Starting from the beginning.

At least, of my day.
There aren't very many photos of me getting ready, mostly because we shut the door to the room I was in. I'm not sure I'm missing out on any photos because of it, my dress doesn't really have an attractive shape to it when it's hung up - it looks like a lifeless drooping cloth.

On the other hand, the door was wide open when Mr. GB was getting ready (last minute, I might add) and there was a lot of confusion as to why his tie was so freakin' long.. or maybe he's just short. It's a pathetic sight when you have 5 people in a room all unable to tie a single tie.

I'll just tell you, Mr. GB cannot tie a tie to save his life. He didn't even try.


Here is where I tie it and realize the thing is just longer than long.


Then my friend, and the person who performed the ceremony, Gordon came along to try. As a side note, we chose him to perform our ceremony for three reasons: he's a close friend of mine from college, he is very tall and looks official, he cleans up real nice in a suit.


Midway through the process, he realized he can only tie it when it's around his own neck, which isn't as helpful as you would think. Our photographer, at this point, has decided he has way too many photos of this and left. The tie tying process was supposed to be a cute few minutes, but it ended up being a sad sight of several well dressed monkeys scratching their heads.


We eventually got it on there, somehow - possibly involving a parent and some glue, or a pair of scissors? I'm really actually glad we have photos of this rather than of me sitting in a chair having my hair done. The photos of us showing the world we're idiots it pretty much how I want to remember our day.



That and I'm officially calling this my "getting ready" photo.

Because you can't get married without part of a balanced breakfast and more really stupid facial expressions.

Floral Ignorance, Part 2.

I already admitted I know nothing about flowers and I threw my hands up when our floral designer asked me what I wanted. I literally had no clue what I wanted her to decorate the flower girl's wagon or our chuppah with... I just nodded and looked worried. So when we decided to pick a floral designer, we went with someone who really knew what they were talking about and made us feel like we would get exactly what we wanted..... without even knowing what we wanted was called. She really understood that it wasn't about color or a type of flower, but really about accenting the mood that we wanted to set for our wedding.

Nancy Liu Chin will blow you away when you meet her, she is just such a bubbly, enthusiastic person that you can't help feel she's truly excited to be a part of your day! Both Mr. GB and I felt run over with floral excitement as she energetically tossed out ideas and sketches, ooing and aahing over the possibilities in her mind. We felt confident that we had chosen the perfect person to do our flowers. Someone who knew a whole lot more than we did and was confident just going with it because our open mouthed retardation was really of no help to her.

Our bouquets:


thanks for the second photo, tiff!

Mr. GB had two lapel pins actually, this one and one that she provided should the first wilt. It stood up well in the weather and the second one ended up rotted in the back of our fridge, only to be found brown and nasty behind some equally old parmesan shavings.


I asked Nancy to design 6 wrist corsages to recognize the girls who helped make everything come together.


Our ring pillow was a handmade nest filled with flowers, it was absolutely adorable! I wish I had some better photos of it, I took one when I got home, but it's a little janky. And of course, the adorable flower girl wagon - it turned out better than anticipated and the whole bottom was soft moss!!


The same flowers in the ring nest were used for pomanders to line the aisles. We reused these as cute flower decorations for the lounge area later!


Nancy also provided all the orchids we used to decorate our manzanita branches on the tables!


I think the thing that shocked me the most were the flowers she put together for our "chuppah". Not only was she extremely helpful on information on how to construct one, since she has experience and Mr. GB and I were completely lost as to where we should start, she told us how to attach the correct hooks for floral arrangements! We gave her absolutely no direction with this except that we wanted something that felt the same as the rest of the wedding, very natural. I didn't actually have a chance to see the "chuppah" until I walked down the aisle, so I think seeing this for the first time almost made my eyes water with happiness. How gorgeous is this?!



I think the thing that really felt like we weren't just client #183201 was when she called us from her cell phone at the flower mart to tell us what she had found ranunculus out of season, one of my favorites, and was going to rework the bouquet to work them in for me. She listed all the orchids currently available in front of her, waited for us to google image search what she was suggesting (because we're that pathetic) and bought it with us on the phone. Her phone even died and she called us back from a vendor's booth!


