YOU'RE getting married!???

When shopping for bridesmaid dresses a few months ago some lady at the Calypso store overheard that I was getting married and whirled around saying "You're getting married!?" With shock, and yes, a tinge of horror in her voice.

I was confused, did she know something I didn't? "Um, yeah," was my timid answer.

"How old are you?" She asked, more like demanded.

"Um, 26." 

And a wave of relief washed over her face as she said "Oh, thank god, I thought you were 16 or something."

Wow. That was weird.

me at 17  |  me at 27

the only thing that doesn't change is the bad posture.

And then yesterday I got that again from two different people in the same day.

I got my wedding dress hemmed yesterday. Whoo hoo! I'm making it shorter in the front than the back to give myself a little train. And while the adorable Russian lady was hemming it and giving me a lecture about how I shouldn't be drinking Coke, she asked how old I was. When I told her that I was 27, after having to stop and remember that i was 27 now and not 26, she said "you look 17 I think." And then proceeded to show me off to the whole store, saying "look, she's a bride, she's 27 but she looks 17!" And the whole place nodded and smiled. And there I am standing, red-faced, on a pedestal wearing a wedding dress. Awkward.

Then at lunch with my mom the waiter recommended that I order the chocolate cake for dessert. My mom made some comment about having to fit in a wedding dress in 2 months. The waiter and I laughed, he said "don't worry about it." And I said, "I'm not."

When he came back with the most amazing chocolate cake EVER, he said, "are you seriously getting married?"

"Yes."

"How old are you?"

"How old you think I am!?"

"18 or 19."

"Wow, it's cool dude, I'm 27, don't worry." 

Then it was embarrassment and backtalk all around with a side of awkwardness. 

And I know, I know, I should take it as a compliment, but I hate the shocked looks I keep getting. It's embarrassing. I want to walk around with a t-shirt that says, "I'm 27, so it's okay" when I go shopping for wedding stuff.

This one's for Amy...

I have a confession to make. I hate tattoos but I love tattooed brides! I think the pictures are always so amazing! And something about a tattooed bride in a traditional wedding dress looks so stunning to me. I think I'm going to start a regular posting of new tattooed bride pictures when I find them. I guess I sort of live vicariously through them because I would never get a tattoo for so many reason- scared of needles, don't like marks on my skin, I'm not sure I'll ever like something enough to get it permanently printed on my body, did I mention I'm scared of needles, etc. But if it weren't for all those things I would LOVE a huge tattoo that is more like a piece of art like this girls. But I'm waaaaaay to chicken to (and aware that one day I won't be a size 4 anymore) to ever get that done.

But When I came upon these pictures on another wedding blog I had to laugh because of this picture...

Jonathan Canlas Photography

My best friend and bridesmaid Amy has these really awesome tatts on the top of both of her feet (one of them is the bird tattoo pictured above) and her parents freaked out when they saw them. Since she's engaged they got upset and said they didn't want to walk her down the isle all tatted up with "colors flashing" but I think this picture is so amazing because of  the "flashing colors."

other awesome bridal tattoo pictures from the Jonathan Canlas wedding photo blog:

pretty tattooed bride, Sydney

beautiful bridesmaid whom I wish I looked like

So there, it's out there. I love me a tattooed bridal party!!! And I can't wait to see Amy's colors flashing on the beach in Maui. :)

3 years!

Three years ago today Aaron and I finally met at Tom Bergins!

And who was the one to remember this? Not me! It was AARON! He brought it up yesterday. What a guy!

first picture of us ever taken. it's crappy bc it was on my cell phone.

co-ed wedding shower / engagement party / birthday celebration

So the co-ed wedding shower / engagement party / 27th birthday party for me was phenomenal! We had such an amazing time. The Wolf's (my best friend for 24 years and her parents) threw us such a beautiful and special party. Complete with a looooong dinner table for around 30 set up on their lawn with candles and martini glasses filled with sea shells and tea lights with colors to compliment our wedding colors! It was so cool. Everyone was really impressed. 

the amazing table set-up

friends and family & cooper (bottom right)

My friend Raina (who just bought her tickets to Maui!!!!) came over and did my hair, she colored it and then styled it in the cutest little bun. And then she found a plumeria hair clip in a drawer and added it my hair-do. I felt so darned pretty! Then with the addition of my new Leyendecker dress I felt beautiful. 

i love this picture almost as much as i loved my hair!

