week when our first friend tried to RSVP. Apparently The Knot doesn't allow just anyone that visits your website to RSVP. You have to create a guest list and physically input everyone's name. 

I mean, it makes sense now that I think about it. You wouldn't want random strangers RSVPing to your wedding. But still... it was an extra step I was really annoyed that I had to take. 

Also, just to cover my ass in case there are any future problems with RSVPing, I listed my email on the website as a backup way to RSVP.

So all should be well with the website now, friends!!!


**Louisa**

August Update!

Less than 2 months to go! The updates are going to start coming fast and furious as the big day draws closer.

Here's what James and I have accomplished in the past month.

• INVITES - We finally got our wedding invitations designed and ordered. This is something I wish we hadn't waited so long to do, but I think it will be fine. Most of our friends already know about the wedding anyway. :) And since James and I are a no frills kinda couple, we ordered our invites online at Vistaprint. We uploaded the caricature our friend Gino drew for us, wrote some text on the inside of the card, and boom, that was it! The drawing is already super amazing. Why complicate things by adding high end card stock or fancy lettering? Now for the next step. Actually mailing the invites to people...
• WEBSITE - We got this idea from some friends of ours (thanks Jesse and Kelley!). The website The Knot has free wedding website templates you can use. And they look great! All the pertinent info on our wedding like directions and registry info is now in one place. It allowed us to keep our wedding invites clean and simple. Rather than cramming the invitations full of information, we've referred the guests to our website. It's so simple! I love it! We don't want to share the web address publicly just yet though. The main image on the site is the awesome caricature that is also on the invites. I'd like to make sure people are surprised when they open the invites. :)
• HONEYMOON - After talking to a couple different travel companies, we settled on our perfect Irish itinerary! We designed a custom route that will take us to Dublin, Galway, Killarney, Cork, and back to Dublin. The itinerary's got a great mix of city and countryside. Also, it's very flexible, allowing us to make excursions if and when we want to! I'll write more on the specifics of our honeymoon itinerary in a future blog. But if you're interested, we're working with the Massachusetts based company Tenon Tours. They've been very good to us so far. Definitely check them out if you're wanting to travel to the U.K.!

So the to-do list keeps getting shorter! Next on our list is to finalize our vows and sample some wedding cake! Also, my wedding dress should be arriving at Bonny Bridal any day now! I'll need to go get fit and pick out some finishing touches like shoes and jewelry.

To be continued!

**Louisa**

July Update!

"I can see the finish line!" Famous last words...

As you've probably noticed, this is my first wedding blog in two months. That's because wedding planning had to take a backseat during the month of June due to an unexpected job shake up for my fiance. Long story short: James was offered a new job in Santa Monica, he accepted, and 3 weeks later we moved from Long Beach up to Los Angeles. So June was almost 100% devoted to packing and apartment hunting.

Thankfully we're all settled in now and I've started to work on some wedding things again. Here's what I've got so far!

• Oklahoma engagement party! This was one of the reasons our June move was so rushed. We booked a June trip to Oklahoma months ago and had no idea we would end up needing to look for new places to live at the exact same time. Luckily my mom handled most of the planning (thank you mom!). We held the party at Gaslight Theatre in Enid, OK (I practically lived here growing up so this venue is very special to me.). We had delicious catering from Jumbo's Foods. We had drinks. And *drumroll please* we had BEER PONG - a unique engagement party feature for sure! We had fewer friends attend the party than expected, but it kept things a little more intimate. And that's always fine by me. :)
• Flights/hotels booked for all immediate family! The hotel we ended up going with was The Pacific Inn in Seal Beach. The reviews were very good, it is located within walking distance of our ceremony site, plus it has family suites available to make everyone's stay feel a little more home-y. James and I will be staying in the hotel too for the couple of days leading up to the wedding. We may end up just staying here for our wedding night as well and save the fancier hotel rooms for our honeymoon. (Irish castle, anyone?)
• Registries are set up! We have one at Honeyfund and a smaller, more traditional one at Amazon. We'll most likely continue to edit these registries up until the wedding as we continue to think of things we might need on our honeymoon and at home. We've already received several gifts from people who attended the engagement party in Oklahoma! (If you are one of these people, THANK YOU!!!)
• Irish honeymoon planning is well underway! James and I are giving ourselves a couple days to decompress after the wedding, then we'll hop on a plane from LAX to Dublin! We've been talking to a couple different travel companies and they're helping design our ideal itinerary as we speak. My biggest complaint with European tours I've taken in the past is that every minute of every day is already planned. If I'm having to set an alarm clock every morning in order to get to an excursion on time, it just doesn't feel like a vacation to me. I'd rather have more days in fewer cities with fewer planned excursions. I want to discover a new town on my own schedule. So that's exactly what we're doing. We'll be focusing on southern Ireland - places like County Cork, Galway, and of course Dublin. We'll take a few excursions in each town, at our leisure. Then return to LA 9-10 days later. We should return home rested, not exhausted! THAT'S a honeymoon!
• James' friend Gino finished the caricature art for our wedding invites! I'm SO THRILLED with how it turned out. It's going to take all my strength not to show people this drawing before the invites get sent out. Aaaah!!! It's so good!

