Monday, December 04, 2006

Invites Mailed - so little time left!

We finally put the invites in the mail Sunday afternoon. Though a few friends we saw on Saturday got their envelopes hand delievered (Lucky them!).

Tim and Jared went and found suits, shirts and ties at Men's Wearhouse on Saturday. And I went and had my wedding dress fitted.

We still have several details yet to complete, but I think we will get it all done. Or at least the majority. And those things that don't get done probably aren't that vital anyhow.

So things are rolling ahead whether we like it or not! And on top of the wedding date barreling toward us, I (Cecilie) have just started a new job because our lives can NEVER be simple. And we wouldn't have it any other way.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Our Guide to Los Angeles

Since a lot of our guests will be coming from out of town we decided to create a guide to Los Angeles of our favorite places in the city. We hope every one finds it helpful.

Word Version

PDF Version


Email us if you have trouble opening it and we can send it to you in an email or mail you one the old fashioned way.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Engagement Pictures Arrive!

I went and picked up our engagement pictures from our UPS box yesterday. Tim and I were both a little nervous because though we had complete comfidence in our photographer Danielle we did not have as much cofidence in our own ability not to look goofy in pictures. But Danielle is so amazing that she got awesome pictures out of two people who are rarely in front of the camera.

!!Warning pictures of two people in love smooching below!!


Awww on the beach! The vivid colors are due to cross processing. Which I had never heard of until we started dealing with wedding pictures. But isn't it pretty?



Yes, that is skeeball behind us because Tim and I had to be true to our nature and go into the arcade for some pictures. (In other pictures you can see how badly Tim beat me at skeeball.)

The whole shoot was about two hours and took us from the Santa Monica weekly Farmers' Market to the Santa Monica Pier to the beach.

And after seeing how Danielle managed to make us look like models, I am much more at ease about the wedding pictures.

The wedding is so close now!

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Bits and Pieces of Invitations

Since Tim is a graphic designer it made sense for him to design our invitations (he designed our save the dates as well with some input from me).

But neither of us know the craft of paper making so we had to go and seek out the pieces of our invitations.

We went to Landis General Store and found the foundation of the invite. We loved the pocketed envelope from, Marsupial Papers. We got one that looks like this

in a dark brown (you'll see, it looks very nice!)

But since the envelope is so dark we knew we needed labels of some sort to address it.

Today we were out with our friend Jared (who is also Tim's best man) and we saw that Hennessey + Ingalls was having a 20% off sale. Jared is an architect and Tim is graphic designer and they sell architect / design books. I like art and design too so it wasn't like I minded. And I found some awesome labels by an artist named Angela Adams. And they were 20% off too!

This week I have to head to Landis and pick up the things we had to order (they didn't have enough in stock) and then the assembly will begin!

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Clothes and Shoes and 105 days left

Today I got Elissa and EK's dresses in the mail. They look AMAZING. I had a swatch of the fabric but as a full blown dress it is even more stunning. I like the color so much, I want a dress in the same color (maybe I will try on one of their dresses later...ssssshh).

Elissa has this style and EK has this style except tea length.

And in the color seen in this picture:

AND I finally ordered my shoes for the wedding. I am sure no one was worried I would have shoes to wear to the wedding but I was seriously starting to wonder. I was feeling like all the requirements that I wanted (not too expensive, not pure white, not too high, cute, thicker heel, open toe) were never going to come together in ONE pair of shoes. It finally did at the new online shoe store by the company that owns Gap, Old Navy and Bannana Republic. Piper Lime.

Today it is only 105 days until Tim and I are married. I can hardly believe how fast the past few months have gone. It seems like just yesterday we got engaged. So much has happened since then, the wedding has really taken shape, I can't wait to be able to enjoy all the hard work we've both put into it.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Music and Pictures

We have our ceremony musicans booked. Bravo Strings We will have a violin duo that will play classical musical before the ceremony and during. Right now I am thinking of Ode to Joy for the processional. And I want the traditional "Here Comes The Bride" for my entrance. And then...we need to figure that out.

In picture news, Tim and I had our engagement pictures taken yesterday. Danielle, our photographer was very good at getting us to pose since neither Tim or I are not professional models. I also have to give big credit to Tim for keeping me laughing. I have always had issues having a natural smile in posed pictures. It isn't too hard to smile when I am getting to cuddle with Tim on the beach. Now we have to wait out three weeks to see how they turned out. We went to the Santa Monica Farmers' Market, The Santa Monica Pier and the beach.

