Married One Month

I know, I know… I haven’t updated in over a month. Can you blame me? It was a whirlwind leading up to the wedding and a big sigh of relief once the wedding was over. Then heading off to Hawaii for our honeymoon and back a week later, straight into work mode.

I’ll share with you all some highlights from the wedding and honeymoon.

Wedding Highlights:

• Morning of: I arrived at the venue with my hair stylist at around 9:15 a.m. the day of the wedding and started preparing everything. I was smart enough to pack a majority of the decorations into a suitcase, allowing for easy transport and unloading. Between 9:30 and 10 a.m. my mom, aunt, cousin’s girlfriend, and my bridesmaids arrived at the venue. I had started getting things ready and my girls – one by one – started with their hair. My makeup artist from Fresh Face Makeup, based out of San Francisco, arrived at around 10:30 and started the makeup process. While all the girls were getting their hair or makeup done, my mom, aunt and I were setting up place cards, signs, straws, the selfie photo booth, and everything else.
• Afternoon of: My wedding photographer, Vinh Nguyen, showed up with his fantastic team at around 2:30 p.m., as did the great cinematographers from Major Diamond Productions. They filmed me getting my hair and makeup done, and part of the putting-on-the-dress process. I started in the women’s locker room (where we were all getting ready prior to the wedding) and ended finishing getting ready in the ballroom, where our reception would be held. Here are some photos by Vinh Nguyen Photography to show the process: 
  
• First Look/Ceremony: I was so nervous leading up to the first look. I barely ate anything or drank any water… But once I saw Max, I was instantly relaxed. During our first look, we participated in a Ketubah (Jewish marriage agreement) signing prior to taking photos before the ceremony. Once we were together for photos, etc, I was fine. It wasn’t until right before the ceremony did I really have a panic attack. I thought the song I would walk down the aisle to wouldn’t play – but that was solved. Then I got golf carted to the location where we hid before the ceremony and as people were walking, I broke down, wishing my dad were there to walk me down the aisle. He has been gone for almost eight years and it’s still tough. Leading up to the wedding I didn’t think much about it because I was so consumed in what I was preparing. A couple of weeks before the wedding, I felt my dad’s presence more than I ever had, knowing he was looking down on his daughter on her big day. My mom and my uncle walked me down the aisle.
• Reception: This was a BLAST! After the ceremony, there was cocktail hour and then Max and I were taken away for sunset hour photos… But then we went back and heard beautiful speeches that made us cry, danced till we couldn’t anymore, and mingled with all our wonderful guests. I don’t have reception photos, but I’ll update this post when I get those in.
• Selfie Booth:  i thought this would be a hit or miss kind of thing. Max and I decided we didn’t want to pay upwards of $1,000 for a photo booth, so I came up with the idea of a selfie booth! I’m obsessed with taking selfies – ask anyone – and I figured this would capture my personality a lot. We ordered props galore from Amazon and it turned out everyone had a blast with it. I uploaded the photos to Facebook asking people to tag themselves. It was a lot of fun and I’m glad I came up with that idea.

Honeymoon highlights:

• Oahu, Hawaii: This was AMAZING. I hadn’t been to Hawaii since high school graduation eight years ago, so it was a blast to head to a beautiful place with my husband for our week-long honeymoon. Mimi Towle of Hawaii Islander planned every excursion and made all our dinner reservations. We were truly spoiled during our honeymoon.
• U.S.S Missouri, Aviation Museum, Pearl Harbor, U.S.S Bowfin Submarine: This was a fun day trip. Plus, our tour guide looked like Walter White/Heisenberg. All you Breaking Bad fans know what I’m talking about. We spent the whole day touring historic Waikiki. From touring the U.S.S. Missouri (which played an integral part during WWII), to checking out cool planes at the aviation museum and then finally heading to Pearl Harbor and the U.S.S. Arizona to pay respects to those who lost their lives, and finally ending at the U.S.S. Bowfin to tour this very claustrophobic submarine. I honestly don’t know how people can live on a submarine. Walking through all the passageways, I was so afraid the thing was gonna break off the pier and take us under! Luckily, that did not happen. That was a lot of fun. One of our favorite things we did on the honeymoon.

