We're Getting Excited!

We've been pretty busy around here getting the details dialed in for the Big Day: site visits, vendor check ins, family check ins, etc.

But... we're excited it's so close -- can't you tell?


Fynn got a bow tie for the Big Day and Travis has been "practicing" wearing his new wedding band.

Obtaining Our Marriage License in Photos

Walking to City Hall before work:


Almost there:


The long hall to the County Clerk office:


Filling out the paperwork (and our new names):


It's official -- well the paperwork is!



It was actually a lot of fun to head to City Hall and obtain our marriage license. Not only did it make things feel more real, but it felt magical, too. We're really getting married!

Getting Crafty

Since we're less than 3 weeks from the wedding, it's time to start tackling some of the decoration tasks. I've decided to add some simple elements to spruce up the dinner after our ceremony. We've reserved a private room at Pauline's Pizza and I'm using the lower photo below as inspiration for the tables -- simple, classic and comfortable.


I reserved the book Handmade Weddings from Hello Lucky (the same company that did our invitations), months ago at the San Francisco Public Library. I finally received a notice it was available about 2 weeks ago so I marched over to check it out. So cute and inspiring! Of course I don't have the time to do most of the projects, but I did decide to go for the yarn bombed vase centerpieces this weekend:


On Saturday, I headed to the nearby Thrift Town and Goodwill to see what types of vases and votives I could track down. I managed to find 4 similar vases at Thrift Town and 14 votives at Goodwill. Score! I also visited a local knitting store and purchased some bright orange (Ojai Orange) yarn and the drug store for double-sided tape.


Lauryn stopped by again on her way out of town last night so I asked if she was up for a project. She was game and turned out to be the perfect craft partner with her amazing attention to detail and background in design. We got to work!


It took us a while to get the hang of working with yarn, curvy glass and double-sided tape. After a while, we got the hang of it and perfected a technique utilizing all 4 of our hands and joked that we were an efficient human weaving vase loom.


In all, we were super impressed with how the vases turned out. They look sharp and well done. Many thanks to Lauryn's diligence to detail! In all, this project took about 3 hours and cost $17. Nice!

With a Little Help From My...Vendors

I've worked on big events throughout my professional career: lectures with luminaries at the Commonwealth Club of California, helping out with the logistics for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer San Francisco and planning the annual weekend Team LUNA Chix Summit for CLIF Bar ...

So when it came to planning our wedding, I knew it'd be an extension of what I do day-to-day. Travis, on the other hand, has extended beyond his comfort zone for a crash course in the dizzying array of tasks involved in event planning and we've both tackled our to-do lists pretty faithfully.

We've hired vendors to help out or execute the different needs for the ceremony day and ride/party day. Without their help, we wouldn't have our wedding weekend. We're pretty excited about the group we've curated. Let's introduce you to a few:

My father has a history of officiating family weddings and is "ordained" by the Universal Life Church. He married my sister, Kathryn, and brother-in-law, Brian, in 2000 and my cousin Ryan and his wife, Jessica a few years ago. He's also officiating my cousin Lauryn and her fiance Tyler's wedding in September. The thing is, I'm a cryer so it is an absolute guarantee I would bawl through a ceremony officiated by my father. So we turned to a more neutral source -- the internet -- and landed on Reverend Rich. We contacted him, had a conversation over Skype and signed a contract. Right now we're working through the details of our vows. He's also helped us structure the format of our ceremony hour which has been helpful.

We needed a day-of planner to handle the hour-by-hour logistics -- especially the party set-up while Travis and I are out on our bike ride. Enter Genevieve from Lily Spruce. I actually know Genevieve from her work with the Breast Cancer Fund, LUNA's non-profit beneficiary so I knew she would be a great fit. When we were six weeks out and still didn't have a caterer lined up, we realized we needed some extra help. Genevieve is helping us navigate our last big to-do items (read: securing a caterer for our party with 3 weeks to spare!) and even small details like design direction. We super appreciate her help as we work on wedding stuff in what seems to be all of our non-work hours.

As of noon today, we have confirmed our caterer for our party. Genevieve, Travis and I have been biting our nails trying to lock in this major to-do item. We're excited to work with Bi Rite because they have super delicious local, sustainable food and they're a sponsor of our bike club, Mission Cycling. With Bi Rite confirmed, we know the food and service will be totally dialed in.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm going with Ashley and Alexia from Flower & Gold for hair and make up -- mostly because I lack much experience in creativity with either. My sister and mom are also getting their hair done by Ashley so it will be fun to share the experience together pre-wedding.

I met Pamela Palma through work when I hired her to photograph one of my biggest events of the year, the Team LUNA Chix Summit weekend. We challenged Pamela with an aggressive shoot schedule to get our Chix in action throughout the weekend. Amazingly, Pamela not only covered the event producing great photos, but she got to know a lot of the women and truly embody the spirit of the weekend. We're pretty excited she agreed to shoot our wedding, as she's usually out at bike races taking awesome action shots. She's also a pretty bad-ass cyclist herself.

So... Pop Sugar offered a deal a while ago that my coworkers Abby and Christine encouraged I try -- a mobile spray tan company. The deal was pretty reasonable so I tried it out this week to give the spray tan thing one more shot (several people told me I needed to only spray the "white zones" versus all over). Emily, from Tan A La Mode, showed up at my house after work at 6, popped up her super tall tent in my living room and got to work. She was super helpful and went to work on my funky tanlines. Not only did she make me feel comfortable and get in and out of my house in 30 minutes -- but the tan worked -- on my arms at least! It's great! Everyone has been super impressed and I'm going to go for it again about 2 days before the Big Day. And the best thing about them? I don't have to go anywhere -- they come to me!

