Category: weddings

#TheRedwoodWedding processional. Or, “how my ex helped me pull off my favorite wedding surprise”

I finally filled out my wedding profile for Offbeat Bride and it took forever because there was just SO MUCH TO WRITE ABOUT! This was something I didn’t really go into detail about on the profile, but I wanted to share here…

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Our “Honest Trailers” wedding invitation

I showed you our wedding highlight video the other day, but I totally forgot to show you the wedding invitation video that kicked it all off!

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The Redwood Wedding’s last-minute wedding videography Hail Mary + my wedding vows

I woke up one morning, days before the wedding, and realized I hadn’t thought about videography. We had so many talented friends and family performing speeches and readings, and I knew that I would be so hyped up that day that I was sure to forget all the amazing things that were said and shared that day.

So I quickly googled a butt-ton of Northern California wedding videographers, but years of working in the wedding industry, and seeing one cheesy wedding video after another, has made me a hardened and picky bitch. No one was really fitting the bill (even the Desperate Megan version of the bill). Except for some guy named Tim from Share the Road Videography. His style was all about mood, vibe, and those beautiful details and minutiae that a couple can completely miss in the frantic energy of their wedding day, along with some crisp AF audio.

I wrote him an email entitled “last-minute wedding videography Hail Mary?” And, as surprising as it was fortunate, he was available that day, and totally down to party at The Redwood Wedding. And this is the 3 minute version of all his hard work…

As I watched it (over and over and over) tears were just streaming down my face, and I had a smile as big as the one you see on that video. He absolutely nailed it, and I’m so glad he highlighted the vows, as they were my favorite part of the day (and he even captured the AT-AT and the funky chicken on the side of the food truck that I love so much too!).

Anyway, if you’re interested, here were my vows in their entirety…

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The unique engagement rings that are doing my head in

My engagement ring went from meh to amazing after drawing inspiration from these unique engagement rings...

My engagement ring went from meh to amazing after drawing inspiration from these unique engagement rings…

I needed to get my engagement ring re-set. So I’ve been obsessively looking up different unique engagement rings. That means I’ve been scouring the interwebs for months and months for awesome ring designs. And now the problem is I have too many awesome unique engagement rings to take inspiration from, and it’s doing my head in.

Wanna see my favorites? Lookie lookie…

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Dog versus falcon ring bearer

Who will win the right to wear this I'm the ring bearer shirt

Who will win the right to wear this I’m the ring bearer shirt

When we were in Vancouver, Mike and I had dinner with an Offbeat Bride couple that had a falcon as their ring bearer. Then I saw videos of a friend of a friend’s wedding, who also had a falcon ring bearer. Then Mike and I decided we’d get a dog once all our travel calms down. Then Mike and I got engaged and started planning our wedding.

Then this conversation happened…

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Official bridesmaid/unofficial groomsgirl reporting for duty

I’ve mentioned before that my two friends Erik and Kimmy are getting married… to each other! I’m a bridesmaid AND an “unofficial groomsman” in the wedding. Which means that at the moment my work life is paralleling my real life:

Dress shopping

Bridesmaid dress scouting at Unique Vintage. #StopStaring <-- that's the brand. You can stare of you want
Kimmy wants all her bridesmaid to be in non-matching dresses. Which is awesome! We decided that I should rock some Stop Staring in a dove grey. Since Kimmy is a fashion goddess, she’s getting the company to loan me this dress for her wedding! Swanky, yes?

Party planning

Since I’m an official bridesmaid/unofficial groomsgirl, I’m planning both the bachelorette AND the bachelor parties!

But… I’ve only ever been to one bachelorette party and it was just a straight-up dinner.
And it’s… interesting being a girl planning a bachelor party for dudes.

At least I’m just one of many who are planning the bachelorette party — there are other girls helping out in making the whole day a success. But the bachelor party… at one point is was looking like it would be ALL ON ME. *Gulp* I mean, I can plan a party as long as it’s “hey, here’s the date — show up, I’ll provide beer and wine.” But if we’re getting any fancier than that, I’m out of my depth.

