Marriage License Makes it Almost Official

ALMOST official. Recently Amanda and I took a next step in advancing our upcoming marriage to civic officialdom. We bought our marriage license!

On a morning that Amanda didn't start work until a little later than usual, and I could go in a little later than usual, we embarked on a 2-car convoy to the Laguna Hills Civic Center very near to her work. The convoy:


The beautiful Civic Center:


Here is Amanda walking into the Orange County Clerk-Recorder office at the Civic Center:


We entered armed with our valid forms of identification, a check for $61.50, and our high spirits. We had reserved a time via their online scheduling time reserving tool, and thus moved straight to the front of the line. I guess I was expecting a little more fanfare about the whole marriage license process, but it was simply a quick trip to the same counter that everyone else used. Here we are at the counter:


The guy (I don't remember his name - you can see him in the background) had us fill out some info, entered said info into the computer, then had us raise our right hands. He said his official shpeil, we verbally agreed, paid our $61.50, and then he gave us the official form with said info on it, along with a manila envelope. The official form turned out to be the "License and Certificate of Marriage!" He instructed us that it was valid for 90 days, and to send it in after we are married. And to have a good day, we could leave. Done and done.

So we left. And we were thinking: was that it? It was somewhat anti-climatic, to be honest. Where was the judge in the gown? The cheers from the crowd? The pomp? The glamor? Well, I guess that comes later. You've got to walk before you run, right? For now, we'll have to be content with our manila envelope. :)

Invitations “R” Us!

The next major milestone in our Road to the Wedding was completed last week – the wedding invitations! Let me first say how thankful we are to Jessica Sandberg, our good friend and incredibly talented designer. Jessica is the one who designed our amazing invitations. They came out better than we could ever imagine – we are so pleased with them, and thankful to her. She had made a Christmas card we loved, and the very night we got engaged, Amanda proclaimed that she wanted Jessica to design our invitations. Lo and behold, Jessica volunteered to do so, for which we are forever grateful.

We are also thankful to all you who have told us how beautiful, original, unique, gorgeous, cool (etc) the invitations are. We must tell you – we concur!! And we thank you… thanks for taking the time to tell us that – each of your comments makes our day; we’ve received so many supportive comments, and we’re very, very thankful to you. And we must deflect those compliments to Jessica and her creativity & talents, and to our photographer Alex Morgan and his incredible skills – without them, those invitations do not exist.

How about some invitation pictures and fun info? We ended up sending out 360+ invitations… and counting! First, we folded all the invitations (they have 3 folds each). Then Amanda addressed each and every one of those invitation envelopes by hand! I was amazed at the amount of time and focus she put into it – she was relentless. One Saturday, she spent about 6 hours just addressing invitations! Her perseverance was very impressive.

Here is my tenacious honey, deep in the throes of invitation addressing:

After all the addressing was finished, and Amanda’s hand stopped cramping (ok, it didn’t actually cramp), we had a raucous envelope-stuffing party. Stamp, return address label, glue… stamp, return address label, glue… over and over. We took turns on the different jobs. It actually went pretty quickly, and it was fun – we listened to music and got to see all your names and think of you individually as we put the envelopes together… a nice trip down memory lane.

The invitation motherload, before its next stop at the post office:

Displaying the fruits of our labor:

I took all the invitations to the local Huntington Beach post office (yes, the one on Atlanta, Mom :) ) before work last Friday, and dropped them off, some going as far away as England, Chile, and Tahiti. Bon voyage, little invitations! We are still putting some together and sending more out as more addresses come in to us.

What a wonderful experience the whole wedding invitation process was! Once in a lifetime moments, and we made the most of them and cherished them.

PICTURES!! (with link to slide show!)

One of the biggest decisions you have to make when planning your wedding is who your photographer is going to be. Pictures are what you take and have with you forever! We spent hours looking through portfolios and websites looking for a photographer! We found A LOT of good ones, but good wasn't what we were looking for. A lot of people can be good photographer but it takes someone special to be an excellent one, to not just have style and creativity, but also an artistic eye that can see things other people can't.

Then we found Alex!

We loved his work. I sent over an email and he quickly called me back. After talking with him, I booked him for wedding and engagements! Dan and I were very excited, and on June 6th we went out with Alex and did our engagement shoot. After getting my hair and make up done, we met up with Alex in Laguna Beach. We started off at Victoria Beach. Dan and I had never been there before, but it was a really awesome spot and we will definitely be going back in the future.

After doing some shots there, we went to downtown Laguna and walked around with Alex following us. Someone made a comment to me after they had seen the slide show that it just looked like there was someone following us around as we lived life, which is what it felt like. He gave direction at times but a lot of it was just us doing our thing. One of the things we loved the most about Alex was he wasn't afraid to do what to took to get the shot he wanted, like laying in the sand, sitting on the side of the road, etc.

