Wedding Blog #5 - Florist

Hello lovely readers of mine :) The next stop on our wedding journey was the florist. I met Jacquette at the bridal fair and thought she was so nice and her displays were beautiful and her prices were just what i needed.  Since I decided to do silk flowers for my tables and bridesmaids bouquets, I really only needed a corsage for my mom and Aaron's mom and my bouquet of course. I of course started looking online at her gallery of flowers she had done and came across exactly what I wanted and booked it right away. I am so excited to see how they turn out! She can be found at http://www.facebook.com/EnchantedFlowersByJacquette?fref=ts

This is kind of what my bouquet and the corsages will look like :)

Also I was thinking around my bouquet I would get a charm that would hang down from it of a little picture frame with a picture in it of Aaron's grandparents since they have passed on and were such a huge part of his life, I want to honor them some how.  Still some thoughts in process. :)

Wedding Blog #4 - Photographer

Hi!! I hope your day is going good and your not getting blown away like I am today in the bay :-) Well the next stop on our wedding journey was a ... photographer! This is one thing that I was actually very picky about and looked at so many different website galleries of photographers in the area and some from even out of the area. I saw so many at the bridal fair and looked up each and every one of them.  I couldn't decide which one I liked best and was having a really hard time deciding on one, I talked to Aaron about it and he showed me these pictures from a wedding of someone he went to high school with and they were really good.  He said that someone he went to high school with took them and has a new photography business she was starting.  I am all for helping out the businesses just getting started, also they are usually a little cheaper and popularity hasn't gone to their head yet haha. Anyways, we went and met with Angela and she just put me at ease with everything and her prices sounded awesome and the packages were great. So we booked her! She can be found at http://angelaspillerphotography.com/.  So after we booked her we needed to get our engagement pictures taken almost right away cause our save the dates needed to go asap.  So we did and she had them edited and on a CD back to us in no time at all. Here are a few of my favorites, hope you enjoy them as much as I have :)

Wedding Blog #3 - Photo booth and DJ

Hello awesome readers and welcome back to my blog. I have been talking about my wedding, which was FIVE MONTHS from yesterday!!! So I thought I would continue doing that by heading into the next thing  Aaron and I looked for: the photo booth and DJ.  So like I said in my previous blog about the caterer, I went to a bridal fair after I got engaged, at this bridal fair I got to see a lot of vendors from the area.  One of these vendors was our photo booth.  My mom thought it was so cool. One cool thing was that we got to try it out when we were at the bridal fair. The pictures we took turned out great and we had a lot of fun trying it out that we just had to book it.  So we booked The Platinum Photo Booth for our wedding, with the package we got (which was priced very well) we get unlimited photos for our guests to take, props for them to use, we get a CD with all the images taken during the evening, we get to design the logo at the bottom of the photo strip (so this acts as their favor from our wedding also, saves money$), we also get all the photos taken in a scrapbook that everyone signs (it takes the place of our guest book).  We liked that idea better for a guest book because it is something we will look at over and over again instead of just people signing their names on a boring book :). This is where you can find them, they have been so good so far, http://theplatinumphotobooth.com/.  I am so very excited for them!
The DJ that we booked is Sounds in Motion. The owner DJ George is really nice and seems very organized and that made me very at ease from the beginning, because I am so type A its ridiculous lol.  He was the MC for the bridal fair I went to and he was very entertaining but still played music, I loved that! They were on the higher priced side but I am sure they will be worth it. I am also very excited for them as well, they can be found at http://site.soundsinmotiondj.com/.  
Both of these businesses so far have had super nice people and I have had a good testing experiences with both so far so I know they are a right choice for Aaron and I's big day!

Wedding Blog #2 - Caterer

So it's been awhile since I blogged :-( But the next thing on the journey to getting married that we did was to find a caterer.  I had attended a bridal fair right after i got engaged with my mom and maid of honor (my cousin), while at this bridal fair I got to taste this one caterer's food, it was amazing so she was my first choice.  We didn't really look around, partly because there wasn't many places to look at for catering in the area we were getting married and because i couldn't get how good her catering was out of my head.  So we decided on L&M Blodgett Catering, Merri was very nice and kind of gave us some tips on how to pick our other vendors as well.  So we decided on buffet style service and we are having skirt steak, red potatoes, fruit salad, green salad, bread and butter.  For beverages she will provide water, lemonade and coffee and we have an amazing friend that will act as bartender for our bar that will serve wine and beer.  I wanted something simple and classic and i think we nailed it. It was also all at a very reasonable price.
We are having square tables that seat 8 with basic white wooden country like chairs, white linen table cloths with cranberry colored napkins. Our dinner plates, which we just got from a local rental company, are going to be basic white china with clear basic water goblets.  One of the plus' of having Merri as our caterer is she provides all the silverware for all the guests in her price, which is great! one less thing to worry about getting back to the rental company.  
Our centerpieces are going to be very simple.  I ordered some very nice silk flower bouquets, that happen to be in our colors exactly, they will go on each table in a pint size mason jar with red gems in them and a fake candle tea light (since we can't have real candles at the venue). Each table will be numbered with a year starting with 1985 when Aaron was born.  Each table marker will have the year and a picture of me and a picture of Aaron in that year. I thought that would be something fun for people to look at on the table. I decided to assign people to a table but not assign them to a specific seat, that way they have a little freedom and its not so stuffy.
I think that is just about it for the tables, centerpieces and food. Besides cake because we haven't figured that out yet. 
Thanks for reading about our journey to the married life!

