Registry Questions?

Hi Everyone,

I really can't believe that there's just 10 more days to go until the wedding! Time is flying by so fast! Alex & I have gotten a few questions about where we're registered, so I thought I'd write a quick post with more info on this :)

Alex and I decided to go with a slightly non-traditional route and register at Honeyfund (http://www.honeyfund.com/wedding/alexandrenee). Honeyfund is a website that lets you register for fun things to do on your honeymoon. Since Alex & I are in the process of moving to a different apartment (I'm surrounded by moving boxes as I type this), and because you don't have to pack activities in a box and lug them up several flights of stairs like you do with toasters and mixers, we think that registering for activities is the way to go for us!

We especially love registering through Honeyfund because the memories of our time in Hawaii will stay with us forever. Spending an amazing 12 days is Maui is definitely not something we'd be able to do on our own, and we're just so appreciative and thankful to everyone who has helped us be able to have this experience :) We'll defintiely be taking a lot of pictures while we're in Maui (we even registered for an underwater camera/camcorder so we can take pictures while we're snorkeling!) and we can't wait to send them to you so so can see how much fun we're having!

We're really looking forward to seeing everyone in 10 DAYS!!!

Love,
Renee

Engagement Pictures!

It's hard to believe that the big day is just 12 days away! It definitely feels like there's still a lot of wedding planning things to get done, but it's definitely all coming together (and in 12 days, everything will be done!)

I just thought I'd share some pictures from the engagement session Alex and I had at the Santa Monica Pier over the 4th of July weekend. Our photographer is just awesome, and I can't wait to see how the wedding pictures turn out. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures. You can see more picttres by clicking here

One More Month To Go!

I cannot believe that in one month Alex & I will be married! I'm so excited! With only 30 more days to go until we say 'I do,' things have definitely kicked into high gear. Alex and I will be driving down to LA for the 4th of July weekend to visit one of our groomsmen and to take care of a whole bunch of wedding stuff. Hopefully, we'll be getting our marriage license on Friday (neither of us has ever gotten a marriage license before, obviously, so we're not quite sure how involved the process is). We'll also be taking our engagement pics with our amazing photographer, which we're both really excited about :) We'll be sure to post some pictures when we get them! Ok, we have a long drive ahead of us in a few hours, so I'll sign off for now - check back soon for more updates!

-Renee

Renee's 'Something Blue'

Hi Everyone!

I know it's been a long time since Alex and I have posted - things have been busy for us lately! Apart from planning the wedding, we're both getting ready to go back to school - I'll be studying nursing and Alex is going into dentistry. This means we'll be relocating closer to where we'll be studying (San Jose), and therefore it also means that we'll be moving a week before the wedding. When I think about everything all at once - moving, wedding, school - I actually start hyperventilating a bit, because it does seem a little crazy to be planning all 3 of these things simultaneously. However, I'm getting better at telling myself that this will all work out and everything will get done. Mainly, I think we're both feeling excited and looking forward to the changes to come.

Also, I found my 'something blue' to wear at the reception! I've never been the type of girl who enjoys wearing high heels, so when I saw these, I knew they were for me. Now I just need to find something old and something borrowed (I figure the wedding dress will count as 'something new'). Any suggestions?

-Renee

Alex's First Wedding

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to share this adorable picture that Alex's Aunt Kate sent us today. It was taken when Alex was about 4 months old at his Uncle Paul and Aunt Linda's wedding. So cute!

