Feeling Slightly Accomplished...

Todd and I have just finished another wedding-related project: inserts about the website/ rehearsal dinner for our invitations! 

First, we went through our guest list and decided who was being invited to the rehearsal dinner and who wasn't.  Then, we drafted the copy for both types of inserts (rehearsal dinner + website; website only), and saved it as PDFs on a USB stick.  Next, we picked out some heavy weight mid-blue paper at Michael's,  and brought the paper and PDFs to Kinko's.

Within a day, Kinko's had printed and professionally cut all the inserts, and they came out wonderfully!  I'm glad, because I was kind of concerned that the inserts would look "homemade" and non-professional compared with the invites, but they look fabulous!

Next project: bringing the entire invitation suite to the post office and seeing what the new (enhanced) postage rate will be for each invite.  Then, choosing which stamps we'll use.

Also need to: select ceremony music, decide on wedding Readers, and set up a hair/makeup trial.

Altogether, I'm happy that we seem to be staying on track and keeping up with our wedding timeline, relentlessly updated on The Knot. ;-)

Disney Ride Table Numbers

After taking a bunch of pictures of various rides on our last Disneyland trip, we narrowed the selection down to fourteen winners, uploaded them to a memory card, went to Target, edited the photos and added names to some of them, and searched high and low for suitable (and affordable) frames.  We picked up the finished 8X10 photos (excellent quality!) and finally found some lovely cherry wood frames to put them in.

Last night, this is what I started with:

And here's how they ended up:

Close-up of Space Mountain, Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Splash Mountain:

Close-up of It's A Small World, Matterhorn, Peter Pan, and Teacups:

This will be the table number for our sweetheart table - though I was sorely tempted to use the Disneyland Railroad, since we've had many happy memories on that ride:

Since we'll probably have 12 tables, we'll have two extra ride frames, which we'll use for the guestbook/ program table at the ceremony and the placecards/ gift table at the reception.

Veil Decisions

On mom's recent visit, she brought along my Aunt Lisa's veil and headpiece (which she has generously allowed me to borrow for the wedding).  So we visited the lovely Leila of Persepolis Designs (my second visit in two weeks, since I had been there the week before with Todd's mom!).  We wanted to see how the veil and headpiece would look with my dress.

Here are the results.

Front view:

Back view:
Side view:
We also decided to try out a much simpler veil (basically just a piece of tulle attached to a comb).

Which do you prefer?

Spring Wedding Fashions

The editors of Martha Stewart Weddings (and the MSW blog) have been attending every single wedding fashion show in NYC this spring (lucky ducks!).

Below are some of my favorites from those shows.

A beautiful classic/modern dress from Angel Sanchez:

I love the bows at the off-the-shoulder sleeves, and the way the fabric highlights a woman's curves.

At the Oscar de la Renta show:

It's so ethereal and light and romantic,  more like Claire Pettibone than de la Renta...

Two from Carolina Herrera's show:

Her theme was to have each dress be inspired by a different artist who highlighted fashion in his or her work.  I think the dresses fit the theme very well indeed!

This one is based on Degas and his paintings of ballerinas.  It's actually a pale blue, and could double as a bride's "something blue"!

This one is inspired by Georges Seurat.  I love the thin black tie at the high neck, very chaste and sexy at the same time.
I'm happy I have my own Carolina Herrera to wear on the big day.   If I had to choose an artist that could have inspired it, I'd say maybe... Van Gogh (because of all his painting of flowers, especially sunflowers) or Mary Cassatt (because of all her paintings of women in big, flowy, be-ribboned dresses)

Which artist could your dress have been inspired by?

New Car!

After about six car shopping adventures to various dealerships around San Francisco (Colma, Burlingame, San Bruno, Berkeley, and Hayward), we finally found the perfect car!  Basically, during our search, we were looking for a vehicle that was:

(a) roomy - a hatchback or a good-sized trunk

(b) fuel-efficient - preferably over 25 mph on streets and over 30 mph on highways

(c) fairly new, so that it'd still be under warranty - 2006 or newer

(d) had fairly low mileage - under 40,000 miles

(e) that we could buy without financing - we hoped that this would be a bargaining chip, and we wanted to avoid any additional monthly expenses

I spent a good amount of time on Vehix, Kelley Blue Book, and Edmunds reading reviews of various cars and seeing what was available at nearby dealerships in our price range ($11,000 - $13,000).  Turns out, almost all of the contenders ended up being American cars!

