Wedding Pictures

I've been having a wonderful time reminiscing on our wedding as I'm finally sifting through our pictures. I'm in the process of making a few photo albums, framing our favorite pictures (which are many!) and sending copies to friends. Please be patient as I manage slowly and hopefully successfully through this massive project!

I want to thank Kim and Adam Bamberg of La Vie Photography for their amazing and beautiful artistic job in capturing this very special moment in our lives.

Cake Stands

I wasn't expecting to purchase a cake stand for our wedding cake but I just love these ceramic cake stands by Clara French.  What a great way to personalize your wedding cake display with these customized cake stands.  I love the fresh and original designs and soft colors.  

Hairstyles

Images from The Knot.

Now that I've grown my hair out, I'll have more options on styles.  However, my hair is driving me crazy because it's too long!  But I made my appointment with Divina for August 5th and am anxiously awaiting...a trim.  After the wedding, I'll chop it all off and donate my hair to Locks of Love as I'll have at least ten inches.  I guess I won't decide upon a hair style until I get my dress, but here are a few styles that I'm liking so far.  

mmmm...Manolos.

top left:  Manolo Blahnik, top right:  Prada,

bottom left:  Jimmy Choo, bottom right:  Manolo Blahnik

If I end up buying a tea-length wedding dress, I'm definitely splurging on a really cute pair of shoes.   I'm excited to start shoe shopping!

Wedding Ideas

You can get this Kolo Hudson Newport personalized at www.jennibick.com.  Add adhesive photo mount corners and it'll be a Polaroid wedding guest book.  Charlie has a Polaroid camera and yes, they are still selling Polaroid film, at least until next year, at Target.  Film is pricey, but I love the idea of having corresponding photos with guests' messages.

Another cute guest book idea.  You can be creative and use different colored paper, colored pens and stickers.

This is a sample of Japanese Chiyogami (Yuzen) paper.  I love Japanese paper and excited that I'm having it incorporated in my wedding invitations.  I love the scroll design as it reminds me of the chandeliers at Lake Union Cafe.  Michelle at mmm...paper, my stationer, is ordering it at the moment and so there's a hiatus on my invitation designing.  I'm so excited to see samples of her design.  

After perusing through many wedding blogs, I fell in love with petit macaroons.  I would love to have these as an addition to our wedding cake for dessert.  To keep with the wedding colors, I'd have a mix of pistachio, vanilla, and cafe.  My favorite french bakery at Pike Place, Le Panier, bakes them.  I e-mailed them and you can special order them. 

 

Wedding Favors

Just when you've got a handle on planning a wedding, you're thrown for a loop...for me, its the wedding favors.  I've been to many a-weddings where you receive a wedding favor and you really don't know what to do with them.  A bookmark...add that to my collection.  I mean, really, it's so much easier to fold the corners.  I've tricked myself into buying bookmarks, but lets face it...I lose them, they never stay in the book, and eventually make their way into the nether regions of my couch. 

I know there are a lot of favors that are actually quite useful (candles, soaps, etc.), but I guess I just want something else.  I don't know what that is and who knows, I might never have the slightest idea of what it is.  And I probably won't have it at my wedding.

But here I am, hour after hour (as with no job, I'm have the time to do a lot of wedding thinking), pondering many ideas. 

 I just want to give something that young or old, male or female; everyone will be able to enjoy it.  I think that's why I love edible wedding favors.  I mean, who doesn't like a sweet indulgence of cookies, chocolate or candies.  And I'm leaning more towards that direction.  I'm 98% positive I'll do it.

I'm really into do-it-yourself projects.  I've actually planned a few of them:  ceremony programs, thank you cards, rehearsal dinner invitations, guest book and yes, wedding favors (including the tag and ribbons....or maybe no ribbons).  I think it'll be a big endeavor, but I'm going to try and do a few on these on my own.  One, to save some money (or not, as I  have calculated that a lot of money it still takes!) and second, to be a little creative.   

I figured I have 31/2 months for my projects.  It'll be enough time.  We'll see....

Colors for the Bridal Party

I like the style as well as the color.  It has more purple hues.  Would you say that it goes well with green?

More of a reddish hues, a cranberry.  It may be a bit bright.  But does it also goes well with green?

I'm loving this shade of red.  It goes well with a deep red-purple floral arrangement.  Annie, my florist, was thinking of eggplant-colored and deep red flowers (mini-calla lilies, roses, and gerber daises).  She liked the idea of the green orchids.