L.A. planning Odyssey

Who would drive 800+ miles in a car with a duct-taped-on rear bumper, all in under 48hrs, just to plan a wedding? We would! And so we did, over the course of the past weekend, and quite frankly, it was probably the most productive two days of my life!
First off, we left Mountain View around 7:15 on Friday night, and didn't stop until we'd conquered the "Grapvine" (the mountainous pass leading into L.A. from Hwy 5). This was possible in large part due to the magnificent driving of Renee, who managed the 2nd half of the drive while I drifted in & out of consciousness. We made base camp at a Days Inn somewhere around Newhall, about 2 truck stops from Burbank. The room was spartan, but adequate, and proved a good staging ground for our assault on the valley.
First thing Saturday morning, we drove to meet the one florist on our agenda. Her name is Jackie Combs (Like Sean "Puffy", but of no relation), and she's good. Real good. Her previous clients included the lead singer of the Goo-Goo Dolls (worst band name ever), and her taste seems impeccable. Most impressive was her matter-of-fact straightforwardness, which should make working with her a breeze.
Next up, we drove out to Claremont on the 210. I'd forgotten how crazy L.A. traffic/driving is. Thankfully, we arrived safe & sound, and even early for our 1st cake tasting appointment at "Some Crust" bakery.
The tasting was great: 6 slices of cake, each covered with butter-cream frosting. They were all good, in their own way, but my favorite was the chocolate with raspberry filling (I usually shy away from fruit/chocolate combos, but this was different). Anyway, if we hadn't gone to our 2nd tasting that day, that's probably what we'd be serving you all come August 1st... but it won't be.
Before the 2nd tasting, we checked in to our hotel, the Claremont Doubletree (Hey, that's one of ones listed under the "travel" section of this blog! Who knew!). For some strange reason, our room hadn't been cleaned, so we ended up getting a bigger one right by the pool. Alas, we barely had time to kick our feet up before it was time to taste some more cake... life is hard!
Tasting #2 was at "Sweet Addictions". I can vouch for the addictiveness of chocolate. My mom claims she used to eat a brownie every day that I was in the womb, and I still can't kick the addiction. Anyhow, the chefs at this boutique pastry shop can bake a mean Black & White chocolate cake, and that's what we'll be enjoying! I won't spoil the surprise, but there's 7 layers, and 1 is chocolate mousse. By the time we got done, it was close to 4pm, but the day was hardly done, as it was back to Pomona to meet the caterers at the Sagehen Cafe!
Sagehen is the "classy" joint on campus. It's where every student goes at the end of the semester to blow the left-over "flex" dollars on their meal plan. I knew the food was good, but I had no idea how fun working with them would be! Cheryl & Melissa are awesome, they got into it, and they bounced ideas off each other so much that sometimes it seemed like they were the ones planning the whole wedding! We spent an hour-plus designing a menu for us to "taste" come April, when we make our 2nd trip to L.A. After all was said & done, Cheryl gave us each a big hug :).
Sunday was photography day, possibly the most important part of our planning (especially for Renee). We took a long, long, drive to Beverly Hills, where we were to meet up with Max, of Max Wanger photography (what, you don't know Max?!). We knew this guy would be cool based on his website, and his portfolio (he worked with rapper Lupe Fiasco!), but we didn't know he'd be Max cool. We're pretty sure he's in a class of his own. It's only his 1st year doing wedding photography, most of his prior work was in the food and magazine fields, but he's already booked through 2010! Basically, we can't do him justice, you'll just have to see for yourself (check out the pics of "Shoko & Julian" those are Renee's favorites).
Funny story: on the way out of the parking lot, we were boxed in by a thuggish looking guy in a high-end Mercedez. He rolled his window down, and was gesturing for us to do the same, but Renee kept pressing the "up" button when I tried to roll her side down because she was afraid we might get in a fight. Finally, I managed to get the thing rolled down, and it turned out the guy was just some Frenchman with a thick accent who wanted to know "Who make zat car? It look just like a mini-cooper!" He somehow failed to notice the duct-tape (or maybe he was just being polite).
For the sake of comparison, and because we'd already planned to do it, we drove out to Simi Valley to meet with another photographer, Jennifer of Bella Rosa photography. Simi Valley is an odd place. It's like a slice of Utah's Bryce Canyon injected into SoCal. There's all these boulders interspersed between tract homes. The meeting was in one such home, in a suburban cul-de-sac (already, not as cool as the Coffee Bean in Beverly Hills).
Jennifer was really sweet, and she had some pretty cool albums to show us - stuff that looked like it's straight out of a wedding mag. But we ultimately decided to go with Max because of how much we loved his work.
Finally, we hit the road back to Mountain View. The rain made the driving less than awesome, but we managed an uneventful five and half hours drive, and got home almost exactly 48hrs after we set out, tired, but refreshed that we'd gotten so much done in so little time.
Matter of fact, this post may have taken longer than the trip!
-Alex Out!

Wedding Planning Can Be Fun!

Alex has been so great at reminding us both to enjoy the process of planning a wedding - as you can see from these pictures, he knows how to have fun!

The Proposal: Alex's side of the story

So, you've heard Renee's side of things, now it's time for the groom's version of our engagement story (sweaty palms not included).

First of all, I didn't have a particular site in mind where I would "pop the the question". I knew I wanted to propose on our first day in wine country, so we could savor the rest of the trip without that added pressure. Also, after going ring shopping together with Renee, I don't think there was too much suspense as to whether I would propose, but I did want to try to surprise her.

My first thought was that I should ask in a romantic setting (duh), e.g. high-upon a hill side, overlooking Napa valley. One of the vineyards we were going to visit that Saturday was Sterling, which is advertised as having a gondola ride to the tasting room. It sounded perfect. On closer inspection, however, I discovered that the Sterling winery was only located at the top of a hill no larger than a gopher mound, and that the gondola ride lasted about a minute. Not only that, but the wine was... shall we say.. sub par. 

