So as I mentioned before, my "Man of Honor" Erik was on the Conan O'Brien show the other night playing with Lenka. Well, this morning I woke up and watched Aaron's "Best Man" Daren playing with his band The Airborn Toxic Event on the Carson Daly show. (Aaron recorded it for me on the DVR because I passed out early last night.) Once again my camera is broken so I had to use my camera phone to document the cuteness:
close up of my "Bunny"!!!
It sucks that you can't see him in detail, Carson Daly has crappy cameras apparently
And then this afternoon it was my "Man of Honor" on TV once again! This time playing with Josh Kelley on the Bonnie Hunt show (who has much better cameras)...
Bonnie Hunt talking to Erik
The best part was at the end she was standing with the entire band and they started making fun of Josh for teaching ballroom dancing in high school. Of course Erik was the most vocal of all of them and I got to actually see Erik talking on TV! I'm such a nerd.
David, David, Josh & Bonnie Hunt hitting Erik.
The David on the far left is my friend and fellow "Blackbird Pie" band member! I heart him. He's in town this week and I hope to be able to hang out with him if I'm not too busy with wedding stuff!
Since before I ever met Aaron and before I was ever even close to getting engaged I had my "first dance" song picked out. The moment I heard "Here We Go" by Jon Brion from the movie "Punch Drunk Love" I knew that it was the song that I wanted to dance to at my wedding. There are two reasons for this- it's in the count of 3, and the lyrics "You gotta hope that there's someone for you, strange as you are, who can cope with the things that you do without trying to hard."
"Here We Go" from the movie "Punch Drunk Love"
Of course years later I would be marrying someone who worked with the guy who wrote that song. And, of course, to him the idea of dancing to a JB song is pretty ridiculous.
Okay, I understand that. I accept that it won't be our first dance. And what he's doing instead is really sweet. He's surprising me with a song! I don't get to know what it is until that very moment. I'm so excited. And maybe we can have "Here We Go" played sometime during the night just because I love it so much.
Then I got this sheet to fill out from our DJ. One of the questions was what is to be our "last song." And then I thought maybe we can play "Here We Go" for the last song! Perfect compromise. Not exactly. Aaron said no.
Then I remembered almost a year ago when Largo put on the "Shark-a-Thon" for Aaron and Jon Brion played another amazing song that he wrote for the movie "I Heart Huckabees." He played "Knock Yourself Out" and it was like Aaron and I were hearing it for the first time, even though collectively I think we've heard him play that song 300 times. But it took on a whole new, very poignent meaning that night after Aaron being attacked by a shark and then me being held up at gun point. The lyrics "Why we're put in this mess is anybodies guess, it might be a test, or it might not be anything you need to worry about. But if you're still in doubt, go 'head and not yourself out." And then a couple months later I thought, that would be the perfect song to play at the end of our wedding. A perfect message to send people home with.
"Knock Yourself Out" video w JB, Jason Schwartzman & Mark Wahlberg.
So I proudly brought it up to Aaron this morning. And his response- absolutely not! Nothing that reminds him of where he used to work is allowed at our wedding. And I'm crushed.
Not only do I love these songs so much and always wanted them to have a place at our celebration, but JB is the reason we're even getting married!!! If it weren't for him we never would have met!
So anyway, I'm really bummed. And if they can't be at our wedding at least they have a place here in my blog. At least everyone can enjoy them somehow.
Kimokeo's condition has gone from critical to stable! :)
Thanks for all your prayers and good thoughts.
Today was the first day that I haven't had anything scheduled for a looooooong time and I am enjoying every minute of it! I'm surfing the 'ol interweb and drinking champagne. It's sunday, Kimokeo's getting better, Aaron just called to say "hi" for no reason at all during his break which he hasn't done in a long time, and I'm am an off-duty bride today! :)
And in honor of my good mood I thought I'd hip you to a sweet little online store from which I bought the purse I'm going to use on my wedding day...