We had an amazing turnout, I was super thrilled to see all of our friends and my family show up and celebrate our engagement and my 27th birthday. And I want to thank the Wolf's for everything they did for us!

the fabulous hostess & pseudo-mom, Meg!

If you'd like to see the rest of the pictures of the party, check out the flickr set. If you see of you that you like feel free to download it and keep it. 

* * *

The next day was my 27th birthday and Meg & Amy met up with Morgan, Mom and me on Sunset Blvd. for a lunch...

morgan, amy, meg, me & mom

Thanks for spending my birthday with me ladies & thanks for throwing us an amazing party Meg & Amy & the rest of the Wolfs! :)

misadventures in dreaming #2

What is this... at two months all of a sudden you can't stop having stressful wedding dreams???

I don't like it I tell you.

This time I had a dream that my mom told me that the people who made my engagement ring wanted it back. No- they demanded that I give it back. I was devastated. The whole dream was me trying to figure out ways NOT to give the ring back. But to no avail, it was stripped from my finger and I had to replace it with a new one. It was pretty, but not the same. 

I'm telling you, these dreams better stop asap.

the nightmare before wedding (cake)

SPOTLIGHT ON: the MIL & the "Welcome to Maui" invites

I was waiting until I got the "Welcome to Maui" invitations were sent out to post this...

First of all I'd like to say ...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPHANIE! 

 It was my future MIL's birthday on August 18th. Fellow Leo and amazing woman, Stephanie (pictured on the left with her grandson, Ethan) has been playing a crucial role in all this wedding planning by being super understanding and supportive throughout the entire process, reminding me all the time to just relax and have a good time with it. She and Aaron's dad, Larry, are hosting the "Welcome to Maui" dinner that we're having instead of a rehearsal dinner and she's been doing an amazing job of it so far. I mean, check out these invitations that she designed...

Um, can you say- uh-may-zing???  Because I can.

I got my first glimpse of these yesterday when my little sister rushed up to me before I could even get to my apartment and said "Have you seen these yet!?" as she shoved the invite in my face. She pulled it out of the envelope and I gasped when I saw it. It was perfect. Even better than I could have designed, I think.

Of course these babies were made by the now newly married Karah at BellaByKarah.com so they wouldn't be anything but awesome.

Anyway, I want to thank my wonderful future MIL for designing these invites, hosting the upcoming party, offering to help me with any and everything, and generally being one of the sweetest women in the entire world. But most importantly (to me) for having and raising Aaron to be a wonderful man and the most perfect husband that I could've imagined. You have done and continue to do an amazing job. 

I had one of my spies (aka- future SIL) dig up this photo to showcase the overwhelming cuteness of Stephanie and Aaron. And check out the date - I wasn't even born yet!

For her birthday Larry (her husband and my future FIL) got her a snorkel set! How awesome is that!? And I, for one, can't wait to see her use it in Maui. ;)

misadventures in dreaming

from flickr

I spent all day yesterday taking care of wedding stuff- ordering things, organizing things, emailing back and forth with my future MIL, basically kicking ass and taking names on the wedding planning front.

I thought that would all make me sleep like a baby with the confidence of knowing that I am on top of things for once in my life. 

But nooooooooooooo...

I had wedding nightmares all night! And every time

 I woke up from one and thought "oh thank god, it was just a dream." I fell back asleep into another nightmarish wedding situation. 

Of course being the laid-back bride that I am, these "nightmares" were not as bad as normal wedding nightmares might be. They were more like this-

Dream #1: My best friend and bridesmaid wasn't feeling well the morning before the wedding, I tell her to go to her room and rest and just meet us right before the wedding. She never shows up and no one knows where she is. Confusion and panic set in. My best friend has totally missed my wedding and who knows what's happened to her!

Dream #2: I'm playing at the beach all day and forget it's my wedding day! Oh crap! I see everyone already gathered together on a lawn with chairs set up and stuff, just waiting for me to walk down the isle. And I'm still in my bathing suit and damp, sandy towel, with crazy beach hair. The rest of the dream is me scrambling to get ready.

Dream #3: I can't really remember, it was the one I was awakened from by the sound of my dog puking. But it was something about doing my hair the day of the wedding and how it was impossible.

I can't remember the other ones, but they were all stupidly stressful like that one. (Except for the one I had about filling out paper work, that one was long and boring.) 

