Venue #5: Disneyland

The inimitable Mickey Mouse:

The Rose Garden, where the ceremony would be...even without decorations, it's spectacular!
The main wing of the Sleeping Beauty Pavilion, where the reception would be.  Can you imagine a dance floor in the middle with tables twinkling all around?
A view of the Pavilion from below:
Lupines in front of the Rose Garden.

Venue #4: Adamson House

Built by tile barons in the early twentieth century, the Adamson House is now owned by the California Parks Department and the wedding coordinator is a park ranger!

The lush central lawn, bordered on one side by the main house, on another by a very Kinkade-esque garden shed, and on the other by the soaring, slate-watered Pacific Ocean.
Todd, with a view of the pier and beach in the background.
The perfect site for a sophisticated outdoor reception:

On Couches

What An Eminently Comfy Couch: #1

And another Couch of Eminent Comfort: #2

One of the great variety of colorful Ikea-type couches: #3

Perfectly stylish and sleek, but who would snuggle into it of an evening?: #4

During a recent conversation with my friend Eli, I got to thinking about men...and couches.

When I was dating in college, it never crossed my mind to consider whether a particular guy was dependable, whether he'd be a good father, whether I could imagine marrying him.  I was more concerned with (wow, this is embarassing!) whether he was cool - my version of cool was someone who had Deep Thoughts, who was either supremely apathetic (a la Sherlock Holmes) or tortuously impassioned (William Blake comes to mind).  I wanted a guy that I could be with for the moment, and in the moment.  If the guys of my college years were couches, they would have only two things in common: each was totally different from every other, and none of them were comfortable.  Granted, each of them suited me for a while, and all were aesthetically pleasing, but none of them had much to offer beyond that...not that I was looking.  These guys were perfectly good couches...the kind that look smart in the rarely-used living room, but on whom you are afraid to slouch or snack (see couches #3 and #4).

But then, around the time I moved to Arkansas, something in my thinking shifted.  I watched my students - 2nd graders - racing around at recess, or reading at their desks - I saw them learn and grow so quickly - and my frame of perception expanded.  Dating became more of the same, pleasure-seeking for its own sake became (gasp!) boring and predictable, and assessing guys based on their Deep Thoughts or any other silly, deeply unilluminating criterion began to seem (dare I say it?) rather shallow.  

And I began to want something more in a guy than the thrill of discovery.  In couch terms, at this point I thought back on all of the Ikea-type couches of my past - colorful, ephemeral, not too expensive to replace - and imagined instead what I'd now prefer.  My new Platonic ideal of couches would be strong yet soft, timeless in style.  But most importantly, it would be Eminently Comfortable, something that I could sink into gratefully and happily every single day with no qualms about whether it would accept me into its folds.  Something I would smile to look at as I walked through the door after a long day of work.  Something that I would keep - just like Todd's favorite deep green Converse high tops of mine - forever, no matter how it ended up looking, just like the child kept her Velveteen rabbit.  Something that was not so fancy that I had to dress up just to match it, or be too careful.  Something that would suit me - and I it - just as we were (see couches #1 and #2).

So Eli and I were talking and we agreed: 

It is far better in the end to have an Eminently Comfortable Couch, than even a great variety of steely, scratchy, slippery, brilliantly hued couches.  Although Eli has not yet found his Eminently Comfortable Couch, I have found mine in Todd.  It's strange and wonderful how each person seems somehow to find their own Eminently Comfortable Couch and, though all are different, each is perfectly suited to its partner.

Venue #3: Malibu Nature Preserve

The twisting white-fenced road leading up to a bluff overlooking the sea: a ceremony site.

A shadowed, lush grove only a short walk from the parking lot and already set up for a wedding.  The aisle had a lovely split oak at the end of it and a little stone-surrounded clearing to say the vows in.

The massive deck with a view of the Pacific where the reception would be (with strings of twinkling lights overhead).

What an adventure!

Venue #2: Pasadena Museum of History, Fenyes Mansion

Right on Orange Grove Boulevard, a stone's throw from the Rose Bowl.  The Mansion provides a backdrop for the ceremony and reception.

The aisle leading up to the Mansion:
People setting up a  tent for the next day's wedding!

Venue #1: Descanso Gardens

Ceremony & Reception Sites

The Magnolia Lawn: beautiful and intimate; green, but not a lot of flowers

The Rose Garden and Pavillion: spectacular, winding paths (with bunnies!), bubbling fountains, and mountains of fragrant, brilliantly colored roses.  The Pavillion is a Craftsman-style affair, with seating for about 120 set right in the middle of the garden.