It's the Orange Cherry Blossom purse from BeeGeeBags.com. These bags are hand made, amazing pieces of pretty girly art. I love them! I had a hard time choosing which one to get, I sot of fell in love with all of these as well...
Not only am I using my bag in my wedding but Brooke (the designer) has started to market these babies as bridesmaids clutches. And there are so many different styles/colors that it's easy to find something that will match your wedding and be completely unique.
I just got some terrible news- our friend Kimokeo Kapahulehua is in the hospital in the ICU. As far as we know right now he is unconscious and they're not really sure what's wrong with him.
Unless you've been reading my wedding planning blog, misadventures in wedding planning, you don't know who Kimokeo is. He is an amazing local Hawaiian kapuna whom we met in Maui when he helped us out after Aaron was attacked by a shark. He visited us in the hospital and made us see a whole new side to the attack that we never thought about. He turned the attack into a blessing and then held a ceremony for Aaron after he was released from the hospital. He was also to be the man who was going to marry us.
I'm writing this to ask that you take a moment to send some good vibes his way, weather it be through prayer or meditation or plain 'ol positive thinking. We need to surround him with light and positivity to help him pull through this, the same way he did for us when Aaron was in the hospital feeling worse than we'd ever had in our lives.
My cousin who lives on Maui spent all last evening at the hospital with friends and family and Kuhuna's and healers, and Hawaiian spiritual leaders, praying. She took her friend who is an energy worker and healer and they sat in the waiting room for over three hours talking with these amazing Hawaiians. Her friend was allowed to go into the room with two Hawaiian healers and did a healing on him. She said it was quite an experience and felt so much energy coming off him. He is fighting!
They think he has Leptospirosi. But his status this morning after less than 24 hours of antibiotics is the same.
All we can do is wrap him in a pray network that does not allow for anything except complete recovery! So please take a moment after reading this to concentrate on him and wish him a full recovery. He's not only important to us but he's important to the community and to the world in general. Just knowing that someone as amazing as him is alive in this world is a wonderful comfort to us all. We love him and we can't wait to see him again!
Aaron and Kimokea exchanging "Ha" or "the life's breath"
Kimokeo (left) & just a few of the people whose lives he's touched (most of my family)
I finally got my wedding dress back, in the strangest way possible...
After visiting the Russian tailor lady for the 6th time in a row she told me that she would call me the next day when it was ready. Well, the next day that call never came. So I went into the store again the day after that and, guess what!? It wasn't ready!
I think she felt bad so she told me that she would deliver it to me that night. She took my address and said that she would see me at 6:30 pm.
6:30 came and no dress. 6:45 came, no dress. 7pm came, still no dress. And by 7:20 I was just about to leave to see Erik perform at Hotel Cafe when I finally got a phone call from her. She was out front!
She got out of the car, practically dumped the dress in my arms, said "congratulations" and then drove away, leaving me stunned, confused and a little worried that something was wrong with the dress.
So I rushed inside and tried it on and it was... perfect! It was totally fine, nothing wrong, fit great. So random.
I just always imagined by "final fitting" for my wedding dress being more, I don't know, not like picking up something on the side of the street and throwing it on for a second before I had to head out the door to go to a bar. Kind of anti-climactic.
I did it! I finished the cupcake tower! And I only made one big mistake.
As you can see in this picture I cut out tabs for the separators that could have remained covered. OOPS. At least I messed up on the bottom one and had to re-do it, so I fixed the problem on the very bottom one!
Anyway, I wish I had more pictures but my camera broke. OOPS (again).
So what-d'ya think?
UPDATE:
So the day of the wedding things didn't work out the way they were supposed to. So to see what happened to my cupcake tower click here.
At the risk of disturbing all my loyal blog readers, I have to post this. But in my attempt to not offend I shall use 1950's terminology...
I am extremely happy to report that "my time of the month" came early this month! Whoo hoo! I've never been so happy to be cramping because that means that my "aunt flow" won't be making an appearance at the wedding! It's just one less thing I have to worry about as I get ready to leave in, oh, 12 days!!!
