Waiting

I'm currently sitting at home, waiting for a call, then heading to the hospital. I am so excited to say that my bridesmaid, Hallie, had her baby last night. I got a text at about 4:30 this morning that her water broke after we had dinner last night and little baby Lowell was delivered by c-section. Mom and baby are doing great and I can't wait to go see them and snap some pictures.

Dinner was awesome last night as it was the first time since our engagement party that I was able to hang out with all three of my girl friends/bridesmaids at once. I do love those ladies so much. I wish I would have snapped a couple of photos, but the restaurant was so dark. (If you haven't been to one of the Chatterbox locations yet, you should definitely stop in. Great food, drinks and all the board games and retro video games you could want- http://www.chatterboxpub.net/)


(Photo credit: Chatterbox)

In other exciting news, Ned and I have settled on our caterer. We have been going back and forth between using a great caterer that specializes in using locally sourced ingredients and can manage to put together awesome vegetarian and vegan meals, or going with a favorite restaurant of ours. We have been in discussion with the caterer, but didn't book them as we weren't 100% sold on them. They are amazing and their food is delicious, but it didn't feel completely like us. And one of the big reasons for booking our reception venue is that we are allowed to bring in any caterer/restaurant we want. We decided we should just go with our favorite food. Someplace that we always take out of town guests and they have the best time and are blown away by the food. I wish I could share it with you now, but I want to make sure we book them first. I think everyone at the wedding will enjoy the meal though and there will definitely be tons of vegetarian and vegan options. And it will definitely be a buffet set up.

I'm hungry just thinking about the amazing food!

- Gan

Hello? Anyone still here?

Wow. Has it really been 3 months? Seriously? Damn. I kinda suck at this.

Well... Hmmm... Now what?

I guess I should just jump right back in? Probably. Ned and I are trying to get moving again on the wedding stuff. We have 8 months to go and a lot to get done in that time.

In the last three months, we have done....nothing....absolutely nothing. Well, nothing really wedding related. We had an amazing engagement party, but other than that, nothing. We've just kinda put the wedding on the back burner. Not really a good idea if you ask me, but sometimes those things happen.

We had Ned's father here for a visit and during that time we celebrated our engagement with our amazing family and friends. Halloween came and went and I didn't really celebrate. That was followed by a wonderful Thanksgiving, again, with amazing family and friends. Really, it was one of the best Thanksgivings ever. At the beginning of December I took a week vacation down in Miami/Key West with Nadine who was visiting from Austria. We had an amazing time and she said yes when I asked her to be a bridesmaid. We both cried and it was a super sweet moment (followed by a lot of partying). Christmas seemed like a mad rush. I really didn't get much of anything done. If Ned hadn't taken over, I don't think anyone in the family would have gotten gifts. He really pulled everything together. And in the end, we celebrated the new year with Robyn and her husband, Pat, playing games and having a lot of laughs.

It was an amazing year. I only hope 2010 can live up to the legacy left by 2009. And with the wedding coming up, Im betting it can. It's going to be one beautiful day. I just hope it doesn't go by as fast as the engagement party did. The whole day/night was a blur. It was so much fun, but I felt like I didn't even get to talk to everyone or thank everyone for coming. I was busy in the kitchen with Robyn for most of the day and even a bit during the party. The food was so amazing and went so fast that we actually had to throw more together. (Good thing I had extras in the fridge just waiting to go.) But overall, it was such a beautiful time.

The engagement party was a cupcake theme with the phrase "Love is Sweet". I not only made sweet cupcakes, but yummy savory ones too! And with tons of help from Robyn, the food was a complete success. There were 4 different types of sweet cupcakes, including a vegan version of one- chocolate with white buttercream, lemon with lemon buttercream, lemon with raspberry buttercream and pumpkin with cream cheese frosting. And then 3 different types of savory cupcakes- mac n cheese, mexican cornbread and vegan shepherds pie. I kept the color scheme from the invites going with the decorations for the party. It turned out really beautiful and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

Here are some photos either taken by Robyn, her husband or me:


My sister, my dad and me


Pumpkin with cream cheese frosting


Chocolate with buttercream frosting


The full spread


Me in the kitchen


Shepherds pie


Vegan pumpkin with tofutti cream cheese

And here is one beautiful photo of me and Ned by my lovely friend, Ericka Bailie-Byrne.


- Gan

Officially less than 1 year...

Wow! Time is flying. We officially have less than one year to go. I couldn't be more thrilled. There is still so much to do, but we are slowly knocking those things off the to do list.

I really wanted to blog yesterday since it was the one year mark. But with working overtime and an amazing date night with Ned, there was just no time.

To celebrate our one year to go mark, we had a lovely dinner of amazing vegetarian and vegan sushi at Midori's. We then followed dinner up with the lovely sounds of Joshua Radin at the Pantages Theater.





Yesterday, I received an email from TheKnot.com. It was my official "you've got 12 months to go" newsletter. It was comprised of the things we need to be working on this month:

- Research vendors - Check!
- Finalize your budget - Budget? Whats a budget? Budget shmudget.
- Wedding style ideas - I think weve got this one down. This has been the most exciting part so far. (Besides the part where I get to call Ned my husband.)

Id say we are about right on track if not still ahead of the game. And Im just joking about the budget part. We don't really have one, but its all about being responsible and not going overboard. We know our limits, but that doesn't mean we aren't going to have one hell of a shindig.

Today Ill leave you the beautiful music of Josh Radin. Im sure there will be plenty of his songs played at our wedding. (Which is kinda funny because he made a bunch of jokes about weddings last night.)







- Gan