Tag Archives: Wedding

The One

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I’ve already found that ONE, but this weekend it was time to find the other one…the dress!

I picked up my mom and sister at the airport on Saturday morning and we were off to our first destination. The dress I had wanted to try on was out of stock, but the second dress I tried on was just perfect. I loved it immediately. We got the information and headed back to Seattle for stop number two.

Fifteen beautiful dresses later and I was still hung up on the second dress. So we left the second salon and went to Murphy’s to celebrate. Mom, Becky, Roberta and I enjoyed a drink and talked about the wedding and other such girl things.

We went to check into our hotel and walked one block up to have dinner at Juno. Juno happens to be in the Arctic Club, but there was a wedding going on so we couldn’t check out much.

Looking at the Dome Room from the Courtyard Pioneer Square.

Don't we just have the prettiest Mama?

Celebratory drinks at Juno

We had a low key night watching TV and the end of The Wedding Planner before going to bed early.

We were up early on Sunday for a full day of fun, now that we’d put finding the dress behind us. We started with coffee and another visit to the Arctic Club.

There was no one around on a Sunday morning, so we were able to spend as much time as we wanted wondering around the bar (which has a total vintage travel theme that I had no idea about) and the Dome Room itself. It was great to be able to spend time in there with my mom and sister and get their opinions on how to set up the big day.

Isn't it beautiful?

Then it was time for some sightseeing. We went over to Pike Place market so my mom could stock up on goodies for her travels back to Colorado.

After stopping at another bridal salon for Becky to try on bridesmaid dresses (I think we even found those this weekend!) we headed up to Phinney so I could introduce mom and Becky to El Chupacabra. Becky was adventurous and ordered the roasted jalapeños – so good! Definitely going to be our new appetizer. 

Random cool pic - I took this during day time at El Chup!

It was so much fun to have a girls weekend and I’m so glad that I was able to find my dress while they were both in town.

Save the Dates

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We sent our save the dates last week! Even though we’ve been planning since September, it really seems like the wedding countdown clock started when we put the postcards in the mail.

Our cards were designed by Serendipity Beyond Design and I just love them. To go with our travel theme, we selected the ‘vintage postcard’ style, and included an old map of Seattle in the background. The back has the date and website information for guests. Lucky for us (okay, me, Greg would never have noticed) the current postcard stamp was a mix of four herbs with a vintage vibe. They looked great. I used a gold pen for the addresses. For cards that had several names I had to use a less pretty pen that was thinner, but I think they still looked nice.

Here’s Greg putting them in the letter slot at the post office.

Weekend Update

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We had a nice weekend in Seattle before we head out of town the next three weekends.

Friday night Greg suggested we go out to eat and watch the PAC 10 championship game. I had been in a bit of a funk all week (hence Greg actually suggesting watching football) and decided to order myself this ridiculous drink. It tasted delicious, but definitely not something I’ll be having regularly. UCLA didn’t win (nor should they should have), but we played with heart and didn’t get shut out. And, I went to bed determined to wake up with an “attitude of gratitude” on Saturday morning and get over myself.

Smores Martini

I went for my first run in a very long time on Saturday morning. It was only two miles, but it felt great to get outside. Later in the afternoon we went to Fred Meyer to pick up a few things. Since we are going to be traveling so much this year, we decided not to get a real tree. We’ll wait until next year when we are hopefully in a house and cut back our traveling. While at the store I found a table top tree, a strand of mini LED lights, and tiny bell ornaments.

Saturday night was the night for holiday parties. First we stopped in at Roberta’s party that she hosted for friends and fellow residents of Escala. She did a lovely job and it was especially fun to see since it was in the same space and the same caterers that we’ll be using for our rehearsal dinner and welcome party! I was so excited to see the room set up for a party and imagine what ours will look like.

After stopping in and saying hello we headed over to the Slalom holiday party at the EMP. Our theme was Rock the Holidays which explains our “rocktail” attire. No, Greg does not usually wear eye make-up. It was a fun night with friends and a great 70s band. I was super excited to pick-up my Christmas gift from the company – a hoodie! I will happily wear free advertising if it’s in the form of lounge clothing.

It was sunny outside this morning so we decided to grab coffee and walk the three mile loop around Green Lake. It was so beautiful the cold didn’t really seem to matter.

We just finished the weekend off with homemade lamb shwarma and a viewing of Christmas Vacation. It was a very happy weekend here in Martin Collins land. 🙂

Wedding Wednesday: Meet Our Photographer

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I am beyond delighted that we booked the fabulous Miss Barbie Hull as our wedding photographer. I loved her pictures from the second Megan recommend I take a look at her site.

Greg and I met her at a coffee shop in Fremont on a week night about a month ago. We instantly hit it off with her (these wedding “dates” to meet vendors are so strange) and I knew I wanted her. We managed to make a deal work by dropping a few things (like prints and an actual album) and we couldn’t be more happy.

Check out this post of Barbie’s for some awesome pictures from a wedding she recently did at the Dome Room. (She’s too smart and has the photos protected, so you have to click over to view.) While our event won’t be quite so over-the-top, I’m excited to see what she’s going to do with it. First off though, we’ll be taking our engagement photos in January. I think we’ll keep our ideas for that under wraps until the photos are ready.

If you see this lady around at the wedding, SMILE!

 
photo “borrowed” from barbie’s website

Wedding Wednesday: Meet Our Coordinator

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I skipped a week, but I’m back!

One of the best wedding moves we’ve made thus far has been to hire a wedding coordinator. We interviewed a few and in the end went with Megan from A Kurant Event. We loved her laid back attitude and total lack of fake excitement that we got from others. The Top Pot donuts she bought us at our meet up might have swayed us a little bit too. 🙂

She’s already been a huge help giving us referrals to various vendors that she’s had a good experience with in the past. Most importantly, she hooked us up with our photographer, and they work together often, so we’ve got a power team working for us! More on that awesomeness next week. We are super excited to be working with her and looking forward to kicking up our heels on the big day and enjoying every moment while she works her magic.

