Month Three of Marriage: Coachella

Tim and I have been married a little over three months now.
Marriage is great!
Except we have both been super busy! I guess we were silly to think our lives would calm down after the wedding. Since when have either of our lives ever been calm?

We have gotten *most* of our thank yous out in the mail. A few left to do, but we ran out of thank you note cards. We just have too many genrous and wonderful friends and family to thank. Soon, soon.

This weekend we are going to Coachella . We are only going for Day 3 because we are both fans of Rage Against the Machine and since they have not played together in 6 years we really couldn't pass up the oppurtunity. Even if it is going to be 100 degrees in Indio.

We will also be seeing bands like CSS and Damien Rice.

It should be a lot of fun.

Right now we are chilling out in our motel room in Palm Springs after getting some eats and coffee at koffi. And picking up the ever esstential sun block.

Next big thing on our agenda: Tim's birthday!!

Mystery Gifter

We received LOTS of awesome gifts for our wedding. All of which we plan to write thank you notes for (because our Mamas raised us right!) but we have one problem...

We have one gift that has no gifter attached to it.
We received the fabulous Kone
from someone who attended the wedding, but the shuffle, a card was either lost or detached from the gift. And we don't know who gave it to us. I am going to try and call Target this weekend and see if they can give me any clues to who gave it to us (we do have a gift receipt) but if you are the mystery gifter, please send Tim or me an email. We have already used it so much (our apartment gathers much dust) and would love to properly thank you for it.

In case, the wondrous kone is from someone who doesn't want to come forward, just know whoever you are, we really appreciate it!

UPDATE: Mystery solved! Our friends (and engaged to be wed) friends Greg and Angela got us the Kone however, the card must have gotten lost.

ハワイ

Currently sitting in scenic-but-otherwise-awful HNL: the first-world airport with second-rate facilities and third-world policies and procedures.

But HNL is covered already. Honolulu was amazing, very relaxing, and very little was done: which is exactly what the plan was.

We swam in the ocean for a while, got a ton of sun.. trekked from our place on Waikiki to a bakery on Kapahulu to get some malasadas, a local treat (by way of Portugal), we were told. Good, but not worth the two and a half miles walking.

We also had a ton of great food and drink, watched a bunch of bad TV (Top Model season 7 nearly in its entirety; a bunch of Juvies and The Agency, and the perennially unwatchable My Super Sweet 16...), explored some of the local scenery.

Now, my quick sum of the area for those of you who read the blog:
Honolulu is..

• A bizarre fusion of East and West. Our hotel had literally every sign in Japanese and English (except for the signs at the breakfast buffet... oops!), and it seemed like every other sign had a ton of katakana.


• A further collision of Hollywood, Vegas, and Rodeo Drive. Kalakua Ave. has about 40 Coach, Cartier, Le Sportsac, etc. stores in five blocks... and they're right next to the ubiquitous ABC market (tourist-trap meets 7-11 with a hawaiian flair) and near the 18-shirts-for-$10 stores.


• Really relaxing


• Apparently facing a dire crisis of pedestrians getting hit in intersections. I can't speak to this one, as our slice of waikiki had ongoing construction on the road. (To which I lost $3 on cab fare as we sat and waited for the construction crew to clear out of the road).


• A surprising mullet-per-capita density.


• Ultimately deemed "civilized" in spite of the blight that is HNL -- multiple Jamba Juices were spotted, in their customary next-to-Starbucks location.

Not much else to say at this point... a thrilling flight over the pacific ahead of us and then a return to the real world. Fortunately, HNL has brought out the less-than-polite Angeleno in myself and Cecilie.

Maholla!

Honeymoon Hangover

Tim and I are in the Honolulu International Airport waiting to head back to LA. Everyone who came out to LA for the wedding can complain all they want about LAX, you don't know annoyance until you have to pass through HNL. Combine together lots of tourists who don't know what they are doing with airport employees that don't know what they are doing and you have HNL.

But we had an awesome time in Waikiki! Our time was spent relaxing, swimming, eating good food and sleeping. And on occasion catching up on bad reality television. Yes, we could have seen things and done exciting things but after a year of being on the go we both needed time not be on the go. It was perfect!