Off to LA tomorrow morning for a lovely long weekend! :-) 

Lovely little Updike poem

Dea Ex Machina

"In brief, shapeliness and smoothness of the flesh are desirable because they are signs of biological efficiency." - David Angus, The New York Times Book Review

My love is like Mies van der Rohe's

'Machine for living'; she,

Divested of her underclothes,

Suggests efficiency.

Her supple shoulders call to mind

A set of bevelled gears;

Her lower jaw has been aligned

To hinge behind her ears.

Her hips, sweet ball-and-socket joints,

Are padded to perfection;

Each knee, with its patella, points

In just the right direction.

Her fingertips remind me of

A digital computer;

She couldn't be, my well-tooled love,

A millimeter cuter.

High Dive

On Saturday, beautiful & blustery, Todd and I drove to Santa Cruz.  Strolling down the boardwalk, we came upon a huge plunge pool rigged with an 85-foot high dive set up on the beach.  And it struck me, as we watched the "pirate" do his swan dive from the thin plank set so far up in the sky, that getting married is a bit like jumping off a high dive:

For one, both high divers and fiances are a bit delirious up there at the top.  From their vantage point, everything below is shiny and sparkling, and they feel plucky and daring and utterly exhilarated with the feeling of it all.  Both high divers and fiances have to be a little crazy, too, or, to put it more charitably, they need to have a whole lot of faith.  The diver, in that his skill and strength and the day's conditions, will see him safely streaking into the pool down below. The couple, in that their love and trust will weather all the challenges of life, and that they will  

still be happily holding hands as somebody's grandma and grandpa one day.

Love is a gamble at best - an earnest, fantastic gamble that a couple's bond will be as great for years to come, as it is now.  

But every day that two people live, treating each other with care and affection, listening to and supporting one another, just having fun together, each day stacked upon the next strengthens the proposition that this love will last.  

That it will change is certain.  Through change, though,  love might surpass itself, might unfold in delicious new ways, might be tested with new responsibilities but grow because of them...or it might not.  It's hard to say.  Love is as mysterious as it is wonderful. It's a gamble, sure, but one entirely worth making.

Happily Sunburnt

Yesterday, I breezily decided to spend the day wandering in the city, with my first stop being Glamour Closet, a bridal gown boutique with designer dresses for pretty good prices (think $1,500 instead of $4,000 for a Vera Wang).

The dresses are mostly samples from runways and high-end bridal salons,  and all of them are either size 4 or 6 (which, in bridal sizes, is anywhere from 6-10).  This would be discouraging if I wasn't a 4-6 but, as it is, the whole store was potentially the perfect size! I went around attaching little pink-ribboned clips to six dresses.  The fabulous assistant, Amy, helped me in and out of each dress and then laid out each train as I stood on a little platform surrounded by mirrors.  I had expected the first wedding dress trying-on to be completely intimidating and scary but it wasn't.  Amy told me that she had eloped two years ago because she thought the whole prospect of going wedding dress shopping was too frightening and embarrassing.  And I think it can be.  But at Glamour Closet, it was friendly and comforting and fun, and I think it helped to go once on my own before doing the whole friends and family trip.  I was able to look at how the gowns fit my body and evaluate my preferences.  There was one beautiful dress - the last I put on - that I loved (though won't say more here, for fear of Todd's reading it!), but I felt like I should explore the field before making a decision, especially since the wedding's still a year away.

And this is what I looked like at 5:30, after spending hours reading and walking in the sun down by the pier, when I met Todd and some friends for trivia night at The Elephant & Castle:

Ouch! It's definitely sunscreen-slathering season again! :-)

Summer Resolution #1:

Stop biting my nails! 

I've been trying to do this for a very long time, but today was the final straw.  

It happened at the Hall of Justice (doesn't that sound Superhero-ish?), where I went to get fingerprinted for my externship at the San Francisco Superior Court's Family Court.  The LiveScan operator (no more ink! now they just scan your fingerprints right onto the computer) remarked, as she was placing my left hand on the glass plate: "Nice ring! But those nails..."  (She herself had suspiciously long, peach colored nails.)  I began to explain: "I just finished first year exams in law school. I was under a lot of stress..." but then trailed off.  Because I realized: while my nail biting does lessen somewhat during those rare periods of calm (vacations, for instance), there will always be enough stress in my life to provide an excuse for nail biting. 