Anyway, just a little piece of exciting and slightly gross news.
Speaking of exciting and slightly gross news...
My best friend/man Erik was on Conan O'Brien last night!!! He was playing bass for Lenka and looking dapper in his outfit from the gap. :)
Lenka, Conan & Erik!
And I'm excited that he's back from New York today and Morgan and I are going to go see him play with Lenka tonight.
You would think that I was getting a custom made wedding dress with how many times my away messages have said "going to the tailor." I have been to the tailor 3 times just this week! But it's not for a custom dress, in fact all it needed was to be hemmed. I'm short.
I dropped my dress off on Saturday, August 20th, and after embarrassing me in front of the whole shop, she said to come back next Saturday. But the next Saturday was my bridal shower, I figured I'd just pick it up sometime the week after, but I never really found the time until a month later. I figured for SURE it would be done in a month!
So I strolled in there last Saturday all excited to try it on. When I entered the store she had no idea who I was and I had to remind her, "I'm here for the wedding dress..." "Oh!" she said, "Net, net." From what little Russian I know, I thought that "net" means "no" but she couldn't mean no, could she? Sadly, "net" does mean "no." And she told me to come back Monday...
I came back this Monday. Again she didn't recognize me. "Can I help you?" "Wedding dress?" I said. She told me it wasn't ready, come back Tuesday, it will definitely be ready on Tuesday...
I came back today (Tuesday), again the same blank look on her face and "Can I help you?" "The wedding dress?" "Ah!... Net."
ARE YOU KIDDING ME!???? How long does it take to hem a freaking dress? She's done three of my mom's dresses, one of my sisters and all of them done in time. But bring her a wedding dress, the most important dress of all the dresses, and she can't find the time!?
So I did it, I survived the "girlie wedding shower"!!! My mother, sister and my cousin Dana where the architects of the incredible party and they went as far as to make my parent's house look like a beach resort! They even came up with a "signature drink" to hand out to all the guests upon entering the party. We called them "Lahaina Lemonades." On the left is a picture of me enjoying my Lahaina Lemonade! :)
My girlie wedding shower was fun! Lot's of drinks, lots of gifts and lots and lots of women. The sound was incredible. I think there were like 30 lovely ladies in attendance and one "man of honor," Erik!...
erik looking really cool.
Per my request they didn't have any horrible shower games like the toilet paper wedding dress (thank you!!!!), but they did have two less horrible games. One was trivia based upon the invitations that had hawaiian words and their definitions on the back.
the back of the wedding shower invite
And the other shower game was actually great- Everyone was given a shell necklace and no one could say the word "fiance" since I hate it so much. If they did they and someone caught them, that person takes their shell necklace and the person with the most shell necklaces at the end of the party wins.
Anyway, enough words, let's see some pictures!!!
me with my best friends in attendance- Erik, Aaron (before he left), me, Amy & Raina!
my cousin Dana, me & my sister Morgan
I have no pictures of me and my mom, so here is a picture of my mom (right) and her friends
I do, however, have a really cute picture of me and my future mom!
I was excited because it's sort of become a tradition for the brides-to-be to sit in this one particular chair in the living room while opening presents. And it was FINALLY my turn! And man where there some AWESOME presents!!
I got hooked up with the Dyson Allergy and Asthma vacuum (which has changed my life), some adorable lingere from my mom and mom-in-law, an amazing shadow box collage of all of our wedding invitations made by my future sister, an ipod dock clock and lots of Hawaiian themed stuff just to name a few of the gifts! :) Man, I love gifts!!!
Anyway, it was lots of fun, I loved spending time with friends and family and let's not forget opening lots of gifts! So thanks again Mom, Morgita & Dana, you guys RULE! Best girlie wedding shower ever. :)
Just remembered another thing I had to take care of... Wedding Photo Sharing Cards. Which are really great way to ask your wedding guests to share their photos of your wedding day with you and each other.
I went on Moo.com and used their business cards as templates for my photos sharing cards.