The Farmers' Market seemed like such a good idea since Tim and I love hitting Farmers' Markets and there are always cool things to look at but I think it was way to crowded to get lots of pictures. They did have pony rides but sadly both Tim and Danielle did not think they would let me ride the ponies. Darn.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Our Photographer is Famous

Our wedding photographer Danielle is going to be featured on Inside Edition for the boudoir photographs she does. They are also showing two weddings she shot.

Thank goodness we booked her already because I am sure after people see her photos nationwide she'll be booked until 2020.

Check out her blog to see more awesome pictures by her and see adorable pictures of her new baby.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Engagement Picture Fear

At the end of the month Tim and I are getting our engagement pictures taken.

I am a little scared because I tend to make strange looks in posed pictures. As my mother says I tend to look like the cat that swallowed the canary. So I am looking for tips.

I found this: How to Be Photogenic

One of the suggestions is looking at pictures of other people who are photogenic.

Here are some pictures I am looking at for inspiration:
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3


And this is just a sweet wedding moment that I dream of having (with less flowers) at our wedding.

At least Tim is photogenic. He suggests I think of kittens drinking lattes or something like this to make me smile naturally.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Our DJ: Mr. IPOD

We almost have are whole "team" assembled for the wedding.
A week or so ago, Tim picked out our DJ.
Here he is:
note: we even got him in green to match our wedding colors!

In case you don't recognize him, here is his website

No, I have not gone crazier then I already was. Tim and I decided almost as soon as we got engaged we did not want a regular DJ. Using an ipod just made more sense, Tim owns more music then some music stores and any songs we don't already have, we can buy on itunes and have forever.

We have already compiled a list of songs of music we already own that is 8 hours long. And I still want to purchase "Unchained Melody" by the Righteous Brothers and "Now That We Found Love" by Heavy D

Our friend Chris said we could borrow his speakers so we are pretty much set. We just have to decide on the order of songs. Though we already know our first dance will be our song, "Such Great Heights" as covered by Iron & Wine.

Even NPR says that the ipod is the NEW wedding DJ. So it must be true.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Moving On Up To The West Side

Tim and I are moving!

We decided that planning a wedding and having our busy lives was not enough...we needed to add moving to our lists of things to do this year.

We found a great place in Pacific Palisades. PP is south of Malibu and North of Santa Monica. And we are very excited about the relocation though we will miss some things about our current neighborhood in Hollywood we are definitely trading up.

The moving starts on October 1st.

Then we can finally get back to concentrating on wedding planning.

Friday, September 08, 2006

A week full of wedding preparation

Tuesday, Tim and I met with Reverand Bock aka Pastor Bob to see if we felt comfortable with him. And we both liked him A LOT. He is very nice and apparently LOVES doing weddings because he does them A LOT and he doesn't take any of the money he is paid for doing them for himself but donates it to a scholarship fund to send kids to summer camp. How sweet is that?!

*

Then yesterday, we went for our tasteing to make sure all the lovely hor d'oeuvres were tastey enough for all our wonderful guests. Our friends Sophia and Steve, graiously agreed to help us make determinations of tasteiness. All the food was great! We are only to do some very minor tweaking of some items but all in all we were very impressed! And we got to see some awesome pictures of our venue all done up for other weddings which gave lots of good ideas for how we were going to do things. We were hoping to go to Yummy Cupcakes afterward to give ourselves a true similation of the wedding reception but alas they were already closed by the time the tasteing was done.

And lastly, I ordered the matrons of honor dresses and they should be in come November. I already have my dress though due to my height, it needs hemmed.

* just an image of hor d'oeuvres not of ours because we thought it would be strange to take pictures at the tasteing.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Let Them Eat Cupcakes!

When Tim and I set out to get stuff done, we get it done. So we have been getting wedding related things done right and left!

Last weekend we undertook the grueling but necessary task of getting things done with regards to cake. We had decided since we are having a cocktail party style reception cupcakes would be the most appropripriate (and yummy!) choice.



We had gone to Yummy Cupcakes a few [thousand] times, for research purposes and loved their cupcakes. Saturday, we went and put down a deposit. Still not sure of the flavors, but whatever they are they'll be yummy. ;)

In other food news, we scheduled our appointment to do our tasteing with the caterers.