But, as I recently learned in Criminal Law, an excuse is not the same as a justification.  And, frankly, there is no way to justify my continued nail biting, as I approach the quarter century mark (yikes!).  There are plenty of ways to deal with stress that aren't disgusting habits (nail biting) or destructive (smoking; drinking) and I should make better use of them.  

What's another incentive to stop? Purely out of vanity, I want my fingers to look as beautiful as my ring.  So that when family, friends, and fingerprint-machine operators notice my ring, they also see the neat, straight nails of my hand.  It would be so lovely to have the kind of non-bitten nails that deserve a manicure once in a while...

Below: my lovely ring in its box (which itself will be the subject of an upcoming post!)

My lovely ring with my horrid, bitten-to-the-quick nails...

Hopefully, the two photos above will function as "Before" pics and I will be able to unveil some successful "After" pics by the end of the summer! We shall see...

Flower Wreaths

While flower wreaths are usually just worn by flower girls, there's something really appealing about wearing one made of wildflowers as my headpiece for the wedding.  I love the natural, carefree feeling that such a wreath would give my appearance: lots of makeup and precisely styled hair are not for me.  Wearing a wreath, I'd be able to keep my hair in long, loose waves, and it would give some color to an otherwise all-white ensemble.  Wildflowers could also be used for the bouquets, boutenierres, and other floral elements.  The variety is staggering, and the colors range from chalky pastels to vibrant hues...

City Hall wedding

A couple of days ago I decided to take a quick walk around City Hall as a study break, since it's a hop, skip, and a jump from Hastings.  As I made my way around the back, a woman wearing a short, sequined white dress, a man in a suit, and a beautiful little girl in a puffy pink dress were walking down the stairs.  The couple had obviously just gotten married, and they beamed as they swung the little girl between them.  It was such a simple, happy moment.  And that's just how I want our wedding to be...

Here's a link to one SF-based photographer's slideshow of weddings at City Hall:

http://www.iqphoto.com/cityhall

Moms are great :-)

This isn't exactly wedding-related, but Mother's Day is this Sunday and to celebrate all those great moms out there, Slate made a slideshow of lovely, hilarious, touching moments with moms:

http://todayspictures.slate.com/2080509

(I love the last picture - just a baby and her mom, gazing at each other...)

Happy (almost) Mother's Day!

Voodoo Donuts wedding, anyone?

Just seen on the Travel Channel: Voodoo Doughnut, an awesome Portland, OR bakery with all sorts of fanciful, marvelous kinds of doughnuts (Todd's fave: bacon maple bar; my fave: the Elvis --> peanut butter and chocolate drizzle on banana fritter).  They do and have very crazy things at Voodoo - Swahili lessons, merchandise which includes underwear, a chandelier called the "cruller of life," and, best of all, wedding and commitment ceremonies, since the co-owners are both Universal Life ministers! They even have appropriately demure white iced doughnuts! So tempting...

We're going to LA!

For Memorial Day weekend, that is.

Last night, on a semi-calculated whim, we booked a flight leaving San Fran at 10 am on Friday, May 23 and returning on Monday evening.  I can't wait! It'll be quite crazy, as that weekend will be Ann and Dad's last one in LA before they move up to Vashon Island, Washington. But it'll also be such fun!!

Here's some things I'd like to accomplish while there:

1) Seeing friends (Top Priority!) 

2) Seeing the new Indiana Jones (fun fact: Todd wants to name our as-yet-and-for-a-long-while unborn child, Henry Jones Rosenfelt, after Indy; to be fair, I'm a fan of kooky names myself...)

3) Touring possible wedding venues: we're going to have an appointment at Disneyland on Friday afternoon, and look at the Arboretum, Adamson House,  Descanso, and whatever else we can squeeze in over the weekend and Monday

4) Gown trying on? I'll ask a couple of friends to come with me to try on wedding dresses at a few places...already looking forward to it! (but must cut down on delicious chocolate things now, as proactive looking-good measure... :-)

*Mail Surprise* received the rest of our eight setting, plus extras, "Couture" flatware collection from C & B yesterday - hurray!

I've got the blues...

Two weeks ago (on the advice in a wedding mag), I went to Home Depot, to the paint section, and perused the many ranges of colors available.  Doing this is meant to give you a good idea of the colors that you'd like to use for the wedding.  I had an idea - before going - that I'd like to do a spectrum of blues for the wedding palette.  Everyone says it's better to have one color and then a contrast color, instead of different shades of the same one, but I just like all blues better. That idea was reinforced by my visit to HD.  There are so many lovely hues of blue :-) And the names for the paint shades are hilarious!

