wedding follow up: vendors & venues-- part 5

continuing from part 4...
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the invitations: Mercurio Brothers printing. 


They do letterpress invitations at relatively low prices, certainly lower they anything else I found, and with great quality. You have to order several weeks in advance. At the time of my wedding, they had a 5 week backlog. Call ahead to see how many weeks advance they need to have your order ready on-time. You can give them a pdf of a pre-designed invitation and they will work with you on colors and get it looking perfect. They are located in Berkeley, CA, so if you live near there you can pick up your order but otherwise they will ship anywhere.

the honeymoon: the Providence Inn B&B (in Providence, Utah)

After our wedding we drove up to Providence (just south of Logan) and stayed for a few days. It was a nice quite place to stay. They bring breakfast to your room too, and I remember it being very good. Their rooms are nice too. We stayed in their English Cottage room.

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The end.

4.0

DH and I have been married 4 years now. He is so cute.

And here is one more...

3 years of love and soap

Happy 3rd Anniversary to me! The soap saga continues. For earlier episodes, read here and here.

Our soap has survived 3 years in the Hansen bathroom. We use it many times a day. It is amazing supersoap. (I think it is because it is a low lather soap that it has lasted so long...that and it was huge to begin with).

Poor little soap. You have broken into tiny pieces. But you still live. For now. We thank you, soap. You have been good to us. 

poll: excessively important

David and I received a lot of marriage advice before and after the big day. Some of it was contradictory. Several people told us to never go to bed angry, but then others told us the opposite, that it's much better to wait until the next day and talk with a cool head. Which do you think? DH and I aren't really sure.

Marital spats. Do you:

• never go to bed angry
• sleep it off and talk in the morning

View Results
Create a Blog Poll

2.0!

DH and I have now achieved: Marriage 2.0.

yesssssssssss

DH + LR

Oakland Temple, May 22 2010, following Reija's wedding. (pic courtesy of Heather Hammond)

wedding follow up: vendors & venues-- part 4

Continuing from part 3...

----

Hair Stylist: Sean at Aveda Landis Salon in Salt Lake City, Utah

Hair can be really tricky. It was especially tricky for me because I'd been wearing my hair really short for several years and had just gotten it cut really short again the month before getting engaged. (See below--no ring yet!)

Aside: I've let it go longer lately only because it is expensive to maintain (at least when you pay what I do for a cut!).

I wanted my hair to look longer at the wedding, so I let it grow for 6 months without trimming it. But I had no idea who to have style my hair. I'd been living in California for 4 years and didn't have any great recommendations for a stylist in Utah. That is, until I asked my amazing friend Jillian (who now has an awesome B&B in Oregon!). She recommended Sean at Aveda Landis. He was AMAZING! Thank you Jillian!

Sean wanted me to come in for a trial run so he could get a feel for my hair and what we would do. So I went in two days before the wedding and was there for about 30 minutes. He didn't even charge me for the trial! Also, he had no problem with an 8 am hair appointment the day of the wedding--in fact he was the one to suggest starting so early! (I'd originally suggested 8:30 am, and I was supposed to get the Salt Lake temple by 10:15 am.)

The early time turned out to be really helpful since I needed all the extra time to get to the temple and park. I was by myself that morning trying to carry my dress, shoes, temple bag, and purse in one trip. I'd gotten all the way out of the parking lot before I remembered to go back for something else!

He did a fantastic job. Thanks Sean!

------

Make up artist: ME.

I'm not a pro, but didn't want to bother with a make up artist. I just wanted to look normal. Wearing ANY make up at all was a pretty big deal for me anyway. (Especially considering that I haven't worn any make up since the wedding day! Well...I did wear mascara for a family picture recently.)

I was short on time before the wedding ceremony so ended up getting married sans make up. But I liked it that way. I got married in a simple temple dress, so I thought it was fitting. However, everyone who was waiting outside after the wedding had to wait not only for me to change into a different dress, but also to put make up on. AND sunscreen! I was so not getting sunburned. Also, I had a little mishap with the sunscreen...which required some fancy footwork on my mom's part. Sorry for making everyone wait forever!

---

To be continued in part 5...the honeymoon!