I have no idea why I had those crazy dreams, because I am far from stressed out (about the wedding) in real life! And I know that the day of I will have a lot of people making sure that I don't play at the beach to long and miss my wedding! (I hope.)

But I did some research and found out that it's not uncommon. Apparently even non-stressed brides have nightmares about their wedding day. And the hair-do disasters seem to be a common theme. 

Who knew!? Not me. But now I do. And now you do.

Sweet dreams.

The "Welcome to Maui" Gift Bags -or- "70 of everything please"

I am in the process of ordering all the things I need to put together the "Welcome to Maui" bags four our destination wedding. And because of the size of our wedding I have to order 70 of everything. Yikes.

My goal was to use as many local products as possible because Aaron and I strongly believe in supporting the local economy (both Maui, and the other Hawaiian islands). And with the help of the Hapa | Hale blog I was able to do exactly that! Leigh (the blog master at Hapa | Hale) really helped me out in a big way. The bags I was originally going to use were sold out until the end of September, and with our wedding being in the beginning of October I wasn't going to risk it. I'll admit it, I panicked a little, I hadn't come up with a plan B! I mean, these bags were pretty much perfect AND they were the ones used in the article that inspired me to make the welcome bags:

Modern Bride- Jun/Jul. 08

So I did what any panicked bride-to-be would do and googled like a mad-woman! I googled "welcome bags" "welcome to maui bags" "destination wedding welcome" "hawaiian bags" "OOT bags hawaiian" etc. And neither of these things resulted in what I needed to find, of course. So it was off to scour the archives of Hapa | Hale and that did the trick. I discovered the online Ailana Kai catalog. Their large Lauhala Tote Bags were perfect!  I also found a couple more products from her website that I'm going to ultimately use for the wedding.

SPOILER ALERT: if you are coming to the wedding and you want to be surprised, do not read any further!  There, I've said it.

Now here is my collage / mock up of our "Welcome to Maui" bags for our out of town (OOT- that's how they do it on the wedding message boards) wedding guests...

1. The bag pictured is not the one we're actually using. There just wasn't a decent picture of our actual bag. But they're both from AilanaKai.com. The one pictured is their Lauhala Tote. 

2. A map of Maui. We're also going to make a smaller, easier to read map that just shows the locations of the wedding events.

3. Maui Babe SPF 30. Ideally I would have loved to give everyone a bottle that size, but they're very expensive. So we are providing a smaller sampler size in the hopes that our guests will love it and purchase a bigger bottle while they're on the island. I also pretty much swear by their Browning Lotion as well. That stuff works even on pale-ass haolies like me.

4. Wow-Wee chocolate bars- Maui's candy bars. These are made on the island and come in 8 different flavors! And all of them sound insanely delicious. 

5. A mini first aid kit from Johnson & Johnson. You know, because accidents do happen while you're on vacation.

6. Hawaiian Springs water from the Big Island.

7. Maui Chips!!! They're my favorite snack on Earth. I have had them shipped from Maui to my apartment in West Hollywood. I don't care, there's nothing like them. 

8. Pretty sandlewood fans from Koyal Wholesale.

9. Kisses from Maui lip balm. By far my favorite local product that I've found. My mom and I got a couple of these babies back in May and I keep one on me at all times. I love this stuff. And the good thing is that they're colorless so the boys can use them too. But if you prefer color- they also make tinted lip gloss! 

So there. That's Megan's guide to Maui destination wedding gift bags. I'm still searching the 'ol internets and continuing to ask around for any more advice or suggestions for some affordable local products. So if anyone out there has any more ideas feel free to leave a comment and give me a heads up!

Mahalo!

So the boys are taken care of...

After an excruciatingly long shopping spree with my mom and my brother we have nailed down the groomsman outfits!!!!  About 4 months ago I saw these really cool shorts online at the Pac Sun website, I thought they were awesome, Aaron even liked them. But every time I went to check them out at a store they were no where to be found. So yesterday I decided to try one more time and there they were! On the sale rack! The perfect number of them in (hopefully) the perfect sizes, for $19. Can't beat that.

So here they are, I paired them up with the bridesmaid dresses-

PacSun Kirra shorts - Calypso Kimberly Dress

And we also found their shirts on sale at Penguin too. Really comfortable, light weight, white button down shirts.

I think the shorts are pretty much perfect for our funky & colorful beach wedding. 

What do you guys think?

