*brooklyn bride* feature

Very exciting news yesterday! Vane at Brooklyn Bride featured our Save the Dates in one of her posts. So glad I snapped a few pics and submitted when I did! A year later...I am still in love w/ them.

I can finally post a photo of my awesome wedding shoes! I was so tempted to before the wedding but didn't want to ruin the surprise. I think I lasted until dinner before I had my shoe change.

our friend

Peeking over the jet-way...he says it's time to come home.

sneak peek 3

sneak peek 2

honeymoons are nice

sneak peek

it was perfect

I have no words quite yet besides that it was absolutely perfect and more wonderful than we ever imagined it could be. Thanks to the Kleep-Winstons for this lovely, first wave photo set. God bless an SLR.

mrs.

seriously

This is the closest visualization I can come up with to describe the planning process for seating arrangements at a wedding.

where credit is due

The cats requested that I make sure to credit them for the wedding color palette inspiration.

it's a tasting, not a gorging

We finally were able to move forward with our food selections for the reception. It was seriously the most fun part of this wedding planning business.

All my wannabe foodie dreams came true that day- course upon course served by a personal wait staff, multiple wine parings, six kinds of desserts and a running consult from the executive chef throughout the meal. Way to bring it to the table Patina!

At one point I remember levitating over the table and simultaneously hallucinating that Julia Child was there cutting my food for me with a large golden knife. If you ever have the pleasure of attending one of these go slow. Keyword is tasting.

My first dress fitting is Friday. Signs point to "not good."

the (second) happiest day of my life

Invites are in the mail. Enjoy!

PS. Some of you have inquired- yes, that is actual hand rendered calligraphy. Anne Robin out of NYC penned each invite lovingly for us. She is my letter-spacing and line-spacing hero. Check out her work. It is amazing.

we practically own alaska airlines

We have been doing a ton of flying this year for wedding planning trips as well as general business travel for our respective employers. Nicholas and I have been at the airport every week or every two weeks since February. In fact, I am typing this from 36,000 feet right now. (The planets were aligned for a cross country, first class upgrade this time. The hot towel just came. Boo ya.)

Here is a photo I shot a few weeks ago while flying back from LA LA for our final vendor walk-throughs. Look for Rainier at the wedding- just in its alternate form...the beer.

who knew federal way was so beautiful

Two weekends ago we completed our final marriage preparatory requirement- a weekend retreat with Catholic Engaged Encounter. Here is a photo recap of our "engaging" weekend at the Palisades Retreat Center in WA.

fleurs de mariage

Stacy Martin, our amazing florist, has been featured in The Knot Best of Weddings 2008! Congrats to her and her design team. We have been working with Stacy for the past nine months and it has been a wonderful experience. Her client-centric meets industry expert approach has allowed us to flex our creative muscles with our florals.

I had pulled an initial concept from a publication and Stacy ran with it. Not only did she run with it, she knocked it out of the ballpark. When we arrived for our first meeting she had mocked up all three different arrangements. Being able to see the concept pieces early on in the process was huge in helping to set the look and feel of the day. She even let us take them home to photograph! I wish I could share them now, but I want to keep it a surprise for guests.

I am very much looking forward to seeing how all the arrangements turn out on the big day. I am SO sneaking a peek when we are taking photographs at the WDCH before the ceremony. I won’t be able to resist!

That's a pretty hot cake above ya?!

flower girl dresses anyone?

I don’t know about most brides, but I sure had trouble finding a good flower girl dress that wasn’t blah or that was actually age appropriate. On top of all that, most bridal salons want to charge you an exorbitant amount of money for a one-time dress that your flower girl is sure to grow out of. To make matters worse I dare you to find a dress in silver-gray and black. There must be some rule that says you can’t put a kid in my favorite non-color, color combos because it was almost impossible.