I can't say enough about Nancy and the work she did for us. I suppose this is a vendor review with a raving "OMG She's teh awesome!" rating!

Nancy Lui Chin Designs
Phone: 415.647.2012

It's not a chuppah... ok, so it kinda is.

"He's not Jewish"
-takes one look at Mr. GB's photo- "No, he's Jewish, what's his last name?"
"xxxxberg"
"He's Jewish"
"everyone thinks he is, but he's not!"
-looks at the ceremony marker- "He's Jewish."

Despite all the things that would make Mr. GB very apparently Jewish, he is not. And while he doesn't mind people making the mistake, he thought it would only further convince people that he was a liar when they saw his ceremony marker... that looks kinda like a chuppah. It is 4 poles with fabric held between them, but it's just a nice marker for the ceremony! We wanted some natural that offered some covering, and this seemed like the perfect thing to just erect on the farm that didn't seem completely out of place. We wanted everything to be natural and low-key, and this was no exception.

Mr. GB did a LOT for the wedding, much more than I expected him to. Not only did he go to every vendor meeting with me, look at magazines with me, be the phone contact for all our vendors, drove me to appointments here and there and even went to paper source alone many times, AND do every single craft project with me... he also built our "chuppah" himself in our garage.

Yes, I ordered Mr. GB some birch poles, some lace (thank you to Jen for sewing the trim on), and told him to go the hardware store for some tools. He went out and bought everything he need, even traveling to a ton of stores looking for galzanized metal buckets since I was very specific about what I wanted them to be placed in, and spent a few days locked in the garage to make our poles stand straight!!




The morning of the wedding, he, his brother, his father and my BIL all went out and built it on the ceremony lawn. It was a bit windy, so they had to use some ribbon to make it a little more stable, but all in all, I think it went well! He is standing in the background speaking to our DOC in these photos, but I swear he was helping... or at least, so he says. Either way, liar or not, he gets credit for building it in the garage first.

Cover the buckets with some moss and we're done! Not shabby, eh?



I could give you a million reasons why I love Mr. GB, like how when we were on an international flight from japan he spilled a drink on himself within 1 hour of take off and just laughed at his luck... he got diaper rash, I told him he would. He still laughed, just with a slight twinge of discomfort. But the fact that he not only let me work towards my ideal of a wedding (knowing full well I'm an anal perfectionist) but took every step with me, never denied me a seven hour "talk" about my choice in ribbons, brainstormed ideas with me, and supported me being a bee despite the fact that he knew somehow the world would end up knowing about his case of diaper rash at the age of 23... it make him the most tolerant and wonderful person in the world. Anyone willing to put up with me and pretend he enjoys it is special, possibly short-bus special, but I'm taking what I can get.

To show him I care, I'm going to pack baby powder with me on any future long flights.

You picked a dress... right?

I did! Yes, after all the horrible things we went through, from wishy-washy dress reconsiderations to an alteration manager that made me feel like poo, I did finally get a dress and have it altered! Which dress was it? The original dress, of course!

Mmm lace...


After the ceremony and some quick photos (thank god! I'm so camera shy, I'm glad they were over in a few minutes!) they rushed me off to get dressed for the Korean ceremony. I opted to put on a sash and bustle my dress for the remainder of the day so I could frolic if I felt so inclined. I didn't, but I did do a lot of squatting. Perhaps I'm just an avid squatter, but I felt that I was often very low to the ground.


Here I am trouncing around in my dress at the meal - as you can see, Mr. GB was too busy stuffing his face to walk with me. If anyone who was at the wedding wanted to know where he was, I just want you to know that Pork + Crackling > Our Guests to Mr. GB.


I look depressed or something in the second photo, but I swear it has nothing to do with my brother-in-law, he is just the unfortunate victim of me in a not-so-happy looking pose staring down at him as if he'd done something horribly wrong. He actually did help a lot, so have photographic evidence of this.

And since I can't get away without posting at least one portrait that we took, I had to share this one - which I really feel captures us and the general feeling of the event. This is the only one I'm posting! Any reader who wasn't clicking on this post would miss out on this photo without even knowing they were missing this once in a lifetime chance to see a photo of Mrs. GB not looking purposefully idiotic.



