Jesse and Deanna

new blog!

2009-02-05T09:21:00.003-05:00

Like I mentioned in the last post, I've been toying with the idea of starting a new blog since this one was so much fun. Well, earlier this week, I jumped right in and formed Mischief and Madness. It's my outlet for displaying all sorts of pretty things that inspire me: art, design, fashion, film, and, of course any new DIY projects I'm working on. And get this - my new blog will be updated daily. No more of this posting once in a blue moon for me. So, if you're at all curious, or just need to look at something pretty during the day, feel free to check it out. Maybe I can even convince Jesse to guest post on there every once in a while. Cheers!

Farewell!

2009-01-13T23:57:00.004-05:00

This is the final post of our wedding blog. You probably guessed the same since we haven't updated this thing in months. We're loving our first year of marriage and are ready to move beyond our wedding to the rest of our relationship together.

Jesse and I just want to say thank you to everyone who's stopped by to check out our little blog and to those of you who have taken the time to leave us so many nice comments. We have no plans to take this little shindig down, just in case any of our planning experiences can be of use to any future brides or grooms-to-be.

We both really enjoyed our time posting. In fact, I've been turning over the idea of starting a new non-wedding related blog for some time. If that plan ever actually happens, and I have enough design-y, crafty goodness to share, I'll make sure to post a link here.

In the meantime, good luck with your own planning!

Thanks again and much love,
Jesse and Deanna

blurb wedding album

2009-01-13T23:20:00.007-05:00

Happy 2009! We finally got around to designing our wedding album...yeah, almost a full six months after our wedding date. We decided to publish it using blurb again, since we were so pleased with how our guest book turned out. For the second time, blurb passed the test with flying colors, so we thought we should post a couple of images of the finished book in case anyone else is thinking about trying them out. You can see a preview of the first 15 pages here if you're in need of layout inspiration for your own album.

(click to enlarge the photos)

wedding video

2008-11-03T13:30:00.003-05:00

I think I've mentioned this before, but Jesse and I first met years ago at art school. One of our closest friends there (and Jesse's roommate for several years) was a very talented video major named James Favata. James is awesome for many reasons - he once completely painted himself red for a photo project, he used to work at a picture people in the mall and would hang random people's portraits on their college fridge, and he and our friend,Chris, inadvertantly are the reason Jesse and I met one fateful night.

The main reason that James is awesome, though, is because he offered to shoot our wedding video. And he did a seriously great job. If you live in the Washington D.C. - Baltimore - Philadelphia area and are looking for a videographer (wedding or otherwise), check out his website - he's a cool guy.

And now, a little snippet of our wedding day! Watching this the first time brought all of the emotions from that morning right back. The music used throughout the video was taken from either our ceremony or reception playlist. Enjoy!

Jesse and Deanna's Wedding from JPstudios on Vimeo.

Music (Part 3)

2008-10-28T12:12:00.007-05:00

And finally, the promised post about our ceremony music. First a little back story, though.

After deciding to get married in Lititz Springs Park, I spent a few weeks worrying that our day might devolve into Joy and Darnell's fabulously trashy park wedding from the television show, My Name is Earl, hostess twinkie cakes and all. Their wedding looked fun on TV, but wasn't what I had in mind for my own. So we decided we would hire a violinist to play at our ceremony to "class up" our little public park soiree. As the date loomed closer, though, our budget got tighter and our violinist contacts dried up. So we decided to stick with the itunes laptop again, and pay a really nice friend of Jesse's to man the operation. In the end, I'm actually really happy we made this decision. It was way cheaper, we got to pick very specific versions of personal songs, and we were able to hide Brett (Jesse's awesome friend) and our laptop on the side of the gazebo, so it didn't detract from the ceremony. The park even provided most of the speakers and cables.

The only ceremony photo including our awesome laptop helper. The expression on his face cracks me up.
(click to enlarge)

We couldn't make another mixwit compilation because most of our songs are either very specific or kind of obscure. So, instead you just get a little list. Sorry. We didn't want our ceremony to stick to the traditional music since it felt too stuffy for us, but we also didn't want to go crazy with pop music. I think we ended up with a nice balance, while still including a lot of subtle nods to movie sountracks since we're both such film nuts. Whenever I hear any of these songs now, it just brings me right back to that morning and makes me giddy.

Pre-ceremony Music (Played while the guests arrived)

String Quartet in F Major - Ysaye Quartet (Royal Tennenbaum's Soundtrack)
La Valse D'Amelie (Orchestra Version) - Amelie Soundtrack
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - The Smashing Pumpkins
Claire De Lune - Debussy

Processional Music (Played while our mothers and my sister entered)

Les Bulles - Carlos D'Alessio (Delicatessen Soundtrack)

Bridal Entrance

Ave Maria - A simple piano & Violin version by the O'Neill Brothers

Recessional

Happiness (Jesse edited this down to just the chorus) - Elliott Smith
Hey Jude (The Beatles Cover) - Mutato Muzika Orchestra (Royal Tennenbaums Soundtrack)

Up Next: we'll finish up our wedding blog with a very fitting final end post - our wedding video shot and edited by one of our extremely talented friends.

Music (Part 2)

2008-10-04T15:30:00.006-05:00

Now we move on to the post meal dancing...
Again this is an abbreviated version of our dance playlist.
Deanna and I are not clubbers, and we aren't usually too up to date with the latest radio and MTV chart toppers. So when it came to picking out the dance music we had a little bit of trouble finding a way to balance the music we like, with the music you can actually dance to, and that our guests would enjoy. I think our only regret with the playlist is that we would have played slow songs more frequently. We found that people over 35 will not dance to anything but slow songs. There were plenty picked out, but we only ended up playing about 1/2 to 2/3 of our dance music. There were many reasons for this...
1- people didn't drink too much, most likely because it was an afternoon reception.
2- we had a really long playlist
3-we had to fit in cake cutting, throwing the bouquet, throwing the garter, announcements and so on.

So on with the music!

The MixWit songs are pretty accurate on this one. So I will let the list speak for itself for the most part. Here are a couple notes.

The songs are not in the order they were played.

#4 I like Ben Folds, Deanna does on occasion, but isn't a fan of this song. We did find that our parents and the older couples really liked this one though.

#9 This was our first dance song.This is credited to Jon Brion because he did a different mix of this song for the Punch Drunk Love Soundtrack (which was the version we used). It is actually sung by Shelly Duvall and was originally on the Popeye Soundtrack.

#10 This was Deanna's dance with her father.

#11 was my dance with my mother. Our family has always had close ties to all things Muppets, so this was a good pick for us.

#12 Everybody's Gonna Be Happy is a Kinks song, it was not labeled on the mix.

#13... no, we don't watch American Idol. We liked this song before it was ruined, and only hope there was enough space between that version and the wedding for people to forget Sanjaya's version of it.**Deanna thinks this comment sounds mean and claims no responsibility for it.**

#16 Ok, so the lyrics don't exactly speak of marital love, but its a really great cover, and Deanna likes "old sounding" songs.

Music (Part 1)

2008-09-28T21:39:00.003-05:00

Here is a selection of some of the music we played during our wedding brunch. We played our music off of a laptop and hooked into the reception location's sound system, so everything was cheap and sounded pretty good after a lot of mp3 testing and playlist setups. We used many instrumental songs as to not interrupt our guests' chatting too much. Most of the music was plucked from some of our favorite movie soundtracks. Both Deanna and I are movie junkies, so it was another nice way of making the day feel more like "us". The "food" playlist, as it was called, ended up being about an hour and 45 minutes. We wanted to give it a little extra buffer if things ended up taking longer than expected. Deanna's mother arrived early to start the music, so it was playing when everyone else entered. I think we played about an hour and a half of music from the start until the end of the meal.
The sampling here isn't spot on, some of the versions of songs were different, but it gets the point across.

1: The Theme from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Jon Brion

2: The Way I Feel Inside - The Zombies ( We used a different version, but its close)

3: Playground Love (from the Virgin Suicides) - Air (We used the vibraphone version, which is an instrumental)

4: After Hours - The Velvet Underground

5: Phone Call (also from Eternal Sunshine) - Jon Brion

6: A Well Respected Man - The Kinks

7: Just Like Honey - The Jesus and Mary Chain (cause we liked it in Lost in
Translation)

8: Hey Jude (from Royal Tenenbaums) - Cover by Mutato Muzika Orchestra (We used a lot of Mark Mothersbaugh music from the Wes Anderson movies, and yes I know a lot of this makes us come off as hipsters... sorry)

9: We Are Going to Be Friends - The White Stripes

I will put up a similar post soon about our dance and ceremony music, so stay tuned.

More details about those birds

2008-09-17T11:33:00.006-05:00

I've gotten several requests lately for patterns and more detailed instructions for our little fabric birds.

While I'm very flattered that so many brides-to-be liked them, this is also kind of a touchy subject for me. As a self-employed freelance illustrator, I know how hard it is to make a living off of your artwork, and while my birds aren't nearly as cute as Ann Wood's, they were very heavily influenced by hers, so I'm leery of doing anything to cut into her business. That's one reason why it wouldn't sit right with me to make or sell these for a profit.

On the other hand, I also know what it's like to be a bride on a budget and how frustrated I felt when I first started experimenting on mine. So, instead of detailed instructions, I'll post all of the links that I found helpful and add a few more tips. You can also look back at my original bird post for my very general instructions.

mrs. penguin's handmade bird toppers from weddingbee.com - general details and photos of the making-of process.

spool's bird mobile pattern - these birds look a little different, but they offer a free pdf pattern you can download. I actually used a modified version of this pattern to make the bodies for mine. I extended the belly piece further up to form a face, attached wings, and made a separate larger tail. I also found that threading wire through the tail helps make it bendable.

peonies and polaroids hand made bird instructions - detailed instructions with photos. i didn't use these to make mine, but her tips were very helpful.

So, you can see there are quite a few different ways to make the little birds, but they usually require a lot of time and a little bit of experimentation. I hope this is helpful, without stepping on anyone's toes. Good luck!

Up Next: Music (finally)

Thanks Katherine!

2008-09-14T10:07:00.007-05:00

During our super-long engagement, I developed a pretty hardcore wedding blog addiction. I used to check brooklyn bride, style me pretty, a practical wedding, and weddingbee at least every day (and several other bridal blogs more sporadically). My absolute favorite and most inspiring blog, though, was the inspiration-board-a-day extravaganza, snippet & ink.

So, I was incredibly honored when Katherine of Snippet & Ink asked to include our little soiree as one of her "featured weddings". Our post went up over the weekend, and I'm so touched by all of the wonderful comments readers have left. So, thank you so much for the shout-out, Katherine, your site is seriously one of the best out there.

P.S. - Since getting married I've gone cold-turkey on my wedding blog addiction.....almost. And I promise to finish up the last detail post before the next century. Work has been crazy and I'm a pretty terrible blogger.

detail post #6: flowers

2008-09-07T23:22:00.012-05:00

I should say up front that flowers were not high on our list of priorities for the wedding. I just couldn't justify plunking down tons of cash for something that would only last for a day. Plus, we knew that we wanted to keep them fun and simple, so we decided to do them ourselves

The Centerpieces

I mentioned our decision earlier to place individual stems in vintage glass bottles. Jesse and I are thrift store fiends and collected most of our bottles for $1 or less. His mother even found a table full of really awesome old ones at a garage sale for $25. I really wanted to fill the bottles with dahlias since they would be in season in July and I love the modern shape of their full-petaled heads.

