After the cake was done, we dropped Jed off and my mom and I went for my first dress fitting. I’m not going to lie… I was a little worried that I wouldn’t fit into my dress like I did in August because we ordered the size 4 and it fit me like gangbusters, but I was spring loaded. I’m not even going to explain that. As it turns out, I fit into the dress beautifully and no alterations were needed to taylor the dress to my body. I did need a hem (because all of those dresses are made for those 6’2 amazon queen models), and a few alterations of my discretion: I’m having them make my neckline into a sweetheart neckline rather than the straight line it is now, a bustle for the train of the dress, and a bustle for the veil. All in all, it looked absolutely stunning and of course my mom cried most of the time. We did the finishing touches, took a few pictures for the florist and such and went on our merry way.
The next morning, we met with Mrs. B, the wedding coordinator at the church. Mrs. B has known me since I was 12, so I was very comfortable with her planning that aspect of our wedding. And she was all too excited to meet Jed. We chatted for a while and got down to business. The seating situation turned out to be trickier than previously expected, but we got it all down. Hopefully no drama. Jed and I decided not to have a “bride’s side” and a “groom’s side” to our wedding. We want our families and friends to mix and mingle. We decided to have his sister Aeravi sing during the unity candle and probably my bridesmaid Sarah (who has a b-e-a-utiful voice) sing after everyone is seated. All I have to do is ask her… 
Everything else was pretty much traditional, and Mrs. B is taking care of all the decorations and I trust her implicitly. So, the details of the actual ceremony are done, and another thing is checked off the previously lengthy list…
Tags: planning
The reception package we have with the Waterfront Hilton, includes a cake made by the Great Dane Baking Company.
This is fortunate because we probably would’ve went with them anyway because they are some of the best desserts in Huntington Beach. My mom made our appointment for 11am. We sent our cake flavors and fillings ahead of time for them to prepare so we could taste when we got there. Apparently, when transferring over the appointments into their new book, our appointment got lost, so they had no record of our appointment or our flavors. No big deal. They actually, re-took our flavor orders, which turned out to be a blessing because my mom had ordered the flavors first without asking me my choices, so this way, I actually got to choose what flavors to taste: one chocolate cake with rasberry creme and one with hazelnut creme, one “wedding white” cake with strawberry creme and one with tiramisu creme.
All four cakes and fillings were made fresh for us on the spot and all tasted amazing. However, the white with the stawberry creme was the favorite by all three of us. It was sooooo good, and being the dessert connoisseur that I am, I know “sooooo good” when I taste it.
The only thing that could make the cake better would be to put some fresh stawberries in it. We ask Christi if that was possible and she says “done.” We love Christi. She more than accomadated us.
We had a very particular idea of what we want the cake to look like. No one picture that I found had everything in it, but the one below was the closest. I can’t even begin to describe it, but it’s beautiful. She asked that we send paint swatches (which we got at Home Depot) for the colors that we want so she can match them as close as possible. We were no easy customers and she handled everything beautifully and was incredibly gracious.
This is the template of the cake. It’s off-centered with the bows like what you see here. There are some differences, including the colors (we’re going with light purple for the cake and the ribbons are darker purple), but this was the base-cake that we went off of.
More pictures
Tags: planning
On Saturday, we are scheduled for our Engagement Photo session. We want to do it at the beach at sunset (like everyone but Katy & Ben in his Engagements Portfolio).
Trouble is, it’s supposed to rain.
Now, in Baltimore/Washington, when the weatherman says it’s going to rain, you’ve got a pretty good chance that you won’t see any rain. They’re concerned about warning people about rain so they’re not caught without an umbrella.
In Southern California, though, where people don’t own umbrellas, a rain storm shuts things down with the efficiency of a blizzard in New York. Because the stakes are higher, the weathermen are more careful about crying wolf. Which means that there’s a better chance that it will actually rain.
I’m hoping for a perfect storm. One that puts some pregnant clouds in the sky, but doesn’t drop rain right as the sun goes down over the Pacific for the perfect mise-en-scene.
Right now, the Weather Channel is giving rain a 60% chance on Saturday (focussed on the evening hours). Since we’re only in Cali until Jan 2, rescheduling isn’t possible. We get one chance; if it rains, we’re going indoors.
An indoor engagement shoot is like indoor football. The ball is the same shape, but the game is totally different, and not nearly as fun to see…
Tags: planning
At my church, there is a “requirement” that the couples get marriage counseling by their pastor before getting married. I think that this is a wonderful idea, while Jed is a little more apprehensive about it. I’ll let him speak for himself about that. The pastor who is marrying us is Jim Gane, my old youth pastor, bible teacher, and volleyball coach all four years of high school. He was probably the person who influenced me the most in high school. Needless to say, I knew him pretty well and vice versa. Jim is a very blunt, no beating around the bush kind of person, and Jed had heard some things that might have made him a little scared to meet him, so I feel that he was dreading this meeting. I was excited, and a little scared as well.
