Inspired by Gatsby

When Kyle and I got engaged, I hadn't really ever thought about the sort of wedding I wanted. I was definitely not one of those girls who grew up fantasizing about the ring, the dress, the cake, and so on. Occasionally I thought about the music or the girls I would have standing beside me, but that's about it. But when Kyle proposed and I actually got to start fantasizing about what kind of party I would throw, I immediately went to The Great Gatsby. Specifically, Gatsby's lawn parties with millions of people dancing the Charleston, a huge jazz band on stage, flowing champagne in coupe glasses, and fabulously clothed guests!

So we went on a search to find the perfectly grand venue, where we could have our giant jazz band, champagne, and try and be as fabulously dressed as possible. Well, we soon realized that wasn't going to happen for a number of reasons. One, there's just NOTHING on the west coast even remotely as grand as those old Long Island and New England mansions. Two, as I've mentioned before, finding a venue that would allow us to have whatever musicians and whatever instruments we wanted was very difficult!

The venue we finally chose is beautiful and old, but a bit more rustic than we had initially planned. So we've veered a bit from our initial vision. But we still have the fabulous band, the champagne, and some great clothes! But because I still love the inspiration that The Great Gatsby provides, here are some swoon-worthy images from the film.

 

 

All the photos above are from the 1974 film The Great Gatsby, and were sourced from Visuelle Magazine

I spent last weekend at the Millennium Biltmore in downtown Los Angeles, and was inspired all over again. That place was dripping with the class, fun, and grandeur or the '20s and '30s. If anyone is in southern California and looking for a classic venue like this, I recommend checking this place out. I would have died to host a party there! They even hosted the Academy Awards in 1937.

Girl Meets Soup

Any other brides out there inspired by the 1920s? Are you incorporating any elements from this era into your wedding? Share your inspiration with me! I just love this stuff!

P.S. I'm cautiously anticipating the remake that's coming out later this year. Do you think it will be as good as Coppola's 1974 film adaptation?

Searching for the Right Officiant

My Aunt gave me this book a few months ago called A Practical Wedding. When she gave it to me, I thought to myself, 'well, yes, I do want a practical wedding, but I don't want to sacrifice the ideas we've already dreamed up.' This book doesn't tell you to do that. This book has actually been the support system I need during this whole wedding planning process. When I have doubts, when I need someone to bring me back down to earth, this book has done just that. Basically, it says 'Do whatever you want, just make sure the wedding is oh-so-very you, and not what anyone else wants it to be.' Thank you A Practical Wedding. You've saved me from wedding insanity several times.

Lowe House Creative

The most recent time this book has reassured me and given me that perfect 'Don't worry, I'm here for you' squeeze was last night, when I was feeling down about our so-far-unsuccessful search for an officiant.

Kyle and I do not belong to a church, or affiliate ourselves with any particular organized religion (or lack of one, for that matter). Therefore we are looking for a friend or non-denominational officiant who will be the one to usher us into our new life as husband and wife.

Photo by Patrick Pike, A Practical Wedding

You may remember several weeks ago, I mentioned that Kyle was typing up a letter on our 1920 Underwood typewriter to the person we were going to ask to be our officiant. Well, very unfortunately for us, he said 'no.' He said he didn't want the pressure of officiating the ceremony and would prefer to be a guest. This was a big disappointment to both of us, as we were positive he would say 'yes.' We didn't have a backup plan at all.

So, where do I turn? I started searching Yelp reviews for non-denominational officiants in the San Francisco area. I found three I was interested in, and Kyle eliminated one of them. That's fine. Listen to your gut. So then we were down to two.

A few days ago we met with one of them. He had dozens of great reviews, and we were looking forward to meeting him. We did not click with him at all. He was far too focused on what he would be eating at our wedding and his new "Chinese wife." (Seriously, who announces their partner's ethnicity every time they speak about them?!). He insisted on keeping our ceremony to a specific length and discouraged us from writing our own vows - something we were really looking forward to doing. He spoke about our ceremony as though it was a performance for our guests, and we better be sure not to bore them, even if that meant not doing what we wanted to do. We walked away from that meeting saying 'Well... not that great.' Over the next few days, I started to get this sick feeling that we would be stuck with this guy. The other officiant we had contacted, my first choice (from what I could tell on paper, at least), hadn't gotten back to us.

Photo by Tinywater Photographer

I just so happened to have reached the section of A Practical Wedding called "The Ceremony." The author, Meg Keene, assured me that I should listen to my gut when it comes to the officiant. If you don't like someone, move on. She also told me to give the ceremony the attention it deserves. It's the most important part of the wedding day for the couple. Agreed on all accounts. This is what I needed to hear.

