The 'Get In Shape, Girl!' Post

c/o someecards

basically.

c/o reactiongifs.com

I recently went for some routine blood work (routine! ha! It was the first time I had blood drawn in 18 years and it was an ordeal. You can ask Joel for more details...) and while everything came back normal, my doctor reported that I had slightly elevated levels of bad cholesterol. Exsqueeze me? Bad cholesterol? "Isn't that what older people experience..." I naively thought. Does this mean I'm an older person?!

It was a surprising result as I usually pride myself on being "healthy". I started to get interested in running as a hobby when I was a junior in college. I lived right by the beach and I would run right along the coast. I eventually had to move from that oasis, but I kept up my running habit, slogging miles almost daily. I also was an active member of the gym, taking spin and kickboxing classes. When Joel and I moved in together, I kept up the healthy habits. I signed up for Bikram yoga and half-marathons. I was on a health roll. 

Then last year I started a strenuous job search process that took a lot out of me. I would go to work for 9 hours, come home and immediately work on cover letters and lesson plans. My free time was consumed with job hunting. When I landed my dream job, all the hard work I was putting into the hunt was channeled into my work. I love my job and I want to do my best which often means 9.5 - 10 hour days on campus, plus more work when I get home. Working out just isn't on the agenda. While I love to cook for Joel and myself, we tend to love the comfort foods: lots of cheese, pasta, creamy soups and well... more cheese and pasta. Oh, and tacos. And dessert. And wine.

I want to look AND feel my best every day, including my wedding day. Being active and eating healthy make me feel better mentally, plus there's the added bonus of looking fly as well. I know that I can still commit 1000% to my job while making more time for myself. It's going to take some planning and commitment to follow through, but that's an important habit to develop. 

The best way to get back in shape? Make a plan and post it on the internet to keep yourself accountable! Here's my current plan:

Workouts:

• Sunday long runs: I have a half-marathon in April I'd like to not collapse at...
• 2 other run days: 1 day of sprints and 1 day of a casual jog of at least 3 miles
• 1 day of Body Attack at the gym (which means only putting in an 8 hour day at work)
• 1 day of Saturday boot camp OR 1 day of Bikram yoga

Eating:

• Oatmeal for breakfast! The commercials tell me it's supposed to lower your cholesterol, and I listen to my TV.
• A salad or juice a day to up the veggie intake
• No carbs at dinner and fruit for dessert only
• Wine only on the weekends... we'll see how that one goes

Seems like a pretty reasonable plan...just kidding, this is going to take a while to get used to! But with a dress hunt outing approaching and our engagement shoot in April, I want to feel a little better about myself and just working out more often will at least trigger some happier feelings in my brain, tricking myself into thinking I look better! Let's check in in 6 months and see how it's going. Hopefully I'll have some positive results to report.

Are you 'getting in shape for the big day'? Or are you happy with what your mama gave you, no need to add additional stress into wedding planning?

Another Easy Choice: Our Photographer

Continuing with our theme of going with our first instinct, our photographer was a super easy decision for us to make. It all actually started with Joel (he says he doesn't remember this, but it's true!) About a year ago, Joel sent me a photo that was from a couple's engagement shoot. It was at the Boardwalk, and Joel and I gushed about it, thinking that someday it could be us.

c/o Michael James Photo Studio

I was smitten! For the next year, I diligently stalked this guy's blog. I fell in love with all of his photos and his style. It was the perfect mix of photojournalism, which I wanted, with a touch of whimsy, which Joel wanted. The light Michael uses is beautiful, the colors are rich, and everyone looks like his/her best self. 

c/o Michael James Photo Studio

 c/o Michael James Photo Studio

 c/o Michael James Photo Studio

c/o Michael James Photo Studio

When we first got engaged, I knew I had to have Michael photograph our wedding. I did my due diligence and looked around at other Bay Area photographers, but none of them grabbed my attention the way Michael did. Plus, he was close to fitting in our budget (ha ha, sorry budget...)!

c/o Michael James Photo Studio

 c/o Michael James Photo Studio

The funny thing is, when I first emailed Michael and told him where we were planning on getting hitched he was ecstatic! He said he had just shot an engagement shoot at the Boardwalk and a wedding was taking place at the Grove the same day. He said he always had wanted to shoot at the Grove and hadn't had a chance yet. I was like, "Guess what, Michael?! Joel and I are your key to photograph there!"