Then by the grace of the wedding gods, I found Pegeen. They are a brilliant little company that allows you to mix and match a huge amount of colors, styles, and add-ons such as bows and special details. Every dress is custom so it is easy to get exactly what you want and need. BUT, I can truly say they have one of the most challenging websites I have ever been on. It is so bad that I, Halli, I who works with the web for a living, couldn’t even figure it out. A phone order it was!

Although I must say I do love the “button realistic, panic button, button” that they have on their website. I am going to just go ahead and start recommending that to all my clients. Fantastic usability my friends! In all seriousness, we are super excited about seeing Logan in the dress. It’s going to be amazing.

straight up blog

A few items regarding tonight's late post:

First off, today was spent billing the majority of my time to 'computer downtime' at work. Our MS Office 12 upgrade rendered me helpless on the computer for hours. I lamented not having trusty Apple products at my side all day long. I am now on a computer that works thank goodness.

Second, I received a 't-minus five month' email from The Knot last week while traveling. Did they say five? Yep, five months. [Insert usual, unpleasant nail biting here]

Despite the impending 'tick tock' message, it was a simple reminder to again take a moment to reflect on the joy that has come [and will continue to come] with this whole wedding preparation and design endeavor. It's easy for some to chalk this whole process up to mere party planning, Halli gone Martha, bride detail overkill. It's so much more than that though. It's a discovery of each other, a compromise challenge and a killer joint effort that has resulted in some impressive, tactical teamwork [hopefully not driving a few key individuals nutty over the past year].

One of the most special and deepest parts of what makes Nick and Halli tick has stemmed from our gift of creativity and love for creating special things, which we are working overtime to do right now. It is what binds us.

We spend all day working to create something from nothing-- for others/clients. How blessed are we to finally have the ultimate project on our hands-- we are our own clients. Our love and limitless imagination is our 'brand promise' to each other and those we love.

Ps. Sorry for the unexpectedly deep post. I think I actually have a look and feel sketch that I may like. Positivity and progress is a'flowing!

Ps2. We were in LA this weekend for wedding stuff as well as Keith and Kerri's wedding. It was super productive, a wonderful time, and 96 out. Lots to report on later. Stay tuned.

eames + shoe

Mono-Eamz by United Nude shoes…yeah baby! I just am in love with these heels that are an homage to our favorite design duo—Charles and Ray Eames’s lounge chair. How perfect would these be for our design obsessed wedding?! Too bad I can’t wear them with my complex shoe wearing requirements. Besides, I would probably buy the black pair so I could sport them every day.

aloha means goodbye too

We just had our very first airline bankruptcy! Aloha, Aloha Airlines! Our inter-island honeymoon carrier has left the building and left us at the mercy of kind partner carriers running in the red probably just less than they were.

Apparently Aloha's demise was further aggravated by competition with go!Airlines. Who's this? I googled this "go!Air" but through the miracle of SEO instead found this must-share video. Hopefully we will be having that much fun too once we get there!

funny

Nothing delights me more than the name and visual identity of the formal wear company we are using for the groomsmen's attire. It's probably one of their older locations in LA, hence the truly awesome sign and lettering style.

haberdashing

We are moving right down the wedding to-do list + finally reached the oh so vital “groom’s attire” action item. Instead of wearing pants that a hundred other men have worn, we bit the bullet and got Nick his very own threads. Dashing!

Really, beyond the communal pants sharing item, fit and style were a huge gray area in our mind, esp since Nick is so tall. Two button, three button, peak, notch, vents, ties, bow ties…its all so confusing at times. I ran across My Haberdasher on one of my favorite Seattle wedding blogs, What Junebug Loves. Jeff Collins offers a personal styling and fitting service. He came to us and gave an extraordinarily thorough consultation and fitting session. It was hugely informative and helpful when narrowing down all the options out there. I am so excited to see the results and fortunately I can see Nick’s attire before the wedding. Bring on the award shows + formal soirées!

less is more

And that's all I have to say about the winner of the great cake knife and spade search!