1.5 years of love and soap

Today is my 1.5 year anniversary to DH who is my DH. Time has gone so fast! It has been so wonderful. Many other things/people have been in my life the last 1.5 years. Clothes. Sheets. Part of a set of plates (the other part did not make it 1.5 years). But there is also a bar of soap. It has lasted and lasted (and we use it EVERY time we wash our hands--which is a lot). It is the soap that DH's sister Anita gave me as part of a care package for Christmas 2 years ago. The soap that was finally opened 2 weeks before we got married. The soap that Sarah O used that night she and other Melvillains came over and ate gnocchi. Sarah O. said we had cool soap. Well Sarah O, that soap is still there if you want to come back and use it again.

Aside from the excitement of growing old together, the next most exciting thing in our lives is how long the soap will last.

cake unveiling

After DH and I left our wedding reception and took off on our honeymoon, my Mom took charge of the cake. She said she first froze the cake, then wrapped it up and put it in a box. It was in my mom's freezer for 6 months until christmas, after which we flew home with the cake. Ever since christmas, it has been in our freezer.

See the cake box.

The cake box took up a lot of space in our freezer. This is what our freezer looked like before taking the box out:

And this is what it looked like after removing the cake box:

These are the flowers and fruity chocolate candy DH gave me on our anniversary by the way:) The chocolate just so happens to be the same chocolate we served at our wedding open house in Los Altos (at the home of the lovely Rachel). YUM! What a nice husband I have!

Here is a step by step sequence of unwrapping the cake:

(Doesn't DH have manly hands?)

There were 5 layers of aluminum foil!

There were also 5 layers of plastic wrap. (good job Mom!)

This is us cutting the cake. Taking a self portrait is difficult sometimes..(note DH's head is cut off..whoops)

And then we ate cake. It was so moist and good! It was the best lemon cake I've ever had. We were wishing we'd had a chocolate cake instead of lemon, but we should have thought of that when we ordered the cake! Our original cake had 3 tiers. Carrot, chocolate, and lemon. We didn't get to eat much wedding cake on the day of our wedding, so it was nice to finally have the time to do it:)

1.0!!!!!!!

Today is our first anniversary. (paper, apparently is the thing to give).

YESSSSSSSSSSS

The unveiling of frozen cake ceremony soon to follow!

the white pants of romance

David and I recently made an amazing discovery. He and his dad were married in the SAME PANTS!!!!!!!! Which were apparently purchased 30 years ago and given to DH 10 years ago.

From this time forth, I will think of them as the white pants of romance. Hopefully we can pass them down to the next generation.

0.75!

Living in fractal bliss, DH and I have reached 0.75, that is, 9 months of wonderfulness!

Ode to DH

DH is my love
he has blond hair
and so will the kiddies

the end.

wedding follow up: vendors & venues-- part 3

Continuing from part 2.

--

The florist: Flowers on Vine

Flowers were one of the tricky things to plan from afar. I scheduled a trip during spring break to fly to Utah with DH and meet with the reception people, potential cake people, flower people, and tux people. I received a recommendation from a friend at work about Flowers on Vine. They didn't have a website, but I looked around at lots of other websites trying to figure out what flowers I wanted. This was late February by this point, and I hadn't decided what colors to use for the decor. DH and my favorite color is green though, so we thought having a leafy green theme would be fun. I stumbled upon the picture to the left one day though, on a website where you order flowers online and have to put them together yourself. I would NOT recommend doing this. I saw lots of reviews saying the flowers never arrived or were dead when they did. But I was enchanted with the flower, Star of Bethlehem, for my bouquet. My mom really liked the idea of green orchids for centerpieces. When we met with the florist in person, she was a very artistic type that is creative. That worked well for me since I had only very loose ideas of what I wanted. We ordered boutonnieres and wrist corsages for brothers and sisters, and fathers, and pin on corsages for the mothers. Oh, and a bouquet for me, and a smaller bouquet to throw.

The flowers turned out fantastic--the florist delivered the centerpieces (in Eiffel tower vases we rented from them) to the luncheon and it was all set up by the time we got there. They left a carrying box so we could transport the vases easily to the reception. The boutonnieres and corsages were delivered directly to the reception place. Everything was fantastic except for half the corsages were missing! We called them and it turned out that the florist owner was out of town, and the person who had filled the order had missed one of the lines of instructions. This would have been avoided if I'd thought to call the florist the day before the wedding. They made a valiant effort to fix the problem, and made up the remaining corsages and drove them out. They gave a discount on the order because of that mishap. Anyway. I was still very pleased with their work and highly recommend. I think the owners name is Kathryn, and she is very nice.
Some flower pics from my wedding day:

Tip: Be sure to talk to the florist the day before the wedding, or talk to the person filling your order to make sure they are aware of everything you need. You never know what might happen! If something does happen, then don't stress. Since there weren't enough corsages during photos, we just passed them around so the women in front were wearing them.

continued in part 4...

something found in the street

While driving on Bountiful Boulevard this christmas, DH and I saw a red pile of cloth in the street. Was it a scarf? A hat? A sweater? I know not. WE know not. Cloth is only a guess. After pointing it out to DH, he somehow connected it to a line from that list of items one must traditionally wear to the wedding (as a bride, that is):
Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something FOUND IN THE STREET.