A little tired and a little sunburned, we head back to the real world.

Mahalo!

And they lived happily ever after...

We're married!


The wedding was perfect (I'm a little biased of course). There were a few minor snags but nothing that wasn't fixable.

We had perfect weather in Los Angeles, which is not always a given in February. It was a clear and sunny day all day, in the 80s and by 4:30p it had cooled a little and everyone was comfortable even in suit jackets (or so they said.) And everything was beautiful from the flowers to the food.

Tim and I both had lots of fun and loved seeing friends and family, some of whom we had not seen in a long time.

Afterward, we headed to Hotel Angeleno to unwind form what was a very busy day. We even got room service this morning for added luxery.

Now we just have to prepare to leave on Wednesday for Hawaii.

Thanks so much to everyone for your love and support!

More pictures after the honeymoon...

48 hours +16 hours

So we are in the home stretch.

Tim is currently fine tuning the wedding play list.
I have called or emailed the vendors to ensure everything is kosher with that stuff.

We have a few minor things to handle. Other then that we are ready to go.

If we could, I think Tim and I would do it today. (But I think everyone who is getting in on Saturday would be upset!)

FYI: any one staying at the Hilton in Calabasas, the shuttle will be running between 4 and 4:30 (just two runs) up to the Malibou Lake and then it will have two runs back to the hotel between 9:30 and 10p. I am trying to get in contact with the Van service (its called Lincoln Limos) to see if they will put a sign in the van window that says Read-Gerlach or something. But if not its probably going to be the only 15 person passanger van pulling up to the hotel around that time. Spread the word!

For those of you who can't be here on Saturday, I suggest buying yourself a cupcake and eating it to celebrate.

For those of you who will be, see you Saturday, I'll be the one in the ivory dress. ;)

Licenses!

Monday morning, we shuffled off to the Van Nuys Courthouse/Government Center. It wasn't because I had an apperance at court either, it was to get our license to get married.

And the wait was amazingly short! We had to raise our right hands and promise everything we said on our application was true. And then we were told we had to get married by April! (Because the license is only good for 90 days) Though there was the brief thought that we could just get married right then, we realized we both had to get to work so there wasn't really time.

Then today, I went to the Calabasas Fire Department to get a fire permit for candles. She felt a wee bit silly getting a fire permit for tea lights, but rules are rules right?

So now we are licensed and permitted, and only 18 days left until the big day!

Take us the the wedding, driver!

On top of all we have gotten done lately we hired another person for the wedding. A driver for our guests!

We thought especially for our many out of town guests a shuttle to and from the wedding would be very useful and also put our minds at ease if someone "celebrated" a little too much.

I know a limo would be nice but not very practical as far as number of people who could fit in it. So instead we ordered a 15 person van. Which I think should be enough since we have about 75 guests total.

It will make two trips to and from the hotel before the ceremony and two trips toward the end of the reception. (Times for pick up and drop off TBA).

Now we just have to figure out for real, how Tim and I are going to get to our hotel that night and we'll be set.

35 days until the BIG day!

We haven't posted in a while because the holidays (and my new job) kept us rather busy!

Last weekend we did our final walk through at our venue. It was the first time Tim and I had been there since Spring 2006 when we first booked it. It was just as awesome as we remembered it. And the pinning down all the details made Tim and I much calmer about the next month. Then we ate lunch at Brent's. Mmmm!

Yesterday, we met with Reverend Brock and again were pleased with our choice. He is an extremely nice person and has so many great stories about weddings he has performed both touching and hilarious. We probably could have sat and talked to him for hours. We were a little disappointed that he said he doesn't usually stay for the reception, we both would have liked to talk to him more but we did suggest a great place in the area as he said he usually takes his wife out to dinner after weddings he performs.

And despite thinking we would be crazed the last month before the wedding we both feel calm and actually don't have that much left to do. *knock on wood*

We are looking forward to it being February 17 so much now since most of the heavy lifting is complete.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.