Both cut and serve functions required, but no need for two devices. Designed by Erik Magnussen.

launched

Some big milestones this week! Save the dates are out and we also launched the website v1.0! Simple was the theme here. We do too many complicated projects all day long. It was nice to just bust out some basic CSS and html. We look forward to updating it throughout the year with more information for our guests.

In case you are questioning the layout...the homepage is not off center. It was designed to use the implied lines of the side of the browser to create the rest of the type. Type trickery!

operation save the date: complete

I love today. We finished the save the dates finally. I am so pleased with the way they came out and can't wait for our guests to receive them. Our kitchen has looked like a Martha Stewart sweatshop for weeks. Now we can have our lives and counters back for a few months until the next maelstrom of design and crafting begins. As much time as these things took, I think we can say we really are happy with the design. Our goal was to create something that was "SoCal cool"...it's sorta Hollister meets Tragic Kingdom album artwork meets letterpress meets Nick + Halli. I was worried the black and orange would be a bit too Halloweeny, but I have not had that gut reaction throughout all the black and orange experience. I love the way the packet works. They scream "us." Now for the commentary this project's learnings...

1. If you use ribbons on invitations of any type you must really enjoy punishment. Never again peeps. I have made ribbon design choices before but for some reason I failed to remember all the drama that ensues. We solved for it, but lordy it took time and serious attention to detail. We were saved by Zots Clear Adhesive glue dots. They pack some serious adhesive punch. Learn about them.

2. Women- Treat yourself to a pair of amazing scissors. I bought some killer all-steel, seamstress grade Fiskars. I was using some pathetic three-buck Ikea scissors that wouldn't even cut ribbon. These things cut like a hot knife through butter.

3. Photostamps.com custom photo/artwork stamps...like, but not so much in love. Being able to control our the design and tie it into our theme was great, but the stamps themselves are HUGE. They are eating up the front of the envelope. If they were smart they would start offering a smaller size, esp for people who use these on reply cards. I am surprised someone in their product dev department hasn't figured this out. We will save using them again for the commemorative Bizmark von Whiskers stamps.

4. The number one thing that you read about wedding mailings is to hand cancel your envelopes. This is a total scandal with the USPS. They don't do this anymore if you live outside of Mayberry. Even if you do find a post office to hand cancel, they still get routed through the evil post-o-matic sorting machines. Research also shows that the USPS will try to charge brides for this (which is illegal) and sometimes invites get lost. Sorry if your save the date looks kinda chewed up on the outside...at least it is pretty on the inside!

Ps. Paula loves this story about the California State Flag, our design inspiration. The jury is still out on the validity of the story, but regardless, pretty darn funny.

linens and things

Newsflash: My wonderful finance now knows the difference between crinkle taffeta, pintuck silk, and organza! That is true love people. Last week we completed, what I though was going to be one of the more challenging parts of planning: linens. In reality, it was super easy. So easy, we were done in under an hour and I am in love. I was mostly nervous about the lack of selection in our color range…blacks, grays, and slivers. In the world of linens, there isn’t a huge range available in these colors if you aren’t going custom, but Tabella had just what we needed.

We settled on a warm charcoal hue that is doing more than extending our color palette—it’s providing a nice tie into the warmth of the birch walls in the BP auditorium. We have often worried about not plunking a cold color palette into a warm interior space like the WDCH. There is just a subtle warm copper sheen that comes out of the fabric when it hits the light. Gorgeous darling, gorgeous. Thanks to Kristin, our coordinator, for steering us away from using a two-color setup—base tablecloth and an overlay. Its too prom circa 1992. One strong linen with a rich texture is all you need.

Beyond the excitement of linens, we had some b-party team action! Cynthia, bridesmaid and wedding aficionado, was able to join us while on break from the toils of her Master’s degree completion. It’s been so nice to have my maids, at one point or another, help with planning or be at special wedding-related events, despite being spread all over the country.

I will cover what we are now referring to as "the great goblet debate” in a future post.