Finally here!

I am so excited to finally post these! I tried to not totally flood you with wedding photos, but just an overview of the ceremony with some of my favorites. I plan on writing another post about decorating for the wedding, and that will include some of the more detailed shots of the decor. But for now, here's a glance at our wedding:

Pre-wedding.

"Meeting Before The Wedding"









Bride and Groom Party Shots.

Ceremony.










Newlyweds.






Reception.

Cupcakes from Sweet Pea Bakery

Donuts from Voodoo Doughnuts

Velvet Couch Photobooth.

Interested in seeing more? See our Flickr Wedding Set.

(All photographs taken by Ben Tapper)

Wedding Photos (almost!)

The time has come! I finally have my wedding photos. I promised that people in my family would be the first to see them, so the internet will have to wait. Sorry to be a tease! But, to hold you over -- here's what a screen shot of what the front of our photo book will look like:

And one more, this is a photo of my Maid of Honor, Jill. Second to Colin, she was seriously my grounding throughout all of my wedding. For every stress out (where is everyone? I can't finish this! ahhh! moment) she was there to pick up the pieces. She crashed on my couch and made sure that she could be there to help with every little detail. My wedding day was extra special with her help, I love you lady!

Wedding Rings.

Yay! Both of us finally have rings*

This is the shop that we ordered Colin's from. Allison (yes, we have the same name!) makes beautiful jewelry and it arrived timely and in lovely packaging.

My ring came from Gilt. They were also amazing to work with. The woman sat with me as I tried on like twenty different rings. I finally settled on this one, a gorgeous vintage ring from the 1920's.



* There was a small mishap with Colin's first ring. We ordered from an Etsy seller, but the ring just seemed to be set on always being too big. We had it resized twice and still it was a little loose on his finger. Plus, it was really thick/uncomfortable to wear. So instead, I found another one from a different seller on Etsy and replaced it. This one fits just perfect!

Sneak Peek

We have probably over a month before we get wedding pictures back. But our super awesome talented wedding photographer, Ben Tapper, posted a few. I absolutely love them and can't wait to see the rest!

 So if you are in the market for a photographer, I can't recommend Ben / Endless Wave Studios enough!

I'm married!

The wedding was a grand success! I wouldn't have changed a thing. I'll write more about it as everything settles down. But for now I'll leave you with a quick snapshot that my friend Carmen took -

Moving, Wedding and Vacations, oh my!

etsy print by ChEngel

Next Wednesday we leave for California to visit family and attend our engagement BBQ. I am excited to see family and for the vacation I am less excited for the 90+ degree weather that's supposed to be happening. But, I guess it will make me love Portland even more while I am gone! I admit, I am also excited because I get to visit several of my favorite thrift stores. There's nothing like a wedding and a new place to motivate you to find fun new treasures to decorate with.

Speaking of moving, we picked up boxes from my lovely friend Lehua and I can now officially start packing! It's something about having your house invaded by cardboard boxes that make you feel like it's real. I keep telling Huey & Mimi that in two weeks they'll have their own little yard. But, neither of them seem to be catching on :) Alberta Arts is such a lovely neighborhood. I am thrilled to have an excuse to explore a new part of town with new resturants and cute shops. Also, Back to Eden is not too far from our place, which means coconut ice cream milkshakes will happen more often!

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend! If you have any fabulous moving tips, feel free to pass them along :)

Bacon, foe or friend?

These last couple weeks I've totally been on a cooking adventure. I made made first "soup" and ventured into "fake bacon." Anyone who knows me might find this amusing, since I really don't like regular bacon (yes, I know this is blasphemy to some people) But ready? I really like fake bacon. It has a slightly different texture, but still the same good salty taste. We used Turtle Island Tempeh Smoky Maple Marinated Bacon. While other Tofurky products have not made the cut, this one totally did and made a killer sandwich. I tried Veganaise (Which actually smells exactly like mayo, it's creepy!) as well. I know, look at me, Ms. Adventurous! The result was this killer sandwich on a pub bun made by a local Portland company:

My second accomplishment was this slightly modified Vegan Dumpling Soup. I followed this recipe, but added a boiled potato chopped up as well as some frozen peas and carrots. Oh my gosh, seriously amazing. Perfect for the rainy days that are still creeping in here in Portland.

In other non-cooking news:

- I saw the book "World of Geekcraft" in person at Crafty Wonderland, and am totally in love with it. It even  has it's own website here! You can download one of their projects (pow! zap! magnets) via PDF at the Craft Blog.

- Has anyone who's gotten married recently used an Amazon registry? We did it in addition to our Target registry. I liked that it has a universal capability so you can add stuff from any website.

The Details

 my current hair

potential wedding hair

I'm utterly blessed to have a sister who does hair. I don't have to mess with trying to find a stylist I trust to do my hair for my big day. All I have to do now is try to decide what I want to do with my hair. The four photos above are ones I've saved from various places on the web ages ago (Sorry I have no credits, if you know where they came from, please comment below!) 

I have a REALLY amazing hair piece with bleached peacock feathers I bought a couple years ago off of Etsy. Other than that, no ideas. I know part of what will help me make my decision is what dress I get. But, I can't really go dress shopping until June. Right now, I've been dropping at least 2-5lb a month and I don't want it to fit funny, so I'm waiting till pretty much the last possible moment to buy something.

Now that we've sent out the Save the Dates it really does feel real. I'm getting nervous making Excel spreadsheets left and right. It feels like there are so many details left to plan, and such a tight budget. But I'm lucky that Colin is a superstar who is willing to take on a large portion of the planning. 

In other news, my Mom is coming to visit!

I'm so excited to show her around my new city, I think she'll love Portland!

Wedding Decisions

I went back and forth about where to have our wedding. Whether to go nontraditional (Coffee shop that's in a cool warehouse building) or traditional (old church in town) But, I kept going back to thinking about Leach Botanical Gardens. The grounds were gorgeous. So pretty in that way that you feel like you don't even have to decorate that much.

I still don't want a lot of traditional wedding type things, but I do want it to feel like a wedding. Call me old fashioned, but I guess those adorable wedding blogs are wearing off on me! I'm getting really excited now that I think about it more.

Right now I am just focusing on planning this, because other things are looming on my mind (Like the endocrinologist appointment on January 4th!)

Wedding Inspiration

A Cup of Jo posted this link earlier, and I am having some major wedding warm fuzzies from it - Check it out!

Wedding Dress

As I am (Slowly) planning our wedding ceremony, I find myself looking to Etsy a lot. Today I found a wedding dress that (ARE YOU READY?!) is called, "Allison." That's right, it's my name, spelled exactly right.

Is this some sort of destiny?!

the dress is here: yourfairytalewedding