And there you have it!

I am so happy I got so much wedding stuff squared away back in April and May. Otherwise I'd be scrambling right now. So now I'm pretty much right on schedule instead of ahead of schedule. But that's ok. 

Since the move to LA, I've had a few people ask, "Aww... aren't you frustrated that you already booked your wedding in a Long Beach location?" The answer is quite the opposite! It's perfect! James and I have friends all over LA and Orange County. Long Beach is the halfway point. No one has to travel too far! Plus I may not live in Long Beach anymore, but I still love that town. My wedding is a damn good excuse to visit. :)


**Louisa**

I can see the finish line!

If you would have told me back in March when I started this blog that I'd be basically finished wedding planning before memorial day, I'd say you were out of your mind. We didn't even have a date picked out two months ago! Yet here we are, May 15th, still 4 1/2 months out from the wedding, and nearly done.

Here's an update on what's been coming together over the past couple of weeks.

• I made a decision on a wedding dress! I'll go in to get measured by the boutique this weekend. All I'll have to do after that is shop around for some accessories -- shoes, jewelry, hairpieces, and what have you. Then I'll be done with clothing! Since my maid of honor Sophie is my only attendant, I'm letting her wear whatever she wants. No bridesmaid dresses!
• We finally met in person with our officiant Alan over the weekend. James and I still aren't exactly sure what we want the ceremony to include. So we spent some time bouncing ideas off each other. Alan was thrilled that we don't want our wedding to be a 100% serious affair. There will be nerdiness, you can count on that. :) We left the meeting with several good ideas. We'll continue to brainstorm with Alan in the upcoming months until we've found the perfect mixture of humor and romance...oh! We also picked out a great little spot on the beach to have the ceremony!
• My mom has started planning an engagement party for my Oklahoma friends during the first week of July. James and I will be in town that week anyway. As I said in a previous blog, this will basically serve as the "Oklahoma wedding" since I know very few folks from back there will be able to make the trek out to California. This is a way to let them celebrate with us!
• Sophie has started planning a bachelorette party! Since she'd like me to be surprised, she's keeping a lot of the details secret. I did mention however that I'd like to keep it mellow. I've already been to Vegas twice this year. I'm kinda partied out! So I think she's scheming up either a spa weekend or a wine country getaway... we'll see. I can't wait to see what she and my girls come up with!
• I'm scoping out hotels in Seal Beach and Long Beach near our ceremony and reception sites. I already have a favorite. Some of the hotels in the southeast corner of Long Beach don't have the greatest reviews and I want to make sure my family is comfortable while they're in town. My mom and grandparents have already purchased plane tickets. They were concerned with airfare continuing to climb, so they got an early jump on that!
• We've found out where we want to do our registry! Honeyfund. We went to a friend's wedding a couple weekends ago and this is what they used. James and I had already been keen on the idea of having guests just help out with the honeymoon, since we already own quite a bit in the household wares department. Using this site seems a little more official than just asking for money. Plus our guest would know which aspect of the honeymoon they were helping out with! There are lots of possibilites! -- a nice dinner out, a bottle of champagne, a night in a hotel, etc...

The only thing I haven't got the ball rolling on yet is invites. And yeah, that's kind of important. So that's the next step.

But other than that, all the big stuff is done. And it feels AWESOME.

**Louisa**

Wedding Dress Love Triangle

This past weekend my maid of honor Sophie took me out for my first wedding dress shopping excursion! I drove out to her neighborhood in Brea, CA and we checked out two dress shops -- Bonny Bridal and David's Bridal. 

First we hit up Bonny's.

Our appointment here could not have gone any smoother. I liked almost everything I tried on! But there were two standouts. I fell madly in love with both.

I left the store knowing that either one of those dresses could easily be the one. But I needed to sleep on it. Maybe one dress would start to edge out the other in my mind...

Next we hit up David's.

This appointment wasn't quite as smooth. The shop was crawling with teenagers trying on prom dresses. So even though we had an appointment time, we didn't get helped until about 45 minutes later.

But once we got a consultant to help us, everything was fine and moved very quickly. I'd spent some time on the David's Bridal website beforehand so there were a few styles I couldn't wait to try on! But once I got them on, I was underwhelmed. My mind kept going back to the two dresses I'd tried on at Bonny's a few hours earlier.

I had already fallen in love.

So Sophie drove us over to downtown Brea for a much needed glass of wine and some dinner. We talk about my two favorite dresses from Bonny's a bit more. And we were still stumped. Both are beautiful, both are flattering, both feel very me, and both are practically identical in price. What to do, what to do...

Yesterday I sent pictures of both the dresses to some friends and family to get some more opinions. I'm still waiting to hear back from a few people, but there is definitely a heavy favorite between the two.

I think I may be about ready to make a decision...


**Louisa**