Celebration Time

We've been quiet over here due to crazy work schedules and dual birthdays.


But we've still been getting some wedding stuff done. More to come on that later.

This past week was especially special because Travis and I both turned 30! We are only six days apart in age so the past week or so has been quite celebratory.

Cookbooks, bike rides, pizza dates, guitar playing, sewing machines and a whole lotta birthday wishes.


Here's to celebrating a lifetime of birthdays together!

Say Yes to the Dress

Two friends from work, Jen and Abby, and my best friend, Leila and I went dress shopping a couple weeks ago. I didn’t really have a plan for getting my dress. I just knew I wanted something white, above the knee and at little cost.

I actually went to a bridesmaid boutique on my own, but left feeling frustrated by the cold and frankly, bitchy, saleswoman. So, when my carpool-mates from work insisted on taking me out dress shopping, I figured they just may know what they’re doing.

They made an appointment at a local bridal and bridesmaid boutique, Bella Bridesmaid, in San Francisco and also made a reservation for lunch afterwards at a local gourmet vegetarian restaurant, Greens. It was great – I just had to show up!

We arrived just after 11 and we were given free reign over the available dresses. They’re a small boutique, but they had a good selection of simple dresses. The bridesmaid dresses come in a variety of colors so I tried some of those on, too.

I tried on a variety of dresses, but nothing quite worked. This one was cute, but I felt more like I was going to prom than a wedding:


And I gave long dresses a shot. I confirmed that long just isn't my thing.


And this one would be good for a cocktail party, but not the wedding.


Near the end of the session, I finally found The Dress. Here is a tease of the upper hem line:

I won’t debut it until the Big Day, but it met my vision of romantic, vintage-y, cute and with a hint of one of our wedding colors. Plus, it was under $400! The girls and I agreed – this was it. I said yes to the dress!

I ordered and paid for the dress on the spot. It’ll arrive sometime in May and then I’ll need to get some alterations to bring it above the knee.


We then headed off to lunch to celebrate. What a successful and fun morning. Many thanks to my gals Jen and Abby for organizing!

Time to Register

Travis and I weren't sure what to make of the whole registry thing. First of all, we really just want to celebrate with friends and family so we have no expectations for loads of gifts. On the other hand, we don't want to end up with 3 rice cookers (No joke! This actually happened to a friend of a friend).

We abstractly thought we knew what we'd like to round out our new home, but when we actually sat down to create a list for our registry, we were all over the place. It's actually a lot of work!

I decided to sign us up for one of Crate and Barrel's wedding registry parties. Sure, it's a great marketing tactic -- open the doors to your store early for brides- and grooms-to-be and arm them with the tools to ask everyone they know to buy presents for their registry from your store! But, frankly, we don't want our wedding to consume us too much and this seemed like an easy way to add some staples to our wish list and check this item off our to-do list.

We arrived just after 9 a.m. on Sunday a couple weeks ago. We were greeted by cheerful and helpful Crate and Barrel salespeople. The store didn't open to the public until 11 a.m. so we had two hours to browse the store with other registering couples. We checked in, received our hand held registry scanners (Travis suggested an iPhone app replace the registry scanner) and headed straight for the coffee.

That's the thing. They also had coffee, mimosas, juice and breakfast treats scattered throughout the store -- which is 3 stories! We had to amble upstairs to track down the coffee, but this allowed us to get the lay of the land. We headed back downstairs and got scanning!

The morning was actually pretty fun and helpful for us to understand what the scope of things we wanted (entertaining party trays -- no; Kitchen Aid mixer -- heck yeah). We were also able to scan things on site and then change quantities, colors or even the item itself later online.

The salespeople were also super helpful. We had a lot of questions and they helped us navigate the store and the different specs for everything.

When we were done, we uploaded our registry right there in the store. We got about half of the items on our wish list scanned at Crate and Barrel. That's pretty good for one morning!

We've set up the rest of our wish list items through a universal registry online. It feels good to have this step wrapped up (well, for the most part -- Travis has some more items he hopes to add in upcoming weeks).