The selection:

(1)

2007 Saturn Aura - beautiful wood-paneled interior; Mp3 jack; great gas mileage; comfy

downsides: Saturn is going out of business; already had a Saturn which I liked, but which had pretty poor pick-up; a sedan, so not as much trunk space

(2) 

2007 Chevrolet Malibu LT - really nice interior; seat warmers and power everything; good gas mileage; comfy

downsides: know a few people who've had problems with Chevys; a bit "old person"-ish, in Todd's words; a sedan, so not as much trunk space

(3) 

2007 Ford Focus - light, bright interior with six CD changer and Mp3 jack; hatchback; beautiful blue exterior

downsides: leather seats; mixed reviews about reliability

(4) 

2008 Nissan Versa - really comfy seats; hatchback; great styling

downsides: a bit too subcompact; very basic features (no power windows or locks!); not much pick-up

(5) 

2008 Pontiac Vibe Sport - great interior space; high seats; HUGE trunk; CD player and A/V jack; hatchback crossover; good gas mileage

downsides: Pontiac, like Saturn, may be going out of business; no Mp3 jack

which one do you think we picked?

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In the end, we went with #5!  We managed to get a GREAT deal on it at Berkeley Honda and, after signing the papers yesterday, and paying for it today, the car is ours!  I love it!

Now, onto the pictures...

View of the car from our apartment:

Interior, front:
Front view:
The glass part of the hatchback opens separately!:
A BIG trunk - yippee!:
I am already really excited about driving this car down to LA for the summer and using it as the perfect repository for all sorts of wedding stuff when we drive down for the wedding.  It kind of resembles a big, white wedding dress, no?  I think it's the kind of car where the people in the back seat will be just as comfy as the people in the front and, since the backseat folds down, we also finally have a car that can handle any ready-to-assemble bookcase that IKEA tempts us with!

Hooray!  This Friday, we plan to take our new car on an excursion...

Perfect Picnic Day

In our quest to find ways to adapt to Todd's new schedule, I've been surprised at how easy it's been to do all sorts of fun things... In fact, now that we have the mornings together (instead of the evenings) we're actually able to do all the activities we lack the energy or time to do at night.  

For instance, last Friday we went on a picnic in Golden Gate Park, up near Stowe Lake, before competing in a charity dodgeball tournament where we got thoroughly pummeled (though Todd stood his ground for ten minutes - alone of our team of seven against five members of the competing team.  I was so proud of him!!).

Back to the picnic: we picked up sandwiches at this great little deli in the Marina District called Marina Market and we put all of the food and drinks into the wicker picnic basket that we've been itching to use ever since we got it! 

Then we drove over to the park and wandered about for a bit, looking for the ideal sunny/grassy spot.

[Most of the pictures I took are on my camera, rather than on its memory card, so the photos below are the ones I took once I realized I needed to put the memory card in.  Once I figure out how to transfer pictures from the camera itself, you will see some wonderfully silly ones of us lying on a bed of tiny daisies, looking very sleepy and happy...]

Our picnic was delicious.  We poured our drinks into proper glasses and toasted the afternoon and the sun and each other, and marveled at the fact that we would be married in less than four months!

Afterwards, we decided to take a nice long walk and came upon some beautiful scenery, such as these white flowering trees:

And these turtles, balancing precariously on a sodden log:

And this little... prairie dog? gopher?  what could it possibly be?  But he was very adorable...

Thus ended a sweet, stolen afternoon. :-)

Great New Skin Product

I'm a very low-maintenance girl, most would say too low-maintenance.  But one of the things I've been worrying about for a while now is my fairly light skin being so damaged by so many years in the brilliant California sun that I look like I'm 40 by the time I'm 27, especially since I still can't get up the enthusiasm to wear makeup on a regular basis.

So, to that end, I've been looking for a moisturizing product that also helps repair sun-damaged skin... and I've found the perfect one!

Presenting Garnier Nutritioniste Skin Renew Anti-Sun Damage:

Not only is it a moisturizer, it has SPF 28, and it is so light and lovely that it rubs in easily and leaves no slippery residue on the hands.  And in two weeks of use (just a pump each day after the shower), my skin looks and feels so much better.  I mean, it's just brighter, smoother, less splotchy.  Although this product's more expensive than, say, Lubriderm, it's still very affordably priced (at $13.99) and, since a little goes a long way, I probably won't need to buy it all that often.

All in all, I'm so happy I found it!  If you're looking for a similar product, be sure to give this one a try!