A few of my favorites: "Cast A Spell"; "Wild Blue Yonder"; "Horizon Haze"

Todd brought home flowers for me yesterday...

for no reason! what a sweetie pie :-) they're deep pink lilies with a lovely scent, and i've put them* on the breakfast table behind my textbooks as an inducement to sit down and study. hope it works!

*the vase i used is one that Heidi and family bought us off our C & B registry. it's perfect!

Oh, the venue options!

The greater Los Angeles area has about a trillion places to get married.  While this variety is good, in an attempt to avoid getting completely overwhelmed, I thought it best to narrow down the type of place I wanted before starting the search.  

Preferences:

Garden --> outdoor ceremony and tented reception

Historic house

Museum with courtyard, garden, and rooftop spaces

communities --> Pasadena, Altadena, Arcadia, Malibu, Santa Monica

And here's what I found:

1) Los Angeles County Arboretum (Arcadia)

www.arboretum.org

PROs: went there all the time as a child; Todd and I went there on one of our first excursions together (we weren't even dating yet!); beautiful rose garden with white arbor and gazebo; fantastic photo opportunities in the many gardens and groves; lots of running around space for all the kids

CONs: will require renting large tent; weddings limited to late afternoon/ evening

2) Heritage Square

www.heritagesquare.org

PROs: many historic houses to choose from in one setting; living history museums are cool --> there's a carriage house, railroad depot, and hundred-year old church along one private, tree-lined street

CONs: near downtown LA; no special significance for us

3) Pasadena Museum of History

www.pasadenahistory.org

PRO: ceremony and reception would be at gorgeous Fenyes Mansion, which has sprawling gardens with fountains

CON: quite pricey

4) Adamson House

www.adamsonhouse.org

PROs: right on the beach in Malibu; easy to find for guests; architecture is beautiful California Spanish style, with central fountain; managed by California Park Service; dedicated on-site wedding coordinator; catering provided by excellent restaurant group

CONs; may be too small to accommodate 100 - 150 guests comfortably; may be parking availability problems

5) Descanso Gardens

www.descansogardens.org

PROs: ideal location, with lush gardens; many weddings there, so service will probably be great; catering by Patina (same restaurant group that owns our favorite place, Naples!); many sites within gardens for ceremony and reception; wedding coordinator provided

CONs: time restrictions; shockingly expensive

and, finally

6) Disneyland

PROs: sentimental favorite; rose garden at Disneyland Hotel or small garden at Grand Californian; wedding coordinator provided --> much less work for me!; guests could go to the Park before and after the wedding; lots of hotels (in all price ranges) and parking; horse and carriage entrance :-)

CONs: high possibility of cheesiness; not in LA area (in dreaded Orange County); reception would need to be in hotel ballroom environment = not desirable; my parents strongly disapprove of idea (and they're paying!)

What do you think? Quite an array...

Bridesmaids Dresses

When mom came out to visit about a month after Todd proposed, we took a lovely trip to Marin County and on our last day, we visited Napa.  Having explored the natural beauty of Napa thoroughly, we ventured to the fabulous Napa Premium Outlets. We are a mom-and-daughter pair that definitely bonds over outlet shopping. Back when I was 13, and we moved from LA to Boston, mom and I helped ease the adjustment by shopping for new school clothes at the many outlets of Connecticut.  When we drove across country, I remember stopping at the outlets just outside of Palm Springs, where mom picked up a beautiful coach handbag for a steal!

At the Napa outlets, we decided to try on dresses at BCBG.  When I saw one of the dresses - a dark blue silk knee-length sheath dress, I knew it was the perfect bridesmaids dress for the wedding.  Not only is dark blue, or navy, a very flattering color on any body type, the slightly shiny material is just fancy enough for a wedding, and I like the short length (considering the wedding will be in Los Angeles, outdoors, in July, and it will be hot!).  Also, the dress is a style and color that seems like it will be pretty easy for members of the bridal party* to find.  I don't mind at all whether everyone wears the exact dress - but if everyone wore a dress that was 1) dark blue or navy; 2) silk or some slightly shiny material; and 3) knee length, I'd be happy as a clam.

* some of whom I haven't asked yet, but am not too stressed out about this, since the wedding's still over a year away!

Wedding Jewelry

Now you might say it's ridiculously too early to be thinking about my jewelry for the day of the wedding.  Normally, I would agree, but there are times when the exact thing you've been wanting in your subconscious is just right there before you.  And in those situations, I think it's fine to just leap in and go for it.  I can always choose my dress based on my jewelry instead of the other way around!