Things are starting to come together and Tim and I are both starting to realize, "Oh my goodness! We're getting married!" :)

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Double Platinum

Tim and I are finally on a tear to get things done for the wedding.

Yesterday we went wedding ring shopping. We went to Tiffany and looked at the rings we had already looked at on their website, they looked just as good in person and that was that.



Here are the rings all wrapped up pretty from Tiffany's (with my lunch from the Century City mall food court in the background...mmm wrap sandwiches).

To see the actual rings, you'll just have to wait until the wedding. We need to save some surprises.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Halekulani... 「ハレクラニ」




Another day, another major thing knocked out.

Today, perhaps the most fun part of wedding planning was taken care of.

We booked our reservations (flights, hotel) for the honeymoon.

We'll be staying at the Halekulani, in Honolulu. After some frustration in finding a place on Maui, I googled something like "best honeymoon locations" or something like that. After ridiculous option after option, Halekulani came up. Now, this was Forbes's list, so of course most stuff is beyond the price range of us mere mortals. And of course, they were talking about the Vera Wang Suite, which costs more than the entire honeymoon, but, baby steps. :)

Flights: Cheap at $5 apiece. Yay miles.

And we made reservations at La Mer, their 5-star restaurant.

Should be a great time. And the phones will be off the hook, so don't bother trying to call. :)

Friday, July 28, 2006

Flowers and The 6 Month Mark

After some time off from wedding planning Tim and I are back on the horse.

Last weekend, we traveled to South LA to meet with a very kind and helpful florist named LuAnn of Moments in Color. And she was so nice and helpful we decided she had to be a part of our wedding "crew."

She has great ideas, and great ways to save money. And since she has been doing flowers for TWENTY - ONE YEARS, I think she knows her stuff.

Also, we are rapidly approaching the 6 months until the wedding mark, so Tim and I are working diligently to get things checked off our 65 million item to do list. Watch here for more info to come!

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Other wedding blogs

In doing research for our wedding I have come across other blogs about weddings.

The funniest of them is You May Kiss The Blog.

The bride is an animator, so she makes silly cartoons about her wedding planning.

Makes me feel better to know other people have wedding stresses.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Maps

Since today I am planning on mailing most of the "save the date" cards, I thought I would put maps up, so people could get a better idea where the wedding is going to be.

If you want to see where the wedding is in relation to where we currently live I suggest Google Maps. I like the hybrid option so that you can see buildings too.





Soon, I will be putting up hotel suggestions (and hopefully reserving some blocks of rooms).

Stay tuned!

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Photographer Booked

We get to check off another item on the wedding "to do" list.

We met with and booked the photographer for the wedding.

We met with Danielle Biel of Skye Blu at her studio this afternoon in Pasadena.

She is super nice! And her pictures are great! And that is coming from at least one person that dabbles in photography (a.k.a Tim).

We are pleased with her package because it includes 8 hours of her time at the wedding, which would pretty much cover getting ready before the ceremony until the guests start to leave. AND we get an engagement photo shoot. The engagement shoot won't take place until at least July as Danielle is technically on maturity leave until then (she is due May 9th!).

Here and here are pictures of weddings she has shot at Malibou Lake previously.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Matrons of Honor Dresses

I think I am going to have the ladies (EK and Elissa) get dresses from Aria Bridesmaid Dresses for the wedding.

I had thought I could have them find cool dresses they could wear again and again from someplace like Gap but green is apparently not one of the super "in" colors.


I got swatches in the mail from Aria, today. They look very different in person. The brown is for accents, maybe.

This planning is more fun then location hunting.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

SAVE THE DATE!

I know everyone will be as excited as we are that we finally have a date set.
Mark your calendars for February 17, 2007 for the BIG DAY. (President's Day Weekend for those of you without your 2007 calendars)

We will be getting married and having the reception at The Malibou Lake Mountain Club. And catering provided by Truly Yours Catering

We had talked to the caterer and liked the prices and from the pictures it all looked great but we obviously had to go see it in person to be sure. So today we treked out to Agoura Hills to see for ourselves and it was even BETTER then the pictures online. So we reserved the date.

Here are some pictures Tim took while we were out there:


The Gate (and that is Cecilie in the lower left of the picture).


The outside of the location from the lawn.