I "borrowed" some photos of the the cameras they sell at Urban Outfitters for the front of the cards...
an example of 4 of the 8 cards that I created
I used those pictures because those cameras were what we received as presents for our co-ed wedding shower and we plan to use those cameras at the wedding.
And then on the back of the card I asked/begged our guests to upload their photos to a photobucket account that I created specially for the wedding...
The business cards come 50 for around $22, I ordered 2 sets and spent around $55 for them! Not bad considering that these can help us get a whole lot of free photography! :)
I was so good. My would be so proud... I wrote all of my "thank you" cards from the bridal shower and our wedding gifts we've already received. I put them in the envelopes, addressed them and put the stamps on them. But then when I went to seal them I found out that the envelopes are defective. They don't seal!
So I either waste about $20 in postage by buying new envelopes, or I think of a new way...
So I actually found address labels that matched our invitations...
I ordered those and I'm going to seal the envelopes with them. So if these babies get lost in the mail the post office has now has TWO places to find our return address.
So I immediately went to cupcaketree.com and ordered the mini cupcake tree.
this stand will hold 50 - 100 cupcakes, perfect for a 60 person guest list.
And then went over to the NOAA Nautical Charts online store. And ordered a bunch of maps of the Hawaiian islands! Boom.
this map is actually displayed on the wall in our bedroom!
Now all that is left is to actually make the darn thing. Now, I'm an online ordering wiz, I've planned my entire wedding practically from the internet. But I'm not so much gifted in the way of the craft. But, I'm going to attempt to do a DIY project! Stay tuned for that blog. Should be pretty funny. (Michelle- expect a lot of emails!!)
CLICK HERE if you want to see the finished product!
Things-I-need-to-do-like-ASAP-but-haven't-had-any-time-to-do to do list:
- find someone to make a butt load of cupcakes for our "wedding cake."
(I don't know why I've been putting this off. Part of me just wants to go to Costco and pick up cupcakes the day of or something, it's really not a big concern of mine.)
(The Maui Wow Wee chocolate website wanted to charge me $25 for shipping to literally ship it down the street!!! wtf? So I called the company on their ridiculous shipping fee and now I need to order them over the phone to bypass that. But I never have time to make a phone call- at work I'm not allowed to use my phone, on the way home I can't use my phone because of the "no hand held cell phones in the car" law they put into effect in Los Angeles, when I get home- well, let's face it- I'm never home anymore. Too much to do.)
- call the guy who works at our reception site to go over menu and other stuff.
(He's only called me a billion times and every time it's the worst time that he could possibly call.)
- make hand drawn wedding map of the wedding party locations per my mother's request.
(You should have seen my face when she told me I needed to make hand drawn wedding maps. Like I have nothing else in the world to do but to somehow learn to draw and then turn myself into a freaking human Thomas Guide.)
- pick up my wedding dress from the tailors!
(It's been there for 2 weeks now and I just haven't had time to get it or try it on or anything.)
(I keep forgetting to bring the shorts and the shirts with me when I hang out with them, and now... come to think of it... I have NO IDEA where their clothes are... hmm...)
- find accessories to wear for the parties.
(So far I have no shoes to wear with the dress for the "Welcome to Maui" party. I have no accessories to wear with my wedding dress (except the rings of course!). I have no ANYTHING to wear to the "Hangover Lunch." And.... and... I don't know, Kimmy help me!!!)
On a side note, I updated some of the older blogs I wrote and then forgot to publish or didn't finish. I'm starting to realize that this blog will be over soon and I'm getting sad. :(
My friend and co-worker Renee just found this photo of a beach wedding ceremony site in Orange County. It's from the Orange County section of the Classic Party Rentals website and it just blew me away!
If you can't tell, those brown things are darkened pieces of driftwood, the green flowers are hydrangeas (we think) and there are big shells arranged along the driftwood. We both loved the addition of the white sand to the isle, that way everything in this set up is organic! (Including the stands which are made of wood blocks) What a great idea for an organic or green wedding on the beach.