We ordered the 75 yellow ones wholesale from fiftyflowers.com to be delivered two days before the wedding. They arrived early that Thursday with no problem (I highly recommend their site). I trimmed each flower down and stored them in buckets full of water with plant food until later that evening when some really kind neighbor ladies helped me start arranging them in the jars.

I thought the centerpieces might need some accent colors, so Jesse and I ran to the lawn + garden section of the local grocery store that evening and bought a potted lantana and a couple of small potted kalanchoes in peach, pink, and orange for about $30 total and added their trimmed buds to our smaller jars.

a photo taken by my friend Jen. This was our "chemistry set" inspired centerpiece.

Luckily we were allowed to set up our centerpieces at our reception site the day beforehand which was made even easier by the assistance of several friend and family members. Arranging and storing our centerpiece jar groupings in advance also helped to save time. I was pleased with how they turned out and they weren't terribly hard to do ourselves, especially with so much wonderful help. Plus, now we have a really fantastic collection of vintage bottles!

The Bouquets

Although I'd been collecting clippings for months of tons of different beautful, full bouquets, even a week before the wedding I didn't know what I wanted to do for mine. I seethed with jealousy of brides who got to carry peonies or daffodils, and tried to figure out every possible way to find them in mid-July, but buying them out-of-season would have cost me a small fortune. I finally decided I just didn't really care. I'd only be holding my own bouquet for a few minutes while I walked down the aisle. It wasn't worth worrying about and I really just wanted something small, monochromatic and hand-tied, so I did the unthinkable in bride-land....I bought my bouquet flowers from a grocery store.

We only needed three bouquets - one for me, one for my sister, and one to toss during the reception. So, I bought white, yellow and pink roses, some mixed zinneas and snap dragons, lots of ribbon and called it a day. My mom helped me to arrange the flowers the evening before the wedding and I finished tying their ribbons later that night while hanging out with girlfriends in my hotel room, so it turned into a fun bonding experience. Sure, they were far from perfect and it's obvious that they weren't professionally arranged, but they suited me fantastically for the day.

My sister's bouquet turned into a wildflower mix of zinneas and snow peas tied with a thicker red and white striped ribbon with a thin salmon-colored ribbon on top. I initially wanted to go monochromatic with all three bouquets, but her dress (although absolutely beautiful) was a little bit darker and more purpl-y than the rest of the wedding colors, so I mixed darker, lighter, and brighter flowers in an effort to tie everything together.

The toss bouquet consisted of large yellow roses tied with a thin yellow and white ribbon. In the photos, the flowers actually almost look a tiny bit like yellow peonies (at least in my imagination) because they were so full.

I ended up using the white roses and the same yellow ribbon for my own bouquet. I used to label roses, and especially white roses, as "boring" for a bridal bouquet, but the day I bought them I decided to re-label them in my mind as "classic". It's amazing what a difference a tiny little mind trick like that can make.

(all photos taken by Mariano Delgado unless specified. Click any of them to enlarge)

Up Next: Music

detail post #5: last minute diy projects

2008-08-27T09:16:00.010-05:00

Well, now that we've finally wrapped up our never-ending wedding and honeymoon photo extravaganza, I guess it's time to finish up the detail posts as well. This one chronicles the remaining d.i.y. and design projects we finished right before the wedding - sorry if it's kind of a hodge-podge. After this post, I'll cover our flowers and music and then I think we'll actually be done!

(as always, click each image to enlarge)

Programs

Although The Martha tried to entice me with her ribbon-bound, hand-sewn, double-stuffed booklets of information, by this stage of wedding planning I had finally learned how to "just say no". We kept them simple. So simple that they really don't need any explanation at all. We had white card stock on hand, so that's what we used. We designed them in Photoshop and printed them out with our own ink-jet printer. One particular note of interest, though - it was *Jesse's* idea to use the polka-dot pattern - I've finally won him over to the polka-dotted dark side...mwah ha ha.

Garland of Ancestor Wedding Photos

(the photos from our parents' weddings)

We wanted to do something to honor our parents' and grandparents' weddings and although I loved the images of other weddings with tables filled with framed photos, I'm kind of obsessed with garlands.

To make these, we scanned in each wedding photo (or a photo of each couple from around the time that got married if they didn't have formal wedding photos taken), cropped them, transformed them all into black and white files, and printed them on glossy photo paper. We then designed the frames in Photoshop and added name plates so that all of our guests would know who they were looking at. We printed the frames on cream card stock and cut out ovals with an exacto knife. We folded the frames in half like a top-folding greeting card and taped the photos to the interior with double-sided tape. We made two loops out of thin rectangles of card stock which we glued to the back of each frame and then threaded pink ribbon through. Since we weren't allowed to nail or tape anything to the walls of our reception site, we tied the ribbon ends to two lamps that were jutting out from the wall above our beverage table. See the finished product here.

Paper Circle Garlands

(part of one finished garland laid out on our kitchen floor)

Finally, I was able to unite two of my favorite things - polka-dots and garlands - together at last! We made several long strings of paper circle garlands to hang from both the ceremony gazebo and above the dance floor at our reception site. I got the idea after seeing this website. Colorful garlands always remind me of vintage circus tents and summertime, which is a definite positive in my book, plus they seemed cheap and easy to make.

To make ours, we bought several meters of thick embroidery string and a couple of large sheets of heavy-weight paper in our wedding colors from the local art supply store. Since they didn't sell paper in every color that we wanted, we also painted a couple of sheets of thick bristol paper on both sides with acrylic paint to finish off our color palette. After the painted sheets dried, we attacked each of our papers with a handy 1 3/8" circle punch until we had piles of colored circles covering our living room floor. Then we glued little rectangular tabs in the same color to the top of each circle and folded each tab in regular increments along the embroidery string. We ended up making four really long garlands and sprinkled some of the extra circles without tabs on side tables at the reception. Making the garlands turned out to be a pretty mind-less task that we worked on while watching movies (1 completed garland = about the running length of 1 movie). The supplies for this project probably cost about $8 total - score!

My Head Band

Up until the week before the wedding, I had no idea how to accessorize my hair. I'd practiced several up-dos and had a general idea of how I would wear my hair for the wedding, but it looked a little plain without any adornment at all. I'd tossed around all of these ideas for months, but none of them looked quite like what I had in mind. The veils got nixed because they seemed like they'd make my dress look over-formal and fussy. I tried a couple of fake flowers but they ended up looking like frilly tumors blooming out of the side of my head. Finally, during my last hair practice, I played with wrapping one of my silver beaded necklaces around my hair and everything clicked. It was the exact look I was going for - a simple little bit of extra shine.

My headband was EXTREMELY easy and cheap to make. I bought some small silver beads and a spool of thin silver elastic at the craft supply store and used a spool of really thin copper wire and two tiny silver brackets that I already owned from past necklace experiments ( those can also be bought at any craft store for a couple of dollars). First, I attached a bracket to the copper wire and strung enough beads on until it was just short of encircling my head. I tied off the other end of the wire with the second bracket and looped a short amount of elastic between the two brackets and then attached a piece of a third bracket at the center of the elastic to cover the its tied-off ends. You could use only elastic and beads, but the copper seemed stronger than the elastic, and I couldn't find elastic thin enough to fit through the bead holes. I think this project took me all of 5 minutes to make and about $5 worth of supplies. Finished product here.

Stuffed Birds

This was another project I completed in the last week leading up to the wedding. It was one of those projects on my list that I saved for the very end because it wouldn't make or break the look of the reception if I ran out of time. It would just be a nice extra touch if it did work out. I'd fallen in love with Ann Wood's ubiquitous birds like so many other brides before me (they were even part of the first gigantic inspiration board that I made ages ago), but we had absolutely no wiggle room in our budget by this point. If we had, I would have just bought several of hers and called it a day. Instead I figured I'd experiment and see if I could make my own on the cheap.

As you can see, mine are a lot more sloppy and no where near as cute as their inspiration, but they also didn't break the bank, so I'll call this project a success. I raided the local thrift shop for clothing and pillow cases in fabrics that complemented our wedding scheme because that ended up being much cheaper than yards of new fabric. I stuffed each bird with the insides of an old pillow and used wire and hot glue that Jesse already owned for their legs. It took one evening of experimenting with different patterns and several failed attempts to come up with the body shape that I had in mind. I completed the cutting, sewing, and stuffing of each bird's body while watching a movie or a couple of tv shows and tackled about one each night. I attached all of their beaks (felt, sewed or glued together), sewn eyes, and wire legs during one more evening of movie watching and added accessories (felt hat, mesh veil) to the bride and groom bird over the coarse of one morning. So I guess it took about a week of sporadic work to make all of the ones shown above + one extra legless bird that I tied to our card cage. All of the supplies (cloth, stuffing, felt) cost between $10 - $15 total, so this was a project cheap on money but not on time.

Since Jesse doesn't like the look of things plopped on top of a wedding cake, we decided to arrange the bride and groom birds beside our cake instead and add the other three to our sweet heart table centerpiece. A lot of the kids at our reception seemed enthralled by the birds, so I'll take that as a thumbs up on this project.

Getaway Vehicle

(documenting the first practice ride)

This wasn't a d.i.y. project at all, but I thought it could use a little bit of an explanation (if you haven't already fallen asleep from the rest of my over-exposition). I'd heard stories and seen photos of a tandem bike that Jesse's family owned, but had never actually seen it in person. Apparently they'd stuffed it in their attic a decade ago never to ride it again. I was determined to make it our getaway vehicle, especially since it was a vintage red Schwinn, even though it took many months of convincing to get Jesse on board. You see, he knows my clumsiness first hand. He was sure that this idea would end up a folly of skinned knees, torn clothing, broken bones or worse. But we took it out for a spin around the block with no major mishaps and I bought a short 2nd dress so that we wouldn't have to worry about my long train getting tangled in the spokes. After some cleaning and a replacing of the breaks he was convinced and the bike was ready to go.

Our ride was one of my favorite parts of the day. After all of the craziness (although fantastic craziness) of that morning and afternoon, it felt like a little bubble of peaceful bliss to escape for a few minutes and pedal down the wooded paths of the community center all by ourselves. I'm also happy to report that we didn't fall once! Now I just have to figure out a way to steal it and bring it back to our tiny apartment in Philadelphia.

Up Next: Flowers

HONEYMOON! (days 7 & 8)

2008-08-24T08:40:00.034-05:00

"This is the end, Beautiful friend"- The Doors

We took a variety of albums along with us on the trip that neither of us listened to all the way through or on a regular basis. (Many thanks to the UPenn library for their extensive collection) So we had a musical reeducation during our long drives. One of the albums being "Doors" by the Doors as mentioned above. Most of the selections were from Rolling Stones top 500 albums list. We listened to a lot of Beatles and Pink Floyd. I recommend Dark Side of the Moon if you ever find yourself driving through dark Redwood forests. Some of our favorites that got played through a few times were:

Devo- Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!

Pixies- Doolittle (listened to that A LOT)

The Zombies- Odessey & Oracle

The Kinks- We are the Village Green Preservation Society

Anyway, onto the day...
We left our chic little hotel in Big Sur and started back down CA 1. Big Sur was very foggy that morning and we drove through it for 45 minutes or so. It was really beautiful and peaceful.

We stopped off a couple of times to take pictures of the coast bathed in pea soup.

There were also a few places in Big Sur where we could really see the damage from the wildfires. This section shown above was pretty expansive and stretched over a couple of ranges. We piled back in the car and drove out of the fog eventually. The road around this area started to twist and turn a bit more and continued to have great views. We started seeing more sprawling farmland the closer we got to San Simeon. We were expecting to pass by Hurst Castle, which we weren't too interested in, but we were not expecting this...

