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3/28/12

wedding wednesday *hot giveaway!


attention all betrothed couples:

the loveliest day is hosting a giveaway for a $75 store credit to smitten on paper, a ridiculously adorable paper company that has the cutest wedding invitations!

but hurry - it ends tonight @ 11:59 pm PST!

CLICK HERE to find out how to enter!

3/27/12

i've been a bad blogger!

i've been a crappy blogger lately! and trust me, i'm well aware.

so i'm going to bribe you with recent photos in hopes that you'll all love me again :]

creme brulee inside of a waffle.. doesn't get much better!

these are both gone already

my hubby on his 27th birthday

lazy ladies sunday with lilly

my maid of honor's baby bump!

double date night with my parents

3/24/12

freakin' weekend *23 before 24 update


phew... this has been a crazy week!!

last weekend, randy and i went looking at possible venues for our wedding. it was also randy's birthday on sunday, and not that we did anything wild and crazy, but it was still nice spending time together (although i had a slight bridal meltdown that day and felt so bad that it happened on his birthday!)

we decided to book camarillo ranch as our ceremony and wedding reception venue, so i started my week frantically trying to get my hands on contracts and transfer money between bank accounts for deposits.. and somehow i also ended up going back-and-forth with a caterer and scheduling phone meetings with an officiant.. i felt like i was in the middle of a wedding tornado!

so i need this weekend, badly!

but after all some is said and done, randy and i have a venue and a wedding date! and a caterer and someone to marry us..

**another one crossed off of my 23 before 24!!

3/21/12

wedding wednesday


randy and i went to look at some wedding venues last weekend, and long story short, we picked where we're getting married!

in this wedding wednesday, i showed you the difference places we were planning to look at. let me just tell you, i did not really realize how damn expensive it is to get married!

well, i'll put it this way, i knew it was expensive to get married, but i also know that there are ways to stretch your budget - but i didn't know the only way to do that really is to coordinate everything yourself.

most of the places we visited also offer catering and other services, but at a premium, so they were all upwards of $18,000 with only half of the stuff you need for a wedding.

anyway, i got lucky in the sense that the number one venue on my list was the least expensive! this is because they don't offer any catering or anything - you basically pay to host your event there. i'll admit i had a bridal breakdown when i realized just how much time and work i'm going to have to put into planning (randy's totally supportive, but you know how men are..) but im super excited to be getting married at a place i love and looking forward to being able to personalize it to suit us.

here is where the ceremony will be:


the ceremony garden is surrounded by trees and they have lights on them! it'll be super gorgeous for an evening wedding!

then we're planning for cocktail hour to be in other surrounding gardens. the guests will be able to walk to property, which is where the historic ranch house is:


then the reception will be in a barn!




i don't know these two fellows, but this is what the barn looks like with the large door open.

now i've got a lot of decorating decisions to make!


3/19/12

baby items haul

if you can't find me around anywhere by mid-2013, i'll give you a hint: i'm gonna be in the poorhouse!

between wedding expenses and a godbaby i need to spoil, my pocketbook is pretty much doomed!

anyway, i got some baby items in the mail that i bought on mama bargains.

if you are expecting, have an infant or toddler, or know someone who is, you need to be trolling mama bargains every day! it's a great place to score some awesome baby loot for great prices!

anyway, here's what i nabbed this go-round:







that little baby giraffe booty just kills me!


3/18/12

happy birthday, with love

today is my main man's birthday!


that's right, the mister of this beautiful blog turns 27 today <3

baby: i love you more than you'll ever know, and i hope you enjoy your second-to-last birthday as a single man



3/17/12

st. patty's day


happy st. patrick's day to you, my friends.

be happy, merry, drink a lot, but please be safe!

3/16/12

ranch life

today randy and i start crossing a very important wedding to-do item off of our list..

we're looking at venues.. all weekend!

today we're going to my #1 pick, camarillo ranch.

remember: i told you about some of the spots we're considering on wedding wednesday!


i can't wait to get there and see the barn and the mansion in all their glory. it will be so hard for me to not want to book it on the spot! but randy wants to keep all the appointments we have at other places too, because he's a guy and guys can contain themselves and look at all the options blah blah blah..

i hope you all have a wonderful friday and don't forget to wear your green tomorrow..

3/14/12

wedding wednesday


after much consideration and internal debate, i decided (and randy graciously agreed with me) that we need a florist for the wedding.

i bet most of you are asking yourselves how i planned to have a wedding without any flowers. it involved a lot of DIY, a portion of which i'm still planning to do, but i resolved that i would want to kill myself with the glue gun i just bought if i was going to make obnoctious amounts of itty bitty little things to comprise center pieces for approximately 13 tables. you could call it a wedding ah-ha moment.

so as i do when i make a decision, i immediately look for inspiration. here are some gorgeous center pieces i would like my magical florist to draw inspiration from:

probably my favorite centerpiece inspiration photo. i love the bucket, the peachy-pink flowers, the greenery.. perfection

i'm a sucker for pom-pom flowers. and i'm loving the rustic wood box

i really like the varying sizes of flower buds in this arrangement. variety is always nice

sensing a pattern? peachy-pink flowers with greenery.. hmmm



*all my photos are from theknot.com

3/12/12

real/not real?


real or not real: jessica simpson's belly button on the cover of elle

i think toooootally photoshopped!