Honeymoon San Francisco: Part 4

Last one! And this part's my favorite too.

The second to last day of our trip we drove out to Napa Valley and Sonoma. These two towns have a little rivalry over their wines, but from what I understand, they aren't all that similar.

We decided just to drive through Napa Valley in the morning. We found a driving tour route to follow online--try this one if you go. You pretty much get a good idea of Napa just by driving up and down this one road, Highway 29. We stopped in downtown Yountsville, and drove past many famous wineries, such as Beringer and Robert Mondavi. I'd never seen so many grapes! The way the valley is shaped offers a great view--looking up on both sides of the road you can see oceans of vineyards.

We didn't feel like stopping in Napa--it's very showy, tastings are expensive, and we were a little put off by all the vineyards whose wine we could just buy in our local grocery store (although I should note that we found out later that those wineries always make sure to carry releases of wines not available in grocery stores). So we drove on to Sonoma, where we visited several vineyards. The vineyards here seemed more smaller, more family-like, and much more down-to-earth.

Since we know some Larsons, we stopped at the Larson Family Winery (no relation to our friends). Tasting there was only five dollars (waived if you buy a bottle). Derek thought their gold medal chardonnay was very interesting, and I really appreciated how patient the staff at the tasting room was with me.

We also stopped at Sebastiani Vineyard, which was much more of a commercial operation than Larson Family (not that Larson Family wasn't business-like). This was one of the oldest vineyards--they survived Prohibition as one of only ten wineries allowed to stay open, for the purposes of providing wine to churches. Tasting there started at $10, but what was nice was that they let Derek and me share a tasting glass. They had a great tour of the winery, where we saw huge old oak barrels and got a good glimpse of the wine-making process.

We spent some time in downtown Sonoma, which has a very cute square. We ate at Della Santina's, a nice little Italian restaurant, where we celebrated our 2nd "Monthiversary." All in all, Napa/Sonoma Day was a good one.

On the last day of the trip, we went to Muir Woods National Monument. We saw some gorgeous tall redwoods and took an exhausting hike up "Ocean View Trail" (which, due to the fog, had no ocean view...). It was definitely a site to see. Admission there is $5.

In the afternoon we headed to Point Reyes National Seashore (ate at a great little deli along the way in Olema), which is just on the other side of the San Andreas Fault. The weird thing is that it's really like you're on another continent once you cross the fault line. The landscape totally changed, and so had the vegetation--you get grassy fields and ranches (we saw what we thought were California Happy Cows) instead of the mountains.

The lighthouse was pretty cool (although definitely a work out to get back up the 300+ steps!). Unfortunately, the fog prevented us from seeing much of the ocean.

That was our trip! Derek and I had a great time in California, and I hope my posts have been educational and informative. Maybe they have even enticed you into visiting some of the beautiful sites in the San Francisco area.

Honeymoon San Francisco: Part 2

The first thing we did was go to Mass at Mission Dolores, the oldest intact building in San Francisco. Going to Mass is a really cool way of experiencing a culture, as opposed to visiting a museum or seeing a landmark. Also, it's free! Parking was free at this church, too, on weekends. We did make a donation, however.

The next day we joined up with some friends of ours from college and toured Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. We had a lovely picnic, saw some fantastic nature, and swam in the river on the grounds at a spot called the "Garden of Eden." Very relaxing. Because we parked on the side of the road instead of going in the main entrance, we were able to save ourselves the parking fee.

After that we went to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, where we tried fried oreos (at least I can say I tried it) and road their "ski lift" ride to see the whole beach. Admission to the Boardwalk is free, but rides require tickets, ending up costing $3-$5 per person each ride.

On the Monday we visited Sarah's Vineyard, in Gilroy, California, where a family friend works. Tasting there is $5 each, and they let you walk along the vines--the pinot grapes were just starting to turn color! This vineyard is not in Napa or Sonoma--it's south of San Jose--but that made for a quieter, not-so-flashy vineyard, which was nice and welcoming. We ended up buying two bottles of their Cote de Madone Blanc, I liked it so much.