In the San Simeon State Park area there is a elephant seal refuge. We saw the pull off from pretty far back , and weren't sure what it was. As we got closer I asked Deanna if those were really big shiny rocks or seals. We pulled in and got really close to these giants. They didn't do a whole lot. They were not as active as the seals or sea lions we saw before. They did bellow loudly, though, which was really incredible to hear. It was a very low but loud fog horn sound. There was also some type of wild squirrel there that was very used to human interaction. They would eat food right out of peoples' hands and even crawl up into their laps. After hanging out there for a little we drove on to San Luis Obispo. Deanna had found this hotel online that caught her interest. Its called the Madonna Inn. It features over 100 rooms, each of which has its own theme. We thought we would stop off there for a quick lunch, and weren't sure what to expect really. We got there and knew right away that this was going to be an experience. It felt like you were entering some sort of theme park.
Pink. Pink everywhere... The lamp posts were pink. The flowers were pink, the buildings were pink. We walked in and poked around a bit. We took a lot of pictures. I could make three posts strictly about this place, we have that much material...
Above is one of their dinning areas. I think this is where the dinner service is. As you can see, no one ever said "I don't know, maybe it's too much?" while decorating the Madonna Inn.
This is Deanna exploring the men's bathroom. Don't worry, no one else was in there, and I was keeping watch at the front door while photographing. Its a little hard to see here, but Deanna is standing at the urinal which is actually a large motion sensor waterfall. Yes, you pee into a waterfall and there is a drain in the floor at your feet. This was one of the two men's bathrooms I explored. The other had a large watermill and trough for the urinal and water pumps for the sink faucets.
This was the women's restroom in the lobby. Deanna was infatuated with this room. The whole time we were there she kept saying everything was INTENSE! The women's bathroom had chandeliers, pink iridescent wallpaper, and lots of deep red vinyl fabric, and lots of light bulbs. I forget if it was this one or the other ladies' room (I didn't venture in those, just saw pictures) that had a large strip of carved wood that said "YOUR BEAUTY IS YOUR SMILE".
We got our lunch in the Copper Cafe which is part of the hotel. This is a panorama of the area we were eating in. We were seated on puffy red leather stools at a counter. It was quite a place. We split a sandwich and then got a huge banana split dubbed the Madonna's Delight. The service was great and the food was good. I was expecting this place to be a little more seedy or weathered by age, but it's incredibly well kept and clean. We went over to the check-in area to look at postcards. They had postcards of a good majority of the rooms, if not all of them. Seeing all of those made us wish we had scheduled a night there. Check out the hotel and rooms here:
http://www.madonnainn.com/
We got back in the car to do another two hours or so drive to Ventura where we were staying for the night. On this stretch we were away from the coast. We were driving through a lot of rolling hills. We saw our first wine vineyards here. I was a little more impressed by those than Deanna. Neither of us are big wine drinkers, but it was a sight to see. We pulled into Ventura and found our hotel which was not too far off the main road. We were pleasantly surprised with a slightly upgraded room, which is always nice.
The hotel was next to the Ventura Marina, so this was the view from our second floor balcony. We relaxed for a few minutes, then changed into bathing suits and drove to the beach that was only about a 3 minute drive from the hotel.
The beach was really pretty and it was late enough (5-6ish maybe) that there weren't too many people around. We had yet to really go into the ocean since the water had been too cold further north. I was able to talk Deanna into coming in with me. So we got to dip into the Pacific which was fun. It was a little chilly, but not bad. We went back to the hotel and freshened up before heading to downtown Ventura for some dinner. We got a slice of pizza on main street and walked around for a bit.

I was pretty happy with this shot of Ventura at dusk

Ventura's City Hall, Father Junipero Serra statue

We tried navigating our way back to the hotel, which took a little guess work. We stopped off at a Circle K (several times on the trip I got to use the "Strange things are afoot at the Circle K" quote from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure) and picked up some snacks to take back to the hotel. I ran to the balcony just in time for the tail end of the sunset.

And got one more panorama of the marina at night. We kicked back the rest of the night and watched some cable. Deanna got to indulge in some popcorn and John and Kate Plus Eight in a king sized bed, tough to top. We got up early the next day in hopes of making one more trip to the beach. We went, but it was too cold and not sunny, so there was no more swimming for us. We got some breakfast, then were off to LA. LA......uhhhhh(long sigh, not a good sigh either) This was my grumpy day. I did not enjoy driving this day. We went down the coast through Malibu and all of the coastal beaches you hear about in movies and tv. It was pretty in parts, but cars were beginning to stack up. We eventually got to Santa Monica and did a few circles until we figured out where we were and parked. We walked on the beach for a bit toward the pier. We went through an adult playground area with exercise stations. I tried out an enormous row of metal ring swings and determined I am not destined to be on American Gladiators. Deanna faired much better on the curvy balance beam. We walked around the rides and stopped in an arcade looking for a picture booth. For those of you who don't know, Deanna loves picture booths. They can't be the newer digital ones though, they have to be film process.

We also hit one earlier on the trip in San Francisco. She appears to be clawing my eyes out it both.

This was taken from the pier looking down at the Santa Monica beach. On our way back we saw a lot of Segways for rent. They seemed to be as popular as the bike rentals, and they had kid sized Segways which I hadn't seen before. The rest of the day was planned very vaguely. We knew we wanted to see Sunset Boulevard, and Mulholland Drive. So we drove, and drove and drove. Nothing was within walking distance, and once you got to one destination, the rest of the sites were still very spread out. We drove around LA for 4 hours, stopping shortly for lunch at Arby's. So we covered a lot of ground, but didn't feel like we saw a lot. Beverly Hills had some pretty parts. We drove through studio city by accident which was probably my highlight of the day. We pulled off at a vista view on top of a hill and saw the Hollywood sign. We saw it throughout the day and kinda thought, "well, there it is". So LA was not our favorite place on earth. I think if we had found a couple specific places we wanted to see it would have been better, but we left with the impression that it was just an odd and kind of dirty city. So we looked around for cheap gas (which ranged from $4.50 a gallon to $4.17 a gallon on the same block) and a carwash. We got to the airport and checked in. Our plane ended up being delayed by an hour because we had to de-board and get on a different plane, but aside from that everything went smooth. We both slept for the majority of the overnight trip. We had to run a bit in JFK airport due to our plane delay, but we made it and got back to Philadelphia in one piece. Once back at our apartment we collapsed for a couple of hours. The next couple of days were a little slow paced as well until we got back into the groove of things.

It was a fantastic trip! We both had a lot of fun, and gained a ton of new experiences. I liked the north much more than the south, but we really enjoyed Ventura and the Madonna Inn, too, so I wouldn't change a thing.(except maybe skipping LA) I hope we get a chance to travel a lot more in our future since Deanna makes a very good travel partner and navigator. Thanks for reading about our journey!

Professional Photos (Reception)

2008-08-19T12:11:00.009-05:00

Finally, our professional reception photos. It was really hard just picking a few to post here, so check out the rest of the flickr collection if you want to see more. I might add one or two stragglers to that site sometime during the week, but otherwise I'm through uploading wedding photos.

I know I'm posting a lot of detail shots of flowers and craft projects, but being around all of our friends and family was really what made the day so special for us.

Like always, click each photo to enlarge and all should be credited to the amazing Mariano Delgado (although we added our own photoshop flourishes to #s 24 and 25 )

our sweetheart table

the table card for our sweet heart table

favors

guestbook

part of a garland of our parents' and grandparents' wedding photos (my grandparents above didn't have a wedding photo so we used this cute one instead)

my bouquet and some birds (i'll write a post about that project and our flowers soon)

our yummy cake. we also served mini fruit tarts, eclairs and several pies made by Jesse's mom

i'm about to stab my new groom

nope, we decide to eat cake instead!

first dance

about to toss the bouquet

my cousin, Kristin, is the lucky winner

Jesse congratulating Bucher for catching the garter

our getaway ride! (I'll post more about this soon, too)

Up Next: A return to the final detail posts and more honeymoon goodness from Jesse

HONEYMOON! (days 5 & 6)

2008-08-14T21:34:00.017-05:00

We checked out of our hotel, The Mosser, in the morning and drove to Santa Cruz. This took us between and hour-and-a-half and two hours. It was a pretty drive, but not as dramatic as the northern coast. Deanna was pretty sleepy this morning, probably due to our long day of walking in San Francisco, but she perked up pretty quickly once we reached the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.

The sky trail that goes almost the entire length of the boardwalk.

A panorama of the Santa Cruz boardwalk. Click the image to see it bigger.

Ball Bath?

Nope, not a ball bath

We walked down the boardwalk for a while and checked out the attractions. We decided we should hit up our second carousel of the trip before anything else. We tracked down a ticket booth and figured out all of the attractions we wanted to ride.
Our first stop - the carousel. An older gentleman riding the horse next to me was kind enough to offer to take a picture of us enjoying the ride. The carousel itself of really beautiful and well kept. It was a lot older than the one we rode in San Francisco, and all of the horses went up and down, instead of just a select few. We even needed to wear seat belt on this one as you can see above. The best feature about it was an arm that stretched out from the wall and came close to the riders on the outside horses. The arm dispensed small metal rings that the riders could grab and try to throw in the mouth of a clown painted on the back wall (see below).
This was quite a task since the clown was a good ten yards from the horses. When people did get their ring in all sorts of bells and whistles and lights would go off. We weren't on the outside of the carousel, so we didn't have much of a chance, but there were plenty of rings on the ground after the ride was over that we tried our best with.
Our next ride was the Giant Dipper, a wooden roller coaster from 1924. It was featured in the 80's movie Lost Boys, which was as exciting for us as the ride itself. (read: VERY exciting, just in case you're not a Lost Boys fan) It was a very jostling and rough ride, but a lot of fun. Deanna isn't a fan of heights, so she was a little excitable as our car climbed up the first hill. After the coaster we walked down the rest of the stretch and got some food. We then went out onto the beach. It was still pretty mild that day, but that didn't stop some of the beach-goers from playing in the cold water.Deanna really liked the lifeguard stands. She thought they looked like lunar landers or something. We went back and rode the sky track after walking on the sand for a bit. The kid working the sky track said we could hold onto our tickets as we stretched them out to him. This almost happened on the coaster as well. We could have just walked passed the girl working there, but gave her the tickets and she just kinda look at us for a second before taking them. The beach was a very happy place and just seemed like it was filled with really nice people. We had a really fun afternoon in Santa Cruz. From here we drove toward our hotel in Monterey. This shouldn't have been a long drive, but we ran into quite a bit of traffic and had some long bumper-to-bumper waits. We drove through some pretty farm land and eventually entered Monterey. We checked into our hotel and were happy to find it a very quiet place, even though it was close to the airport. I think during our whole stay I only noticed the sound from two planes, and neither was late at night or early in the morning, so we were very pleased. We drove into Monterey to get some dinner and went to a strip of restaurants and shops called Cannery Row.

We were really disappointed with this area and Monterey as a whole. We weren't expecting to be blown away by anything, but it was really touristy and the place we ate at wasn't anything special. The two ladies and four kids sitting at the table next to ours didn't help matters. They seemed to yell non-stop during our entire meal. But oh well. We went to Ghiradelli's afterward to get some ice cream for me and hot chocolate for Deanna. It had started to get cold and she needed a little warm up. We drove through the downtown area and liked that a little more. We wished we would have walked around there instead, in retrospect. We finally made it back to the hotel, which was comfortable and a nice size and watched a movie, finally getting to kick back and rest a little.

A photo in the adjustable bathroom mirrors in our Monterey hotel, before we left in the morning.