Wedding Blog #1 - Venue

So I was suppose to start this wedding blog last night but I got distracted since Aaron is gone for 2 days on a trip for work so we were spending some times together before he left this morning. :)
So me and Aaron got engaged on May 15, 2012 (the day before my birthday :)) and it was the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me......I was completely surprised! 
After Aaron asked me and I said "Yes, of course!" he said we can go to dinner wherever I wanted...(this is where the "totally me" kicks in lol) I said I wanted to go to In-N-Out, so that's where we went LOL!! 
After we told our parents of course and made it "Facebook official" as everyone says, the wedding planning could begin!
The first thing we had to do was come up with a list of people we wanted to invite to the wedding.  We decided we didn't want a big wedding because we didn't want to spend our whole reception just walking around thanking everyone for coming when we could be enjoying the reception that we planned.  So we decided on 150 people maximum, no more no matter what! 
So then when we figured out roughly who those lucky 150 would be, we started the venue search to house all these people for this amazing event in our lives. We didn't want something huge and just NOT us, we knew we wanted small and kind of a country feeling place. But the place had to be very accessible for people that can't get around easily too, like my grandma and others in Aaron's family. We decided it would be smart to have it somewhere close to Brentwood or Ceres or somewhere in between.  We picked a few places and made appointments to look at them.  The first of these was a winery in Livermore. It was beautiful and we kind of loved the place, but it could only house 100 people (we couldn't cut anymore from our list of 150), the bathrooms were on the second floor with no elevator available just some unsafe looking steps (which my grandmother couldn't even imagine walking up), and it was much much more than I was thinking we would spend on a venue.  So we moved on to the next place, which was a little privately owned place down by the river in Waterford.  It was really pretty and the price was great, but it was very very hilly (not good for grandma or any elderly person of any kind, I was even having trouble walking up the hills), the bride's room was this tiny shack that wasn't too impressive and the Groom had no room what so ever, the parking lot was an orchard (you parked in between the trees in this orchard), and the driveway was super steep.  So we moved on to the next place.
That was the Pageo Lavender Farm. It was beautiful, trees and flat grass everywhere, it had a gravel parking lot, the entrance was right by the blooming lavender field, it had walkways to the get from building to building so no one can trip and fall, the restrooms were kind of off to the side so they are not an eyesore, there was an indoor room for the food area so it isn't taken over by bugs, there was an old grain silo that you can decoratively display your cake in, it had a groom's room (not too big but it would be big enough for the groom and his merry men), it had a patio that was perfectly framed with trees where the ceremony could take place then be converted into the dance floor for the reception, and the bridal suite was amazing and plenty of room for all the girls to get ready and the bride-to-be to relax.  It was the perfect place I could feel it, so all we had to do was figure out how to get the money for this perfect place.  My mom said that she would contribute a certain amount and we had to figure out the rest between Aaron's mom and us....I thought this was a really generous offer and knew it could be done and we could have a thrifty but beautiful wedding.  So we booked this place almost exactly a year to the date we were getting married! We had a place to get married I was so excited.  We took our parents out to look at the place almost exactly a year to the date so we knew pretty much what it would look like when we got married.  I am so excited that we are getting married there and that I am lucky enough to find Aaron so soon in my life. :)

Just in case you want to check out Pageo Lavender Farm their website is: 
www.pageolavenderfarm.com 
They also have a gift shop with everything lavender that is amazing!!!

This is just a look at the night time lights (above) and the front of the bridal suite where  I will be walking out and down the sidewalk to marry Aaron :) (below)

Update on Life As it is Right Now

So I am going to start a few posts about the wedding planning that is taking place in my life. We are going to cover everything if I can: from the caterer, to the venue, to the florist, to the centerpieces, etc....... :)

Just a little update first about life as I know it right now :)
I moved shortly after my last post on August 15, 2012 to Brentwood to live with Aaron.  It was an adjustment but we are both learning something new.  Our wedding is scheduled for September 7, 2013, so we are so excited about that!!!
I work now at Old Navy as a sales associate.....not exactly something important like being an accountant, with my degree, but it helps pay the bills.  Aaron is still at Sports Chalet which is for the same reason, it pays the bills.  We get by and are working to improve our situation everyday.
We kind of want to have children right away after we get married but we are still discussing that and it will also depend on whether we have different jobs or not by then.
My beautiful niece was born!!!! November 16, 2012 at about 4 in the afternoon, after we got the call at 11 int he morning and jumped out of bed and threw on some clothes and made it to the hospital in 45 minutes (it should have taken and hour or more). LOL!! She is beautiful and chunky and cute!!! I buy her all sorts of outfits and love her so much!!! Aaron adores her so much and can't get enough of her when she is around, which is a good sign for me ;)
Well besides life just happening with us we are just planning our wedding one little payment at a time :) 

I will start the wedding blogging tomorrow night...maybe also add some pictures of things as they happen :)
hearts!

Life at this moment!

Life at this moment is...well controlled chaos. Me and Aaron are engaged and I am moving in 23 days to a city I know little about but I'm doing it as long as I am with him I don't care where we go :-)
I am too stressed out for my age at work so I'm giving my two weeks in a few days .... It seems like the end of a chapter but the beginning of a much better one. I'm very excited!
I also found the past couple weeks that I am going to be an auntie for real this time. My little brother knocked up his girlfriend of 9 months and she is due in November. Kind of crazy... Babies raising babies.
Besides all that I need to start planning a wedding that's set for September 2013 and my ex BFF is getting married that same month which is a little irritating. I don't life is controlled chaos right now but God is always good and wont give me anything I can't handle! With love!