Although I finally have photos (and am out of excuses), I don't even know where to start in what to tell everyone about my day! If there is anything you are dying to see photos of or hear about, let me know and I'll get to them one by one. Otherwise you will be subject to my out of order, totally whacked out posts that have nothing to do with what anyone cares about. Next week's post will be "Ode to my toe jam that caused me much discomfort during the ceremony" if someone doesn't help put me on the path of useful topics. And I will even photoshop some images of me and some toe-jam if it comes to it.

PS. we both wore our glasses during the ceremony, so all you 4-eyed brides, show your lens appreciation and wear them proudly down the aisle!

Sibling Love!

Originally, we hadn't planned on having a ring bearer or a flower girl, neither of us had any nieces or nephews, nor did we know any children... or do we? It completely slipped my mind that my best friend from elementary school had two adorable, well behaved, awesome kids! So one phone call later, we decided that her son would pull his sister up the aisle in a radio flyer!




We dropped off the radio flyer at my floral designer's studio a week before the wedding, and again, said "go for it!" with very little direction. She did a beautiful job with the garlands and the whole bottom was full of a wonderful natural green moss.


Actually, the above was from the trial run where he pulled with all his might, calling on the strength of the Hulk, and... failed. So after some thoughts, we decided it was probably best that my friend pull her daughter up the aisle after him.


Regardless, it was still absolutely adorable! I'm really happy they got to be a part of the wedding, I would have really missed out not to be able to have two of the cutest kids ever as my ring bearer and flower girl!

And it just so happened that it was also my friend's birthday. After helping so much and allowing me to have her children take part in the wedding, I didn't want to just ignore that it was her day too! I arranged for them to bring her dessert out with a candle and for everyone to sing happy birthday to her.

She thought I had forgotten, psh!

I was a fool...

for logging onto the chat with all the other bees, now I feel horribly guilty that I'm not blogging regularly! That and everyone now knows that I'm not dead/sick/lost all my fingers to a horrible case of gangrene... that I'm fully capable of writing and just haven't. I just want you to know it's not you, it's me.

So where are my professional photos!? Um, well, behind me on our credenza, waiting, in a box and a book and not currently accessible on my computer. This is entirely due to our laziness on not picking up the cd with our photos. But I owe it to you, so here are some photos our friends and family look of me looking like an idiot... err, I mean, looking elegant in my korean hanbok.

If you're wondering why my outfit is not the same as before, my mother decided on the night before to change my hanbok, so that midnight trial run actually meant nothing. The Korean ceremony took place immediately after the first, I didn't have any time to say hello as my aunt and mother grabbed my arms violently and dragged me inside to change.


Look at that worried look on my face and Mr. GB's skewed mouth, he'd never learned to bow at this point, and we taught him about 10 seconds before.


Here is us, pre-bow. For those of you not familiar with the way we bow to our elders, women generally will stand, put the back of their hands against their forehead, and holding that position, slowly kneel and bow until the hands touch the ground in front of them. Men will just kneel slowly, place their hand on the mat in front of them, and then lower their body/head toward the mat.


Mr. GB bowed like a woman. Only the first time, because after the uproarious laughter from the Korean guests, he realized that they were not laughing WITH him.


Here is where I forced Mr. GB to giddy-up... I'm obviously enjoying my pony ride and would like him to carry me around more often, but I think this was a one-time deal at the request of my family. This is supposed to signify him carrying me through life from now on, but really, I think it's just to humiliate him. Not that I have a problem with that, but if that was the point, I could have thought of way better things to do to him under the guise of "korean tradition."



And because I feel that the only photos that truly representative of me are the ones where I'm making a horrible face or doing something ridiculous, I leave you with this photo... that no other sane person would ever put on the internet.

Post wedding silence.

I have no excuses! I've been gone because I didn't have any pro photos to show you! But it has been a full month since the day of and we are... still working on those thank you cards, I swear.