So, I had the ring in my pocket, but it never made an appearance. On the way back down, Renee & I had to share a gondola cabin with two fire fighters from Texas, who were in Napa for a convention. Their wives were in the gondola in front of ours, and I distinctly recall the fire fighters telling the hapless Gondola operators to "make that one go faster". Anyhow, we all got to talking, and they asked what we were doing in Napa. I told them it was our 4 year anniversary, to which they replied "when did you get married, when you were 12?". All flattery aside, I had to admit that it was actually 4 years of "dating", and not our wedding anniversary. 

This confession brought on the inevitable: they turned to Renee and started asking her questions like: "What are you doing with this schmuck?" and to me "if she put up with you for 4 years, she might be a keeper! What are you waiting for?"

Oh, how badly I wanted to pull the ring out of my pocket right then and flash it in their smug little faces! My better judgement managed to kick in (did I mention the wine at Sterling Vineyards is mediocre? This fact alone may have saved the day!), and I restrained myself to comments like "oh, you know, soon!". sigh.

So, later that night, I did propose at our Bed & Breakfast, and the rest is pretty much as Renee described it. Needless to say, I was relieved when she said yes! The rest of the weekend was a blast, and now I have this story to tell :)

Oh, and if anyone happens to have a facebook directory of fire-fighters in the Dallas Ft.Worth Area, let me know, I'm dying to tell them how things turned out!

The Proposal: Renee's Side of the Story

So I had an idea that Alex might propose soon for two reasons. First, all of a sudden he seemed to know a lot more about Color, Cut, Carrot, and Clarity than he ever did before. Second, on the day before Thanksgiving, he picked me up early from work and when we got to the car, he started programming an address into the GPS but refused to tell me where we were going. He told me he thought we could do something fun before we headed home, and kept me guessing as to what exactly he had planned for us. We ended up outside a jewelry store and he said he thought it was a good idea to see what kind of rings I liked! It was all very cute because he was kind of nervous at first, but then started to relax and even got into looking at the diamonds up close with a jeweler’s loop!

So by the time we headed to Napa for our 4 year anniversary a couple of weeks later, I was definitely wondering if one of the rings we had looked at earlier was coming with us. We decided to go to a winery that you can only access by gondola (mainly because we wanted to ride in the gondola) and I had this feeling that he might propose there. However, the gondola ride came and went without any proposal. At this point, I figured that Alex would propose when he felt the time was right and I decided to relax and not stress about it.

Which is funny because as soon as I forgot about it, he proposed! We got back to our room at the amazing bed and breakfast we were staying at, and we went outside to sit in our own private spa. I was looking up at the stars and when I looked down, Alex had the ring in his hand! He said ‘will you do me the honor of making me the happiest man alive?’ and of course I said yes! Apparently he even got down on one knee, although I didn’t know that at the time since he was kneeling in the hot tub. We spent the rest of the weekend touring wineries and calling our friends and family to tell them the good news.

How it all began at Pomona in '03

It was a fine summer day in June of 2003, I was sitting behind my desk at the Office of Campus Life when in walked that cute Resident Advisor that I'd seen around. Hadn't she already graduated, I wondered?
"Doing the R.A. thing again this summer?" I asked.
She seemed surprised, perhaps she didn't think her notoriety as a party-buster had spread as far as South Campus (just kidding, she was a very fair R.A., by all accounts).
"Yeah, how'd you know?" She replied.
The conversation didn't go much further than that, but as fortune had it, all the mail for R.A.s came through our office, so it wouldn't be the last time that I got to see her that summer, in fact, far from it.
Shortly thereafter, a mutual acquaintance, and oft-times trouble maker, arranged a trip to Las Vegas, inviting both of us to ride along in his car. Though I remember being in the front seat, with Renee in the back, the 4 hour drive provided lots of opportunities to chat. I discovered that this girl was witty, from the Bay Area, and shared my experience of growing up an only child. Needless to say, I was intrigued.
After a few rounds of drinks at the Aladdin Hotel, and a few rounds of "two truths & a lie", I knew that she was the only girl born on her dad's side of the family in almost a hundred years! She learned that I once got an expandable Tyrannosaurus Rex sponge stuck in my nose for two weeks! Somehow, she didn't run away after this revelation, so I knew she must think I was OK. The rest of the night we were practically inseparable, and it marked the start of a great friendship.
Back at Pomona, my job was pretty boring, and apparently summer R.A.s don't have that much mischief to contend with, so we'd spend hours together watching silly Internet cartoons like homestarrunner.com and playing board games. Some nights we'd head to the local park to hear outdoor concerts. We spent sunny Saturdays days at the pool, where Renee taught me to do flip turns. All in all, it was a wonderful time in both of our lives. 

Alas, I was but a lowly Senior, and being the do-gooder that she is, Renee joined the Peace Corps. To find out what happened next, see our blog from Nicaragua!