Turns out Gilroy is also the Garlic Capital of the World! And you can smell it when you drive into the town. We had just missed the Garlic Festival by one day! Unfortunately, on Mondays in small towns, we noticed that lots of the restaurants were closed, so we popped into the Visitor's Bureau, where a helpful lady named Pam pointed us to Mama Mia's, where we could try their Garlic Festival menu. We had a delicious garlicky meal.

We also visited Garlic World in Gilroy, a garlic retail store, and bought some garlic oil. Unfortunately, though, we were fooled: after we'd bought the oil and were in the car, I read the label, and it said "made in Maine." We did buy a Garlic cookbook though, and made sure that that was a local compilation, which it was. Very exited to try it out.

When we got back to Pacifica, where we were staying, we decided to check out Twin Peaks and Fort Funston State Park, which offered beautiful views of San Francisco and the Pacific Ocean. Again, parking and admission were free!

For dinner we went to Taipei Restaurant, which is not actually in Chinatown, but offered delicious Chinese cuisine. A weird thing about the Chinese restaurants we ate at--we were the often the only ones in the restaurant! I couldn't figure out why this was. Perhaps people eat later than we did? Or maybe these restaurants just had really good take-out business? Delicious, nonetheless.

Happy Accidents

Lily, you inspired me. Admittedly, my wedding shoes are not colorful, nor detailed, but I'd had them bookmarked on Zappos.com, and I decided now was the time to buy them, because, well, I didn't want to keep reading patent law cases.
I selected these shoes from Zappos.com because they were everything I had in mind--simple, white, tall, peep-toed--for my wedding shoes. Now, I know it does not sound ideal to be buying shoes from the internet without being able to try them on. But here's the real advantage of shopping on Zappos or any online shoe retailer, which I think outweighs the risk of purchasing something without trying on--they have customer reviews!

The reviews for this shoe--Cora by Calvin Klein--were almost all from women who had bought the same shoes for their weddings. And the comfort ratings by these ladies were all positive, even though the shoes have 4.5" heels.

Alas, when I went to buy them today, they were out of my size!! Oh no!! In a panic (for God knows what reason, I mean, I've got more than nine months to go here), I Googled the designer and style name, and found a site called ShopWiki. ShopWiki lists all the online retailers with that product, including Piperlime, a retailer selling my shoe--in my size!--for $40 less! With tax (shipping was free!), the total came to about $63. What a deal! And what a happy shoe ending!

Bridesmaid Dresses!

Hey everyone,

My sister and I came to a quick decision once she tried on the right dress. We have decided to go with Alfred Sung dresses, made by the Dessy Group. Each bridesmaid gets to choose between the following 8 dresses, in peau de soie fabric (which I have found is just a fancy name for duchess satin). The color will be daffodil.



The store we went to, Demetrios (located in Troy, MI), offered us a 15% discount if we ordered all the dresses through them, even though each bridesmaid will order a different dress. This is pretty common but not necessarily a given--I called Konja's Bridal in Berkley, MI, which also carries the Alfred Sung line, and they only offer a volume discount on dresses over $200 (which these are not). The annoying thing about Demetrios--and I should have watched out for this--was that Kaleen, the saleslady, said she could only hold the discount open for five days--I had to pay for my sister's dress in order to reserve the discount for everyone else.

Here are the prices we got, for your reference:

Style # D434--originally $175, with 15% off is $148.75
Style # D435--originally $180, with 15% off is $153.00
Style # D436--originally $180, with 15% off is $153.00
Style # D437--originally $185, with 15% off is $157.25
Style # D438--originally $185, with 15% off is $157.25
Style # D439--originally $185, with 15% off is $157.25
Style # D440--originally $190, with 15% off is $161.50
Style # D441--originally $190, with 15% off is $161.50

Feedback from my ladies has been pretty positive, although one has mentioned that she had to make appointments at five stores to try on all the dresses, which I didn't anticipate. Hopefully the benefits of having so many choices outweigh the disadvantages.

Photographer = booked!

Yay! After much searching, Derek and I decided on:

Events to Remember.

