Category Archives: our wedding

weddings require a lot of dresses.

two weekends ago my mom came to hawaii so she could be here for my bridal shower that reis’ mom and aunty threw for me (it was an adorable italy-themed soiree in honor of our honeymoon destination)!  we also utilized the time she was here to shop for the necessary dresses i need for wedding events quickly approaching — my california bridal shower (this weekend!), my bachelorette party, the rehearsal dinner, and our north shore reception.  as you can see, sparkles and sequins were at the top of my list and i’d say i was pretty successful (and of course i needed some sparkly shoes to top everything off).  can’t wait for the weekend!  my last trip to california before we go back for THE WEDDING!

1.5 days in california.

here’s a little timeline of how our [crazy, jam-packed, no sleep] weekend went down.

5:00 AM – i land at LAX.  reis was on a different flight (long story) so i hang out in the terminal and use some free wi-fi.  my dad picks me up and we go to starbucks while we wait for reis’ flight.  which got delayed about 3 times.

8:15 AM – pick reis up and head over to intelligentsia coffee in silverlake.

9:00 AM – meet up with the adorable kristine (our amazing letterpress printer who printed our invitations!) to pick up our wedding invites.  (oh MY, i cannot wait to show you!)

9:30 AM – drive to santa barbara.

11:00 AM – see our venue for the first time ever.  it took my breath away!  it was even better than i had expected (and i had really high expectations!).  we planned out some logistics of the layout/setup, etc.

1:00 PM – meet my cousins at los arroyos in downtown sb for some ridiculously good mexican food.  and we were starving at this point so it tasted even more delicious.

4:30 PM – (not pictured) a wedding hair trial!

6:30 PM – we meet my niece and snuggle that ridiculously adorable face.

8:00 PM – my mom cooks a delicious homemade family dinner to celebrate my 25th year of life with my entire fam (i feel so old now).

8:30 PM – my girlfriends  come over to help me assemble our invitations…and they stay until the crack of dawn.  literally.  (thanks so much you guys!)

4:00 AM – finally get to bed after realizing i didn’t really sleep the night before, and oh yeah, i’m kinda tired.

9:00 AM – family breakfast!

10:00 AM – more niece snuggling.

12:00 PM – finish the invitations.  ready for mail out!

1:00 PM – (not pictured) second to last wedding dress fitting with my mama!  (it is turning out beautifully and exactly what i wanted…and more.)

3:00 PM – back to the airport we go.

and back i go to CA again in 3 weeks for my bridal shower!  i cannot wait.

sweet november.

image of vernazza (one of our stops in italy) via

november will pretty much be the BEST MONTH OF MY ENTIRE LIFE.  i am getting married to my best friend.  we leave for ITALY (!!!) on our honeymoon the day after our wedding.  then we fly back to hawaii 10 days later and our north shore reception will be held in reis’ parent’s backyard 2 days after thanksgiving!  and my whole family is flying out for it too!!  i can’t believe it’s all coming up so quick!  so much to do – so little time!  but i am enjoying every single minute of it.  it’s so weird — i want the next two months to fly by so it can be here already, yet i want it to go super slow so i have more time to do everything i want/need to do for both our CA wedding and our HI reception.   i am trying to blog as often as i can (which obviously isn’t happening) just so i can re-live this special time in my life when i’m feeling nostalgic.  but dang…time is of the essence and any of it that i do have is spent crafting, scheming, and designing (three of my favorite things!).  so considering wedding stuff will be taking over my life (plus 2 more trips to california before the wedding), this will probably become “my wedding diary” blog for the next 2 months.  hope you’re okay with that.

our save the dates: a labor of LOVE.

our save the dates were a labor of some serious love involving my all-time favorite combination of design + media.  i’ve been obsessed with filming/editing videos since elementary school so it was only appropriate that reis and i made a video to send out to our guests.  our good friend jon helped us film one sunday on the north shore and i edited our footage down to a short little film.  then i got to designing the packaging of it all (so much fun!).  i ordered kraft dvd cases from washington and sent them to louisiana to be letterpressed with my design (i am so obsessed with anything and everything lettepressed!).  then came the fun part of individually(!) burning 130+ copies of the finalized dvd.  i designed the “details” insert and sent them out to be printed in california.  then i designed the dvd label, ordered blank glossy labels online, printed them on my printer, and stamped a label on each dvd.  the address labels i printed on vellum and spray glued them on to bubble wrap mailers (for the record, spray glue and vellum are my worst enemies…lots of stickiness, lots of trial and error, and lots of worrying that the labels would fall off in transit, leaving the packages to be forever lost in usps land).  finally i wrapped up the kraft cases with some baker’s twine and off they went!  this whole process was my ideal project and it was SO much fun seeing it come to life after being a vision inside of my head for months.

*check back tomorrow because i’ll be sharing our video!

so we booked our wedding venue.

photos from this trip

as of yesterday, we have officially booked our wedding venue!  it is my absolute dream venue in santa barbara and the perfect combination of rustic, woodsy, coastal, and romantic.  we’ve never even seen it in person but i am completely and totally obsessed with it.  i’m getting so giddy just typing this!  our date is pretty inflexible due to reis’ med school schedule so that made it rather difficult when searching for venues.  when i originally e-mailed our venue, they said they were booked the whole month of november.  so the search continued.  then about a week later, they e-mailed me saying they had accidentally overlooked the schedule and our date was actually available!!  meant. to. be.  anyways, i’m ecstatic.  so is reis.  we just show it differently (i.e. i text all of my best friends immediately with multiple exclamation points (!!!) and he just says “that’s awesome.”)  oh, i love him.

thanks so much mom and dad for going to check it out AND for being our wedding planners AND for dealing with all the “fun” stuff like contracts.  i love you.