Besides the daily "did we get photos yet?" question I ask Mr. GB, I have been focusing on decorating the house, as I did before the wedding (and promised myself I wouldn't do during the planning, but did anyway). And what better time wasting activity is there than painting a room! I've been meaning to paint a few of the rooms, but it's really daunting to get up on a ladder and get the ceiling, or to cover the floors... and as much as I love picture rails, masking them off on both side is pain in the ass. Alas, to get me to shut up about not having any wedding crafts to do, constantly whining about not having photos, and not having things to talk about on wedding bee.... Mr. GB agreed to break his back and paint the bedroom with me. He's so good that he let me pick the color without a peep about how bright it is.

before:


after:



I can't seem to ease myself back down from the hummingbird state of running to my calendar to see what appointments I have this week, or making up really dumb reasons to pull out my gocco or paper cutter... What did you do to ease yourself back from DIY/Planning/Overbooked schedule into a normal life? Is there wedding rehab? Am I allowed to go to my photographers house and start bawling uncontrollably, or that considered rude?

ps. I'm getting so stir-crazy I feel like lending out my services to my friends who are planning weddings, although I realize I had craft slaves to help me, and I don't think they'd appreciate being passed along like meat.

Cleaning Up.

So, the day came and went, but somehow, a lot of our stuff... didn't. Spread between my parents' home, his parents' home, and our place is a ridiculous amount of items. Some of the items I can see myself keeping, we set aside the board games, about 6 seat cushions, and all the ann wood birds that were not given to our helpers. My sister suggests putting everything together and ebaying it as a pre-made wedding, ha!




But what do I do with 800 cello bags and 400 glassine bags? I can't feel good throwing them out - but are they worth putting on ebay? Does anyone have any really cute ideas for Christmas that involves 94819032190 mushroom birds and a lot of cello wrap? Something beyond using them to make the world's crappiest xmas gift (mushroom birds surrounded by cello and stuffed into a glassine bag!) or the trash?

I'm off to put the ann wood birds all around the house. any cute location recommendations that doesn't involve them falling/getting soiled/turning into spider-lairs? I need something to distract me for the long few weeks of waiting for more photos ahead!

I've been kissing high school boys.

This is my excuse for being vacant, I'm going to claim that my laziness and complete lack of posting is due to Mono*. It's not because I'm in the post wedding lull. It's not at all a depression based on having very few photos of the event. It's because I'm too tired to do anything other than drag my slug-like body down the hall to pour myself a bowl of cocoa puff... just enough sugar for me to surf anthropologie online and dream of the day I will have the energy to go and buy more cardigans.

I had PTWS (just like Mr. Monkey's description) and forced poor Mr. GB to go into the garage and paint our placeholder dining room table's legs. I say placeholder because we do intend to get something nice. but until we can, I couldn't look at the plain legs and be satisifed... well, when had PTWS. Ask me now and I'll sniff dirty socks and think "oh.. not so bad... I can wear these if only I can avoid laundry one more day..."



What's that I see? Thank you cards. We're on top of this, I swear. I did a whole 5! During our 3 days of activity, I managed to gocco our thank you cards and buy a few more just in case some of the gocco ones looked like our dogs did them. They did, actually, we've forced them into slave labor as well.


You can see by how unorganized the living room is that we're starting to decay as humans. Note the paper source bag from the fillmore store since we're boycotting the berkeley one. The dreamcast, currently right side up, although it doesn't play unless it's upside down anymore... and the huge PILE of dog toys. People, please stop giving these to us, they don't need any more!!!!


I bought the two on the left from etsy! I adore etsy!
We leeched the labeling idea from the most recent MS weddings.
and my gocco cards, albeit amateur and less impressive than what the average toddler can do (again, I'm going to claim the dogs did it) is the pattern of our rug. Because I love our rug THAT MUCH.

I bet you were hoping for more photos of the wedding. Me too. Until then, I'm going to go back to pretending I'm dead and shaking my fist at xbox katamari. Why is this one so freakin' hard?!

*I don't have mono, nor have I been kissing high school boys. I've just been licking the rims of every used cup I see.

What?! No Stems?!

That's right, no stems. We opted for simple water tumbler glasses and the reidel 'o' stemless glasses. Not only because I tend to feel like I'm about to pour whatever liquid happens to be in my stemmed glass all over myself or someone's white sofa/rug/maltese puppy, but because I wanted to go for a more relaxed feel at the table. That and with all the fist shaking after particularly vicious battles of tetris between courses, we felt that even trying to pretend we were sophisticated delicate wine drinkers would just be a thinly veiled sham, we admit it. We prefer juice.