Last weekend, Todd and I were walking down by the Ferry Marketplace building right on San Francisco Bay.  It was a gorgeous day - all sunshine, small gusts of wind, and cotton ball clouds - and we had just finished exploring the sprawling farmer's market.  

We happened to walk  by a few arts & crafts tents and in one, laid out a table, was a lovely freshwater pearl necklace and earring set.  The interesting thing about it was that the pearls were woven together with thin gold wire threading - pearls crocheted in gold! - and the effect was thick, stranded pearl clusters glinting in the sun.  I loved them immediately, and had a vision of my wearing them on our wedding day, but then I thought - who am I kidding? I haven't even looked at dresses yet! Our wedding's not for more than a year! This is a tent on the water, not a proper jewelry store!

Todd said that if I really liked the set, I should get it and wear it, but I was still hesitant and I said that if I was still thinking about it next week, then I would walk down then and hope it hadn't been sold! Later that afternoon, we saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall and right afterwards, I told him, "we have to go back - I really want those pearls! I'll never find anything so perfect!"  So, Todd - being wonderful - hiked all the way back down there with me, and luckily the set was still there.  And then, before I could pay for it, Todd insisted that he wanted to give it to me.  Really, sometimes he's much too sweet :-) .  But the upshot is, I have my wedding day jewelry and it's exactly what I want!  And it's the only thing about my look that won't be a surprise to Todd that day!

San Francisco Table Themes

Since we plan to get married in LA, but will have lived in San Francisco for two years by the time we tie the knot, we wanted to incorporate something into our wedding that referenced our life in SF.  

After all, when we moved to SF, it was quite a gamble!  We had our love for one another (of course), but we'd never lived together, especially not in a city completely unknown to both of us, in which neither of us knew anyone.  We both faced the challenge of adapting to life here: me, with starting and surviving law school, and Todd, with plunging into a new kind of job.  We had to set up a life together - make our apartment a home for both of us.  

Those first few days in our apartment - when we had a blow up mattress, paper plates, and a laptop for a television - and had no idea how to get anywhere - were a bit scary.  But we had each other - and soon, a fantastic GPS system for the car (thanks Rick and Lynn!) - and it wasn't long before we realized that it was not only going to be okay, but really terrific.  

For what's better than being in a new place - full of adventure and discovery - with your love?  And all the things that come with living together - making dinner every night, taking walks in the evenings, cuddling on the couch watching TV (and not worrying about when the other has to leave, or what the parking situation is) are so great.  

We've made a happy life here and so each table at our wedding reception is going to feature a San Francisco county parks location - in the cool art deco styles of vintage silhouette postcards.  We'll bring a bit of NorCal down south...

Thank You Notes!

Thanks to the generosity of Todd's family's large circle of friends, we've already been receiving quite a few gifts from our registries at Macy's and Crate & Barrel.  It's so exciting coming home to a large white and black box on our doormat.  But it's also important that we stay on top on who sent us what, and when, so that we can properly thank everyone!  I've made a chart with columns listing:

1) people who sent gift(s)

2) gift(s) received

3) date received

4) whether thank you note has been sent (yes/no)

on a large yellow legal pad (they're good for everything!).  And I've just found great-looking thank-you notes to use once we've run out of the first batch.  Since we don't quite have the theme for our wedding, but I'd like the color palette to be shades of blue - from navy to sky blue - the thank you notes are just simple and blue.

Ring Pillow project

There seem to be two schools of thought when it comes to weddings: 

1) those couples who hire a full service wedding planner to handle everything - down to the last detail - based on the couple's generalized input

2) those couples who go DIY crazy, making absolutely every aspect of the wedding from scratch, sometimes also relying on the creative abilities of families and friends to help with the varied projects

For our wedding, I'd like to be somewhere in the middle.  We'll definitely hire a day-of wedding coordinator, but we'll probably also have this coordinator throughout the process leading up to the wedding as well.  With my second year of law school looming, and Todd's hectic job in sports television, we just won't realistically have enough time to plan the wedding ourselves - and the peace-of-mind and stress reduction that hiring a coordinator brings is well worth the money.

That said, I do want to add personal, handmade touches to our wedding, within my limited creative talent, of course!  And one of the things I'm going to tackle is making the ring bearer's pillow.  I found instructions for just the sort of pillow to make in Michaels Book of Wedding Crafts.  Todd and I went and picked out the cloth - beautiful, deep blue silk - as well as two lengths of gold braiding of different thickness, and some wired gold ribbon to tie the rings to the center of the pillow.  I'll keep you updated on the project!