We left Monterey early in the morning and drove toward Big Sur, which was not very far away at all. As we got closer, the mountain ranges to our left grew bigger and bigger.
We crossed over a couple of older-looking tall bridges that made Deanna squirm and then entered into Big Sur. There is not a lot there, it's mostly comprised of a couple of state parks, and a couple of small shopping areas. We went to the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park first and got out to hike for a little bit. A couple of the paths were closed due to the wild fires, so our choices were a little limited. Deanna had told me previous to the trip that she was not doing any hiking. I dismissed this and figured once she got into the beauty of nature she would be into it. I was sorely mistaken. We walked the trail for 10 minutes or so and she was done, so we turned back around. Deanna wasn't feeling great on this day, so it wasn't the best time to be in an area based solely on outdoor activities. We got back in the car and drove to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park (She and her husband were responsible for the conservation of the area, which is why so many areas are named after them). This park had a short trail leading to a really beautiful view of the ocean and a waterfall spilling out into it. Deanna was a trooper and came out on the trail with me. She was feeling a little better at this point, and perked up a little once we got out to the waterfall.

This is the tunnel that we walked through on the trail that goes under CA 1.

A panorama of the view from the end of the trail. You can click it for a larger view.

A closer view of the McWay Waterfall

us on the trail

A bird that I got some pictures of as we were leaving the park. I haven't been able to figure out what it is yet, so if any bird folks out there know, please comment below. (UPDATED: My buddy Jack who comes into the lab at work from time to time, and is a bird phenom, was able to identify this bird in the blink of an eye; it is a Steller's Jay.)

From there we started to search for Pfieffer Beach. We found a couple of sets of directions to it, but they were all proud of the fact that the road leading to it was not labeled. So we had to turn around once or twice to find it. We went down a 2-mile thin, winding road to get to the beach. It was really cold and windy once we finally made it there, so we didn't stay for long.

We amused ourselves for a while watching a couple of kids doing flips down the sand dunes and huddled behind a big rock by the ocean to shield ourselves from the wind. It was a pretty beach, but not the best beach experience ever.
On the way out we did see these beautiful pine trees that had their roots exposed. We snapped a couple pictures, then made our way back up the curvy road.
We checked into the Glen Oaks Motel after the beach and were really happy to see the posh room we got. The property didn't look like much from the outside, but the 60's mod room really saved Deanna's day. She was quick to correct me in that THIS was her favorite hotel. The bathroom was really outstanding as well and featured heated stone floors, a giant round mirror, and expansive walk in shower. We spent the rest of our day here, playing with the puppy at the motel office, napping, and then we getting a late lunch. We ate dinner (ok, it was actually just dessert) at the restaurant across the street, and it was tasty.The rest of the night was laid back. We played scrabble, one of many games the motel provided and got to bed pretty early.

Professional Photos (Reception Teaser)

2008-08-14T09:43:00.007-05:00

I just wanted to give you the heads up that we've slowly started adding reception photos on our flickr site here. There are still more to sort through and upload, but we'll try to finish that set over the weekend. I'll add post more photos up here then, but here's one to tied you over in the meantime.

photo credited to mariano delgado

Professional Photos (Couple Portraits)

2008-08-10T12:36:00.008-05:00

As promised, here's the next set of photos. These were taken at several very picturesque spots along the away between the ceremony and reception locations. I mentioned earlier that I'm much more of a city girl than a country girl, but these photos just justify our decision to have our wedding in Jesse's hometown. There's no way we'd be able to get those cornfield shots near our apartment in Philly! There are more on our flickr set (and I still plan to add a few more to that set in the next couple of days), plus the three teaser ones that i LOVE that I posted about a few weeks back.

Click to enlarge. All photos credited to Mariano Delgado

Up next: Reception photos!

HONEYMOON! (Days 3 & 4)

2008-08-10T11:31:00.022-05:00

We started our day feeling very refreshed. We had really enjoyed our stay at the Wharf Master's Inn in Point Arena and were ready for another full day of travel. As we started back down Ca 1 we approached Gualala, which Deanna and I both enjoyed saying each time we saw a sign for it. I threw on the brakes and pulled off rather suddenly when I saw these beauties on the side of the road.

There were about six full sized metal dinosaurs (and a King Kong) stationed at a landscaping business on the side of the road. There were a few smaller ones scattered around as well. They were a fun surprise early on in our day.
Our first scheduled stop of the day was the Salt Point State Park. We saw a general sign for the park area, which was then scattered with exits to access the different beaches. Deanna saw a really pretty inlet as we were coming around the bend of a cliff and said "THAT ONE! GET US THERE!". As luck would have it there was a sign shortly after that and we were able to get to Stump Beach. There was only one other car in the parking area as we pulled in, and had very little company the whole time we were there, which was nice. The beach was beautiful and really reminded me of the Oregon coast where my grandparents lived. It was a really breathtaking view when we came out of the pine tree lined area and got a full view of the beach. (see panorama)

Stump Beach at Salt Point State Park

We have fun going down the big set of wooden steps and exploring the tide pools and beach. It was very peaceful and quiet. We skipped some of the stones that lined portions of the sand on the water, and took in the view.

We took our last looks at Stump Beach and started back up the stairs. We hoped back in the car and came across many many stunning views. There were a lot of pull off shoulders on Ca 1 for people to stop and take pictures, and we stopped at a few of those. Here is an attempted panorama from one of those, but it didn't stitch together too cleanly with the shifting ocean and expansive view. Its still pretty though...

This one is almost a 360 degree view, so the rental car on the left and Deanna on the right were actually pretty close to each other. Deanna is looking at a lizard in the brush there. We saw a couple of these on this day at different places.
They weren't huge. If I stretched my thumb and pointer finger as far apart as I could, it was probably about that long from head to tail. At one of these shoulders we saw coming up we noticed a crowd of five or six cars were pulled off. This was a rare site. At this point in the trip we could drive for 20 minutes without seeing a car in front of us or behind us. We took this as a cue and pulled off behind a pickup truck with a rack on it. After a few seconds we said "SURFERS". I had seen one guy surfing earlier this morning from the balcony of our hotel room, but this was our first glimpse of a group. Deanna sat in the car for a couple minutes refilling the film in her camera. I got out to explore and discovered this sign and a group of seals on the beach below.
We were really excited and found a semi-steep trail down to the sand. (The pull off was pretty high up on a cliff, as was most of the road) We got down and checked out the surfers briefly then got to see the seals from across a waterway connecting with the ocean.

We had binoculars with us and could see them pretty clearly through those. I am not 100% sure they are seals, but they didn't look like the sea lions we eventually saw in San Francisco. We watched them play and swim for a while before heading back to the road. The drive to San Francisco seemed to take a while. The road turned inland for a while, but it still had some nice views of rolling hills and livestock. We stopped at Point Reyes for Lunch at the Cowboy Cafe and got some really good pulled pork sandwiches. We then pushed on the San Francisco and got treated to some really dramatic views from VERY high cliffs.
Before driving into San Francisco we pulled off at the Golden Gate Recreation Park and took in the view.

It was pretty cold and very windy up there, but such a view. Deanna was a little grumpy at this point from riding in the car for so long, but I think she had cheered up by the time we were done.
There was a former military base at the same site that we explored a little before heading into the city. We got to our hotel, "The Mosser" and after circling the block 3 times (which took a while) we were able to park and work things out with valet. We stored the car for the next two nights and opted to travel San Francisco on foot and by public transit. After settling into our tiny but cute hotel room we met up with our friends Chris and Erica and got some dinner with them. We ate well and had a fun first night out in the city.
Chris and Erica were nice enough to take Friday off, so the whole next day was spent touring the city with them. And they were very good tour guides. We took an old trolley train to Fisherman's Wharf at Pier 39, which is a big tourist area.

Deanna, Chris, and Erica at Pier 39

We found a carousel there and Deanna almost immediately talked everyone into riding.
Deanna is riding sidesaddle here if you can't figure out what your seeing in the picture. We all turned into 5 year old pretty quickly once we got on.
Also at the pier are the famous seal lion rafts. We spent a while there watching them bellow and push each other off the floats. They were very animated and seemed like seasoned professional at entertaining the onlookers.

We walked further down the waterfront and stopped at the Musee Mechanique, a museum of old coin-op machines(all working) that you could actually play. We used up a roll of quarters there pretty quickly between the four of us. Deanna and I both like old, mechanical things, so this place really got us worked up.

For lunch we went to the In and Out Burger, which I had been anticipating for a while. It didn't let me down, and I think everyone enjoyed a nice greasy burger and fries on our fun day out.
We then waited in line for the famous trolley cars with the open sides. Chris and I risked life and limb and rode on the outside. We got off at Lombard Street (the most crooked street in the world) and walked down that. It was a beautiful street with lots of flowers and pretty houses.
From there we got back on the trolley car and headed toward Chris and Erica's area of town in the Haight. They toured us through Golden Gate Park and took us to a really beautiful art museum (De Young). We went up to the 9th floor of the museum which had walls of glass from floor to ceiling all the way around, giving us a full view of the city in all directions.

Inside Elevator At De Young Museum

The museum was wonderfully designed and had a lot of art built into the structure, like this gold leaf wall that was on both sides of a tunnel you went through at the entrance.
We got some dinner with Chris and Erica at a fun place called "Cha Cha Cha" before heading back to our hotel for the night. We really felt like we saw the whole city (I know we didn't) in that day. Thanks to Chris and Erica for showing us all the tourist traps and all of the stuff we would have never discovered if we were on our own.

Professional Photos (getting ready & ceremony)

2008-08-07T13:16:00.012-05:00

While Jesse's posting our honeymoon photos, I'll get to work on our professional photos. Mariano (our photographer) sent us almost 1200 photos in both color and black and white, so it's taking us a little while to sort through them all and pick our favorites. It's easier to break them down into chronological sets, so here is the first batch - photos taken while we were getting ready and during the ceremony in Lititz Springs Park. We're really happy with Mariano's work and he was a pleasure to be around on our wedding day. Looking through all of these photos is like reliving the day all over again. We would highly recommend him to other couples in the NY-NJ-PA area

My mom and dad kept me company in my hotel room before we got to the ceremony site. I'm showing my insane asylum smile so that clearly means I was excited for the day to begin.

Since Jesse didn't want to see me before I walked down the aisle, it meant that he had to get the ceremony site ready by himself (with help from our friends).

we're married!

Click on any of the photos to enlarge them. All photos credited to Mariano Delgado.

Larger versions of these and many more professional photos from this part of the day are posted here on our flickr site if you're interested.

Up next: Jesse and I romping around scenic Lancaster Co. before going to the reception

HONEYMOON! (days 1 &2)

2008-08-07T11:50:00.021-05:00

Our professional wedding photos arrived the day before we left on our honeymoon (a week long roadtrip down the coast of California), so, we are going to do things a little backwards. The wedding photos are still being sorted through and Deanna will start posting some of those later today, but the honeymoon photos are ready to roll.

We just got back from California yesterday and had a blast traveling down the coast for about a week. We fit in a lot of stuff, saw some friends and enjoyed not talking about money, weddings, jobs, and all that jazz.

We left on Tuesday, July 29th at 8:45 am to go to the Philadelphia airport. We had a long day of traveling, going on three separate legs, and exploring four of the country's finer airports.
The only highlight to share on this day was the Detroit airport. If you are ever there make sure to check out the connecting tunnel between the A gate and the B & C gates. We have been there before, and always like spending some time being dazzled by the WillyWonka-like lightshow and music. The tunnel is constantly changing colors and has Blue Man Group sounding music playing in it.

