Reception Inspiration Board

I just spent the last hour complying images for this inspiration board. Mr. Nee and I agreed on the wedding colors this past weekend: autumnal colors like deep reds, oranges, purples and greens. We are having our ceremony in a butterfly garden then the reception in a 1930s mission style hall. What do you think?


I am kinda in love with the idea of moss terrarium centerpieces. :-)

And those are Daleks on the wedding cake. We love Dr. Who especially the Daleks, for as menacing as they are, they are so cute!

Case of the Blues and Dress Help!

I was totally going to make a huge "T-minus One Year" post on Saturday but I was feeling a little blue and lazy. I am a graduate student in a program which forces requires me to spend a year in Santa Barbara. Unfortunately, this means Mr. Nee is down in San Diego. I have done LDRs before and dealt with all the obstacles that come with it but this does not mean I don't get lonely and miss Mr. Nee. Mr. Nee was suppose to come up this past weekend but couldn't because he was sick. On Saturday, I was missing Mr. Nee, lonely (the roommate was gone), and just feeling really unmotivated to do anything. I take that back, I was motivated to spend the whole day watching Law and Order SVU and eating pumpkin pie. I'm also without my car which means I couldn't really go anywhere or do anything without having someone come get me or having to make a very calculated trip via the bus, which is not 100% reliable. In short, I was feeling depressed on Saturday and did not feel like writing about how our wedding is one year away when I'm missing him so much.

I am working with a designer from Etsy to create my wedding dress. I have to decide on what color I want the trim for the tuxedo ruffle, if I want the trim to be on the cummerbund and if I want the bolero lined in a color. I really love autumnal colors but I am not sure if I want a completely "falled" out wedding dress. So I am asking you all for advice of these colors which one do you like the best for these little details. Here are some pictures of the dress, the proposed colors, and pictures of me as a reference. Be honest!







So what do you guys think? Or should I stick with more neutral colors like brown or nude or even a peachy orange?

(Oh and that is a picture of me with Mr. Nee. I think he looks like Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords which means he is hawt like a curry)

Sneak Peek: The Dress!

*****WARNING: Mr. Nee do not look! (not that you read this blog anyway! ;-P)*******

As some of you on FB know, I put a deposit down on my dress yesterday. I am having my dress custom-made from an Australian designer I found on Etsy. Etsy is an online marketplace where everything sold is either handmade or vintage, so yeah if you are into all things crafty and cutesy then you will spend hours perusing this site. I am actually helping my mother set up an Etsy site so she can sell her doll clothes and knitted/crocheted goods.

I saw this design a few months ago when it was featured on the main page and fell in love with it. However, I had just started looking and wanted to shop around a bit. However, I knew I was not going to be a bridal shop dress kinda girl. After looking through thrift stores, vintage shops, couture dress shops, I kept coming back to this dress. I began a conversation with the designer asked a few questions and after talking for almost two weeks about it decided to just go for it. I still need to get some of my measurements into her before she can begin and I will be sending her some of my Girl Scout pins, badges and scarves to make the dress really unique and personal. :-) I am very excited and nervous at the same time!

Anyway on to some pictures!


I love the tuxedo detail and the lace!

This cummerbund is from a different dress but I like the design of it a lot better than the one on the original dress. So mine will hopefully look very similar to this one.

As the title implies this is only a sneak peek but I feel like I have revealed quite a bit! More will be revealed in good time. :-)

Sneak Peek: Reception and Ceremony Site Porn!

In one of my previous posts, I mentioned that we had already selected and reserved our reception site. Well, Mr. Nee and I went to Balboa Park yesterday and took some pictures:
This is the entrance to our reception site. The fountain and the mural, I believe were completed by the same artist in the late 1930s. I love how the natural light hits both of them.



As I am a graduate student in Geography, it is only appropriate that our reception site be equipped with an antiquated map!



I love the windows and how the light flows through them!



Here is a close up of one of the ceiling lamps. I love the bronze detail along the top.




Our ceremony site is in a butterfly garden. When the grotto was first built it was a nudist colony but is now known as the Butterfly Garden (aka Zoro Garden) and was dedicated as such two days before we met in 2007! We saw this as a sign to have our ceremony here! We were also impressed how many monarch butterflies we saw so late in the year. This gives us hope that they will be around next year around this time!

Meltdown

I have had a stressful few days that resulted me in having a bit of a meltdown at an academic conference today (thankfully no one saw me). It was a culmination of many things (mostly non-wedding related) and I am trying to get over them and move on with my life. Before I discuss bad wedding stress, I rather talk about some fun wedding stuff.

I think we have figured out the wedding party. My maid of honor will be my sister, Mr. Nee's best man will be his best friend, the flower girl will be his best friend's daughter and the ring bearer will be my dissertation co-chair's son. I wanted to keep the wedding party small since we are not having a large wedding and I didn't want to hurt people's feelings. One of my closest and dearest friends, Miss Ro will be our officiant. I cannot think anyone else who could perform our ceremony. Since we might have the ceremony at Graveyard Park, I might ask my grandmother Dot to say a prayer for those interred at the park and have the each of the guests place a flower on the memorial. I would like to have more family members involved but I am not quite sure what I would ask them to do or if they would like to do anything beyond just being there to support us. Any ideas?