So in a panic — after my fellow party-planner, groomsman Alan, told me that he was probably not going to be able to be at the party — I hit up my friends Laura and Megan who make up the amazing even planning team of Rebel Belle, and begged them for help. Their response:

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On being a bridesmaid: I’m so excited! I’m so excited! I’m so… scared.

Why do I look like I'm walking the Green Mile?

Why do I look like I’m walking the Green Mile?

Guess what, y’all. I’m going to be a bridesmaid at my best friend‘s wedding! I’m super excited to be involved in his wedding, especially since he’s marrying an old high school friend of mine, whom I love. But it’s a little weird for me… I always thought I’d be his groomsgirl. And I’ve NEVER been a bridesmaid before.

Unless you count the time when I was a “junior bridesmaids” at my aunt’s wedding. I don’t count it because I was 13, have little memory of it, and had NO duties other than “show up wearing a sequined salmon-colored dress and smile.” Which you can clearly see, I failed at the latter.

Can you also tell by that photo of me that I was TERRIFIED? Sadly, almost 20 years later, I don’t seem to be any less terrified by my involvement in this wedding…

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How being a bridesmaid in a wedding for two total strangers renewed my faith in humanity

My friends’ story has gone viral this week, as it should, because it’s an AWESOME story full of travel and love and two sweet people. But, of course, that also means that there has been some negativity. So to counter that negative energy, here’s the blog post I wrote about them that never got published. Now’s a good a time as any, right?

Lisa and Alex with Coco and me, their last-minute vampire bridesmaids. Photo by Bwright Photo

For a couple of weeks in October, my world was a whirlwind of wedding planning — emailing photographers, searching for venues, finding the perfect outfits, last-minute fittings, picking out the right shoes and accessories, figuring out transportation… you know, the usual wedding-time scramblings. I certainly wasn’t doing all this for MY wedding, nor was I busting my ass for one of my close friends, or even a photography client. I was doing it all for two total strangers.

Lisa Gant and Alex Pelling sold almost all their wordly goods and quite their jobs in Manchester, England to travel around the world for a couple of years, and getting married in every country. So far Lisa and Alex have been married in the UK, in Canada, in Hawaii, even in an airport, and are currently winding their way back to the US from South America. And all along the way they’ve been getting help from total strangers and friends alike.

But it’s really the way in which these weddings are being pulled off that is so incredible and — I mean this in a rare-for-me moment of total emotional sincerity — wonderfully life-affirming!

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These are as disturbing as I think they are, right?…

Could you imagine these creepy photo cupcakes at a wedding? I bet someone’s using ’em. Oh lordy are these baaaaaad. No wantey eat my friend’s facey.

I think the guy in the couple on the bottom left is whispering “can you believe someone thinks this is a good idea?”

The Girl Who Loved Free Range Fish Farming

Amy, Aaron and I held a late night meeting to compile a list of “hobbies” to give a wedding dj for Amy’s “bridal party announcement.”

Here, for your enjoyment is the list of “hobbies” that we came up with.

THE HOBBIES

bicentennial quilting
potato sack racing
ice sitting
limbo competitions
playing the castanets in the Tonight Show band
mushroom hunting
-making shadow puppets
-hang gliding
-candle stick making
-guessing people weight
-cutting things on the bias
skipping-it
-writing poems about children’s toys
preserving
origami
-Elvis impersonating
-making business cards
wittling
storm chasing
driftwood collecting
-top score for Gyromite
free range fish farming
tie dying
-cheese tasting
-runner up in the national lanyard making championship
guinea pig racing
pressing flowers
under water basket weaving
-Indian giving
-distilling vodka
-hair braiding
-mastering the pancake flip
-spelling bees
-compiling lists of palindromes
-bird enthusiast
-insect taxidermy

if you’re wondering which ones were read out loud by the dj- none. The bride made up a different announcement for this particular bridesmaid.


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