Another shot of the outside from the lawn (you can see they have all the trees strung with lights!)


The lake across the street from the location


The lawn, where we will have the ceremony if the weather is nice (picture white chairs etc.)


The room where the reception will be. The fireplace really works, so if it is a chilly California evening we may have a fire in there.


The back part of the building, off this porch are the rooms for the ladies to get ready in before the wedding.

We will try to get proper "save the dates" to everyone soon. But for tonight we are just excited to have a date set!

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Visiting Family

This is somewhat wedding related.

Tim and I went up to the Bay Area for a long weekend to visit matron of honor #1 aka my sister, mother of the bride aka my mom, ring bearer aka our nephew, and official bride giver awayer aka my brother in law.

My sister and mom appropriately oh'd and ah'd over the engagement ring in person. And we talked about the woos of wedding planning.

All in all the trip was fun and served no real purpose toward the wedding except making Tim and I blow our diets.

We did get two engagement gifts. One is a silver candy dish which belonged to my grandmother and the other is a cake cutting knife and cake server (to be used at the wedding).

Wedding planning continues and hopefully (fingers and toes crossed) a date will be selected in the near future. But we don't want to jinx anything so I won't say anymore.

Friday, March 03, 2006

Trying to Set a Date

Everyone seems very anxious for Tim and I to set a date, including us. We are hoping for sometime in February 2007, but we want to stay flexiable so that we can find the location.

But don't worry, it won't be Super Bowl Sunday Weekend.

Thus far we have looked at one location. I will not name the place but we didn't like it at all. Though the place its self was on the beach, the room they rent for weddings had zero view (unless by view you mean, looking out on to a tile courtyeard area. Plus there wedding person was not very nice i.e. acted like Tim and I were not really good enough to get married at her location.

Another place we were considering looking at has been crossed off our list because the room is also "cave like" as described by one of my co-workers who also checked it one out when she was getting married. (Side note: people in the legal profession love to plan weddings because I have gotten suggestions and advice from people at the firm I work at.) Tim had a business meeting at the place a while back and when I told him what my co-worker said he knew what room it was and agreed it was not what we were looking for.

So it is back to doing some research on locations this weekend, then Tim and I are going to call around next week and see what we can learn BEFORE we go look at the location. I don't want to waste another Saturday afternoon looking at a cramped ballroom if the price they are asking is ridiculous.

If anyone has suggestions of places (other then my mother's suggestion of the chapel at Forest Lawn) Tim and I are open to suggestions.


And thank you everyone who has been so loving and wonderful in congratulating Tim and I on our engagement, it really has made us realize how lucky we are, not only to have each other but to have such wonderful family and friends. :)

Sunday, February 12, 2006

A little detail...

Since I have told the story several times today I think I will write it up here to try and save my voice (which I am losing after all the phone calls today).

The choice to get married:
Tim and I have been together almost four years so really this was a no brainer. As everyone knows both of us we couldn't be more perfect for each other. So we had been talking about it for a while. And finally we decided it was silly to wait any longer.

We headed to Robbins Brothers and picked out the ring you see in the post above. We thought this would be a difficult choice. But with the help of Arik our salesman, there was no question we found the right ring.

Last weekend we picked up the ring and impatiently waited for this weekend to roll around to make it offical.

Last night Tim and I headed to our favorite fancy resturant, Cezanne.

On our way there we heard the song we consider our song, "Such Great Heights" on the radio in the car. When we got to the resturant, the waiter we had had the first time we went to Cezanne four years ago when we first started dating was our waiter. Things just seemed to be falling into place so perfectly.

After we had dinner Tim took my hand and said all matter of wonderful things to me all of which lead me to cry. And he gave me the ring.

We apparently surprised the waitstaff who thought we were just there for a nice dinner out. They gave us complimentary champagne with a little slice of strawberry. Then we enjoyed awesome desserts.

Then out of excitement I called my mom and woke her up. It was midnight her time afterall.

The ring:
The diamond is from Tim's materal grandmother's engagement ring. The band as I said above is from Robbins Brothers. And it is simply beautiful in my humble opinion.

Thanks everyone for your congratulations and well wishes. We look forward to sharing this journey with all of you.

The ring...

If you're reading this, you know by now that Cecilie and I are engaged... since a lot of you are a plane flight away, we wanted to put up the pictures of our ring for you to see.

Stay tuned for more posts!