Now onto the bad wedding stress. I have to have some major work done to my car and its going to cost almost $1000. The day before I heard this I had decided on my wedding dress. A beautiful tea-length linen gown from an Australian designer who will incorporate my love for scouting (for those who don't know: I was a scout for many years, worked for the scouts and now conducting research on the scouts) into the dress. It's exactly what I want but with all this work that I have to get done on my car, I don't know if I can afford it and since I would have to get the dress custom-made and it would be coming from Australia it could take some time until I have a finished product.

On top of all this, I am contemplating going to my discipline's annual meeting in DC this year. Originally, I had not intended to but a friend, Mr. Z, roped me into playing a geography bowl game at the regional meeting and I did pretty well (or I think pretty well for someone who doesn't identify as a geographer). There is some travel money involved in participating and I have found round trip plane tickets (flying out of OC) for only $178. The conference registration fees would run me right now about $150 and hotels are probably about that much a night. I will get some money from my department and there is potential to get travel money from some of the speciality groups. I just don't know though. I could easily present on what I presented at the regional meeting but I am still unsure with my current financial situation.

All this is just too much right now, coupled with some family stuff going on and my increased workload at school. I think I need to get back into working out or at least doing yoga or nia.

'Real' Weddings: Let's Get Medieval

Alright, so I thought I would continue my 'real' wedding series on here. Rather gripe about some mariachi-loving gringos, I'll gush over this medieval-inspired wedding that was featured today on Offbeat Bride and planned by a graduate student! Perhaps I can relate as I am a jobless graduate student with a limited budget and I too am planning our wedding from a distance.

I love how Miss L. incorporated her academic studies with her wedding but did not do complete and utter medieval overkill. It was subtle, elegant and fun. Also, how can you not love that they had foosball and Hungry Hungry Hippo? And rather than have her walking down the aisle, he met up with her where they were going to have the ceremony! Just how awesome and subversive is that? Oh and they got married on a tomb (hmm, maybe we can really have our graveyard wedding!). If Miss L. wasn't already married, I would probably ask to marry her.

Save the Date!

Since we became engaged, Mr. Nee and I had been discussing the possibility of different dates. Initially, we thought we would get married Spring 2011 since I will be in SB this academic year. However, after some discussion, we decided to get married in the fall of 2010. We both love that time of year in SD and if you know me, I have a deep love for all things autumnal especially if it involves pumpkin. So the big day is...


October 10th, 2010 better known as 10/10/10.

Yes, a little cheesy but it will be easy to remember and this sort of day only happens once in a 100 years.

Once we figured the date we began our search for the ceremony/reception site. There is a park near our house that we absolutely love. We have had picnics there, many evening walks and one bad tennis game. We also love this park's history. Over a hundred years ago, this park was a Catholic cemetery filled with Irish, Italian and Mexican immigrants and well, technically it still does. Around the mid-century, the cemetery ceased to operate and was abandoned. In the 1970s, the city decided to turn the space into a park but rather than removing the 4,500 individuals buried there, they decided to remove the headstones and place playground equipment over the graves. The majority of the headstones were discarded but some were placed in a drainage ditch at a nearby cemetery. A few years ago, the city brought back the headstones that were discarded in the drainage ditch and made a plaque to honor those who are still interred at the park. For a complete history check out this awesome website that was created by students at the elementary school next to the park.

Most of our friends loved the idea of having a ceremony based on love, commitment and everlasting friendship on top of those who for so long were abandoned and forgotten. One friend even suggested we do a zombie theme wedding. Now, I really like zombie movies but I don't think I love them enough to base the entire theme of our wedding on that. Another friend suggested serving a fusion of Irish, Italian and Mexican food (for example: blood sausage and micheladas).

We were definitely thinking that this site could also be our reception site but after walking around the park on a crowded weekend afternoon, we figured it might be impossible to reserve that much space and the logistics involved might be a bit too much for us to handle.

I began looking at museums and other non traditional reception venues. I came across a hall in Balboa Park which will accommodate the number of guests and allow us to bring in an outside caterer. Its in one of the older buildings in the park featuring old Mission architecture and a beautiful mural and fountain. Oh and it was cheap, hella cheap. The cost to rent the space for 8 hours is only about a fifth of the cost to hold a reception at one of the museums in the park for 3 hours. So yeah, its a steal. They will set up the tables but we have to decorate and organize the caterer and all that. Anyone want to volunteer to be on our wedding decorating committee? Mr. Nee put in the reservation for it the other and we got it! We are both happy that that weight is off our shoulders.

Since our reception is going to be in Balboa Park, we began to explore other ceremony site options within the park itself. Even though we love Graveyard park, it would cost about $250 for the permit and about $100 for the chair rental, not to mention all the flowers and other decorations. So we are considering the possibility of having a ceremony at one of the gardens like our favorite garden in the park, Zoro Garden. Zoro Garden used to be a nudist colony but now is home to thousands of butterflies in the spring. Unfortunately, we are getting married in the fall when there will be no butterflies and very few flowers in bloom. However, I believe the permit is more affordable than the city park and they will include seating.

We need to make a decision regarding the ceremony site pretty soon as well as the caterer. I am debating on whether or not to go to a bridal expo in Del Mar in two weeks when I am in town for a conference so that I can investigate some catering options as well as taste some cakes. :-) Anyone want to go with me to fully experience the bridal industrial complex?