Anyway, Mr. GB really really wanted twig flatware, so he got his wish. I think it tied the branch centerpieces + nest placecard holders together really well. Maybe even with the chivari chair bamboo-y-wood thing they have going on too. I could just be lying to myself that we actually thought about all this beforehand and I really AM that stylish and detailed. Yes!

Seeing as it was just over a week ago, I still don't have photos - but thankfully my cousin took some photos of the table settings for us! Thanks Ellen!


Less is more! Less is cheaper! ahem... less is more!


I think using the nests as placecard holders worked out fairly well. Some of them stood up better than others. Some of them came home with us, some people took theirs, and some of them went home with two korean women who raped the table of all things not tied down until their bags were full. Seriously, there was a stack of about 5 nests that could not be fit, so there they were left on the table, a tower of sad, discarded, unstealable nests.

Now the remaining 50 or so nests are in a box, lined up nicely so they don't get tangled, by the front door. Sadly ignored because I'm finishing Phantom Hourglass and Mr. GB is thoroughly engrossed in Puzzle Quest. Bejeweled with Skeletons, that game, and stealer of my husband's soul. I imagine we may get around to selling them, otherwise, burning them in a wedding bonfire that will coincide with some kind of nervous breakdown.


This is unrelated to the tablesetting choices, I had to post this photo because it's cute.

thanks for the picture, tiff & jason!

It's a secret.

I wanted to wait until I had professional photos of all the flowers at the wedding.
But I can't resist, I had to post SOMETHING about them!

I had no ideal bouquet, no dream flowers, hell, I barely know the names of flowers. Carnations what? Isn't that condensed milk? When I went to meet with our floral designer, I was so confused, I didn't have a clue what was going on. I gave a list of flowers I know that I like, most of which are unavailable in October: Ranunculus, peonies, and dahlias. While dahlias do exist, they apparently aren't very resilient. :(

After nailing down every other decision, it came down to the bouquet - I found these two inspirations and emailed them over:


image from michelle rago ltd


image from inspiration queen rebecca thuss

I loved the colors, the soft whites into the soft muted pinks, mauve and warm purples. The addition of the uneven foliage, the difference in the kinds of blooms used and the way they were all put together helped to create that natural, freshly picked look.

She sent us information on what flowers she was using, but uh.... I have no imagination for how they would be put together. I was so overwhelmed, (who knows how to spell the scientific names of orchid families by heart so to look them up...??!?!) so I said "I just trust you." After a frantic phone call from the flower mart saying she found ranunculus and got them for me (whee!) I otherwise didn't know what was in it.


Sometimes, when you see someone's portfolio and know they are good and just don't have any clue what you want, it's good to step back and just put your faith in them. I did, and it was perfect.


image by floral designer... I'll give you her name later, silly!


to be continued when we have our professional photos...

It almost didn't happen...

It's true. If you are in Northern California, the rain on Friday was pouring! We had to be begged to come out through tears and the possibility of rain cancellation, traffic, heavy rain... probably the most convincing part was listening to our coordinator roll around on the lawn to prove that if we had mats and blankets, the rain wouldn't soak through, so we COULD have our lawn games.

Well, that and Mr. GB bought me these to cheer me up:


After two hours of driving and frustration, we arrived as the rain was stopping. We unpacked, decompressed, then head to our hotel with four of our friends to begin the last minute cookie crafting. I love them, after several hours with some of my favorite people, we were rolling around on the ground in good spirits, knowing that even if it poured, at least we'd have been talking about the two momos (that's our loving nickname for our mormon friends) competition of bow tying cookies faster than the 4 of us combined!!!! After threats and growling, we had 400 cookies wrapped and ready to go!


So how did it end up? Well, we don't have our professional photos for another two months, but we have proof from a few snaps here and there.




with that... what do you want to hear about during that 2 months of waiting for my real photos? I don't want to dry up into a shriveled blogless prune for two months! Is there anything you'd like to hear about the planning that I didn't cover that you've been DYING to know about? Or details about the day? Or about my WILD adventure with two manicures in a day?!

or should I just stuff a sock in it?

Feathers and Quills?

So I'm stepping back a little and showcasing some finished work that we had done for the wedding I didn't get a chance to write about before.