Photo by Evynn LeValley Photography, Ruffled Blog

Kyle then followed up with the other officiant, and this time she responded. She sent her layout for a typical ceremony, which she personalizes for each couple, and Kyle immediately told me that he didn't like it. It was too new age-y for him. Great. Now what?

I don't know what to do at this point. Maybe I need to consult my wedding bible again. It's just... it seems that if you are trying to hire someone to do a non-denominational wedding ceremony, they either don't care about the significance of what this wedding ceremony means to the couple or are way too hippie-dippie for our taste. So I don't know. We're stuck. Although I'm trying to stay positive, and I know we have 7 months to sort this out, still... I'm afraid we're going to be stuck with someone who isn't representative of us at all.

So, that's it. No real questions this week. Unless you know a great non-denominational officiant in the Bay Area. Just some venting. Thanks for listening :)

Bridesmaid Dress Shopping!

I can't help but start by saying that I have the most amazing group of girls in my bridal party. I only have one Maid of Honor and two Bridesmaids, so it's a small group (although we have four flower girls!), and I love it. Having only a couple of girls is perfect for me, as it feels a bit more manageable and it allows me to treat them to a few more things that I wouldn't be able to afford with a large group of girls. These kick-ass women are totally fun, organized, and easy-going. I couldn't ask for a better group of girls to go through this wedding planning process with! One of my bridesmaids is in town from New Zealand this week, so I took this opportunity to go bridesmaids dress shopping with her. Yay! Since she can't exactly shop at the same stores as the rest of us, seeing as she spends her time in either New Zealand or Canada, I wanted to make sure she got to try on the J. Crew dresses she liked while she was here. I invited my Bay Area bridesmaid along, booked an appointment at J. Crew in San Francisco, which has a little wedding salon, and off we went!

Once we arrived at J. Crew, they sneaked us back into a tiny room with two dressing rooms and a mirror. Basically the way it works for bridesmaids there is much like how it works for brides. They have one of every bridesmaids dress there, and showcase all of the available colors, but they're all in a size 8. So my girls had to try on a dress in the style they liked and a different dress in the color they liked, and have them all clipped to fit them.

I am very happy to report that my out-of-town bridesmaid found her dress and she looks absolutely stunning in it! It's the Miranda dress in cotton cady that I showed you a few weeks ago. I don't think anyone could do this dress better justice than this girl.

My other bridesmaid tried on a few different dresses, but we all agreed that the J. Crew spiced wine color was MADE for her. She was a little apprehensive of it before our visit, but once she tried it on, it was obvious this was the color she needed to wear. Beyond that, the Anita dress in cotton cady was also made for her! She didn't get to try on this dress in the spiced wine, so we'll have to order it and see for ourselves, but I'm pretty sure these two girls are all set, which is exciting!

Now I get to spend a day in San Diego with my Maid of Honor and go shopping with her! I'm thinking this cypress color would look fabulous on her. All three women have brown hair and a similar skin tone.

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When I held up all three colors together, our fabulous attendant, Lizzie, at J. Crew said she hadn't seen these three colors I picked paired together before, but we all agreed they looked great and were perfect for Fall!

I am having way too much fun shopping with these girls. After our visit to J. Crew, we had a to-die-for dinner and drinks at Millennium. (Small tip: If you haven't ever been to Millennium in San Francisco, you must go. Uhhhmazing!!)

Did you go dress shopping with your girls? Or did you let them pick out their own dresses on their own time?

First Look or Ceremony Romance?

We've been debating for a while now whether to stick to tradition and wait until the ceremony to see each other or to do what so many couples do now-a-days and have a 'first look.' Kyle has surprised me many times with his wishes to stay traditional for our wedding (I wanted him to go dress shopping with me, he wants the surprise; I didn't think it mattered if we stayed together the night before (because honestly, I don't know where else to stay besides our house!), but he wants the night apart), so it makes sense that he would also want to wait until our ceremony to see each other. And quite frankly, this has been the only wedding-related fantasy I have ever had before getting engaged. I have long dreamed of walking down the aisle to see him standing there, feeling that overwhelming joyousness that I know I will have never felt before (I get chills just thinking about it now!).

