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**
Friday, August 30, 2013
Friday, August 23, 2013
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**
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**
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**
Thursday, August 15, 2013
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.
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!
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**
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)