Suiting

One of the benefits of having a really attractive future spouse is that I don't have to worry about him looking good at our wedding.

Girls have to worry about lots of BS:

"This color washes me out."

"You can see my cellulite dimples through this ill-fitting satin."

"My boobs are falling out."

Josiah, on the other hand, could wear anything and look hotttt (middle-school throwback).

The day after Christmas, I made Jo join me to register for presents at the mall. We decided to have him measured at J. Crew, then stop next door at Banana Republic to try on some suiting.

And holy shit. I felt sinful, he looked so good. I am now worried about being one-upped by his handsomeness at the wedding. I don't think that's allowed.

Anyway, the only concern for Jo is that since he's so slender, he needs a slim-fitting suit. Luckily for him, every hip brand in the world these days make clothes for men like Jo. I like it.

We're thinking of doing a charcoal suit with a white shirt and green tie.

The J. Crew Ludlow suit:

Banana Republic Monogram:

Some randoms:

Sizing up the reception room

I need to scope out the inside of the Tempe Center for the Arts. I'm coming up with ideas, but not sure how to implement them in our space. Here's what I know about the reception area:

1. Approximately three walls are glass.
2. It has very tall ceilings.
3. It overlooks the negative edge pool/Tempe Town Lake.

As you can see, I don't know very much. Here's an architect's rendition of the room, found on AIArchitect.

I've been scouring Flickr for more TCA wedding pictures, and I'm happy to have found another set by David Maddox. Additional wedding pictures at TCA can be found here.

The ceremony area.

Inside the reception.

I mentioned a long time ago that I was originally very anti the indoors. This reception room is different though. I think the windows really give it an amazing feel. Plus, I think it'll go well with this idea I came up with (aka stole) yesterday while looking at CB2 for my registry.

I've been looking at these hanging bud vases/candleholders for probably a year now. For whatever reason, I've refrained from buying 30 of them and suspending them from every surface possible.

BUT. I was reading comments on one of the vases, and a gal said that she collected a bunch and hung them at her reception. This would be absolutely perfect for TCA. Here are some pictures from CB2, showing you you can mix/match the vases.

I could either hang these with fishing wire or with colored ribbon or yarn. Either way it would be super cute.

The only problem is I'm not quite sure where to hang them from. That's why I need to scout out the room and see how I can dress it up. Maybe I can do that this weekend.

I hate chocolate, except when combined with hazelnuts

Yesterday Bethany and I were having an emotionally charged conversation about old people not liking cute invitations. In a rash moment, I blurted out (via Gchat) “My mom is just lucky that I didn’t fold the invitation like a crepe and put Nutella inside.”

Thus came the greatest idea of the wedding so far: “You should do mini things of Nutella as your favors.”

Oh yes.

Anyone with a brain knows how good Nutella is. Especially paired with bananas. And especially inside crepes.

Like all good things, Nutella comes in small jars that would be perfect as a gift. I’m still unsure whether people will think I’m odd or not. I mean, it’s not exactly the same as gifting a jar of super-crunchy Jif, right? I wonder if our non-hip, non-Euro guests will even know what Nutella is.

Who cares. Nutella!!!!!!!!!

Here’s a picture of a cute set of seven mini jars.



I have an inkling that mini Nutella jars will be:
1. Hard to find. Dumb imports.
2. Not economical.

Regardless, my search starts now. As I told Bethany, I hope people are confused and don’t want the Nutella. That way I can take it all home. I deserve 100 mini jars anyway. Think of all the crepes I could make…

I have a jar of Nutella in my “pantry” (really just half a spice cabinet) that hasn’t had any use in a long time. That needs to change. When I studied in Italy, I had a Nutella and banana sandwich every day for lunch because there was no peanut butter. I also had four helpings of gelato a day. And I still lost 10 pounds!

In honor of Nutella and the glorious Italians who created it (I think. Maybe not. Too lazy to go on Wikipedia.), I am going to make banana and Nutella cupcakes from the blog Bleeding Espresso. Maybe I’ll post some pictures tomorrow.

Jealousy

Today, by way of Betsey Johnson's Twitter, I came across the photographer Christine Chang's blog.

Two weeks ago, she posted pictures of, what I have decided, is the prettiest wedding ever. It may just be because this girl is the most beautiful bride on earth, but everything looks just right. The Betsey Johnson dresses, the peacock feather bouquet, the baby's breath, her hair. Man! If you don't agree with me, something is wrong with you.













View all of the pictures at Christine's blog here.

I found my inspiration

Save the dates from Etsy.com

1. Winifred Studios $80 for 40 sets

2. P.S. Paper Goods $1.25 for 1 set

3. Baumbirdy $2.50 for 1 set (these card is a shimmering silver)

4. Mprints $90 for 50 sets

5. Invited Ink $359 for 100 sets (the text is letterpressed)

6. Dawn Correspondence $30 for 20 sets

7. April Ink Stationary $45 for 25 sets

So, save the dates: cute and practical or time and money waster?

Why I'm in a bad mood, part 56

I just feel lost.

Tomorrow marks the end of week two of our engagement. For two weeks, I’ve been scanning over checklists, browsing the Internet and flipping through magazines. (A measly two weeks is 1/17th of our 8.5 month-long engagement.)

According to all these resources, the first step in planning a wedding is establishing a vision—the scope, the décor, the general theme backing your wedding. I thought I had figured that out, but all of my ideas are crumbling and I’m not quite sure where to start.

All I know is that I want our wedding to be different. We are not the usual 20-somethings and we want the wedding to speak to that. We want bikes, simplicity, fun. I want a short dress with pointy pumps. We want Yo La Tengo, M. Ward, Built to Spill. I want my pup to be a guest of honor. We don’t want unnecessary frills or nonsense just because that’s “how it’s done.”

I see weddings like this and this from Design*Sponge, and wonder how people simply get their shit together to have such beautiful cohesion.

How am I supposed to coordinate an event when I can’t even decide on my colors?

Stripes!

I figured I'd take a break from the hard-hitting, too long posts and start my first of many visual entries.

Enough text ... I love stripes. I love cake. Here are some pictures.











My expert opinion:
The rolled fondant is my favorite (the first and the last pictures). I also like the idea of having both vertical and horizontal stripes, though that cake looks like a stack of oversized sugar cubes ready for a middle school pyramid project. I would really love to rip the floppy bows off of the brown/white cake, but I am a big fan of the varying stripe size and how the stripes are actually ... in the fondant. I have no idea how cake making works, so that's the best description I could give.