I dream of this moment. Photo by Joie Lala

We were pretty certain we wanted to wait to see each other until our wedding ceremony, until we met with a photographer, who explained the benefits of doing a 'first look.' You get more time to enjoy your wedding post-ceremony, instead of having to run off immediately and shoot all of your couple photos, plus your family photos, and wedding party photos. That's a lot of photos to fit into cocktail hour! If you take the time for couple photos before, then you also have as much time as you want to take photos and get the right shots, instead of cramming it all into an hour. And really, all you're going to want to do after the ceremony is celebrate!

The sweetest 'first look' I've ever seen! Photo by Andria Lindquist, moment junkie

Photo by Rebecca Hansen, OnceWed

Okay, full disclosure here, I'm a crier. I'm not one of those cute criers either, with a tear gracefully trickling down my rosy cheek. No. There's none of that happening. It's either full on sobbing and gasping for air or nothing. If there is ever a day to cry in my life, it will be my wedding day (not watching Once for the 12th time). I'm expecting that when I first see Kyle, I'll quite literally burst into tears. So, the question is, do I want this to happen while I'm walking down the aisle in order to preserve that moment, and take it for what it is, in all its unabashedly raw authenticity? Or should I have that moment with only me and Kyle (and our photographer and videographers), giving me time to cry and be comforted by Kyle before our ceremony?

Photo by Andrea Lindquist

I've also realized that the traditional 'first look' where the bride taps her soon-to-be husband on the shoulder and he turns around to see her face-to-face isn't for me. Part of what I loved about waiting until the ceremony was that we each had a minute to look at each other and take it all in before we were face-to-face at the end of the aisle. So, I think we can combine what we love about both, and have a first look where I walk towards Kyle. And I'll love it even more if it involves a staircase, for that (I wish I didn't want it, but I really, really do!) Cinderella moment. And our venue just so happens to have the most gorgeous staircase.

Photo by One Love Photo

Photo by Meg Perotti

There's also an ethereal outdoor staircase, so we have options if the weather is good!

Photos by Jasmine Star

So here's where I need your help! Did you do a 'first look' or wait until the ceremony to see each other? What did you think? Were you grateful to have done one over the other? Was it still just as incredible to see your partner at the end of the aisle if you had already seen them? Did you feel more composed because you had seen them?

I need your lessons learned and words of wisdom please and thank you!

Our Screen Printed Save the Dates

I told you a few weeks back about my obsession with white ink. Today is the tale of my hard-to-learn lesson that it isn't the easiest thing to accomplish. That being said, it has been accomplished, and I am thrilled to share the final product with you: our Save the Dates! At this point I think everyone who was sent one has received it, so I hope I'm not blowing the surprise for anyone. To save a little money (and a little of our sanity) we pretty much only sent Save the Dates to people who would have to travel in to town for the wedding.

There are several elements to these DIY Save the Dates, and I'm going to share what I learned with you, in the hopes that it might save some of you some time, or maybe even inspire you [to not do what we did! Kidding. It was actually a lot of fun, and we learned a great new skill that I'm certain we'll use for other DIY crafts for the wedding.].

The first step was designing the image in Photoshop and Illustrator, which was a long process simply because no design is ever complete as far as I'm concerned. At one point several months ago, after a few shared beers and having seen some stencil art by Cindy Ferguson that I liked, we came up with the idea to incorporate our sailing theme and make light of a traditionally romantic and joyous occasion. And because we were a few beers deep, why not incorporate pirates? Who doesn't love pirates after all?!

Next, we had to figure out how to screen print in order to get that white ink. We went to the local art shop and bought a Speedball kit and off we went. We had to make several trips back to the store for more supplies, and watched the tutorial DVD about a hundred times. Because my design had a lot of fine lines, we had to do the photo emulsion process. This meant buying a 100 pack of transparency paper so we could print our design onto one clear sheet (anyone want 99 sheets of transparency paper?) then burn the image onto the screen. Screen filler paint fills in the holes, and there you go!

Then you set up your practice run, tape off the areas you don't want printed in that specific color, and go for that first terrifying paint smear.

 

And just to note, to newby screen printers out there, the ink dries quickly! Do not leave it on the screen for more than a minute or so (like we did after the above photo was taken), or you'll end up frantically trying to scrub the dried paint out of the screen and ruining the image along the way. We learned a little to late that an old toothbrush works wonders.

We, again very smartly, did not think ahead of time about the fact that we had 3 colors and were printing double sided so that meant we had to do 5 separate days of printing (and drying). This also meant that each time we did a run on the screen, the image got progressively worse. By the last run, I think I had pretty much just painted the image onto the screen by hand.