If I had the time and the money and the desire to have my guests in chairs, I'd rip this idea off in a heartbeat!
So excited people, so excited!!! I just ordered the coral for the wedding reception centerpieces!
I woke up last night in a panic because I realized that we're really down to the wire and I had never actually purchased the coral the centerpieces. There was nothing i could do about it at 3am. So after watching a couple of episodes of the office and drinking a glass of wine I went back to bed.
Went to work this morning and the first thing I did was take care of business. (Not work related business of course- the real important wedding related business.)
Found out that Z Gallerie is still offering their large pieces of coral for $39 and they were totally in stock! (Last time I tried to get them they were on backorder and in limited numbers.) Ordered eight of the large white ones and I'm going to spray paint them bright orange and set them in a bowl of sand at each table. Much like this...
(except orange)
I love when I get stuff done. Now all I have to do is go to Maui, hope that I can still find those glass bowls pictured above, hopefully the coral has already arrived, spray paint them orange, wait for them to dry, steal sand, fill the bowl and voila!...
I have a feeling the first week on Maui is not going to be very relaxing at all. But it beats being in LA!!! :)
UPDATE:
to see how the coral centerpieces turned out, click here.
I don't remember where I or how I found out about the Adesso Polaroid guest book, but when I saw it, I knew it needed to use it for ALL of our upcoming wedding events.
I ordered the book and then I ordered the polaroid camera (blue to match our wedding colors) and then I ordered all of the film which cost more than the book AND the camera.
They all arrived quickly, the guest book arriving the fastest. They have a useful thing on their website which lets you enter the date by which you need the book just so they can make sure they get it to you before your event.
I took it too our co-ed wedding shower and we all had a blast taking pictures! Here are some of our results...
the cover of our guest book & the photo we used for the cover
I took the best picture of my newly married friends with the polaroid...
Jessica & John
I told my best guy friends to take one of their usual silly photos...
oliver & erik
even my brother and dad had fun with the guest book...
an excerpt from the guest book...
My cousin & his girlfriend are awesome!
My friends have no problem goofing off in front of the camera and capturing their personalities in writing AND on film...
ken & kristina!
and the picture taking fun continued well into the night...
raina & sean
and finally we had to comemorate our new family of SIX with a fabulous polaroid...
just the 6 of us.
I'd say the guest book was a hit! We all had fun with it. Since I'm a photographer I had fun taking the pictures and since my friends are all such hams they had fun posing. I also emailed them to people as "thank yous" for coming to our party and people seemed really appreciative of that.
My cousin Dana bought us another Adesso album for our wedding and I can't wait to let the picture taking fun continue!!
I'm just so pissed that Polaroid stopped making film!!! Why would they do that!? Click here to sign the online petition to SAVE POLAROID FILM! And then go over to www.savepolaroid.com to see what else you can do.
If you've been following this blog through the planning process then you know that I'm trying to buy local as much as possible for wedding things in order to help support the island economy. This is really important to me. But it was hard finding wedding favors that didn't suck or weren't cheesy.
And then I found a company on Honolulu that sells these awesome and extremely unique wedding favors....
We were going to go for the orange Love Fruits filled with sour gummy oranges.
I thought this would be a good idea because,
a. I had never seen anything like these before b. The color orange plays a big theme in our wedding c. it was one less thing that my guests had to pack and take home with them. They could just consume it at the wedding or at their hotel room and be done with it and d. they're fun to open!
I immediately thought these would be a perfect wedding favor for us. Not only does it celebrate the reason we ended up getting engaged (aaron's shark attack) but the money we'd be spending on the wedding will go to a charity!!! And the people over at Lush who are selling the Shark Fin Soaps are so sweet. I'm currently speaking with a woman named Jill who has offered to use our wedding colors to help decorate the favors! And she just brought that up on her own. Plus with every email she writes to me she gives me a fun update on what's going on over in England! (I love that.)