LA Story - our engagement photos

We got the rest of our engagement photos!!!

It was a really fun day and I think that it shows in our photos. We got our friend and amazing photographer, Ellen Tunney, to run all around the city with us, taking these great pictures in front of some of Los Angeles' public art exhibits & landmarks. I thought the LA theme was nice because it's the city in which I was born & raised, it's where we met & they show off the "city kid" side of us that one day we'll get away from when we movie to Maui. :)

click here to see my favorites on my myspace page. (I hope that works.)

And of course, it wouldn't be "misadventures in wedding planning" if things didn't go wrong for me- the day before the photo shoot I developed a big zit on my upper lip that is clearly visible in all the pictures and Aaron wasn't able to get a hair cut until the day after the shoot.

But, I think we still managed to look somewhat put together anyway...

From the top row L to R: 

us in front of the "Hymm of Life: Tulips" sculpture by Yahoi Kusama in the Beverly Hills Gardens Park, kissing in front of the Beverly Hills Post Office, us amongs Robert Irwin's "Palm Garden" installation at BCAM, shopping in Beverly Hills, enjoying "Urban Light," a sculpture by Chris Burden at LACMA

Just in time for shark week...

My friend Drew wrote an article about us for The Santa Barbara Independent's shark themed edition. It's about how the shark attack resulted in us getting engaged and it's a pretty entertaining read, I love the way Drew writes.

So go check it out- he posted the online version on his blog...

Shark Bite: A Love Story

We're famous... in Santa Barbara.

This is what my blog looks like...

according to Wordie. 

I found out about Wordie from my friend Drew's blog. I thought this was really cool, so I tried it out on Misadventure's In Wedding Planning. I was sorta disturbed by how much Aaron I had in this blog. More Aaron than wedding which is interesting because Aaron's been hardly involved in the wedding planning! 

But then I realized that If you turned this on it's side, it looks like a wedding dress with a train! 

whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....

Aaron train. Good job Wordie!

2 months to go!!!

Today is exactly two months until our wedding day! 

And in honor of this occasion (and also coincidentally) we got a couple of "highlights" from our engagement photo session, along with a really sweet note from our friend and photographer Ellen Tunney, where-in she called us "closet super models." HA! 

I don't know... see for yourself...

The "closet super model" emerges in this one. I blame the dress.

I'm way too excited to get the rest of the photos. Ellen putting them in the mail and we should be getting them soon! And you'll get to see more engagement photo fun. :)

Photographer: Ellen Tunney

Amazing green dress: Leyendecker

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

The birthday card from my boss. Amazing.

It's midnight on August 4th and I'm 27.

Aaron is playing his guitar and singing "Happy Birthday" for the 3rd time because he couldn't figure out the chords. But it's sweet and I could listen to that all night long. Maybe not "Happy Birthday" in particular, but Aaron playing guitar all night long.  It's definitely a great way to ring in my 27th birthday. 

We just got back from our wedding shower / engagement party / birthday party for me. But I'll have a write up about that in another blog. Right now I'm going to have one more Guinness, watch the rest of this Simpsons episode and then call it a night... a birthday night.

Spotlight on the wedding shower dress: Leyendecker

I am super lucky to have such talented friends. One of those talented friends is Jessica Moss, one half of the fashion-duo behind the clothing line called Leyendecker. It's LA's best label if I do say so myself. And it's also what I'm wearing to the engagement party/wedding shower/birthday party my bridesmaid and her mom are throwing!

Check out the awesomeness that is Wayfarer:

I also loved this dress so much that I paid for it:

I wore this dress for our engagement photos. But that's another post for another time.

But for now, check out LeyendeckerLosAngeles.com to see all the rest of Jessica and her partner in crime Lisa's incredible designs. 

And can you believe that she wouldn't let me wear my converse with these dresses!?

The "Girly Wedding Shower" Invites

My mom and my little sister are throwing me a girly wedding shower in September while Aaron's mom will be in town. Since I only have 5 girl friends it's going to be just the women in my family and there are a LOT of those. 

So of course we turned to BellabyKarah for the invitations. With some advice from my cousin Dana and some input from my sister and my mom and talented designing eye of Karah the invites came out like this...

front

back

Pretty awesome, huh? I think Karah put it best when she described them as "a good mix of funky/modern with a classy feel." Kinda like me! ha.

Stay tuned for a write up about the actual shower. I can't wait!