I've also got some amazing help from some friends:
-Jen, a friend from carpool at work, has graciously offered to manage our flower decor at the party.
-Suzy & Jason are providing the homebrew TNT Dynamite Brew at our wedding.
-Our dear friend Eugene, who we met through Mission Cycling and has since moved to L.A. is driving up and bringing his bike and camera along. He's going to be our bike-ride photographer and shoot photos from the bike. He did an amazing end-of-summer bike photo series a couple of years ago I absolutely love.
-My parents have been incredibly generous is helping us pull off our party. We tremendously appreciate their willingness to work with our vision and help make it a reality!

So with 3 weeks to go, we're in a great place and getting pretty darn excited the Big Day is almost here. Heck yeah!

Visitin'

Our wedding is in 3 weeks (tomorrow!), but we've been lucky to see some of our favorite people before they come out for our wedding. What's better than seeing them once in a month? Seeing them twice in one month!

Travis' older brother, Luke, came out to San Francisco for work last week and stayed with us before and after his work week. It was great to host him, visit, cook dinner, eat out and explore the city together. Travis and Luke even got some bro time, heading out to a local bar and catching up. We know some of the magic of San Francisco rubbed off on Luke and we continue to work on him to move out here from NYC. We'll see!

Right before Luke left, we took a morning hike to Bernal Hill. I'd never actually been to the top before. We were finally having beautiful weather so it was fun to feel the sun on our backs, look over some clear amazing vistas of SF and remind Luke that this was certainly not typical summer weather!



And tonight, my cousin Lauryn flew in from Lousiville for her close friend's wedding in Napa this weekend. The rest of her friends fly in tomorrow morning so we're hosting her here tonight. I met up with her after work and we caught up over a fun city hike. We decided to check out our reception venue over in Noe Valley. Along the way, Lauryn, took lots of photos and we talked about both of our pending weddings (Lauryn is getting married in 2 months in NY!).


We then met up with Travis for dinner at our favorite Indian burrito joint, Kasa. We then walked home via Dolores Park at dusk.


We look forward to welcoming Luke & Lauryn back, along with the rest of the family in 3 weeks.

Ring Time

I think it was 2 weekends ago that Travis and I realized we were coming up on the wedding pretty fast and we hadn't ordered our wedding bands. It was one of those things we figured we'd just get to. I had a packed week last week so I had to cancel my sewing class to make time to get to the jewelry shop.

Chabo's was one of the 3 jewelers we visited when selecting my engagement ring. Initially I was overwhelmed by the array of options available -- they specialize in custom jewelry -- so we ended up buying my engagement ring at Dianne's Estate Jewelry.

Travis, though, fell for the Tungsten carbide rings at Chabo's because they look cool and are "from the future." Since Travis was set on a Tungsten carbide ring from Chabo's, I figured I'd look again at the simple band options they had at the same time.

So we headed to the SOMA neighborhood to meet up after work. Chabo's is located in the basement of a huge building. We had to get buzzed in by security, head down to the basement and through a maze of hallways to the shop.



We sat down and looked at bands for me first. I found a super thin, simple band I liked but, again overwhelmed by the possibilities to customize the band with a small band of diamonds, we switched to looking at bands for Travis.

Travis tried on a variety of metals, sizes and finishes. He landed at a quite manly and lovely Tungsten carbide ring. Nice!



Then it was decision time for me. We landed on a simple design to mirror my engagement ring -- a small band of mini diamonds with an accent (similar to my engagement ring) on either end.



We ordered our rings and we're now waiting to hear back on when we need to head in to pick them up. Exciting!

Lookin' Good

Spoiler Alert! Travis has asked that he not know any details of my “look” for the Big Day. So Travis, if you are reading this – go away!

For the rest of you…

After our faux-wedding photo shoot (in which we looked like funny versions of ourselves – and I had mega makeup galore), Travis has repeatedly asked me to, "Just look like yourself” for our Big Day.

I plan to look like myself, but I still need a little help getting dolled up on the Big Day. My coworker, Claire, recommended I connect with her hairdresser, Ashley. Not only does Ashley style hair by day, but she also co-runs a hair/makeup business on the side with her pal Alexia called Flower & Gold.

I emailed Ashley and explained my vision for the Big Day: simple, but not my everyday. And by “not my everyday” I mean actually wearing make up and having my hair styled.

She was game and we set up a hair and make up preview appointment which means I headed to Ashley’s salon, Population for a preview of what to expect the day of the wedding. I LOVE this idea. Not only was I able to communicate over email and in person my vision for my look to Ashley and Alexia, but we actually got to do a trial run so there aren’t any surprises.

Before my preview appointment, I sent Ashley my Pinterest style board for hair. I didn’t really know what I wanted so I did my homework and found some cool looks.

When I showed up, Ashley and Alexia were super sweet, made me feel comfortable and set to work on my simple and styled look. My hair is falling out a little (we’ll fix that for the Big Day!), but this is a sneak peak at the final look. What do you think?





I’m not used to this type of attention and while it’s nice to get dolled up, it’s a lot of work! I’m glad I have some experts to help me out.