Now, the only problem with them is that they're not from the islands, they're actually from England. But for the same amount of money that I'd spend on the Love Fruits favors, I can spend on these babies and the money would go to a really good cause. So that eases my not "buying local" guilt.
But if any of you out there in blog-land who are planning a wedding and looking for unique and fun wedding favors you should really check out www.shoptoast.com. There are so many fun products that can be customized for your wedding. And the people who work there are amazingly helpful and nice and will respond to your emails/requests personally which I really appreciate. And I'm sorta bumbed-out that I'm not going to be using them for our favors, but I did buy an adorable basket of orange Love Fruits for my mom and sister as "thank you" gifts for the bridal shower they threw me (pictures to come soon).
Anyway, I can't wait to see the Shark Fin Soaps, I just know they're going to be a hit. I just hope they arrive in time, the wedding is less than a month away!!!!
It appears that over the years people have developed an opinion of me that I am some sort of über-feminist. I don't know when, or how this happened. I mean, let me clarify that I am a feminist as far as being one who believes in the social, political, and economoical equality of the sexes and I do enjoy literature by bell hooks. But I'm not the type of girl who spells womyn with a "y" or burns bras or whatever the it is they do now-a-days. I'm no a faminazi.
But for some reason I am met with surprise when I tell people that I'm going to change my last name! "Oh really!? You are changing your last name?"
I'd say 90% of the people I've talked to reacted to the news that I'm going change my name with honest to goodness shock.
I started to think that maybe it wasn't me and that women in general just aren't changing their name anymore. Until my sister sister mentioned how the new guy she's dating holds open doors for her and pulls out chairs and carries things for her. And then said "I know you hate it when guys do that for you, but I think it's nice."
WTF!??? Where did THAT come from!? I love when guys do that stuff. When a guy who is a complete stranger holds open my door I make sure to stop, look him in the eye and say a whole-hearted "thank you."
So I don't know when this happened, I don't know how people got this opinion of me, but I can't wait to take Aaron's last name. Get over it.
The future in-laws are in town and we are busy going out to dinner & going to aquariums and, oh, cleaning our apartment to the point of unrecognizable-ness.
Blogging will pick up soon and I have a whole MESS of things to blog about. It's blog-tastic.
(She's sending her gift with her parents who are coming out here this weekend! Aaron and I are so excited. I just wish that Michelle could be coming out too. But her present will have to do for now! WHOO HOO presents!!!!!)
When I wrote her back saying that she was mean but also awesome at the same time, she wrote me back with this....
Sorry! Having bad morning...thought teasing u might help
plus, i'm obligated to make sure u have enough tissue paaper to last the rest of your natural life! (I just ran out last year, and we got married in 2000!!
I had no idea about the onslaught of tissue paper that I'm about to receive. This is why having a big sister who's already gone through a wedding is awesome. She can teach you things like- save tissue paper when you get married and your golden for almost a decade!
I love you Michelle!!!! I hope you have a better day! :)
I found this on the internet and fell in love with this quote, it's from an essay penned by Karen Eng entitled "A Bride's Anxiety" from the book Young Wives' Tales: New Adventures in Love and Partnership, edited by Jill Corral and Lisa Miya-Jervis, with a forward by bell hooks:
"The oddest of all pessimistic or thoughtless attitudes volleyed at me in the course of being engaged is this: Marriage is so scary because it's so permanent. At this I snort, and inwardly I wish it were true. In fact, I'm certain only that nothing goes on forever, that my desire for Iain takes the form of wanting to be with him from moment to moment into a future I can't see. Marriage is only as permanent as I am, and what am I? A resilient bag of blood. Life is fragile and brief- from where I stand it's nowhere near a long enough time with the person I want closest by me."
That last statement really got to me. It is truly the reason that Aaron and I are getting married. We learned from a shark that life is very fragile and can end at any moment... why waste any more time not being as close to each other as possible?
Honestly, I'm not worried at all about the "permanence" of marriage, I worry about it not lasting long enough.