Michael has been awesome to communicate with via email and has been very thorough in answering all our questions (high-res vs full-res? what does that mean?!? do we need it?!?!) plus he's very warm, even through online communication. That's not easy!

c/o Michael James Photo Studio

c/o Michael James Photo Studio

I am really excited to work with Michael. Our engagement shoot will be sometime in the spring. I am not very photogenic at. all. and as much as I'm dreading an hour of trying to take a good picture of my face, I think Michael is going to do an amazing job!

Did you have a photographer 'crush' from before you were engaged? Or did you have a huge search to find 'the one'? 

Now Where Are We?...

It's official! We have 363 days until our wedding! Or as you may say:

A year always seemed like the perfect amount of time to plan a wedding, and I think most of the folks in the industry agree. Over a year is hard to plan because some vendors don't book that early and less than a year (6 months) has vendors all booked up and feeling rushed. Our Rabbi flat out told us that he wouldn't marry us if we came to him 6 months before. Yikes. I certainly don't want to rush anyone! My planning mantra as of late has been: pick something you like, don't ask questions or compare, and get the 'ish locked down in a contract ASAP!

Jean Ralphio is like, 'Girl, celebrate! You just signed away another $2000 deposit!'

In the past month we have gone pretty far in our relationships with some of our main contractors. Here's where we stand:

• Venue is booked! 2/15/15. We're still working on squaring away the timing because here's my other theme of this wedding (sing it in a sing-song voice): logistics suck! Trying to figure out when we can start decorating and getting set up and when the door should open for guests and when I'm actually going to walk down the aisle is proving to be more tricky than I ever imagined. I foresee some spreadsheets and flowcharts...
• We have a deposit and contract ready to be sent to our caterer! This is a caterer who frequently does weddings at our venue, so I was like, 'Cool. Sign us up!'. They're affordable, reputable, nice, they have tasty buffet options and I think they will be awesome at organizing the dreaded buffet logistics. May the odds be ever in their favor. 
• We'll be meeting with the floral/decorating company that is recommended by our venue in March. I can't wait to hear how expensive all my floral desires will be during my Valentine's Day weekend wedding...
• We have a photographer! Another easy choice that probably deserves his own post. Joel actually showed me his pictures first a few years ago and I've been smitten ever since. So like any good animal of prey, I stalked him and then lunged, and wouldn't you know it? He's been looking to photograph a wedding at our very venue. It was written in the stars... the photographer would be OURS.

I feel pretty ok about where we are right now in our planning process. I have the week off from school to get some more plans into motion. I need to see if we can get a videographer ready, pick out some save the dates, schedule our engagement shoot and maybe look into a DOC. Through all of this planning kerfluffle, what am I using to organize all the appointments and deadlines?

The Holy Grail: My May Book

The May Book has been a godsend in terms of recording all of the appointments and how they collide with both Joel's availability and my work availability. Usually, I'm a 'keep it in my head' girl, but wedding planning is a whole new ball game. It's my crucial piece of sporting equipment, like a helmet or a jock strap, that protects me from loosing my cool. My next post will go into more of my 'A Beautiful Mind' organization methods. 

Did you have any big vendors that you KNEW you wanted to use, so you just booked 'em? No second glances or comparisons? Should we have compared more?! ::gulp::

Color Scheme: Flawless

Ooh boy, I had a tough time deciding on that flippity floppity color scheme. Getting married on Valentine's Day, I immediately gravitated towards reds and pinks, but the exact shade of red as so hard to nail down. I wanted more of a poppy red with hints of orange. However, I kept envisioning having to explain this exact color of red over, and over, and over again. It's a hard color to nail down. 

I then wanted to mix that very specific POPPY red with shades of pink and gold glitter. I wanted everything to look like Emma Stone in a Revlon ad.

via ohnotheydidnt.com

It just seemed to be too much. Too much to explain, too difficult to pull off. I need to simplify it. I like that word: simplify. This morning, when browsing the palettes on SMP, I saw the perfect mix of colors. It wasn't too far off from my original vision, but it look much more manageable: gold and fuchsia!

via stylemepretty

I love how I can have a bold color like fuchsia and mix it with different shades of pink. I also get to incorporate my love for gold glitter! Nailed it! 

Was finding your perfect color scheme a difficult journey? Or did you have the palette nailed down right from the beginning, you lucky, lucky person?

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!