• The owner, Aaron, is so personable that we talked for two hours. I felt like I was his only customer.
  
• And, he has no problem communicating through email! I had no idea how nice I would find this, but it's great.
  
• He was able to create our own special "package": $2950 for 9 hours of coverage, a 30-page album, a high-res dvd of all of our pictures, an engagement session, 2 parent albums, and a proofbook. From what I'm seeing, that's a pretty good deal.

Here are the other photographers we looked at:

Birch Photographers

• Met with Nicole, she seemed very nice.
• Package pricing can be found here.
• If you go with Birch Photographers and President Tuxedo, you get a $300 discount on the photography.
• Their standard albums weren't leather-bound; they had a photo cover. It was cool, but I like leather-bound better.
  
• Here's what bothered me about them: they contacted me after I entered a contest to win a package from them. Then, they kept calling me about tuxes afterward. That was annoying.
• I didn't get the personal feel from them that I got from Aaron. The lady I met with was a manager--I didn't meet with the photographer. I would have gotten to choose from 6 photographers, but it just felt so impersonal. There were too many gimmicks--for example, if I booked by June 30th, I would get a second photographer thrown in for FREE. Well, it's July now, and they still have that promotion going on...with the deadline being a month later.

Precious Memories Photography

• We didn't actually meet with anyone from here, but they looked reasonable in price and they got an award from theknot.com.
• I didn't like them because I found a picture on there of a groom pretending to smack his new wife's butt. That just turned me off right away.

Grant Isaac Studio

• He was expensive (started around $4000 for packages with an album), but he was Derek's friend and we would have considered him. However, it turns out that he and his wife might be moving to North Carolina!

Fotografz Wedding Photography

• I liked this guy because he had a lot of experience in Birmingham, but he was just too expensive (starting at about $4000 for packages with an album covering 8 hours).

So there's the scoop on photography. Now, on to the florist drama! And boy, is there drama. You just wait until you hear the issues that I never knew existed. Also coming soon: bridesmaid dress shopping. Stay tuned.

The centerpieces for my June 4, 2011 wedding unveiled!

A few weekends ago, Derek and I decided to do a little experiment. I'm a big fan of potted flowers; I used to work at a garden store and I really don't like seeing cut flowers die. Derek is a big fan of not wasting money. So what to do for centerpieces? On May 15th, we bought some pots from Meijer--Derek wanted this dish style as opposed to a deeper pot, because he was adamant that the guests be able to see over the centerpieces to talk to each other. The pots are made by PSW Pots and made out of recycled material. The bigger one is shown in the color beige and is 10" in diameter; that pot was $3.99 at Meijer. The smaller one is in the color dark charcoal and is 8" in diameter for $2.99. I like the look of the dark pot better, so I think we'll go with that shade for the wedding, but Derek and I decided to do a mix of sizes.

We filled the pots with Miracle-Gro Potting Mix from Meijer.

We bought a flat of petunias from Bordine's Nursery, which was $15/flat on May 15th (remember they go down in price as Memorial Day passes). We mixed the colors called Deep Blue and (I think, but I'm not sure) Baby Duck Yellow, which is pretty close to our wedding colors. The 10" pot has eleven seedlings in it, and the 8" pot had seven.

I think they look great, don't you? Here's the "before" picture, so you can compare:



A few notes:

• We grew these from May 15th to June 4th in Michigan, so we had our fair share of both crappy weather, and really good weather
• These pots have no drainage holes. That is what we wanted--we didn't like the idea of dirt spilling through to the tablecloths at the wedding--but just remember that, if you do this, to watch the pots when it rains. If there is sitting water on top of the soil, gently tilt them so it can drain out.
• If you like the idea of the "Sky Blue" petunias that are out there, they aren't really that blue. They are more of a lavender. These Deep Blue petunias look bluer in the photos here than they really are--they are really a dark purple.
• Petunias need full sun, so keep them outside until the wedding
  

Hey all,
Haven't updated in a while, Lily and I got busy, and we apologize. However, we expect to pick it up soon, with more interesting research and articles about our experiences with weddings! I've got one wedding to attend this summer, and two in the fall, so you can bet I'll have a lot to say.