Heisenberg?

• SKY Waikiki: This is all I have to say. DO NOT MISS THIS PLACE. A hip, cool, nightclub/lounge with great food, live music and more, you don’t want to skip out on this place if you’re ever in Waikiki. Attire is dressy-casual and be sure to make a reservation.
• Morimoto Waikiki: Nothing beats Chef Morimoto’s restaurant. You may remember him from Iron Chef and Iron Chef America on the Food Network. Luckily for us, we got to experience his cuisine first hand. I ventured out and tried some sushi, granted it was just kappa maki, but truly enjoyed my chicken ramen. Bonus: We saw Samuel L. Jackson while we were leaving the restaurant!
• Royal Hawaiian Aha Aina Luau: Per the recommendation of Mimi from Hawaii Islander, she told us the luau at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki had the best luau during the week. We booked the luau, which is only held on Mondays (take note), and had a blast. From great live performances to delicious food, free drinks and a kukui nut lei, it was a great evening spent with cool people. We met another honeymooning couple who sat across from us.
• Outrigger Reef Beach Resort: While Hawaii Islander planned our excursions and dinner reservations, we found a great deal for flight and hotel on hotels.com for the Outrigger Reef. Great pool. right on the beach, Shorebird and Ocean House restaurants past the lobby, and great pool-side restaurant. We wanted to relax a lot during our honeymoon and spent a majority of the time on the beach and by the pool. Also, they have Holokai Catamaran snorkeling right next door to our hotel. We did that and saw some great big sea turtles and fish.

Our wedding and honeymoon were fantastic. We are still getting messages and comments about how much fun people had at the wedding and Max and I really want to go back to Hawaii sometime soon. While this post is long, I hope you enjoyed my highlights.

xoxo,

Leigh

Wedding DIY: Two Weeks to Go

Alright. It truly has been a jam packed month for me. With summer coming to an end and fall officially beginning (my favorite time of year!), the wedding countdown is now at two weeks. Yes, two weeks exactly. It’s pretty crazy as I have been preparing a lot of things. I told you all that I would post pictures of my signs when they’re finished. Unfortunately, this is my last big project to be working on. I am almost done with them and will be sure to take pictures as I am setting up versus now in my mess of a house.

Here’s what I have been up to the last few weeks.

1. Second dress fitting. I was so happy to see my dress after the first batch of alternations. It was almost a completely different dress as it fit so well. I can’t wait to post some photos on here to show you all after the wedding!
2. Hair extensions. So, this is my first ever experience with hair extensions and I have to say that I love it. I have always had medium-long hair and it’s nice to have really long hair for the wedding. Plus it adds volume for my up-do which is great. Here are the after pictures as I didn’t take a before.
   
3. Bachelorette party. This was amazing. My lovely matron of honor planned an overnight stay at the beautiful Cavallo Point Lodge, including dinner at Copita in downtown Sausalito, followed by a fun time at The Mint Karaoke Lounge in San Francisco on Market Street. I highly recommend that lounge. The drinks are good and the karaoke singing is either really phenomenal or incredibly horrendous. Either way it’s surely a good time. The next day we headed over to AT&T Park to watch the San Francisco Giants play against the Diamondbacks. The Giants won so that was a great treat for me as I am a huge fan. 🙂
4. Chalkboard word search. This was actually a fun project to do. Granted, my matron of honor helped immensely in this regard. Actually – her husband did! He spray painted a target poster frame and then I took it home and a couple weeks later generated a word search online and copied it over and voila! Here is the cocktail hour word search. This can easily be moved up to the reception hall if it hasn’t been completed by the time cocktail hour is over.
5. Center piece sample. My mom and I were really excited to see the sample of our center pieces. We hired Vanda Floral Design and they are truly great to work with. Here’s a sample of our centerpieces. They won’t look exactly like this the day of the wedding, but pretty darn close. 
6. Escort cards and table arrangements. To be honest, I thought this would be the most difficult task as I didn’t want to seat people where they potentially didn’t want to be seated. While there are 13 tables total, Max and I have a sweetheart table on the dance floor angled in a way where everyone can see us.