We then contemplated the unpleasantness that might result if that line were, indeed, part of the original tradition. Yuck.

For the record, I did not wear something found in the street. But, rather, wore these things:

Something old: my bra. (scandalous! the unmentionables have been mentioned!)
Something new: the dress.
Something borrowed: A necklace. The chain and pendant were not originally a set, and each piece was from my two grandmothers.
Something BLUE: a blue ribbon tied to the inside of my dress.

0.5!

Today is my 0.5 year anniversary. DH and I are very happy, and enjoy celebrating decimals. We celebrated our 0.4166 anniversary last month, and our 0.33 and 0.25 before that. The possibilities are endless!

wedding follow up: vendors & venues-- part 2

Continuing from part 1.
--
Wedding Photographer: Ryan Cummings

I scheduled the photographer as early as I could after settling the wedding day. I only had a couple photographers in mind as possibilities, and didn't want the stress of having to do more searching if they were booked. I met Ryan Cummings while he photographed my friend Libby's wedding last year. He was very friendly, good with kids, and shot natural photos. They turned out very well. He has lots of options, and we chose the basic digital wedding package. He releases the copyright also, so you can keep every photo he takes. He'll send copies to your parents too. I had another recommendation from a friend for Jonathan Canlas, but he was more expensive and I already liked Ryan quite a bit. I called Ryan and he was available! He worked out really well. He got to the temple well before we came out for pictures, and did a great job. He was also efficient and organized. I highly recommend him! He let us do something pretty fun too--after the luncheon (or during, actually) we looked at a few pictures he'd selected from the pics he'd just taken and we chose one. He touched it up, printed it and mounted it and brought it to the reception for the guest book table. This is the photo we chose:


(Something I just noticed--a wedding picture of Libby and her husband Jay are one of the rotating photos on the homepage of Ryan's website! They are celebrities!)

--
Wedding Luncheon location: Joseph Smith Memorial Building

Finding the luncheon location was tricky. I had no idea where to look for ideas. Since I was getting married in the Salt Lake temple, I wanted it to be either close enough to walk to, or a very short drive. Some of my aunts have bad knee problems, so walking very far was a concern. JSMB was one of the obvious choices, as was the Lion House, since they were very close to the temple. I was told by the temple that I should allow 3 hours between the start of the ceremony and the beginning of the lunch, so I was aiming for 2:30 pm lunch. Again, the JSMB/Lion House websites were very helpful. They list prices and have pictures of all the rooms. I did everything over the phone--and didn't have to go and meet with the coordinator at all. (If I'd done flowers through JSMB then I would have had to go, however.) There was another venue that I found close by, the McCune Mansion, but their website was completely unhelpful and they did not reply to my email. Other choices were to rent out a restaurant for the lunch, but since I was picking a venue without ever seeing it, I did not like that option as well. As far as prices go, my mother told me something interesting--she is in the Utah Symphony Choir, and they go to an annual dinner. She said that they have called around a lot of places in the salt lake area, and that JSMB is one of the cheaper options when you have lots of people, so her choir always ends up going there. They don't charge you for the room either--just the food and service fees.

Keep in mind--if I'd wanted my mom to spend all her time hunting around the city and visiting every restaurant, then I may have found another place. But my goal was for less hassle and stress on everyone, especially my parents. (Are you noticing a trend yet? I wanted everything to be as stress free as possible, and to avoid turning into bridezilla. I did become bridezilla for a couple weeks, however.) I was very pleased with the luncheon at the JSMB. We ended up in the Wasatch Room.

Tip: 3 hours between the start of the wedding and the luncheon was barely enough time. I initially thought it was way too long and we'd all be waiting forever, but no. In fact..the groom and I were 15 minutes late because we'd left my ring in his temple locker! (We had a ring ceremony at the beginning of the luncheon.)