I know I got my ceremony pin from k.autumn from relish at home, but one is never enough, so I asked her to make me something completely new and different, nothing like she'd ever made before. Being awesome and sweet, she obliged and shortly after our meeting presented me with this.



A mix of vintage stones, laces, and dyed feathers, this one was by FAR Mr. GB's favorite pin. I was completely blown away by how wonderful this pin was. We had talked a bit and looked at sample pieces, but I really wasn't expecting something this pretty to come of it. I know, I go on and on, but really, it IS pretty darn special!


And next, our calligraphy for the wedding was finished! We had a piece missing and another misspelled, but they were overnight rushed to us, so it was all ok! I had never thought about it, but I guess calligraphers keep a few pieces just in case! Rebecca's calligraphy is so unique, it really worked well with the feel of the whole event.



you can almost make out the menu... almost!

I'm beat!

The wedding is over!

Mr. GB said it felt so short, but I felt like it took forever to start, but we still didn't have time to set everything up perfectly. We were planning on setting up Friday, but it was pouring rain.

We had our complaints, but overall things went really well and we were glad to see after the music had stopped and vendors were packing up, a lot of our friends were still sitting on the lawn playing games and laughing. We wanted people to be able to go whenever they wanted, but were happy to see people staying because they wanted to relax on the grass and hang out.

Despite the hiccups, the feel of it was exactly what we wanted it to be!



I'm sitting in my messy ass living room with the pups drained, eating cake and trying to let it wash over me, but I'll be back, I promise~!

Odastyle Tempations.

Remember how I had my dress anxiety, but in the midst of the horrors, we discovered Odastyle? We already knew they were sweet, super nice, amazingly talented girls... but how much? Well, they gave me something totally unexpected:


How totally amazing are these? They are the sweetest girls, and now these pins are just the most darling things ever! I'm really speechless and can't say enough about how gorgeous they are!! If you are looking for a custom made anything at all, they can do it! My rambling can't even come close to describing how great they are. Hell, if you're in the bay area and you want to see them, I'll meet you in a dark alley and let you look at them in person. That's how totally impressed I am and how convinced I am that you will be calling them begging to get something uniquely YOU made!

I'm so close to making Mr. GB go out and buy a glass display case so I can showcase all the ridiculously amazing works of art that I've received for my wedding. Screw the wedding, I'm just going to have an art show.


PS - does anyone have a nail salon they can recommend for amazing cuticles and possibly a tip? My nail broke in a horrible-owie-bleedy place and it won't grow to a normal length before the wedding, I'm sure, so any recommendations for somewhere to get that fixed and make my fingers look like they haven't been crafting for 18 months would be much appreciated! (both frou frou and hole-in-the wall recommendations welcome!)

We've got good news... and bad news....

Which do you want first? Ok, we'll start with the good because it makes for pretty pictures, and we all know that pretty pictures is what makes you guys come back day after day. (That and the hope that Mr. GB will write that Japan guide for you, and he will, but probably after the wedding)

I'm feeling a little blah today, I took a nap on the couch promptly after waking up, and Mr. GB left with the dogs to take them to the butt-fluff trimmers. He walks in, totally lacking that nap-time quiet and boisterously flung open the living room french doors, gigantic package to match his equally gigantic grin. He tells me that the UPS man was joking with him this morning, about how there hasn't been a day when he has to drive up our street that he hasn't had a package for us.... we're sad that after the wedding all he'll be delivering is the occasional anthropologie package. By occasional, I mean weekly. We slowly cut the tape around the package and open it up to reveal... my dream wedding package.



Yes, that's 20 birds and a cake topper from Ann Wood! I love Mr. GB for managing to order these for me, after so long of writhing on the floor in desperate want of these birds, we have them! My photos really don't do them justice, so I'll post the images that Ann Wood sent to us herself. Even her own photos don't show how cute they are!


the whole group of them!


closeup of the topper

I know, how could anything go wrong after this? What is the bad news?

RAIN.

It looks like it may rain on or before the day of the wedding, which is just really really bad since we have no indoor options and the rain contingency would be ridiculously expensive! If it rains before, the grass will be sopping wet and lawn games and picnics would be right out. :(

Pray for good weather everyone!! Oh, and if you are mad scientist who has plans for world domination with a weather machine, I promise you my first born if you keep the rest of october sunny and bright!