Goin' to the Beach, Gonna Get Me a Venue

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! A time for joy, relaxation, spending time with family and loved ones. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year. So wonderful, that I'll be dragging my fiancé, my future mother-in-law, and my mom on a venue hunting trip. Ho ho ho! Let's go interrogate the wedding coordinators!

you're going to go look at places for me to have a big party and you're going to have fun! 

We're trying to get this ball rolling, and I figure the best place to start was with the place where this shin-dig would be happening. J and I are going with the "let's put all our eggs in one basket" approach to venue hunting, and we've got a whopping total of one potential venue to look at. If this place fails to impress us tomorrow, it's back to square one (which is actually not that far of a jump back, since we're like on square...two). So where will be heading tomorrow? 

from santacruz.org

The Cocoanut Grove in Santa Cruz! J loves the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk where the Cocoanut Grove is located. It's one of the oldest boardwalks on the west coast and features the historic ballroom called the Cocoanut Grove where many parties and celebrations took place in the early and mid twentieth century. 

The Sun Room

both above from cocoanutgrovesantacruz.com

J actually saw me for the first time at the Boardwalk eight years ago. Our alma mater, UC Santa Cruz (go slugs!), would host Boardwalk Nights during the first week of school where the boardwalk was closed off for everyone except UCSC students. I attended my freshman year and had a miserable time. I was alone, cold, and super nervous about going away for college. J, two years my senior but living in my dorm building, saw me hanging out by the ski ball before getting on a ride and decided he had to have the pouty, rocking-bitch-face, loner girl as soon as possible. When we got back to the dorms, I started to see a lot more of J around my room and at the dining hall, and a few months later, we were pretty much inseparable. 

There's more to this story, and it's obviously much cuter than my inept writing abilities can convey, but this isn't about us, it's about the boardwalk, and why the Cocoanut Grove was a natural choice for our venue!

from cocoanutgrovesantacruz.com

The Cocoanut Grove is older, and maybe not as shiny and stylish as other venues in the area, but there are a lot of plusses that have us strongly considering this venue, including pros like:

• Near lots of hotels
• Located at the boardwalk, a definite plus for all our kids in attendance
• Meaningful
• Lots of parking
• Awesome list of caterers
• Affordable
• We can host our wedding and our reception in the same location
• Gorgeous beach views

Tomorrow we will have more information and some concrete details about the Cocoanut Grove, and we'll be able to hopefully cement the first part of our wedding planning. I feel like once we secure the venue, the ski ball will be rolling, and we'll be able to start making plans for our wedding! Did you start planning with your venue, or did you start with another big ticket item? 

The Marriage Plot

I wasn't surprised when J proposed.

Well, I was surprised, because I wasn't expecting his proposal in that very moment, but I wasn't surprised that J wanted to marry me. We've been together for over 8 years, and from year 6 on we've had many serious conversations about marriage. The conversations were often long, filled with many points and counterpoints and "Are you ready?"'s and "Well, when will we be ready?" Really fun, fun stuff.

sometimes our conversations felt a bit like this

It was a long process, similar to baking a pan of brownies: you check the oven, stick a toothpick in it, it comes out covered in batter, so you give it a few minutes, try again, still not ready, so you say, '5 MORE MINUTES!' then, bam, the toothpick is clean and you're getting married.

Coming to a joint decision about getting married was important to both of us. It wasn't one person coming to the other with the question, but instead a mutual decision to take our relationship and cement it forever. I'm really looking forward to all of the things we will do in the future together as a married unit: buy a house, get a practice baby (aka a dog), make some real babies, have a wonderful family, and go through all of life's ups and downs. I'm really excited to be Joel's wife and I'm even more super excited to have him be my husband.

Overall, deciding to get married was a fun and only minimally stressful process. Did you and your fiancé have an 'engagement decision' rather than a traditional proposal?

Down to Ride Til the Very End

...is me and my boyfriend fiance´...

...and a bottle of champagne, some sea salt chocolate caramels, a comfy couch, and a tv equipped with some streaming Netflix or Hulu. I'm all about simplicity.

halloween 2013 with mah cow

Welcome to my our wedding blog! As a teacher, I believe documentation and reflection is important (my third graders would tell you I make them reflect on e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. One day, they'll appreciate it. I'm sure!), so what better way to document our wedding journey than a blog. 

Who we are:

• I'm a 26 year old teacher who enjoys running, cooking, wine, and unrealistically pinning crafts and DIY projects on Pinterest. 
• Joel is a 28 year old technical support rep who enjoys Giants baseball, comic books, and The Beach Boys. He really. Truly.  LOVES. The Beach Boys. 

We're planning an early 2015 wedding in Northern California that reflects our personalities: not too serious, casual, sweet, affordable (yes, our personalities scream 'affordable!') and fun. I'm really excited for this 14 month journey. 

Ok! Let's get married!