Me (Jesse) in the tunnel

The first of many panoramic photos I took by stringing several images together in Photoshop. This is Deanna in the Detroit tunnel. You can click it to see it larger.

We went from Philadelphia, to Detroit, to Salt Lake City, to Arcata/Eureka airport(we are deal hounds, and the more legs the cheaper the fare). We got into our hotel by about 11pm Pacific time. Since we were on Eastern time still it felt more like 2am to us.

We got up in the morning and drove south down Highway 101 to the Avenue of the Giants. This is a large state park area that has some of the largest Redwood trees in the world. We got to go inside a one room house built in the base of one of the trees. We stopped off at a lot of scenic views, and stood next to trees that made us feel like ants. We also drove our rental car through a giant tree.

Jesse in front of really big tree

Deanna in front of another really big tree. This one was over 300 ft tall.

Us in front of our rental car in the middle of the Redwoods

Me confronting one of my childhood (ok, and adult) heroes as we left the Avenue of the Giants
Deanna at the (1st) intersection of Highway 101 and California 1 in Leggett, Ca

After we got through the Redwoods we drove down Ca 1 for a while. Almost immediately after we started on 1 there was a curvy arrow sign telling up the next 22 miles would be winding. It was not lying. We drove up a mountain through constant twists and turns. The steering wheel was not held in a stagnant position during those next 22 miles. It was a little dizzying. But after that we were rewarded with our first look at the Pacific Ocean from a pull off at the top of a big cliff. We drove on for another 20 minutes or so until we happened across the first beach you could actually access by foot and walk about onto. The fog was rolling in as we drove, and the beach was covered in the thick mist. It was really beautiful and made the stop seem very surreal.

Our first beach stop on the trip. Click to enlarge.

Deanna atop a large 30ft rock we climbed on the same beach.
She's trying out her heart shaped honeymoon glasses here.

After exploring the beach for a little while we drove on to Mendocino and got some lunch. It was a cute little artist community that was smaller than I was expecting. It was filled with boutiques, galleries, and eateries. We drove on to Point Arena where we spent the night. We stayed at the Wharf Master's Inn which overlooked the ocean and and pretty fishing pier. It was my favorite hotel of the stay (and maybe Deanna's as well). They were the only ones to wish us congratulations and a happy honeymoon, and had really cute rooms with a nice view. I am just going to post these a day or two at a time since we fit so much in, so check back soon for the following days...

detail post #4: the guest book

2008-07-25T13:02:00.005-05:00

Now on to the one DIY project that heard about the most from our guests - our guestbook.

For a long time, we just assumed that we would go to craft store, pick out a cute, relatively inexpensive guest book and say "done". No fuss, no mess, no hours spent on another project. But, then we got to thinking about it....we wanted to have something that wouldn't end up dusty and stored away in a closet or a box somewhere. We wanted it to actually tell the story of our six year relationship and feel like "us". All of this of course meant that another project had to be added to our list. So we made this:

(click any of the photos to enlarge)

Actually, Blurb made this, we just designed and formatted it all. Our book was the smallest (7x7 inches), cheapest ($25 with the help of an online coupon) hard bound option they offered. We were happy with their print quality, the thickness and glossiness of the interior pages, and their easy design and formatting options. If I were to grade them, I'd give them an A, and we'll probably use them again for future projects.

Jesse has probably never thrown anything away in his life. It's a personality quirk that I usually curse but came to treasure during the making of this book. It meant that we still had school ID cards from the year we met, receipts from our first date, notes and letters that we'd written each other, and ticket stubs to nearly every movie, concert and play we'd attended together. And we packed all of that stuff in, surrounded by years of photo booth strips and short written descriptions to give our guests a handy 40 page synopsis of our relationship. We were happy with how it turned out, but even happier with the well-wishes and nice notes that our guests wrote inside (these photos were taken weeks before the wedding - the lined pages are now covered with awesome-ness).

next detail post: misc. last minute design projects

Mariano is such a tease

2008-07-23T09:16:00.006-05:00

The rest of the detail posts have to wait for the moment because our incredibly awesome photographer, Mariano Delgado, just e-mailed me three unedited teaser photos from our wedding day!

click each photo to enlarge. All images copyright Mariano Delgado.

I'm practically salivating at the jaw to see the rest of them. Mr. Delgado must be magic. That's the only way he could have made my very ungraceful trip-slide-fall-fall-slide down that little hill in three inch heels and layers of tulle look so elegant. Jesse just looks as dapper as always.

detail post #3: the table cards

2008-07-22T10:02:00.005-05:00

We decided to keep our tables organized by numbers, rather than naming them after significant landmarks or species of wildlife or something else just as esoteric, because Jesse and I are rather simple people and numbers are easy to follow. But, because I just can't seem to leave any project without some sort of unnecessary work, we designed them as folding stand up cards with the numbers on the front acting as age numbers and corresponding photos of us at that age on the inside. Why am I even describing this - the photos explain it all:

(click to enlarge)

Front view. We had nine guest tables and put table zero (our newborn photos) at our sweet heart table.

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

My favorite of the interior photos. Unknowingly, and from different states, our mothers dressed us in matching outfits for our kindergarten photos. You can see more examples of the rest of the cards here.

They were pretty easy to make. Scanning and cleaning up all the photos took a little time, but gave us a great excuse to dig through our parents' old albums again. We designed them using Adobe Illustrator and printed them out on white card stock with out ink jet printer. These also helped to persuade us not to make any sort of video to show during the wedding reception. We figured between these photos and our guest book (which I'll post about next), our guests would have their fill of our shiny mugs. Also, we completely ran out of time.

next detail post: the guest book

detail post #2: the favors

2008-07-20T18:30:00.010-05:00

Jesse and I knew from the start that we didn't want to go the tchotchke route with our wedding favors. I wouldn't have much use for a picture frame or mug engraved with another couples' name and wedding date, so why would our guests? We did want our favors to be fun and kinda silly, but also include something edible, because not everyone likes "silly", but who doesn't like free eats?

We fell in love with the carnival grab-bag feel of the favors used at these two weddings, and decided to completely steal their ideas and pass them off as our own.

our inspiration

L: martha stewart's weddings winter 2006 via oh happy day R: knottie academy beldam

(click to enlarge)

our favors

(click to enlarge)

And a breakdown of what's inside and where they came from for anyone else who wants to be "inspired" as well:

1. The zip lock bags were ordered in bulk from lemelange.com.

2. We used a free online generator to make a personalized crossword puzzle and then I redesigned a prettier version using Adobe Illustrator. We printed them out with our trusty ink jet printer on cream card stock with the answers on the back.

3. #2 pencil from staples (for filling out the crossword). Jesse was awesome and sharpened at least 75 pencils beforehand.

4. The Wilbur chocolate factory is right next door to our ceremony site in Lititz, so we had to include a bag of Wilbur buds (like larger versions of Hershey kisses).

5. Two swirly candy sticks in complementary colors bought from the local penny candy store in bulk because they're pretty and not everyone likes chocolate.

6. The boys got fake moustaches* (ordered from www.dealextreme.com) and the girls got see-through paper glasses (ordered from oriental trading). We would have included both in everyone's bag, but we were determined to stick to our favor budget and figured people would trade with their friends if they wanted to.

*A note about the moustaches - their original backing was kind of ugly, so Jesse designed new cards to stick them to - I think he did a super fantastic job. Also, I heard from a few guests that not all of their sticky backs came off. They were really, really cheap, so it was to be expected, but I saw enough guests wearing one to know that most did work.

7. Jesse also designed some cards with different retro cameras on the front and instructions on the back for uploading digital photos to our flickr site. We printed those with a laser printer and included one in each bag.

So, that's it. Jesse designed the tags that we stapled to the tops of the bags. They served double-duty as escort cards as well as favor tags, so that when the guests entered the reception, they could pick up their favors and figure out which table they were assigned to at the same time. I love combining two projects into one.

Jesse picked up so much design slack the last two weeks before the wedding because I got swamped with illustration assignments. I was so happy with everything that he created for this project that I wish I had given him all of the design duties from the get go.

Even if our guests didn't notice his killer design and typography skills, I think some of them still enjoyed the contents.

(various guests' photos - click to enlarge)

next detail post: the table cards

detail post #1: the dress(es)

2008-07-16T10:03:00.006-05:00

Since our professional photos won't be ready for another 2-4 weeks, we figured we'd pass the time with some posts covering all of the wedding details we hadn't already described. These are things we hadn't posted before either because we didn't want to ruin the surprise for our guests or because we were still working on them up until the wedding.

Since our guests have already seen all of these details in person, these posts are geared mainly toward readers who might be planning their own weddings.

The first detail to report, of course, is the dress. Or I should make that the dresses, because I kind of became of a "two dress bride" (albeit a very cheap one).

I posted earlier about finding my wedding gown. I loved the thick silk material, its 1940s style and shape, the buttons that ran down the back, the rounded seams in the front, and most of all its extremely affordable price.....but it was at least 3 sizes too large.

I found a fantastic seamstress in Lititz (where we got married), who was much more affordable than most of the ones in Philly and after several trials, she magically shrunk my dress. She even made a few other modifications at my request which made the dress almost begin to feel like a couture creation. The cathedral train was dramatically shortened, a one point bustle was added, the neckline was pulled back further, and the beads at the center of the v-neck were removed completely. In the end I got the dress of my dreams for $300 total. I love how it turned out and would highly recommend Karen Chow to anyone needing alterations in the Lancaster County area of Pennsylvania.

Before

(click to enlarge)

After

(click to enlarge)

My dress was super comfortable (one of my requirements while dress shopping) and I would have worn it all night long, but I needed a second, shorter dress for our getaway (I'll cover more on that soon). I had envisioned a fun, slightly retro party dress for this one, but it had to be cheap since I hadn't left any room in the budget for it. About a month before the wedding, my mother-in-law took me on a mad dash through most of the stores in their mall and I found this one at Boscov's department store:

(click to enlarge)

this photo was taken during my last hair trial and the band-aid on my ankle is due to a the worst cut i ever got while shaving, only a week before the wedding....like i said, i'm a complete klutz.

It was in the junior's department along with the after prom "sale" dresses, marked down from $65 to $20. And because I can't seem to leave anything well enough alone, I removed a couple of bows in the front and added an extra layer of tulle to make the skirt a more poufy. I felt like a glitter-y ball of party tulle while wearing it which pleased the 5 year old inside me to no end.

Next detail post to go: the favors

We Survived!!!

2008-07-14T11:57:00.003-05:00

photo by Jen Colburn (I think?)

It was getting crazy the closer we got, but both Deanna and I somehow survived the wedding and made it through. We had a wonderful time and want to thank everyone for coming. It was so nice to see all of the people we love in one room together. You can see some of the pictures people have posted from the wedding so far at our flickr site:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessedeanna
If you would like to upload your own photos to share with everyone, and you lost your photo upload instruction card, feel free to email Deanna or me and we can give you the name and password. ( deannastaffo@yahoo.com or jesse_turnbull@yahoo.com )
We'd like the thank everyone for your help, long trips, and for sharing our special day with us. Once we get our professional photos back, and maybe some video, we will post them on the blog.
-Jesse

marriage license!

2008-06-15T21:22:00.003-05:00

We spent the weekend in Lititz hammering out some final wedding details. One of the most important details is pictured below. We got our marriage license!

engagement photos

2008-06-04T22:32:00.007-05:00

One of Jesse's coworkers at the University of Pennsylvania is an extremely awesome guy. Not only is David an awesome baker of cakes, collector of numerous objects, and all around nice guy, but he is also a fantastic photographer. He agreed to take a couple of engagement photos for us yesterday and went way above and beyond the call of duty. Although Jesse and I are definitely not cut out to be models, we had a great time running all over the UPenn campus. Here are a couple of our favorites (brace yourself for major Deanna & Jesse overload):

There are more here, if you want to check them out.