With two weeks to go there’s still a bit to do, but not a whole lot more. I am grateful for all the help I have had over the last year and a half and I can’t wait to see it all come together!

xoxo

A Bittersweet 30-Day Countdown

Today is a bittersweet day. It not only marks the 30-day countdown of our wedding, but the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City. I remember that day so vividly. I had just started 7th grade and my mom woke me up abruptly to have me rush and get ready for school so I could watch the news. I had no idea what had happened – and then I saw what was going on. A plane had crashed into one of the towers and as I was tuning in, I saw live footage of the second plane hitting the other tower. My neighbor (and old babysitter) called my mom and rushed over to our apartment to watch the news with us.

I remember being slightly late for my first period choir class. At school that day, there was  a long moment of silence, followed by an eventual impromptu assembly to lower the American flag to half staff. It’s crazy to think about how my children will ask me and Max where we were when the September 11th attacks happened. #NeverForget

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

•••

An a brighter note, today marks the 30-day countdown to our wedding. It’s now hitting me that I really am getting married. While I still have quite a bit of preparation left, I’m really excited for the day to be here. With everything going on, there is still a lot of celebration to be had: my bachelorette party is in two weeks and my mom is throwing me a hafrashat challah with my friends and hers the Thursday before my wedding. It should be a lot of fun.

I am finishing up the signs this weekend (I promised a picture, I know) and starting on my chalkboard word search. My matron of honor was kind enough to recruit her husband to spray paint it for me, so I just need to generate the search and hand write everything in! I’ll post a picture of that, too.

Hope you all have a great day and never forget about those who risked and lost their lives this day 14 years ago.

xoxo

DIY Wedding: Table Signs

When finally nailing down a theme for my upcoming wedding (we have exactly 40 days until we say “I do”), I decided to make my own table signs. Why? Because I wanted a majority of my wedding decor to be DIY. The hard part was deciding what needed to have personal signage, what fonts to use, and honestly, I needed some inspiration. Note: in college I learned how to use the program InDesign and since graduating (back in 2013), it has come in handy on multiple different occasions.

That’s where lovely Pinterest comes in. For the last year and a half I have been perusing Pinterest to come up with ideas for the types of signs I need to make. I decided to make:

1. A selfie booth sign (5×7 frame)
2. A “well wishes” sign (5×7 frame)
3. A social media hashtag (#) sign (5×7 frame)
4. The menu (8×10 frame)
5. His and hers drinks (8×10 frame)
6. Gift sign (5×7 frame)

I then headed to the dollar store (it sure comes in handy when buying things for a wedding!) and grabbed two 8×10 frames and four 5×7 frames. With InDesign, it didn’t take me too long to make. However, if you don’t own that ridiculously expensive program, you can easily make these signs in a word document or even a paint program (standard for more PC’s). Here are the signs I have come up with so far:

I will be working on more signs over the long weekend, as well as starting a bigger project: a chalkboard word search for cocktail hour! Stay tuned to see the final signs (I’ll take a better picture using a high-resolution camera) and the word search.

If you’re in the same boat as me and need some inspiration for your wedding, check out my Pinterest board.

xoxo

Getting Engaged…

So on June 14, 2014 I got engaged to my now fiancé of almost three years, Max Weinberg. It was a whirlwind of emotion that day and I couldn’t be happier. The engagement was very “us” – laid back and comfortable, intimate and, all in all — perfect. I was completely surprised and shocked. Definitely wasn’t expecting anything any time soon. But wedding has been on both our brains lately, especially since we have two weddings to attend this year. I suppose it was on Max’s mind more than I had realized.

It’s so exciting thinking about getting married. Our wedding won’t be until late 2015, giving me ample opportunity to prepare a great ceremony and reception. Although, I’ve already started Pinteresting a lot of wedding related things. Since having a Jewish wedding is incredibly important to me, I have to be able to find a ketubah (Jewish wedding “contract”) and chuppah (wedding canopy) as well as prep anything. I’m one of those women who would prefer to DIY and spend the least amount of money as possible.

Max and I have been friends since we were 13 and finally were able to be in a relationship together in 2011. It’s funny how things work out in life. I will keep you updated on cool fashion finds, color schemes and maybe will even give you a sneak peek into my Pinterest boards for the wedding.

Stay tuned…