Anyways, here's the final product!! We spent about 3 months coming up with the design, another month sorting out how to do it, and 2 weeks of actually screen printing it!

We bought those great recycled paper string & button envelopes and note cards from Paper Source. We used several current smaller currency stamps to give it that awesome vintage feel (without all the time and effort it takes to source actual vintage stamps). Kyle used our 1920 Underwood typewriter to type up all of the addresses. We bought our return address stamp and website stamp from this great Etsy seller (I highly recommend the self-inking variety!).

The best part may be that these cost us less than $100 total... and several nights and weekends. If you add in the screen printing supplies, which we will be re-using, that's another $150. DIY-ing our Save the Dates definitely paid off! But then again, I have no idea how much someone would have charged us to make these.

So there you have it! What do you think? We're so glad to have spent the time on these, and made them exactly what we wanted them to be. But all I can think is that we did these early on, when we had the time. The closer and closer we get to the wedding, the less and less time we're going to have for projects like this! Oh well... who needs sleep after all?

Save the Date Wedding Website

Next week I will be sharing our Save the Dates with you, and updating you on the screen printing process in our hunt for the elusive white ink! But this week I wanted to share our website that we created to go with our Save the Dates. Since about 80% of our guests are from out of town, we've been getting the when, where, whys (well hopefully not the 'whys') from them for the last few months. So we knew we needed to provide our guests with more information than what we were planning on putting in the actual Save the Dates. Skip to the revelation that we need to launch our wedding website earlier than anticipated. Yay?

Anyways, we decided to do a fun mini-website that didn't take a ton of time to put together, but still gave our guests the important info: date, location, lodging. We picked our domain name, guesswhatilikeyou.com, because this in depth conversation happens frequently in our house:

Me: "Guess what?"

Kyle: "What?"

Me: "I like you."

Kyle: [obligingly laughs and rolls his eyes at me]

We bought our domain name through Name Cheap, and registered our website with Green Geeks (which is a 300% wind powered company!). It cost us $65.40 for the domain name and a year of hosting. Then we designed our simple click-through website in iWeb and voila! Here is what you'll get when you go to our website:

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We also bought this cute stamp for our Save the Date envelopes, which we will hopefully re-use for the invites, from lovetocreatestamps on Etsy.

The other part of this process was picking a host hotel for our traveling guests. While we suspect many people will rent vacation houses, since they are traveling in groups, we needed something close to our venue that would give our guests who were only staying in town for a day or two an option. We visited 3 boutique hotels that are part of a small, local hotel group called Marin Hotels. Each of these Marin County hotels provide a different experience and price, which we really liked. So since we're using this small group of hotels, and have a group discount for all of them, everyone can pick the price and place that they prefer, and all locations are about a 10 minutes drive away from each other. And since we're staying at one of them, we get the discount for our wedding night, which is an extra bonus!

Did you create a different wedding website to go with your Save the Dates? Or were you just smart, and launched your full website to go with your Save the Dates? Also, how far in advance should we have the full website up and running?

Nautical Engagement Shoot Inspiration

First of all, I'm am SO EXCITED for my fellow blogger brides who have their weddings coming up just around the corner! Kate is getting married first, in just a few days!! Then Christina! Thinking of you guys :) Now that we've booked our to-die-for photographer, Sequins and Candy, we're starting to think about some engagement shoot ideas! Engagement shoots are awesome for many reasons. So many, in fact, I was easily able to convince my camera-shy fiancé to get on board... so to speak. They allow you to capture some "real" photos of you and your beloved doing somewhat normal things (I mean, we all hang out in fields wearing cute heels and holding giant balloons all the time, right?), but most importantly, they allow you to get to know your photographer, and do a photo session run through. This is really important, as the last thing you want is to be uncomfortable with your photographer on the day of your wedding!

Since Kyle and I met sailing in Long Beach (he was my sailing instructor), we thought it would be apropos to do an engagement shoot on a sail boat. More specifically, a classic wooden schooner he sailed for many years. Now, this is just an idea for now, but that doesn't stop me from searching for inspiration! So here's some of our vintage nautical themed engagement shoot inspiration photos.

 

top left: 'After Glow' by Brent Lynch, source; top right: The Cherry Blossom Girl, Glamour; bottom: Jasmine Star

The Nautica perfume ad on the right was shot on the boat Kyle used to sail in Long Beach. Now I just need to master how to look like Katherine Heigl...

 

top left: Nautica ad; top right: Nautica perfume; bottom: Martha Stewart Weddings, Snippet and Ink

 

top left: GlamourSplash; top right: West Elm; bottom: Jose Villa

What do you think? If you know of any more gorgeous sailboat photos, please mention them to me on Pinterest!