Guest Attire

2008-05-31T22:16:00.005-05:00

I can't believe our year-and-a-half-plus engagement is finally six weeks away from it's end! We haven't posted in forever, mainly because we've been busy working on craft projects for the wedding and don't want to spoil them for the guests. So, I thought I'd post about something fun instead - guest attire!

photo from Martha Stewart Weddings Spring 2006, via bklynbride

So far, whenever anyone has asked what the dress code for the wedding will be, I've replied very vaguely "garden party attire" or "summer semi-formal", two expressions that don't help people out very much. So, in an attempt to be more helpful, I've written this post.

According to a recent post on weddingbee.com (one of the numerous wedding blogs I read and will be glad to give up after July 12th), the two more formal terms for what I have in mind are:

Informal - Suits, or dress shirts with or without ties, and slacks for men; short or tea length party dresses for women.

Dressy Casual - Similar to the above, but khakis are also appropriate for men (but not Jeans), and sun dresses and skirts are included for women.

But, seriously, we love all of our guests and if they showed up in Halloween costumes we'd still welcome them with open arms.

I wish I remembered whose blog I stole this from, but I *heart* the kid dressed like the paper bag!

flowers

2008-04-23T09:04:00.004-05:00

If only daffodils were still in bloom in July (they're not, sadly), this would be my ideal bouquet.

It was created by Ez from the blog Creature Comforts using flowers from Trader Joe's and a velvet ribbon from a craft store and a thrift store earring. I love how simple, elegant and sunny it is. Even if I can't replicate the flowers, I'll still keep the monochromatic, hand-tied look in mind.

Paper Goodness

2008-04-15T11:40:00.009-05:00

Our RSVPs have started arriving in the mailbox (!!), so I think it's finally safe for me to post about our invitations. I should warn you, Jesse already thinks I'm completely crazy to take so many photos of pieces of paper, but what can I say, these were my babies for the last few months. He already knows he's going to be marrying a very crazy lady.

(click any of the photos to enlarge)

Our save-the-date postcard, which we mailed a few months back

Jesse and I discussed the imagery and he kindly let me be the one to do the drawing. I *heart* the stamps we used (and you guys know my love for stamps).

Invitation envelope

After a mix-up with some envelopes we ordered, we just decided to make our own out of card stock and use the others for thank you card envelopes. Jesse was less than thrilled to add another home-made project to our plate, but I think it was worth it. The calligraphy was an experiment for me, but turned out to actually be very relaxing (after some horrendous first attempts).

The whole invitation suite

Of course I had to lay it out like a fake Martha Stewart magazine spread

A detail of the invitation and RSVP card

Yep, they're drawings of us drawing each other........cause we're illustrators. I did the one on the top left and he did the one on the top right (but made himself look so much less attractive than he really is, shame on him).

All lined up and ready to leave the nest

.......and pretending to be synchronized swimmers.

But this post wouldn't be complete without the obligatory photos of Jesse and I looking completely disgruntled while we put these together.

It wasn't really that bad, we just have our "concentrating" faces on. Notice how messy the rest of the room is while our supplies are so neatly stacked - house cleaning unfortunately took a back seat during this stage of wedding planning. And before I end this post, I must give a shout out to my beloved paper trimmer and corner rounder, the c0- MVPs of our crafting tools. They made the process so much smoother...along with a very patient fiance.

**update: larger images and more detail shots can be found here on my flickr wedding planning site.

Registry Info

2008-04-09T08:02:00.003-05:00

Having our friends and family attend our wedding is gift enough, especially since most are flying in from all over the country - which is already a super luxurious gift to us. But, Jesse and I thought we'd register at one store anyway. So, now there's a new link on the right side of the page with the beginnings of our target registry. There are still a few more things we're going to add to it, but since we're now in *double digits* until the wedding day, we thought we should post it as soon as possible. If we decide to register anywhere else we'll add it to the list, but we probably won't...because we like to keep things simple like that.

ties for guys and a little tease

2008-04-01T09:00:00.006-05:00

We finally found five matching ties for all of the male members of our wedding party (Best Man, both Fathers, and our two wonderful ushers). Jesse and his Dad stumbled upon the perfect color that I had in mind (a light silver/grey) for only $13 each while at T.J. Maxx. They're Donald Trump brand, and I have no idea if that's good or not, but they look like they're good quality to my untrained eye so I don't care. We just need to press or steam out a couple of wrinkles and they'll be set. The men are going to pair them with white shirts and their own suits (in either black, navy or grey). It doesn't matter to me if all of the suits aren't the same color - we're not going for an extremely matchy-matchy wedding scheme. The ties should help create a simple, cohesive, classy look (hopefully!).

Jesse agreed to model again as long as I promised not to show his face (but why, it's so nice?).

with a black jacket

with a navy jacket
(Jesse doesn't own a grey jacket, so you'll just have to use your imagination for that one)

And I'll leave you with a sneak peak of what occupied most of our weekend. We put these babies in the mail today, and after we know that most of our guests have received them, we'll post a few more details.

it's getting very real now

2008-03-23T21:29:00.005-05:00

Sorry for the complete lack of posts lately. It's because we've actually been getting a lot of wedding things done. Exhibit A in my defense:

Our wedding bands!

I can actually see the end in sight. Only about 3.5 more months until we're actually able to start wearing them (but just between you and me, every once in a while I like to try my band on and forget to take it off....for a couple of hours).

Our fake plastic dog likes them, too.

We've also picked out our cake and are about to mail our invitations! But, those deserve their own posts. Now that so much is going on, I'll just have to remember to write about it.

my seamstress is a superhero

2008-01-26T22:30:00.001-05:00

You know how in my wedding shoe post, I described all of the klutziness precautions (ankle straps, thick heels, etc) my shoes had to have? There is a reason for that I constantly have to be prepared for falling down, spilling staining liquid, and breaking priceless objects. Here is a story to illustrate why.

While at my wedding dress alterations appointment a couple of weekends ago, everything seemed to be going swimmingly. Karen, my seamstress, was very pleasant and confidently started pinning up the sides as soon as I put my dress on. Well, no more than five minutes passed before atrocity struck. While chatting with Karen about whether I wanted my hem one inch off the floor or floor length (I opted for 1 inch due to our outdoor ceremony), I felt a wetness on the thumb and index fingers of my right hand. Looking down, I saw that they were covered in blood! Without even wondering what had happened, I immediately checked to see if any had fallen on my dress. My heart almost stopped. My once snow white silk dress now had two bright crimson exclamation points of horror running along the side of it!!

When Karen had pinned the sides of my dress, some of the sharp ends of the pins were facing up and because I gesticulate wildly when I talk (and have the deadly combination of poor coordination and lack of perception), my thumb brushed against them without me even noticing. As soon as I alerted Karen, she sprang into superhero mode, wrapping my thumb in a kleenex while blotting out the blood with a damp paper towel at the same time. Amazingly, the blood spots came completely out! The water dried without leaving a mark! That is why I love my seamstress even before I've seen any of her finished alterations to my dress.

That is also why I'm going to have to wrap may hands completely in cotton and avoid all dark liquids and messy food on my wedding day. Me and white silk just don't get along.

p.s. - Sorry I can't post photos of the alterations process. my future mother in law was awesome and took many, but Jesse is still determined not to see my dress before the big day.

Photographer!

2008-01-17T21:19:00.000-05:00

Last Friday Deanna and I ventured into the depths of New Jersey to find ourselves a wedding photographer. We met with Mariano at a Starbucks in Princeton to look at his portfolio and to discuss wedding photo things. He was a very kind and talented gent who lives outside of NYC. After talking for a while we felt very comfortable with him and confident that he could get the job done. So we finally found our wedding photographer after months of searching. (most of that credit goes to Deanna) Here is a link to his site if you'd like to see his work:
http://www.artbydna.com/delgado/

suit up!

2007-12-18T23:03:00.000-05:00

Jesse found his wedding suit last weekend! The boy has at least three suits in his closet, but all are hand-me-downs that he has to rig with a belt to keep from falling off him. We figured the wedding would be a good excuse for him to buy a suit that actually fit. He totally lucked out. A men's clothing shop in the mall was going out of business, so he found an fantastic black BCBG for a fraction of its original price (It used to be $800.00!). Best of all, it fits him like a glove. For those of you who've met Jesse, you know that he's kinda a slender guy, so he'd expected any suit he found to still need some pretty drastic doctoring. But this one only needs the trouser legs hemmed an inch! yay.

The tie he's wearing is just a stand-in (it's actually navy instead of black), but I like the pattern on it. I told him to give me his best "male model" face. He just smirked at that request, but I think he looks pretty debonair anyway.

shoes

2007-11-28T13:25:00.001-05:00

I found my shoes over the weekend, which means that next time I go to Lititz I can schedule an appointment to finally get my dress altered - yay! They met most of my wedding shoe criteria - 3 inch heels (so I don't have to stand on tip toes to kiss Jesse), silver instead of white (better chance of re-wearing after the wedding), and on sale! I'd been looking for wedge heels, but these are at least thicker - stilettos are the death of me - and have an ankle strap so they won't fall off. Seriously I'm that clumsy. Plus, they remind of shoes that Ginger Rogers would have worn or Dorothy's shoes from the original L. Frank Baum version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which were silver instead of ruby. Both are huge positives in my book.

flowers

2007-11-24T00:55:00.000-05:00

I know it's been a while since we've updated, so hopefully this pretty post will make up for our bad blogging skills. We're thinking of buying our flowers wholesale and d.i.y-ing the centerpieces and bouquets. I've heard some people complain about what a nightmare it is to put together their own flowers the day before the wedding, but since we're keeping it simple with only two bouquets and no boutonnieres or corsages, I think we'll be able to handle it (of course I always think that.....friends and family be prepared to be put to work).

Also, our centerpiece idea is so basic that hopefully even we won't be able to foul it up too much. We just need to start collecting tiny jars and vases (luckily Jesse's folks already have a pretty fair collection and we've got tons of thrift stores nearby). Here's what we have in mind:

(Click to enlarge)

And we're thinking about using flowers like the ones below, along with dahlias (the flowers in the furthest right photo above). If anyone knows what kind of flowers are in the furthest left photo below, please let me know! Are they just a variety of garden roses or something else? I love the peach and pink together. P.s - wedding planning is an awesome crash course in botany. I 've learned more flower names, locations and seasonal varieties in the last couple of months than in my entire 25 years prior.

From Left: ??, poppies, ranunculus, roses

As far as bouquets, I'm thinking monochromatic, hand-tied, and as devoid of extra greenery and babies breath as possible. My favorite idea is to use either one or three dinner plate dahlias (the super gigantic pink flower in the top set of photos - also comes in white, yellow and light pink!), but I'm not sure how hard they are to come by. When I make up my mind, I'll just have to dress up our blog with more photos of flowers!

Guest Info: The Hotels of Lititz, Pa

2007-10-20T20:05:00.000-05:00

Lititz has three different hotels that are close to our ceremony and reception sites. It doesn't look like we will be able to get any special deals for blocks of rooms. As of now, all of the hotels have plenty of space for July 11th and 12th, but they will start filling up as next Spring and Summer approach.