Colors

Too Many Color Combinations!

It's driving me crazy!  There's so many color variations and combinations that it's difficult to pick a few colors for a wedding theme.  Lake Union Cafe is mostly copper, golds, and black.  They decorate for the holidays with golds, coppers, and greens.  For my wedding colors, I've been thinking of a burgundy and gold.  But green would be a great color as well, especially with copper.  Burgundy, gold, and black?  Burgundy, gold, and cream?  Burgundy, gold, and green?  Green, copper, and cream?  Or just green and copper?  Oh, so many decisions!

I love the reds and golds together.  Don't forget the gerber daises!

Too bright red.  

I like this centerpiece.  It would look good with green orchids.

I love this green.  I like the bouquet with the copper tie.

Soon-to-Be 'An American Girl in Seattle'

My favorite by Melissa Sweet.  It's pretty embellished, but so adorable!

I booked my flight back to Seattle and should be returning home August 3rd.  I'm excited as I'm homesick, but then again I'm leaving my honey once again in Italy.  But hopefully he'll be able to return to Seattle once before the wedding to process his visa. Plus, it'll be like a "traditional" wedding, not seeing one another; actually, it'll be like not living with one another.  It'll be more exciting and refreshing.  I mean, how married are we now.  We've lived together for four years, bought a house together; I'm surprised we haven't had a kid yet! 

 Now my blog will be more of a wedding blog.  So, why not start now?  I'm having a bunch of ideas and what better place to store it than this blog.  Here it goes.  

I'm loving the knee-length and tea-length wedding dresses.  What a great way to show off those shoes, especially if you're buying Manolo's, Jimmy Choo's, or Miu Miu's!  So, here's a few of my favorites.

Wedding Cakes Galore

Luckily, December is an off-season for weddings.  So, as a cake place promised, I should be able to wait until I return to Seattle in August for a consultation and free sample tastings!  I'm trying to gather ideas for a cake.  Of course, it'll complement the wedding colors:  red (cranberry/merlot), green (chartreuse/sage), and gold.  Should I have a wintery design, flowers or no flowers...

I like the gold, but of course, no bow because of our bicycle cake topper.

The ribbon would be a red color.

Stars on the cake, but not outside of it.

Red stripes, no flower.

The Cake Topper Arrived!

We went to the post office to pick up our package and it was the bicycle cake topper that I ordered at pixiboutique.com.  I love it!  It's so cute and so us.  I can't wait until it's sitting on top of the wedding cake.

It's 100% Official!

My dad drove to Lake Union Cafe and dropped off the deposit. So it's official! We are getting married December 6th 2008 at Lake Union Cafe. I've sent out the e-mail to start the Save the Dates. I've already found whose going to do those and our invitations. It's nice to have a date set as it gives me an endpoint and now I can start gathering more specifics on the wedding!

Our Wedding Cake Topper

Since we're both cyclist enthusiasts (Chuck more than I), I wanted to find a cake topper with a bride and groom on a tandem bike. I did find one but it wasn't as cute as this one. I guess we had the option to customize a cake topper, but this was very adorable. I found it on a french online shop and should be delivered to us soon. I can't wait:)




This isn't our wedding cake. Haven't thought about that one yet!

It's 99% Official!

Hilleri went to check out Lake Union Cafe and liked it a lot.  She thought it'd be a perfect place for winter wedding, very classic and with a warm feel.  From my research on-line, it got really good reviews about the service, food, and staff.  It was listed as a top-rated wedding facility for 2007 in The Knot Best of Weddings (magazine).  Plus, it was one of the lesser expensive venues on our list.  They don't charge a separate rental fee, but include it in the food charge.  And they have an option to bring your own alcohol.  Alcohol raises the price of the reception by a few thousand dollars.  So, bringing in our own alcohol will be cost effective for us.  Chuck's really happy has they have room for 2 kegs and supply the taps!  So, its almost official.  Victoria, director of sales and event manager, is holding onto the date for us until Hilleri sees it (which she did).  Now, we just have to give a deposit.  My parents are going to drop the deposit off and secure the date for us.  So by mid-week, we can officially announce our wedding date and location, The Lake Union Cafe on December 6, 2008!  Now the hard part (that's how it felt) is done and all the other planning can start!  Luckily, the Cafe does decorating for the holidays and Hill said we probably don't have to do much, if any, decorating.  That's nice.  We'll probably do a bit with floral arrangements and on each table.  Anyways,  I've talk to a few stationary places to start the Save the Dates.  I'll keep you posted on more.  Check out our wedding website  for posts as well.