Lookin' Good

Last weekend, Travis and I braved the downpour to go suit shopping. We decided that it's good for him to have a suit on hand in general and he'll also use it for the wedding.
We went to J. Crew downtown and took some time checking out the different suit styles, fabrics and colors of suits. We also did some online research the night before. J. Crew has a really great feature on their website that not only shows their suits, but has a video of models walking around in the suits. It really helped us understand the nuances between the suits. We were pretty much sold on the Ludlow.

Anyway, when we got to J. Crew the staff was super helpful in selecting the right style. We had to use a little imagination because they didn't have the exact color/sizing Travis wanted on hand. After much trying on and some needed input/education from the saleswoman about fabrics/suit-sizing, we went with the Ludlow in charcoal. Travis purchased the jacket, vest and pants via the catalog so we didn't actually get to walk out with the threads.

When he got home last night, Travis had already received the full suit in the mail! My best friend Leila was over so we demanded an on-the-spot preview. Leila works in planning in menswear at The Gap and, while I was pleased with the suit, we got her expert stamp of approval as well. Travis looked great. I can't wait to see him all dressed up on the Big Day!

How We Met

Above: One of my first photos of Travis when we met in Ojai.

Travis and I met on a weekend trip that 5 folks from our bike club, Mission Cycling, took down to Ojai, CA. We split up into two cars -- five bikes and two people in one and the other three in the other. Travis and I were in the second car -- a rental our friend Ryan drove.

None of us really knew each other and over the course of the 6 hour drive and weekend, the five us quickly bonded. Quintin and I tackled the double metric (123 miles) and Rachel, Ryan and Travis took on the century (100 miles) ride.

I was immediately drawn to Travis. He was humble, funny and cute. By the end of the weekend I realized he was like a real life Michael Cera. He not only impressed with his cycling skills, but he rocked the billiard table and dominoes. A real catch!

We hit it off shortly after the weekend, but Ojai is where our sparks first sparked. That's why one of our wedding colors is "Ojai orange" which I have declared a tangerine color.

I recently dug up the blog entry Ryan wrote up about our weekend for our club blog. There are some lost photo links and wacky formatting, but it's fun to look back and remember the weekend we met.

TnT Featured in SF Gate & Mission Cycling Blog

Our dear friend, Regina, freelances for our local paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, on articles relating to cycling culture in San Francisco.

Recently she had a call out to friends looking for bike date recommendations. I wrote her immediately since Travis and I love going for short and long bike dates. She asked us to share a story about our favorite bike date. No brainer -- a 100 mile ride to Petaluma and back that involves countryside, turkey sandwiches, riding past llamas and hanging out together.

Fast forward a few weeks. The article hit SF Gate yesterday!



And then our bike club, Mission Cycling, posted about our story on SF Gate. Totally meta.

Turns out the article isn't about bike dates, but more about how people fell in love on/through/by bikes. Which is fine cuz bike love is awesome. <3 <3 <3

TBRC

Travis and I had talked a little bit about whether or not I would change my last name to Crawford, but since it was more of an abstract question before he proposed, I didn't give it much thought. I always said, "Probably" and we left it at that.

Once he proposed, though, the question was much more real -- and it wasn't so easy to answer.

Luckily, traveling for work a few weeks ago, I had an idea on what we should do. I was snoozing/daydreaming as the plane was landing and suddenly decided that we should both change our names.

It seems strange to me that only one person gains a name. In fact, we're both committing to each other forever so we should both show some finality in that through our names.

As soon as the plane touched down, I texted Travis:

Tina: I have a great solution to our last name change thing.

Travis: Oh? The suspense is killing me :)

Tina: I think you should add Reid to your middle name -- Travis Bryant Reid Crawford -- and then I'd add Crawford and make Reid my middle name -- Kristina Brooks Reid Crawford. What do you think? I like it!

Travis: It's like we're Spanish!

Tina: Really? I'm not familiar with that!

Travis: They have two last names. It sounds reasonable. Come up with it on your own?

Tina: Yeah, snoozing on the plane.

Travis: Thinking + snoozing

So, there you have it. We've come up with a reasonable solution. We're both gaining families, so we'll reflect it in our names! I'm thrilled to welcome Travis to the Reid clan and thrilled to join the Crawford family. It's a little untraditional, but feels totally right for us.

Plus, as an added bonus, we'll have the same initials: TBRC!