The Historic General Sutter Inn is a restaurant and hotel in the center of Lititz, right at the town square. It is about two blocks from the ceremony site. We have had many family members and friends stay here over the years and they always praise the hotel's service and accommodations. They recently refinished and updated their rooms. It is a little more expensive than the other two hotels for a room with two doubles, but they do have smaller rooms that are cheaper. The price difference isn't too drastic, and is worth the extra money in my mind. You can see pictures of each room (they are all unique) on their website.

http://www.generalsutterinn.com/
(there is music on this website that is a little annoying, go to the bottom of the page to turn it off)

The Warwick Inn is about 5 minutes north of town. It is right off of the main road running through Lititz, so it would be easy to get to the ceremony site from the hotel. I visited the hotel last week. It was clean and cozy. The person at the front desk was very helpful and happy to show me around. The rooms look like hotel rooms. Nothing too shocking. They were very clean and in great condition. These rooms would be a little cheaper than the General Sutter on average. We had some relatives visit us last year and they stayed at the Warwick Inn. They were happy with their stay. The Warwick Inn offers discounts for AAA and AARP members

http://www.warwickinnpa.com/index.htm

There is a Holiday Inn Express located 5 minutes south of town. Again, this hotel is right off of the main road that runs through town, so it would be easy to get to the ceremony site from there. It is only a couple of years old. I have not talked to anyone directly who has stayed there, but my mom has heard that it is nice. The prices are about the same as the Warwick Inn's prices. The Holiday Inn offers discounts for AAA and AARP members. They also have an indoor pool.

http://www.hiexpress.com

Guest Info: Airport Recommendations

2007-10-17T22:38:00.001-05:00

This is my first of two posts for our wedding guests regarding travel information. For anyone flying in to Lititz, you have three possible airports to choose from:

Harrisburg International Airport is the closest (about 45 minutes away) from Lititz in the town of Harrisburg, Pa.

Philadelphia International Airport is about 1.5 -2 hours away from Lititz, but offers a larger selection of airlines (so possibly cheaper flights).

Baltimore/Washington International Airport is also about about 1.5 - 2 hours away with a larger selection of airlines.

And, on a side note, Lititz actually has it's own airport, The Lancaster Airport, but it's very tiny and only used for very small planes. Flights would probably be much more expensive here, but I'll list it just in case.

I'll post back very shortly with my hotel information and recommendations.

Inspiration Board

2007-10-15T17:09:00.000-05:00

A while back, I posted several wedding "inspiration boards" created by other brides-to-be that captured the mood Jesse and I had in mind for our wedding. At the end of the post I mentioned that some day I would probably give in and make my own board. Well, my friend, that day has come!

(click on image to enlarge)

I know, I know, my mood board is gargantuan compared to the earlier ones I wrote about, but we still have so many things to decide on and pick out that I wasn't ready to streamline it just yet. Although we won't have every exact thing from the board at our wedding or reception, I think over all it personifies the mood we're trying to go for - semi-formal, fun, summer-y, a little bit vintage and a little bit modern (but NOT rustic or country). For any upcoming bride, I would definitely recommend creating an inspiration board. From picking flowers, to bridesmaid dresses, to tablecloths, it's helpful to have a visual reference to make sure everything ties in together.

Oh, and the photo of the tandem bike (bottom row, 2nd from L) isn't completely out of place - we actually have access to one (a red one!) and may try to make it our getaway vehicle!

Bridesmaid dresses

2007-10-06T11:42:00.001-05:00

Like I promised, here are the actual dresses that I e-mailed to Andrea as bridesmaid dress suggestions. (Click on the image to enlarge)

1st row: jenny yoo, priscilla of boston, david's bridal
2nd row: j.crew, target, j.crew
3rd row: j.crew, simple silhouettes (2), thread design, j.crew

These are all dresses that I really like and seem to fit the semi-formal, summer garden party tone that we're trying to set. They also seem to match Andrea's more demure, classic sense of style much better than the frothy confections from my last post and they're simple enough to hopefully be re-wearable in the future.

She won't actually be picking one of these exact dresses, but finding one on her own that fits a similar style. She may even have her MIL (mother-in-law in bridal blog speak) sew one from a pattern. That's why I put the four color blocks at the bottom, I picked these dresses based on their style rather than color. I'd prefer her to find a dress in one of the four shades of pink (like the ones in the 2nd row, minus the orange dress, or the middle three in the 3rd row). Our colors really aren't "blush and bashful"*, but a range of pinks, peaches, and yellows - I just thought pink would look best with Andrea's coloring and next to my white dress and Jesse's black/dark grey suit in photos. If she despises pink, yellow (like two on top right) is my second choice.

So, let me know what you think, and we'll see how close Andrea's dress looks to any of these ten months from now.

* if you do not know this quote, get thee to your local video store and rent Steel Magnolias immediately!

If I were my own bridesmaid....

2007-10-05T18:31:00.001-05:00

.....I would so wear one of these dresses.

dresses l to r: unknown origin, anthropologie, betsey johnson

I'm not even joking. Jesse can attest to the fact that a few articles of clothing in my closet definitely resemble costumes more than every day wear. And with one of these, I could add a "50's party dress", "mod/sailor/pinafore dress" or "dress made for a 5 year old princess" to my growing collection. Wearing "fun" clothes puts me in a good mood all day. And these three dresses would make me feel truly divine.

But, of course, I will not be my own bridesmaid. I've asked my sister, Andrea, to stand beside me and she agreed on the one condition that I not ask her to wear an ugly dress - and I'm pretty sure she would think these were a trio of ugly dresses. Since Andrea will be my only bridesmaid, I decided it would be much easier to give her a few color and style suggestions and let her choose a dress on her own. That way, hopefully, she could find something she'd like enough to wear again or if not, at least find something super cheap.

So, this post is merely a teaser. Over the weekend, I'll post the real dresses that I sent her for color and style suggestions. And I promise you won't find a single ruffled, pinafore-d, or big-bowed number in the bunch. ;)

Hey, mister postman bring me a dream....

2007-10-02T13:15:00.002-05:00

I should give you fair warning.....this is a post about stamps. Yep, stamps. A microscopic detail of wedding invitation planning that really shouldn't warrant a blog post. I certainly have never given them much thought before. I knew from working on my sister's invitations that the USPS makes wedding-themed stamps, so I just automatically thought "good enough - done". Until the devil, Martha Stewart, and her extreme obsessive compulsive disorder sunk her teeth into me.

Exhibit A in my defense: a spread from her Spring 2007 issue showing the "art" of arranging stamps on an invitation envelope. The Martha even suggests buying vintage stamps off of eBay to coordinate with your colors if the current offerings don't match. Thankfully, my perfectionism has never reached those sisyphean limits. As much as I love all things vintage, I wasn't even tempted...well, maybe a little, but not enough to start looking or anything.....

Other brides use services like zazzle.com to custom design their own stamps that are actually certified by the USPS. But, that costs extra money and my cheapskate tendencies override my perfectionist tendencies every time.

A month ago, though, all the stars aligned for me. On an otherwise average day, as Jesse tossed me a stack of letters, my eyes immediately darted to the top right corner of the top envelope. There rested a beautiful 1 inch x 1 inch square of perfection. Drum roll please! I give you the post office's crowning achievement - the "Beautiful Blooms" collection!

Yeah, I know, completely not worth the hype. But, they fit the exact fun, summery mood of our wedding and coordinate perfectly with our colors! Jesse can't understand my enthusiasm for a detail so microscopic. I think it's just that this one tiny detail fell into my lap perfectly without me having to lift a finger, whereas the rest of the wedding planning has been so complicated. So, to the dear USPS, who I usually curse, I now salute you. Next, we just have to design our invitations....

Tasting at the Barn

2007-09-23T13:40:00.000-05:00

We had our sampling at the Barn last weekend in Lancaster following two busy days of teaching. The food was excellent and Randy, our go-to guy there, was very attentive and helpful. We got to try almost all of the foods we had in mind for our brunch reception, as well as a few extras. I even managed to convince myself to taste a couple of foods I typically don't eat. I had to try them for the greater good of our guests. We were pretty stuffed by the time we got to the last two dishes, but managed to each at least nibble a piece of each dish. By the end we felt very full, and very happy with the food... then they brought out the desserts... We didn't really eat too much the rest of the day.
Randy sat down with us for a while afterward and we went over some more of the details. Deanna and I both feel really satisfied with the service, decor, and food, so I think we can now finally declare that our date for the wedding will be July 12, 2008. Yah!

Let me introduce....

2007-09-05T11:56:00.001-05:00

......the newest member of our household! We've named him "Someday" for self-explanatory reasons. Jesse bought him from a 25 cent (50 cents thank you very much, she doesn't know how spoiled she is-Jesse) vending machine in our grocery store because he knows how much I want a dog. Yeah, it's not really the same.....but I still like him.

I've decided to keep the plastic egg he came in as his home because it makes him look like a future dog who lives in a space pod. He's joining the other pet Jesse made me:

.....the very cute, but still un-named blue bird.....

and they live on the wall above my desk along with the other inspirational odds and ends. If I take any more of these tiny creatures in, I'll start to have a faux pet menagerie, which is kind of sad and a little creepy. Guess I'll just have to get a real one soon!

p.s. - How come Jesse's not adding any posts? I'm sure he could come up with something slightly more wedding related then my weird fake pets to write about. Hm...me thinks he's left our little blog for his more exciting Turnbull blog. Oh well, as long as I get him for the rest of his life....ha ha ha (evil laugh).

Another wedding for the Turnbulls

2007-09-05T11:31:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, Jesse's brother, Dan, married his fiance, Brook, in the backyard of their parents' home. After a whirlwind two weeks of planning, much of the time spent pruning and gilding the backyard, the ceremony went off without a hitch! One caveat of the day was seeing Peter, the pastor who will be officiating our ceremony, perform a really lovely ceremony. So, thanks for the "test drive ", Dan and Brook, now we're even more excited for him to marry us! Here are a two photos from Saturday (click on the images

to enlarge them):

The bride and groom

All of my future in-laws from L to R:
Jesse's Dad, Brook, Will, Dan, Jesse & his super bright tie, and Jesse's Mom

wedding dress - check!

2007-08-26T22:39:00.001-05:00

So, what big wedding step did I get accomplished? I bought my wedding dress! Yay! I'm not allowed to post any pictures of it on the blog because Jesse refuses to see it or know any details about it before the wedding date. He's also adamant that he doesn't want to see me at all that day before I walk down the aisle. Well, I guess it's good that one of us is traditional.

I was a little worried when I started looking at wedding dresses in magazines because nothing felt quite like me. I am just NOT into princess ball gowns, loads of beads, appliques, or embroidery. The dresses I admired usually were much more streamlined or modern looking....but they were also usually $3,000 couture designs. What can I say, it just reaffirms my great taste. :)

But, I am just not a $3,000 dress bride, either. So, I planned instead to look for a simple bridesmaid dress in ivory or one of the simple, but elegant dresses from the J. Crew bridal selection. I figured it couldn't hurt in the meantime to try on a few salon gowns, so I stopped by Bridals by Danielle just a couple blocks from our apartment in Philly. My consultant there, Lisa, let me try on tons of bridesmaid dresses and sample gowns and was extremely supportive and encouraging. If you're looking for a wedding dress in Philadelphia, I highly recommend them. They carry tons of high end gowns along with two racks of sample dresses. I narrowed it down to two dresses and brought my friend, Lara, in for a second opinion. I ended up choosing a really elegant silk sample gown that completely felt like "me" and was marked down from $2,000 to $200! It needs to be taken in since it's about two sizes too big, but I already found a seamstress in Lititz, Pa who will do it for a fraction of the salon's price. So, good news all round.

