some photos...

from michele.





oooooooh. we're so excited. it's a little surreal to see us at the wedding. and weirdly sad? it's over then, right? darn, because that was really fun.

we're in melbourne, the final stretch of our trip. also sad, but i will say that i'm seriously looking forward to huge salads again. they are hard to come by over here! for internet friends who made such great restaurant and entertainment recs in this city, we are taking your advice right to heart. Thank you! i shall report back when we return.

For now, you can see more of our photos on michele's awesome blog.

married!

and loving this whole honeymooning thing. HIGHLY recommend it. Sydney is treating us v. well... the food has been delicious, the weather balmy and breezy, the ocean cold and the sand hot. and it's only been 2 days.

Quickly, Michéle posted a little peak of our photos...



I love. Cannot wait to see them all. She and her husband Mark are great people, beautiful inspired photographers and Mark even helped my dad change a flat tire the morning after the wedding.

Hope the real world is going as well as our fantasy over here.

OH, and yes, the wedding was amazing.

(you can see the big version on Michéle's blog)

tomorrow...

is the big day.

good night and i'll see you all on the other side.

thoughtful invites from thoughtful day

Kay, I know, I'm obsessed. But really, we're just hanging out at our house, drinking coffee and working on our vows (and quickly checking in with the blog world)... my time on the internet is in no way taking away from my wedding week experience, i swear.

ANYWAY. You have to check out Erica's insane invitation suite posted on Beautiful Paper. omg. I cannot wait to see her line when she's done designing it. I think it might be one of the best out there.

See:




This might also be a good time to warn some of you who are thinking, "hmmm... maybe I should start a blog?" to be careful. It's dangerous territory once you get into it. Just so you know.

and in a panic...

i realized we had nothing to mark reserved seats for family and bridal party during the ceremony.

good old gocco, such a reliable horse.



this was literally a 50 minute project. love those.

I had an extra pack of cards left from our escort card project, (which, take note, ALWAYS buy more than you'll need, you can always return what you don't use and you'll most likely be glad you have the extra supplies around the day before you leave for your wedding). So anyway, designed, xeroxed and had everything printed and cut to final size in the space of an hour. That's some wedding efficiency my friends. You get used to this after a while, it turns out!

SO we're in palm springs, just rearranged our entire seating chart for 180 people. after a few beers. fun times! But our rental house is great and it the last of our projects will be finished by tomorrow, sundown. We have a small army of people arriving tomorrow to help in the home stretch.

Now it's getting exciting.

night, night.

spiced nuts for you

Hi. First, I need to say THANK YOU so much for all your sweet comments in the last week or so. I feel like such a delinquent for not responding to any of them. It's just, you know, a little crazed around here is all.

I was trying to come up with a suitable thank you present for you all to show my appreciation for your rad internet support...

how about these?



They don't look like much, but I assure you they are the most delicious spiced nuts. My stb sister-in-law, Melanie, passed on this recipe a few years ago and since it's become a staple for entertaining. The are insanely easy and equally addictive.

(Side note, Melanie is marrying Brock's brother next September and I've been dubbed "chair of the craft team" for their wedding. So even when our wedding is over, I can assure I'll have lots more wedding projects to share. They are so fun).


Spiced Nuts
(adapted from Union Square Cafe's bar nuts)

About 1 cup each of almonds, cashews, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, brazil nuts, and pepitas. (or any combination you like, of course).

3 T minced fresh rosemary
1 t cayenne
1 t smoked sweet paprika, "pimentón"
1 t nutmeg
2 T dark brown sugar
2 T kosher salt
3 T butter, melted

Preheat oven to 400. Toast nuts until golden on a cookie sheet (about 10 - 15 minutes). Make sure to mix them periodically during the toasting so they don't burn.

Mix spices, sugar and melted butter together in a bowl. Dump the nuts in a large mixing bowl, dump the yummy mixture on top, and stir everything together until the nuts are evenly coated.

Let cool, taste for saltiness and sprinkle with sea salt if necessary (which is always, for me) and serve!