-----

Continued in part 3...

wedding follow up: vendors and venues -- part 1

The last few months have been so busy, I have not written at all about my wedding, online or offline. Planning a wedding from afar was pretty difficult, and I looked around the blogsphere quite a bit hoping to find brides posts on what photographer they used, who did their hair, who make their cake, etc. I did not find much success. So I am going to post information about my wedding vendors in case anyone who is trying to plan a wedding in Salt Lake City or Bountiful, Utah area is in search of some good ideas. I'm going to go through the list in the order that I dealt with them.
----
I knew I was getting married about 5.5 months ahead of the desired wedding date (I knew in the first week of January). Since 5 1/2 months is a longer engagement than most LDS couples, I knew I would have no problem getting a large sealing room at the Salt Lake temple on any day. DH and I didn't have a specific day in mind, just a 2-week window in which we wanted to get married.

Reception location: Eldredge Manor

I chose Eldredge Manor for several reasons. I liked the idea of having a reception at my parents house, but decided against it because of all the stress and preparation (and clean up) involved. Plus then I'd have to worry about decorations and catering, and I had enough to worry about without that. I was not interested in using a church building, and so I asked my mom what some of the reception centers were around the Bountiful, Utah area. I had been to most of them at some point from growing up in the area, so I was able to narrow it down to a couple of places without going to visit. Eldredge Manor had a website--which was a big plus. Websites are SO important when planning from a distance. It was easy to find out information. While home for christmas I visited Eldredge with my mom (even before I told the groom yes, since I knew it would be my only opportunity to visit). I chose my wedding date based on their availability schedule. Then I called the temple and reserved 11:40 am on that day.
----
Wedding Dress vendor: Bay Area Bridal

The dress. Aaahhhh! You try finding a modest wedding dress in California. My options were (1) fly to Utah at least twice, missing work, to find a dress and have fittings, or (2) buy a strapless dress in CA and have it modified. I decided on option (2)--mostly because it was cheaper. I wasn't particularly worried about finding a dress, and had no plans to look for one for a while. But, at my mother's urging the 3rd week of January to go and look, I took my one of my fashionable roommates and tried to go to David's Bridal (the only bridal shop I was semi-familiar with). We arrived only to discover that you are supposed to have an appointment to try on dresses. How was I supposed to know that? Of course, all their appointments were full and would we like to make an appointment for another day? No, we would not. Goodbye.

So, then we crossed the street and bought sandwiches. Rachel (the fashionable roommate) suggested we look in the phone book we'd just passed for nearby bridal shops. So we did, and there was, and we called them (or rather, SHE called them for me) and we had an appointment for 30 minutes later at Bay Area Bridal, just down the street! I never would have known about BA Bridal if not for this accidental discovery. We went in, looked through dress binders pulling out the pictures for those I wanted to try, and then got started. The first few looked awful. Then I discovered a certain cut looked really good (drop waist). So the girl helping us brought out several more dresses with that cut. I tried those on, loved 2 of them, tried each of them on a couple more times, then picked one. I marvel that it took me only 2 hours to pick a wedding dress when it took my sisters 2 days.

I discovered, to my surprise, that you cannot buy wedding dresses off the rack in California like you can in Utah. They are not on the rack. There is no rack. There is one dress in each style in a random size in the store. And that's all. You have to be measured and then order the dress of your choice in your size. Did you know it takes 3-4 months for a dress you order to arrive from the maker? I did not. If you go to a wedding dress shop and say your wedding is in 3 months, they will laugh. I am SO glad I listened to my mother and went dress shopping 5 months in advance.

Tip: Casablanca dresses can be ordered with the "temple-ready" or "modest" option. My dress was strapless, and a Casablanca brand dress, so if I had known about that option then I would not have had to worry about getting a jacket made. But, alas. I did not find out until it was too late. Several girls in my singles ward did that, but I was not in the loop until after I'd already ordered the dress.


Continued in part 2...

translation to: a mathematical love story

It seems as though I was a bit obscure. Thus I will provide a line by line translation.

Firstly, one must understand that my husbands initials are DRH, but usually just goes by DH, dropping middle initial. My initials are now LRH, but I have hitherto been known as LR. Thus H is husbands last name.

Secondly, (<3) is a heart (in parentheses)! Gchat has taught us these essential techniques for expressing one's self.