Since I can't post any photos of the dress here, I thought I'd at least leave you with some pictures of some of some gorgeous dresses I love that are completely out of my price range. Luckily, none of these really look like the one I'll be wearing, so I'm not giving anything away. You'll just have to wait until July 12th (probably), like Jesse, to see the dress that I'm making such a big fuss about!

from l to r, dresses designed by: claire pettibone, nicole miller, lela rose

no, we're not in hibernation

2007-08-26T22:24:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the long delay in posting. I had some laptop trouble that Jesse fixed at the beginning of the week, plus we've both been busy with work and class planning for the fall semester at MICA.

But, we haven't completely thrown wedding planning to the wind! We've scheduled a menu sampling at our reception site in about three weeks (yum!). During that time, we'll hopefully be able to finalize details at The Barn, which means we'll finally be able to confirm our wedding dates as July 12th. We've also started reviewing our photography choices and possible ceremony musicians, but don't have anything concrete decided yet. I got one BIG planning step out of the way, but it's large enough to merit its own entry, so stay tuned....

Mission: Mood Board

2007-07-24T22:32:00.000-05:00

I've known girls who have imagined every little detail of their wedding before they even had anyone to marry. I am NOT one of those girls. So, ever since I got this ring I've been playing extreme catch-up. I'm a very quick study and my current obsession with wedding magazines and wedding blogs has provided me with excellent clift notes on the subject.

My favorite tool: The Mood Board. A mood board (aka inspiration board or storyboard) is a conglomerate of images a bride has been collecting to help her narrow down her vision for her wedding day. They proliferate on wonderful wedding blogs like weddingbee.com and stylemepretty.com (yes, to have a weddingblog you MUST name it something very silly).

Here are some other brides' mood boards that I plan on stealing (I mean borrowing) ideas from to create a fun, summer mood for our little shindig. There are other styles and colors that I've fallen in love with, too, but I think these work best with our location and time of year. And if I do make my own board, I'll definitely post it here.

I don't remember where I found all of these from, but the top was from stylemepretty.com, the second and fourth were from weddingbee.com, and the last was from ohjoy! (click any of them to see larger versions)

green acres is the place for me....

2007-07-20T21:01:00.001-05:00

While talking to two friends several months ago about our reception site search in Lancaster County, I actually said the words, "...we're looking everywhere as long as it's not a barn". Nothing against barns, I'm just not a very rustic sorta girl. So, what does my haughtiness get me? You guessed it, our most likely suspect is The Barn at Overlook in Manheim Township (about a 10 min. drive from our ceremony spot in Lititz). Its bathrooms are the two bottom baby blue ones in Jesse's post below.

We really like the high ceilings and exposed lighting and one side is almost completely filled with windows, so it feels very clean and open. And it's not an actual barn, just shaped like one. I just have to get passed the fact that it's right next door to an...eeek....mini golf course. yeah. I just keep telling myself that it'll give kids (and kids at heart) a fun activity to do after the wedding (since it'll end around 4:00) and could provide some fun wedding photos. We'll see.

The barn only had two Saturdays still available for Summer 2008, so we're in middle of reserving July 12th (my grandparents' anniversary!) as our new potential date. As long as our catering tasting goes smoothly and we get all of the logistics worked out, this will probably be our future reception site. Ignore the centerpieces in the photo, I'm already starting to think of decorating ideas that are more fun/summery/contemporary and less rustic/country. But, that's a whole different post.

Finally Getting Some Stuff Done?

2007-07-15T18:49:00.000-05:00

Well, Deanna and I have had a pretty crazy month or so. Things are starting to approach normalcy pretty soon, and we may have some wedding plans set by the time things are settled. I scouted out a couple of leads on reception sites last time I was in Lancaster. Deanna checked them out this past week when we were back and liked what she saw. It looks like we will be shifting our date up a month and a half or so due to availability of everything. We will keep everyone updated when things get more finalized. We are excited that things seem like they are finally falling into place.

Pictures of restrooms from different reception sites we have looked at...

Jesse

New Haircut

2007-06-04T13:31:00.000-05:00

As soon as it started to get really hot outside, I knew that it was time for my long hair to go. I had never intended for it to grow as long as it had anyway, but I'm kinda lazy about going to the hairdressers. Plus, it's still a year away from the wedding, so it'll have time to grow if I decide to do something with it that requires it to be longer.

***Yeah, so this post and the next one aren't really wedding related, but since this is the best way for me to send news and show pictures to lots of family and friends at the same time, they're going up. Plus, I can make every detail of my life wedding related these days if I try hard enough.

Birthday Cake!

2007-06-04T13:18:00.001-05:00

My Birthday was Saturday and Jesse surprised me by making this awesome cake! Neither of us are huge cake fans, but I think it was more about the making it than the eating it. The bear mold came from his mom, who used to make him all kinds of elaborately shaped cakes when he was little (i've heard about cakes shaped like transformers, mickey mouse, wolverine, and his own little teddy bear cake at least, although there are probably others, too). And the little molds to make the tiny bear's cake came from his friend, Dave, who makes tons of beautiful cakes and cookies. So, thanks for the help, Jesse's Mom and Dave! I helped him decorate it and suffice it to say, we won't be decorating our own wedding cake, although we did have a lot of fun.

The Ball is Officially Rolling!

2007-05-27T21:20:00.001-05:00

What are these random pictures of ducks, you may ask and what do they have to do with wedding blog? Well I just wanted to introduce you to some of our future wedding guests. Jesse and I FINALLY made one concrete wedding decision - we're going to have our ceremony in a gazebo in Lititz Springs Park. Yes, a park, after all of those churches we visited. This location just feels more representative of the two of us. But after what happened with Andrea's wedding, we made sure to promise my parents we'd be triple prepared for any kind of possible weather problems!

Jesse didn't want me to post any of the photos of actual site so as not to ruin the surprise (it's supposed to be a surprise?), but I'm sure you know what a gazebo looks like anyway. And as a teaser, if you look really hard you can see a corner of it on the right side of photo #3. Instead you get photos of some of the surrounding area of the park including the duck pond and the fountain. They even have little 25 cent vending machines along the stream that dispense hand fulls of duck food. How fun is that! So, if you get bored during the ceremony, feel free to feed the ducks.

In other good news, we also found an officiant who we both really like, a retired pastor who lives next door to Jesse's family. We talked to him for quite a while and both instantly felt comfortable with him. Now if only we could nail down a reception site....

p.s. - the upstanding gentlemen standing next to me in photo #2 is Jesse's Dad. Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Andrea's Wedding

2007-04-16T22:09:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple of photos of my sister, Andrea and her new husband, Brent at their wedding, which was held in her backyard over the weekend. Since it was outside, of course we got thunderstorms all morning and even a tornado watch. Thankfully all of the rain cleared up just in time for the ceremony and all of the guests pitched in for a last minute set up. Her mother-in-law spent the whole year preparing their backyard by planting specific flowers and moving trees around and her father-in-law built the bamboo arch himself. I applaud them both - the space looked like an oasis. Congratulations, Andrea! Now my family just has one more wedding to go, let's hope it goes just as smoothly (my fingers are crossed).

Wedding dresses I won't be wearing

2007-04-16T20:58:00.000-05:00

Jesse and I went down to Alabama over the weekend for my sister's wedding, which was wonderful (I'll post those photos in a second). While I was there I also went on my first wedding dress shopping trip with my mom. I know it's still really early to start looking at dresses, but since my parents live in Alabama and I live in Philadelphia, this was one of the only chances I would get to go with my Mom before the big day. We went to David's Bridals in Tuscaloosa, which was okay, but none of the dresses really stood out to me. I definitely didn't find "the one" or anything like that. At least now I have a better idea of what I'm looking for though (no halter dresses, no big frou frou skirts, and no crazy lace-all-over patterns) and my mom and I had fun. So, here are three that I definitely won't be wearing on my wedding day. And I should credit my Mom with the awesome camera skills.

Churches Churches!

2007-04-01T16:17:00.000-05:00

Well last weekend Deanna and I ventured to my hometown of Lititz, Pa. We saw 8 or so churches in the Lancaster County area, got to look inside 5 or 6 of them, and attended three services. So we fit a lot of worshipping into two days. We saw some places we liked, and some we didn't, and got a better idea of what our options are as far as locations go. We plan on going back in the next few weeks to go to some more services. There were two churches we looked inside and liked, but didn't attend yet. So we will see how we like the priests. We are looking at Catholic churches so Deanna can feel a little more at home for the wedding. So we will report back after the next visit. Maybe we will have some pictures up if we think we have found a place we like. The one thing we did determine for sure is that we will not be having the reception in the Yellow Barn at Landis Valley.

-Jesse

yeah, now i'm even drawing brides....

2007-03-21T15:58:00.000-05:00

This post has nothing to do with our own wedding plans, but it does have to do with brides, so it's going up.

This is an illustration I finished up over the weekend for the Baltimore Citypaper. It's being paired with a bridal gown sample sale listing in their "calender events" section. Their art director, Joe, is really awesome and since he knows that I'm engaged he thought I'd have the most fun with the assignment. And he's right since I've already been spending too much time looking at tons of pictures of wedding gowns on the web, why not chalk it up to "research"?

In other news, Jesse and I are making our second attempt to go to Lititz this weekend to start looking at churches. Let's cross our fingers and hope some decisions get made!

Possible new wedding date

2007-03-09T11:17:00.000-05:00

We're thinking of going with Saturday, May 24th, 2008 as the new wedding date. This falls on Memorial Day weekend, though, and we've read so much advice about not planning around holidays. Is Memorial Day a holiday large enough to cause us problems? If you have advice about this, please share.

It's one of the only good early summer dates for us that doesn't coincide with exams or graduations or birthdays. Plus, I'm trying my hardest not to move the date back any further (a five-year courtship + a year-and-a-half engagement is enough to test even the most patient of girls, and as anyone who's met me can testify, that is one virtue that I don't have).

New Wedding date

2007-02-27T10:10:00.000-05:00

I found out that I'll be teaching a class at the Maryland Institute, College of Art during the Spring semester of 2008, so we've decided to move the wedding date from April 26th until the end of May. This way, classes will be over by then and I won't have to contend with with commuting to Baltimore and preparing lessons at the same time as the wedding. This is especially easy to do since we haven't really planned or booked anything yet for the earlier date. When we've set a definite May date, I'm sure we'll let everyone know.

Ring!

2007-02-25T15:19:00.001-05:00

Well, even though Jesse went to Lititz this weekend to see his folks, I ended up staying here and working on an assignment. So our wedding planning is getting put off for at least another week. We will actually do this, I promise!

Here's a pic of my lovely engagement ring in the meantime. Jesse looked for months in different antique shops and finally found this beauty. The band is white gold and from 1928 and the stone is from the 1940s. I LOVE it! He had to guess my size, 'cause I'm not really a jewelry person, and he did a good job because it fits perfectly!

Welcome to our wedding page!

2007-02-22T12:15:00.000-05:00

Well Deanna and I are about to embark on a year(+) long journey into wedding preperation and planning. This weekend we are going to start looking for wedding and reception locations in my hometown of Lititz, Pa. I know it would be more customary to have the wedding in the bride's hometown, but we decided more of our guests will be coming from the northern region rather than the south, so it makes more sense for everyone's traveling purposes. I was more than willing to have the wedding in Alabama, but I'm happy to be celebrating this event back home. So Deanna and I are going to be updating this blog to let you the reader (whoever you are) know where we are at with planning, where we are registering, what are the colors, and all that fun stuff. Suggestions and recommendations are more than welcome. Thankfully, this is our first time planning a wedding, so we are still pretty new when it comes to this stuff.