As far as my wedding goes, nothing much has happened since we bought my dress last month. It looks like we're going to check out some bands in the next coming weeks--one is already booked for June 4, 2011! I don't think we should panic yet, though. This one we're going to see next week, Chateau, sounds like it'll be pretty good.

Here's a wedding predicament for you to think about. My cousin booked her venue at an outdoor location for this coming September, only now, the Catholic priest who was going to do the wedding has told her that Catholics generally can't get married outside. I knew that was the case, but I assumed the priest knew and just agreed to do it outside anyway--plus, some dioceses are more liberal than others. I know my Catholic aunt was allowed to marry my Jewish uncle in a hotel, and Father Burke presided, saying anything was better than losing a Catholic.

So what do you do in this situation? Should they stick with the venue (Waters Mill, in Dahlonega, GA) and get a Methodist or Episcopal minister (the groom is not Catholic; my cousin is), or move the wedding to a church?

Dresses

It happens all the time in movies. Or at least trashy romance novels. Girl swears she will never have anything to do with Guy. Girl meets Guy, argues with Guy...but then realizes she has fallen in love. Eventually she admits it, and everyone lives happily ever after.
I fell in love with a strapless A-line ballgown. It didn't want to, I swear. It just happened. But you have to admit when you're wrong.
I was wrong. Not in that strapless wedding dresses are overdone--they still are. But I was wrong to care about that. The only thing that matters (other than your budget) is how you feel in that dress. And if it's the most bridal wedding dress that has ever existed, like mine, so be it. I will no longer condemn brides for their choices in wedding attire, though I will still praise those who take the road less traveled (just WAIT until you see Andrea's dress).
I still think that brides should be open-minded about different kinds of straps and silhouettes. It doesn't have to be strapless to be special. It just has to be yours.

My dress is made of white taffeta and is A-line in shape. The bodice is corset-style, with pleats across the bust and a straight neckline. The skirt has a basque waistline, with box pleats in the back that I am WILD about. Because Derek reads this from time to time, I won't post the pictures of me in the dress up here, but they are available upon request.

I do think I'm going to add spaghetti straps to my dress, and take out the tulle underneath the skirt to make it less full, however, my sentiment about the strapless A-line dresses remains the same.

The chicken or the egg?

My wedding dress hunt has come down to two options. I do like one better, but only barely. The issue is whether to choose that dress, or choose the second dress because it fits in more with the time of year and style of the wedding (do not be alarmed--it is only a very close second place; I feel like a princess just as much in Dress #2, notwithstanding my long-held belief that "Princess comes from the inside").

Naturally, I conferred with my friends and bridesmaids, who, on the whole, seemed astounded that I would consider choosing Dress #2. To them, The Dress comes before the wedding, and the whole wedding should be designed to accommodate The Dress.

I loved Dress #1, but it really called for a Victorian-style wedding with its soft style and ornate beading. I can't see that kind of wedding being representative of "Me and Derek." Dress #2 fits in much more with what I had in mind, its clean lines and simplicity aligning with my idea of a summery, fresh affair.

What do you think? Which comes first: The Dress, or your Wedding Style? Or is it personal preference?

Daisy's date: June 4, 2011

So in the hurry to call all my relatives and let them know I was engaged, I mentioned to my grandmother, "Your anniversary is June 4, right? Well, it falls on a Saturday in 2011...would you mind if we used it?"
And Grammy started crying and said she would love that. So I came home and told my parents (who had gotten a call from Grammy as soon as I hung up with her), and they said, "Well, we'd better get that date!"

I realize that this leaves a whole 18 months until the wedding, and I probably didn't have to book the date at the church so soon, but who am I to put off any bit of wedding planning? Plus, June is a popular month, and I'd gotten my grandmother's hopes up.

This morningI went to the Catholic Church where I grew up, told them I was engaged, and asked if I could book June 4, 2011. The lady in the parish office looked at me and said "I don't even have a 2011 calendar yet!" Once I explained the whole grandmother story, though, she was very understanding and called our pastor's office, and they let me book it.