---if(dh + lr = <3, lr=lrh, lr=lr); ---
If statement: DH plus LR equals love. If true, then LR becomes redefined as LRH. If false, LR remains LR. (LR representing the hitherto single entity). This is the IF format used in EXCEL.

---elseif(dh +lr =2*(<3), dh=dr,dh=dh);---
If statement: DH plus LR equals twice love. If true, then DH changes name to DR (takes LR’s last name), If false, DH remains DH. ELSEIF is a command in matlab I think, but it is pointless in my opinion because IF does the same job.

---dh=drh;---
DH redefined to be DRH. This is just to create the new variable DRH for future use. Also note the semicolon at the end of the lines to this point. MATLAB and MAPLE lines end in this, though MAPLE also uses a colon.

---factor(drh + lrh) = (d + l)rh---
LRH has been created as a variable because the initial IF statement turned out to be true. Thus now there is both DRH and LRH variables in the workspace. Now I take the twisted turn of ignoring previously defined variables and assuming d,r,h,and l are all unique variables as though in an algebraic equation. I factor the common RH out of the equation. FACTOR is something I used to use in MAPLE and MATHEMATICA. I stopped using semicolons to terminate the lines at this point because I'm now looking at it as an algebraic equation and not a statement.

---(d+l)rh=(<3)---
Returning to the original IF statement, since LR became LRH, DH plus LR must equal love. And since I factored DH plus LR to equal (d+l)rh, I plugged that in the love equation.

---...d+l=(<3)/rh ---
And now I am just manipulating the equation with standard mathematical operations.

---...d+l-d=(<3)/rh-d ---
---...(l-d) +d = (<3)/rh-d ---
---...(l-d) = (<3)/rh-2d ---
Aha. And now I have solved for (l-d).

---if(l - d = h) ---
I have subtracted the 12th letter of the alphabet from the 4th letter of the alphabet. This resulted in the 8th letter of the alphabet, h.

---& substitute:---
---thus: h=(<3)/rh-2d ---
I solved the above love equation for (l-d). Since I determined (l-d) equals h, I substituted h for (l-d).

---...h = (<3-2drh)/rh ---
more manipulating.

---...rh^2 = (<3) - 2drh ---
---...rh(h+2d) = (<3) ---
This is the final line of my proof. I have redefined love (<3).

---!!---
I tried and failed to find "therefore" in the symbol options or in the ALT secret combinations. Does anybody know how to make "therefore"? Alas. I know not.

---A: rh(h+2d) ---
---Q: What is love---
In Jeopardy format.

a mathematical love story

if(dh + lr = <3, lr=lrh, lr=lr);
elseif(dh +lr =2*<3, dh=dr,dh=dh);
dh=drh;

factor(drh + lrh) = (d + l)rh

(d+l)rh=<3
...d+l=(<3)/rh
...d+l-d=(<3)/rh-d
...(l-d) +d = (<3)/rh-d
...(l-d) = (<3)/rh-2d

if(l - d = h)
& substitute:
thus: h=(<3)/rh-2d
...h = (<3-2drh)/rh
...rh^2 = <3 - 2drh
...rh(h+2d) = <3
!!

A: rh(h+2d)

Q: What is love

What I've done the last month instead of blogging:

1. gone to three wedding dress fittings
2. had two bridal showers (makes for seven total)
3. searched for, stressed over, and finally found new apartment
4. haunted craigslist looking for furniture
5. made 10+ house visits to look at furniture or pick up
6. rented a truck twice
7. spent many hours online fruitlessly researching anything and everything wedding related
8. was broadsided on Dumbarton bridge and became one with the concrete barrier at 80 miles per hour
9. became bridezilla
10. drove through MacArthur Maze during rush hour and lived
11. stressed over late wedding invitations which led to a Berkeley stake out
12. typed up 300 labels
13. stuffed and mailed 550 wedding invitations
14. cleaned new apartment (the dirtiest wood floors EVER)
15. discovered computer has died (again)
16. packed up old apartment
17. moved into new apartment
18. found silverware
19. ate cereal
20. slept in my new lovely bed

And now we have reached the present. I now live in a chaotic mess lined with a whole wall of bookshelves and lovely books. And a fridge that is all MINE.

Meanwhile, I still work full time and commute 2 1/2 hours per day. And I am not sick. This is a miracle.

Bridezilla cometh

I am Bridezilla now.
Beware.
I am mean.
I make impossible demands with no remorse.

A haiku for you:

Bridezilla cometh
Stay not in paths of danger
Beware the large foot