Almost Official Wedding Plans!

It looks like we'll have a place and date finalized by the week's end!  I don't want to say yet where and when, but once it goes through I'll blog it.  But thanks so much to Hill who's going to check the place out for us.  We heard really good things about this venue and hope it works out.  It's a little later than we wanted or in the same month we wanted, but it'll be nice to have a winter wedding:)  Thanks so much Hill, I owe you one!!

Our Wedding Website

If there's a problem with the direct link www.mywedding.com/chuckandvalerie, just go to the home page www.mywedding.com and then type either my or Chuck's name.  It should link you to our personal website.  I really don't want to find out what's wrong with the direct link.  

The Wedding Planner

Yep, that's me right now.  And I'm already tired of it!  I'm so close to hiring an actual wedding planner.  I wasn't really thinking about it unless we pick a venue where we have to do everything ourselves.  So far, w've looked at a lot of facilities which provide the catering, tables, chairs, linens, coat check, etc.  Of course, for a price.  There's only one that I'm sure of that we have to do everything, Tacoma Union Station.  But it's a really nice venue with art work of Dale Chihuly.  Anyways, I'm in the process of contacting ten places with a list of questions and obtaining an approximate estimate.  It'll be a few days to digest all the information before making a final decision on a time and place for the wedding.  That's the biggest decision of all.  From that point forward, I'm hoping it'll be an easier process.  

I've started a new website, yes another one, and it also has its own blog.  If you want to view it, go to www.mywedding.com/chuckandvalerie.  I've recently updated it with a new blog and pictures.  As we come to finalize the details of the wedding, I'll update it more frequently.  

Firenze (Florence), Italy

On early Thursday morning, Christian drove us to Modena and dropped us off at the train station.  In order to marry in Italy, we needed the U.S. Consulate to notarize the nulla osta form, the form saying that there are no obstacles for us to marry.  So here we were, awaiting the train to the regional U.S. Consulate in Firenze (Florence, to Americans).  Since we had nine o'clock appointments at the Consulate, Christian kindly offered to take us to the train station.  That was truly helpful as by this point we didn't know how to get to Modena via bus.  So here's Chuck waiting for the train at Modena.  It cost about twenty-seven euros for two one-way tickets to Firenze.

So there are more than one train station in Firenze.  There is one a few blocks from the U.S. Consulate, but we got off at the more northern one, Firenze Rifredi, as it said on our ticket destination.  Since we didn't know where we were and how to get to the U.S. Consulate, we decided to take a taxi.  However, we did buy a map and tried to figure out our location and destination, but to no avail.  Fortunately, we didn't choose to walk because it was a good ten minute ride to the Consulate.  It was about eleven euros for the taxi ride.  So we finally arrive at the U.S. Consulate and took fifteen minutes to notarize our nulla osta forms.  Here's Chuck after we finished with the paperwork.

Here's a picture of some church (?) while we were waiting for a taxi to the other train station, Firenze Rifredi.

We tried taking the train back from the closer train station, but they had a later departure time than the other train station.  So, we took a taxi back to the Rifredi train station and waited for our delayed train, about twenty minutes, to Modena.  Though Christian told us to call him when we arrived in Modena for a ride to Maranello, we decided to figure out the bus system.  There are buses by the train station, though we didn't know which one to take as they didn't look like the buses in Maranello.  Fortunately, there was a sign saying how to get to the Ferrari museum by taking buses 1, 2, or 4.  After much gesturing and attempting to understand the bus driver, we figured out that we needed to transfer onto another bus to get to Maranello.  She told us where to get off and pointed where we needed to catch the bus.  Ah!  The blue buses that looked familiar in Maranello, number 800.  So we hopped on a bus and made it to Maranello:)

That afternoon, Christian took us to the Maranello courthouse.   They weren't too familiar with Americans wanting to marry in Maranello, so they had to look up the process via books and on-line.  Making a long story short, we needed to do a few other things before we could marry there.  It seemed like such a process, especially when you don't speak the language and have no friends nor family around as a support system.  So Chuck and I decided to wait and we will be getting married in Seattle!  I'm so excited because we'll just have one wedding ceremony and everyone we know will be more likely to attend as Italy will be so far and expensive for people.  So now I'm back planning a wedding in Seattle.