Jed here. It’s not that I was afraid of Jim; he was important to Tiffany so she put a lot of stock in his opinion. Anyone like that has to be pretty remarkable. I’m not really sure why I’m so nervous about “counseling” except that it feels to me like something to do when there are problems. I know that’s not how this particular counseling works, but there’s more baggage. Back when Tiffany and I started dating a lot of our mutual friends thought that we were a flash in the pan; totally wrong for each other. I know how good we are together, but I think that there’s still the fear that someone will look into our relationship from the outside and condemn it. Counseling – like the “Are you ready to get married” books – works by finding the weaknesses. It’s actively destructive in order to build a stronger union. I guess I am hesitant to give an outside party too much power. As it turned out though, the session wasn’t as bad as I was worrying it would be.
Read more… …
Tags: planning
Woke up. Got out of bed. Dragged a comb across our heads.
Flower lady showed up half an hour early, and while Tiffany and her mom showed her what they wanted (she’ll bring samples later), Kevin and I ran errands and got haircuts.
Tiffany, her mom and the flower lady going over flowers
Once that was done, Dante – one of my groomsmen – dropped by and the five of us mozied over to the Men’s Warehouse to pick out tuxedos for the wedding. We’d done a little pre-planning online, so we had a pretty good idea what we wanted.
In a nutshell, we’re going with a classic jacket over vests and ties. The vests have a pin-striping pattern on them.
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Tags: planning
After finding our photographer we grabbed a quick bite to eat. Tiffany had Quizno’s (they’ve gotten way overpriced), and Jed got chili-cheese dogs at Wienerschnitzel. From there it was off to meet the first (and only) prospective DJ, recommended by the Hilton and by Rafael the photographer.
Devin Christopher from Night Life Entertainment is not only a DJ at local clubs, but the voice of the Mighty Ducks. We went to his house, and let me tell you… Mr. DJ is a big baller. He had a Hummer parked in the driveway. He had a huge house in HB (which is a very pricey town for those not from the OC) with at least 2 BIG screen TV’s and wicked sound systems (which I suppose is appropriate).
Devon was also a talker. He sat us down for a 9-10 minute pitch, which turned out to be more like half an hour. But he was excited and had a ton of energy. While he spoke very quickly, he made a lot of great points that we really agreed with about how the night should run and what role the DJ should play in it.
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Tags: planning
Today was the second full day of wedding coordination madness. It started off with a trip to the Waterfront Hilton, where our reception will be held. We met Raphael from Raphael Photography (the website is very well done, but only shows a fraction of his hard-copy portfolio).
I’m sure you will remember our friend the digital master from Day 1. Like night and day.
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Tags: planning
So today we had our first appointments for wedding stuff. We woke up at around 9am to get ready for our first appointment at 11am in Northridge. This is about fifty or so miles away from our house. The first appointment was with Ken from Budget Photography. We saw a few of his albums and a “montage” in “3-D”. I don’t really know where to begin. First, the pictures in the albums were either blurry or very unflattering to whomever was in the picture. The pictures were off centered so that some of them cut off parts of people’s heads, arms, ect., and the black and white photos looked scary. Jed’s the photography/photoshop expert, so I’ll let him tell more about the atrocities that this man was trying to charge us around 4000 dollars for:
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Tags: planning
It’s Christmas Eve. Yeserday, after a half-day at work, Tiffany and I got on a United Airlines non-stop flight from Baltimore-Washington Airport to LAX. Tiffany has said before that she’s a magnet for screaming kids, and I think her magnatism was esepecially strong this time. The flight was overbooked, and as we sat on the tarmak the stewardesses moved some people around with the following consequenses. Tiffany sat in 23A. I sat in 23B. An exhausted-looking lady with a screaming baby that had diaper rash sat in 23C. A baby just large enough to kick the seat in front of her sat on the lap of her mother in 24A. In 24B, her father held her twin sister, equally rambunctious on his lap. They all took turns screaming, kicking, pulling our hair, spitting food and making doo-doos in their diapers that smelled like different variations of poo-pee every half hour. I think I’m a fan of non-direct cross-country flights.
Today the wedding planning begins in earnest. Annie, Tiffany’s Mom has a printed out itinerary. It’s packed; we only get Christmas Day totally off. I’m not sure I brought enough books. Today we return to Northridge – home of my fabled professorship at CSUN – to meet a photographer. This isn’t the ridiculously expensive guy (he’s later this week), so we’re hoping he’s good. Ken, from Budget Photo and Video.
When that’s done, we’re going to LA to look at flowers. I’m not too sure what that will entail – a flower is a flower, right? – but it’s on the list. I’ll post more later.
In any case, dear readers, be sure to check back regularly over the next week. The itinerary is full, and the updates will be rapid-fire.
Merry Christmas Eve.
Tags: planning