This is just one theme idea, so I'll be running a couple more past you over the next few weeks. Let me know which is your favorite!

DIY Altar Inspiration

Having read a million blogs where brides advise that you start on DIY projects as far in advance as possible (ideally 6 years, right?), we're trying to make decisions NOW about some of the more labor intensive DIY projects we have planned. I (likely mistakenly) hope to not find myself up late the night before my wedding gluing, stamping, and cutting things. But knowing me, I'll have finished every DIY project I want, then last minute decide to make up one more random thing that just MUST all-of-a-sudden be included or I'll die. One project we're trying to make a decision on at the moment is the altar. For many months I had it in my head that we'd be creating something like this:

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But then I revisited my venue and realized I can't actually hang anything, unless I build some sort of structure to hang things from. I'd rather not do that. SO! What to do next? I have a couple of ideas.

The first idea is to create a giant Alice In Wonderland-esque paper flower garden. It's like a dreamland! And it could double as a fantastic photo booth backdrop after the ceremony.

Or put giant paper flowers in vases to frame the bride and groom.

top and bottom

Another thought I had, to tie in our literary theme, was to build an altar out of vintage hardcover books about love and marriage (and maybe even throw in a romance novel or 10). Since I can't find anyone who has done this, here's a little inspiration to give you an idea of what I would design it after. Except imagine hardcover book spines instead of wood :)

By the way, did you know you can find all sorts of books on Goodwill Books for crazy cheap?!

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I also love the hanging flowers, but that requires someone to make the altar the morning of the wedding, which just isn't going to happen for me. Or you could pay BHLDN $1,800 to make a paper version for you (are you kidding me, $1,800?!).

  easter lilies and BHLDN

And I also love the look of ribbons coming out from underneath a vintage side table or fireplace mantel.

This bride did something similar that turned out really lovely in our venue!

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Okay, enough ideas. What do you think? I'm leaning towards the Alice In Wonderland giant flower field, in which case I should definitely start now. But I'd really love to hear what you think! I'm counting on you to tell me if I'm crazy for attempting to DIY something like this.

What to Wear? {Bridesmaids Dresses}

Since I found my wedding dress and can no longer stare at millions of photos of long white dresses online anymore, I've shifted my virtual window shopping eyes to my bridesmaids' dresses! I have major girl crushes on my maid of honor and two bridesmaid, and it's important to me that they all like their dresses. They each have amazing, unique personalities, and I want their dresses to represent their personalities... while still fitting my aesthetic, of course. Problem is, every time I look at a photo of bridesmaids standing beside their bride, I think they all look amazing. I'm having such a hard time narrowing it down! But I think I've at least narrowed it down to two options at this point. I think. But now I need your advice! Seriously, I'm stuck.

The first option is having them all pick out a navy dress that they like. Navy looks so beautiful with some brightly colored flowers. Or white flowers. And they look great next to these light gray suits below, like Kyle's groomsmen will likely be wearing.

I love that the girls below each have different, brightly colored shoes on!

So lovely with some nice, colorful flowers.

This one is extra special, since it's my venue :)

one, two, three, four

Depending on the day of the week, I'm also in love with the idea of doing different, colorful dresses for each of them too! Colorful dresses just exude so much personality, which is exactly what I'm going for. Don't these just make you smile?

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If I do the different colors, I'm thinking of picking these three warm Fall colors (not necessarily these exact dresses) and pairing them with some nude shoes and white and/or yellow flowers:

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So, what do you think? Please help me decide! All navy? Varied colors? What do you think about these three colors?

Puppy love! {Pets in Weddings}

Animals are awesome. Particularly dogs wearing bow ties.

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Some of my FAVORITE wedding photos are of a couple who has their dog laying next to them during the ceremony. It can make a wedding feel so much more personal and intimate to have the couple's beloved pup at their feet.

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Even though our wedding is indoors, we made sure our vendor would be okay with us having our 13-year-old rescue pup in the wedding with us. We're not sure yet if we're going to include him, as it might be too stressful for the old man, but we wanted to make sure we have the option, of course. Plus, dogs looks so darn cute in photos!!

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Are you including your furry companion in your wedding? Or how about your engagement photos? Have you been to a wedding where the dog was the Best Man?

Since I'm a proud mom and I can't help myself, here's a photo of our fluffy man, Scooby, in a canoe. Won't he look great next to my dress? ;)