Pictures taken from akurantevent.com

Wedding Wednesday: Bridal Party Cards

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***New series!! Wedding Wednesday!!***

 Ha, let’s see how long this lasts.  Not that I’ve stuck to a single blog idea I’ve had for more than a week or two. But I’m going to try. There are so many little things about the wedding that I want to remember, but I’m sure I’ll forget about if I don’t write about them.

Now that my ladies have all received these notes in the mail, I can share my bridal party invites. I worked with Cami’s Papery on Etsy to customize these adorable cards. I went with a design she already had and picked the colors, but she allows you to customize the fonts as well if you want. I’m really into mixed fonts right now, and I loved the vintage feel of the flowers. Since the color is not fantastic below, I’ll describe: the names and role are in a dark blue, the flowers are a bright pink and the rest of the wording is gray. This is the first time I’ve seen my color concept come together and I love it! We’ll see how it will evolve from here.

Cami was fanstastic. The cards were designed almost over night and were exactly what I wanted. So cute!

 

When are you getting married?

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If I had a nickel…

I’m not going to finish that sentence because I’m already practically an eighty year old most of the time and don’t need to make myself seem even more so. But, seriously. I can’t even count how many times in the four weeks since we’ve been betrothed someone has asked us when and where we are getting married.

By the end of Vamoose (the Slalom Seattle retreat weekend) Greg and I just started replying with “downtown in September”. We really had no idea, but were tired of the (well meaning) suggestions and advice that came when we dared admit we didn’t know the details yet. I had, after all, been 21 days since he popped the question.

BUT … drum roll please … we have a date and a location! I still have to sign and fax some legalize, and put down a deposit that would feed a family for a year (yes, having some guilt about all this). But, baring any acts of God (for which, should one happen, we will not be charged a cancellation fee), we will be getting married on September 22nd, 2012 at the Dome Room in Seattle.

I am so very excited. First off, it’s a beautiful space. Beautiful enough that my non-crafty self won’t have to stress about decorating, it will shine on its own.

And secondly, unknowingly, we scheduled our wedding for the first day of Fall. My absolute favorite season. I live for Fall; when my pasty legs can hide under tights and boots, the leaves turn colors (in my new city they actually do, we don’t just pretend!), and it’s dark and cozy early at night.

We can’t wait for friends and family to come visit our city and spend the weekend with us. It’s going to be one damn good party. And a pretty spectacular life to follow.

Yes, I still use a paper planner and yes, it is a two-year one. I told you I was pushing eighty.

Bling

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This post is a few weeks late, but I want to write it down so I remember it all.

(And yes, I’ve given up on a Paleo blog. While I still eat this way about 80% of the time, I don’t have the passion or desire or time to try and blog about it. Back to “online scrapbooking”, especially since this next year is going to be so much fun and I want to remember it all.)

On the Friday of Labor Day weekend, Greg and I both flew into SFO late in the evening. August was so insane, I can’t even recall from where Greg flew. We stayed at a Holiday Inn near the airport to get some rest before starting our three day drive from SF to Seattle. My car (and twenty or so pounds of grass fed beef) were still in California and it was time to make me a full-fledged Seattle resident.

We started out early Saturday morning and our plan was to make it out of California. We stopped along Avenue of the Giants to see the redwoods but sadly never found the giant tree you can supposedly drive thru.

Avenue of the Giants in Northern California

As we crossed the border into Oregon, we hit a wall of fog as we were now along the coast. We got to our ocean front view room at the Best Western in Brookings. It must have been nondescript because, besides the fog keeping us from our ocean view, I can not remember anything about the hotel.

We had dinner in the “lounge” at the local steak joint. It was just what I’d imagine a small town steak place to be: Delicious food, friendly people, and entertaining clientele.

Saturday morning we headed out early after steak leftovers for breakfast. We stopped for gas, where Greg pumped his own because he didn’t care for the inefficiency of the Oregon law. We were chastised and on our merry way, with lots of foggy coast to cover before we got to Newport to stop for the night.

We tried to stop at a few spots along the way, but Greg found each place unworthy for this reason or that. (“I can’t believe we can’t walk to the lighthouse from the side of highway 1.” “Umm, it’s okay babe, there will be others?”)

Somewhere along Highway 1 we found Heceta Beach. There was no parking to be found, but Greg was determined and found a dirt lot. I wasn’t sure why it was so important that we stop at a foggy, cold beach when we still had at least two hours of driving ahead of us, but I went along with the plan without complaining.

We made our way out to the beach and Greg suggested we walk a ways across the beach to a few logs. I didn’t think much of it, followed him, and started looking at shells like a two year old. Then, unbeknown to what was coming next, I got all cute and wrote a little “Beth loves Greg” in the sand with a stick.

I started to get restless after 15 minutes or so (it was cold and foggy, did I mention?!), and I think I suggested going back to the car. Greg quickly sprung up and said that there was something he wanted to do before we left. Next thing I knew he got down on one knee (more like a bouncy genuflection – up and down) and suggested I marry him. I responded “of course”.

The bling.

I was certainly surprised and very excited. We stayed on the beach for a few more minutes then made our way back to the car. I tried to make phone calls but most of them were unsuccessful thanks to crappy AT&T coverage.

We checked into another ocean front room, in Newport this time. Still no view of the beach. Greg had made plans for us to have dinner at a local seafood restaurant in the old part of Newport (another ocean front local lacking a view!) and we had a great night with each other and fielding phone calls and text messages from family and friends.

At dinner after our engagement.