Then after downtown, we walked down to another beach in Laguna to get a few more beach shots. The sun hadn't come out at all and it was pretty cold. I wanted to get some pictures of us in the water and Dan had already told me that he wouldn't be doing that. (he does not like to be cold) After we got down there and he knew how much it meant to me he agreed and we went playing in the water! IT WAS COLD!! But we are so glad we did because we were able to get some really great shots! Then within a few days Alex quickly got them turned around and put our slide show together for us! So here is our slide show.. (make sure you turn up the volume and listen to the words) Hope you enjoy it!

Also, I just want to tell Dan how much I love him. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me! I love that man with all of my heart and NEVER in a million years did I ever think there would be someone out there as amazing, sweet, caring, and kind as he is to me! He truly is MY EVERYTHING! I love you so much, FOREVER!

Let there be CAKE!!.. ((& cupcakes!!))

Over the past month and a half Dan and I have discovered many exciting activities that come along with wedding planning. Recently I discovered that cake tasting was among my favorites!

Dan and I decided we wanted to do the traditional "cake cutting" at our wedding, but what we really wanted was mini cupcakes. So we decided on a cupcake tower with a small cake at the top and mini cupcakes on the tiers. I began searching the Internet for bakeries that had mini cupcakes and did wedding cakes as well, but to no avail.

Then one day I remembered that about a year and a half ago (maybe a little longer) I really started getting into cooking and LOVED looking at cooking blogs. I added a few to the side bar on my blog page, one of them being My Sweet and Saucy. The baker/blog writer, Melody, didn't have recipes for me to try like my other cooking blogs but she had picture upon picture of gorgeous cakes and cupcakes and mini pies and cake ball pops and candies and cookies etc. So to gather some more ideas, I decided to go to her website and get some ideas on some cakes and cupcakes for our wedding.

I began looking through post after post on her blog and got some really good ideas and saw a few things I really liked. Then I saw a tab at the top that said Sweet and Saucy Shop! I clicked it wondering if maybe they could ship or something?? I didn't expect that at all, just high hopes I guess. So once in there I hit the contact button to see where they were located, and about jumped up and down and all around when I saw LONG BEACH, CA!! If you're not to familiar with So Cal, it is neighbors with Huntington Beach. The shop was only about 15-20 min from my house! I text Dan and emailed them right away. They got back to me with an appointment time to come in for a TASTING! ((this is the fun, and VERY yummy part))

I already knew I loved Melody's work, we just wanted to make sure it tasted good too. (and who can really turn up a chance of eating cupcake upon cupcake with the thought that you NEED to be doing this right now for the benefit of you wedding?) So we drove down there and met with her assitant, Hayley, who gave us about 8 different cupcakes to try. There were so many flavors and icings and designs to choose from and taste. We found many that we loved, and some.. not so much. Dan's favorites were.. well if you know Dan, you know his favorites were any that had chocolate. Mine was the Candy Bar and the Red Velvet! They were sooo delicious! The Candy Bar was by far the best! ((I won't tell you all of the flavors we chose but I will say if you come to our wedding, you will be able to try the candy bar cupcake))

After all of the fun of devouring the cupcakes and trying all of the flavors we got to talk about the design for the cake. She had a fun ipad i got to play with and look through pictures and tell her exactly what I want so they could start coming up with sketches for my cake! It was all so much fun and very delicious! I think about our little cupcakes often and get very excited for our wedding day, just to eat more of those amazing little treats!

A Shinoda Afternoon - Centerpieces Galore!

So every Saturday of late seems to be occupied with wedding stuff... like, hours of wedding stuff. ;) This last Saturday was no exception. Amanda and I took a journey to Shinoda Design Center, located in a not-too-praiseworthy part of Santa Ana. We've gone to a few different places looking for materials for the reception centerpieces, but haven't found the quality and quantity we needed. I personally didn't have very high expectations of Shinoda.

I was proven wrong. Yet again. (Much to my dismay, this seems to be happening quite often in this wedding process. However, the silver lining to that dark cloud is that if I am wrong, that usually means Amanda is right, which makes me happy too. So really, there are no losers here).

It turns out Shinoda is, in fact, the "Design Center." This place is like the Costco of decorating, design, and crafts goodies: vases, silk flowers, fake foliage, ribbons, containers, candles, fake food... you name it, you can find it at Shinoda. And it's all set up like a big Costco-type warehouse; it's really quite amazing:


Rows and rows and rows of design & decorating materials. We kept remarking how this was a dream place for our sisters and mothers - indeed, Amanda found it quite dreamy. She didn't want to leave. She kept finding new things she loved every 5 steps; plus, we were having too much fun...

Here she is stalking a fake bear amongst the fake trees:


Here she is being chased by said fake bear:


I made friends with a fake bear:


Eventually, we stopped fooling around, got serious, and got down to the business of finding and selecting the perfect items for our centerpieces, then spending money. We found everything we needed - it was truly ideal. (Again, that's the part where I was proven wrong.)