I planned to put these in our ill-fated welcome bags, but when those were cut I still had all the supplies. So I made them anyway for our welcome cocktail party on friday. We'll see if there are any left by then.

We're off to Palm Springs in a hour. Wish us luck! Wait, everyone already did.

Thank you!

Our finished escort cards

YAY. We just got our cute little cards back from Jenna, and as always they look so great.



(couldn't get a great photo of them before I put them away)

Luckily, I haven't stamped the actual table numbers on yet because the hotel sent us an email yesterday with some, shall we say, potentially frustrating news. Apparently they've had problems with noise over the last few weekends and they want to go over our table diagram (that I slaved over, thank you) and figure out the best layout for the band vs the tables. HI. Our wedding is in 5 days. If you change sh*t around on me at this point, I'm going to scratch your eyes out.

a little welcome note

Remember how I scratched the welcome totes in honor of my santity? Instead I quickly put together a little welcome note with the weekend schedule of activities, that we'll have the hotel give to guests as the check in. Brock pointed out that the sentiment is there... we're still saying "YAY, you're here in palm springs for our wedding!" but we're not going insane putting together 55 bags full of delicious homemade and farmer's market purchased treats. I'm good with it.



We bought a nice matte cover stock to print them on and stuffed them in those neat long envelopes (black) with the cute button and tie from Paper Source. If I'm super ahead of the game tonight, I may or may not be tempted to gocco our little monogram on the outside of the envelope. But I'm going to the Korean spa today for a long massage and some time in the sauna (see, I can relax) so let's not get our hopes up.

DIY table numbers

Hi. It's me. I feel like i've been AWAY SO LONG. we are leaving tomorrow for Palm Springs, and our living room is so full of boxes it looks like we're moving there. This would be the perfect time to share with all of you who still have time to turn back, do not try any of this at home. Seriously. We had to rent a 2nd car to drive all of our projects out and still we're going to have to pawn a bunch of stuff off on brock's brother and fiance.

ANYWAY. Our table numbers. We used vintage palm springs postcards I've collected over the last year, mounted them on black cover paper and then used left over pattern from our envelope liners to dress up the number side.





Aren't they fun? I love imagining the 50's in Palm Springs.



Sadly, I didn't get this together in time to have Jenna do our numbers so my shaky hand with the calligraphy pen had to suffice. Again, as everyone says, no one will notice. (that's become my mantra, btw).

Number stands are from Surfas, the restaurant supply store in Culver City. Easily one of the coolest places ever.

DIY ceremony arrangements!

I had to stay away from the blog world this morning. It was seriously encroaching on my ability to finish my projects in a timely manner. But I have some good things to share. Which to me means that I'm working my way through the list!

Kay, first are these:



I started them a LONG time ago, like maybe in June, so they had plenty of time to grow all full and nice by the wedding. There are two different versions, 4 of each... so we have 8 big arrangements to line the aisle. Does that make sense? It's kind of hard to see them in this photo and then right after I took it I realized I should test out the ribbon too.

So the finished product will look like this:



They are totally charlie brown and funny, but guess what? We're going with them! I kind of wish I had black & white ribbon or something more fun, but I don't know if I can bare another trip downtown to the flower market.

No one will notice they even exist I'm sure. Our awesome and creative florist, Hoot & Heart, has been exceedingly nice and agreed to let me get all in their business with my own contributions. I love them. They are adding garden roses and petals to the aisle too.

Here is how you complete this project:

Buy large pots.
Buy cactus/succulent planting mix.
Buy succulents.
Plant in desired arrangement.
Wait. (water sparingly).
Remember they exist, run to the side of the house to make sure they haven't died during months of neglect, and water again.
Wait some more.

THEN, when it's time for the wedding, fill in the empty space where you can see the dirt with spanish moss (the coolest floral supply ever, I just learned).
Tie your ribbons around the top of the pot and VOILA!

A note to interested parties, you can actually make these a few weeks before the wedding too, they will just be a little smaller. But the good thing is you have way more control over the final product and you don't have to worry that your succulents want sun and your sword plants want shade, making neither particularly happy.