The Long Overdue Update

Hello. I apologize for not updating the blog for over a month, but not much has been going on with wedding planning. For that reason, I'm going to re-purpose this blog a bit and post about general updates with me and Zach and our new life in California, along with wedding updates as they happen. Here are a few pictures to illustrate how we've been spending a lot of our time here since we moved in February:

During our cross-country drive from Georgia to California, we got a chance to stop by the Grand Canyon and we were lucky to get to see it covered in snow. If you're coming to Sedona for the wedding, you can visit the Grand Canyon too, it's less than 2 hours north of the city, so don't forget to make time for that in your trip if you're interested.

When Bonnie came to visit at the end of February, we went to Thousand Steps Beach in Laguna. From the first picture you can see where this beach gets its name, but after getting down all of the stairs, the beach is very beautiful and empty. I'd also like to point out that Bonnie remains the only person from the east coast to come and visit us, so the rest of you better get on it, and come out to California!

Zach and I spent a whole day straight working on a 3D puzzle, so we were eager to take pictures afterward.

Our apartment complex offers free yoga classes every Saturday morning, so here are me and Zach on our way to class with our mats. Recently we've started doing yoga at our apartment instead, since we prefer to spend our Saturday mornings sleeping in and then cooking elaborate breakfasts.

Zach and I had a lot of fun coloring eggs on Easter. We also had a contest where each of us hid plastic eggs around the apartment for the other. We got a little too into it and some of the hiding places were impossible to find, and the game ended up being more frustrating than fun. For next year we'll just have to make the game a little less intense.

This was taken while we where on a hike in the hills about 30 minutes away from where we live. We got to hang out with two guys from Zach's work, and also enjoyed feeling like we were immersed in nature without having to drive very far from home.

This is Zach enjoying carrot cake on his birthday. We also grilled BBQ ribs for the first time that day to celebrate.

Zach and I go to nearby parks about every weekend. We usually bring a picnic and eat there and then throw the Frisbee around and enjoy the nice weather.

Our apartment is less than a mile away from the Orange County Performing Arts Center, which houses all of the visiting Broadway shows. We were lucky enough to get tickets to see Dreamgirls, and this is us before walking over to the theater. The show was really entertaining, if you haven't seen it: it's like Jersey Boys, except with girls who have the added obstacle of racial prejudices to overcome. We'd recommend it if it comes to your city.


These pictures are from Yosemite National Park, which is about a 6 hour drive from where we live. The whole park is actually in this gorgeous valley with mountains and waterfalls everywhere. You can see a bit of the valley in the first picture, and the second picture was taken a the end of a long hike we took to the top of a waterfall. The scenery was beautiful, but we got pretty wet on our way up.

I hope you enjoyed the update. I'm going to make a point to update weekly, so please check back soon. We miss you all!

The Bridesmaids' Dresses

Hello all. As you know, I found my own dress a while back in November and I've been looking for a good bridesmaid dress style to complement it since. I've finally settled on a dress for Erin and Heather from Nordstrom. Here's the dress:



The color is perfect and is just what I wanted to contrast the red rocks of the landscape and the yellow flowers we'll all have. And the fabric, silk chiffon, is the same as my dress so it will go well with what I'm wearing. And most importantly, the strapless dresses will look very flattering on both Erin and Heather, so this really wasn't a tough decision once I found this dress. Right now I'm trying to find a good salon for us to get our hair and make-up done, but other than that all of the fashion/beauty parts of the wedding are taken care of since Zach worked out which tux he wanted in February.

Thanks for reading and I'll try to continue posting updates, but it seems that we've taken care of most of the planning. Now we're just in a waiting period since more tasks won't crop up until closer to the big day. Don't forget to get your plane ticket, rental car, and hotel booked!

The Gift Bags

I know in an earlier post I said that I wouldn't say anything about the gift bags because I wanted them to be a surprise. However, I just got the bags in the mail today and I can't resist showing them to you all. They turned out so well!

I wanted to find a bag that was sturdy and would last for the duration of everyone's trip, but I didn't want to have to spend $20 to get everyone a fancy tote bag. So on discountmugs.com I found these blank, thin canvas bags that are like the reusable shopping bags that you can buy at the grocery store. Then I made a little design in photoshop for them to print on the bags and it was as easy as that. I think they turned out really well and I'm excited to fill them up with goodies for all of the guests. I'm going to keep my promise and not let you know anything about what's going inside them, so enjoy this one-time gift bag sneak peak.

The Money Saving Tactics

Since Zach and I are living off of one salary and saving for a house and the wedding, we've had to employ some creative money saving techniques. We thought you'd enjoy seeing how we're managing to save money:

We always keep our thermostat off. When it gets too hot, we open the sliding door. When it gets too cold, we warm ourselves by lighting candles and using blankets.


We don't bother paying for cable each month, we just hook the computer up to the TV and watch online shows and movies.


We take extra condiments when we go out to eat and use them later so we don't have to buy them from the store.


When there's a sale at the store, we buy in bulk (that's right, we currently have nine cereal boxes).


We use office supplies to seal our food (who needs to spend money on chip clips or tupperware?).


We track all of our spending on Mint.com. Since we've been using it we've already identified over $100 in faulty charges.

We hoped you enjoyed this insight into our current lifestyle. We miss you all and hopefully we'll see you all at the wedding in October!

The New Apartment

Hey all,

It's been awhile since my last post because we kind of took a break from wedding planning after our super-productive trip to Sedona. Currently we're working on getting the gift bags together for all of the guests. We've been designing the bags and ordering cool little gifts to put inside, but I haven't been posting any pictures of those because I was them to be a surprise.

Zach and I have also been busy fixing up our new place. The apartment is gorgeous and we have some really great pieces of furniture in it. Our next step is to buy some patio furniture and curtains. I hope you enjoy these pictures of the place.

The Wedding Cake

Sorry I've been so slow in updating this, but Zach and I don't have internet at our apartment yet, so I have to wait until I can get to a place with free wireless before doing anything. Here's a little bit about the cake we are getting designed. Enjoy!

We decided to go with Donna at Sedona Sweet Arts for our wedding cake. Donna really loves making sugar art and usually makes flowers for cakes, but I think we were able to challenge her with something a little different. When we first got to the bakery we sampled some of her cakes and almost immediately decided on carrot cake (Zach's favorite) for half of the cake and then chocolate mousse (my favorite) for the other half of the cake. The carrot cake half will have cream cheese icing while the chocolate half will have a chocolate mousse filling and both will have a thin layer of buttercream on the outside for decoration.

The cake is going to be relatively simple with a tuscan finish with ivory frosting on the outsite. And the most extravagant part will be the topper, which will be a bride and groom cactus. You can probably get a better idea from the pictures below. The first one is an example of what the tuscan texture will look like, except that ours will be ivory and won't have flowers. The second picture is what the topper will look like, and Donna is going to make that part entirely out of sugar.

The Save the Dates

Save the dates are finally out! Please visit the wedding website for more travel details so you can make your bookings. October is the most popular month for weddings in Sedona, so make sure you book early because things are going to fill up.

Zach and I made the Save the Dates ourselves and had a lot of fun, so we'll definitely make the invitations by hand as well. We wanted to incorporate the destination wedding theme, so we made them look like luggage tags. We were also able to get most of the supplies from www.envelopperinc.com, which has become my new favorite website. They sell all different types of paper, cards, labels, and envelopes and then DIY people can put all of the parts together. I like it because it allows you to pick any colors you want and sizes and you can mix and match different parts. So here's a little diagram of all of the parts we used and assembled followed by pictures of the final product.