So we went up to the registers to pay only to learn that Shinoda is in fact a business-to-business member's club, and in order to be part of this club, you must be a business owner and present your business license to the crabby old lady behind the customer service counter. Or to the crabby young lady behind the other customer service counter. We love California customer service.

Neither of us have a business license, and couldn't pretend that we did. We were about to give up when the very nice lady in front of me in line offered to let us use her membership! It was incredibly kind of her. We took her up on her offer and bought a very respectable haul. Hopefully she got some membership frequent flier points, or something like that - she deserves them. Thank you, kind lady, wherever you are.

We weren't intending to buy all the stuff we did, but it was a fortunate opportunity and we made the most of it. Out in the parking lot, we encountered a challenge loading up our new treasures into my little 2-seater car. In the end, we stuffed my trunk totally full and were forced to spill a few items into the passenger's side. Poor Amanda was a little cramped:


Ah, but another item checked off our wedding list! Amanda found everything her little heart desired for the centerpieces, which are going to look very cool, by the way. I am forbidden by my more beautiful half to post any pictures of the centerpiece - you'll just have to come to the reception to see them! :)

We're Registered!!

So much has been happening SOO fast!! First things first! If you haven't noticed we added some little links to our sidebar!! We got our registering done!! We are offically registered at Macy's, Target, and Sandals! It was so much fun to go in and pick out things we wanted and use the little scan gun.

Target: one weekend we went to Target and registered there. We got really excited about a few things we picked: I was really excited about a patio set, and Dan couldn't decide what he was more excited about - the shredder or the safe box (His job at Experian/Protectmyid.com fits him well). Here is our Target registry (you can just search by our names).

My first scan:

Dan's first scan:

Macy's: the next weekend we spent registering at Macy's - picking out dishes, cooking utensils and some home decor! We ended up going to two different Macy's and spending almost 6 hours there! They've got a lot of great stuff. Macy's even gave us a snazzy red Victorinox bag for free! Here is our Macy's registry (you can just search by our names).

Sandals: our third and final place we registered was Sandals. You see, we booked our honeymoon at a Sandals resort ((there will be a post about that coming up soon.. we have been VERY busy this week)) and they offer a registry there. Dan and I would love to do a few tours & activities, a spa session, a romantic candlelight dinner on the beach... and the Sandal's registery is a very cool way to help us make these memories on our honeymoon! Here is our Sandal's registry (you can just search by our names).

It was so fun registering; I think it helped us realize, WOW after this big wedding we will be MARRIED! Haha you already know that, but once you're picking things for your home together and talking about what colors to do your bathroom, it all kind of sinks in a little more!

Returning to the Scene of the Crime

Just a couple of weeks into our engagement and we returned yesterday to the "scene of the crime" - Robbin's Bros, "the World's Largest Engagement Ring Store", where Dan bought Amanda's ring - to meet Dan's co-conspirator, Mary Ann, the diamond ring guru. Dan was very excited to have Amanda meet Mary Ann, who was so instrumental in picking out our beautiful diamond ring. He also wanted to show Amanda where all the ring-selecting action unfolded.

After free water, a cup of hot chocolate (for Dan), and some Hershey's kisses, Amanda was able to inspect her diamond ring up close and personal under the microscope! After seeing her ring in magnified detail, she was truly amazed by not just the ring in general but by the beauty and quality of the diamond itself. She was also amazed by what her fingernail looked like under that power of magnification. :) Anyway, it was really cool for Amanda to experience a little of what Dan experienced when he bought the ring almost 2 months ago.

Mary Ann was incredibly nice and helpful, as always. One goal of the visit was for Dan to pick out his wedding band. He found exactly what he wanted - a classy, solid white gold band, no frills or designs. He is giddily excited about his ring. He can't wait to be the White Gold Wielder. (50 pts to anyone who knows what he's referring to).

Another goal of the visit was to get Amanda's ring re-sized. Her ring is size 4.5, which if you can believe it, is too large. We discovered size 4 really suits her better. But we would need to send the ring back to Tacori (the manufacturer) for the best re-sizing job, and that will take 3-4 weeks. We're going to wait until July to do that. In the meantime, Mary Ann, the savvy and professional salesperson, suggested that Amanda consider getting a simple, nice wedding band to wear in place of her wedding ring during the re-sizing period, as well as during our honeymoon - we don't want to bring her bling out of the country (a word of advice given to us by many people).

So, like a good fiance, Dan went ahead and bought Amanda a very pretty wedding band that will be ready in time for the re-sizing so that she doesn't have to pretend to be un-engaged. :) Amanda was very stoked and had a lot of fun picking it out.

Finally, after all this, Mary Ann had a wonderful surprise up her sleeve (almost literally). She brought out a very cool handmade bead bracelet that she made, and gave it to Amanda, who loved it. It was extremely cool of her. Very sweet. Anyone want to place an order? :)

Dan's wedding ring picked out... Amanda's ring re-sizing set up... Amanda's new wedding band purchased... the gift of a new bead bracelet... All in all, the return to Robbin's Bros was a success!