how long is too long?

if i had the money to hire a ridiculously high-priced wedding planner/event designer who could arrange every little detail for me -- and get me married in a month -- i'd do it. i've only been engaged for just over 5 months now and am already restless. sure, wedding planning is fun and has slowly taken over my life, but there's a huge part of me that simply wants to be married to the man i love so that we can start our lives together. patience is a virtue, i know, and i realize i should heed my own advice and savor every minute of our engagement. i guess i just have those moments where i'm so anxious for our lives to "officially" begin.

when we do tie the knot we would have been engaged for a year and 8 months. that's a lot of time to plan a wedding. a bit too long to be engaged, in my opinion. but, if you're trying to save up for your future, much time is needed.

on another note, i am happy to say that we were able to find our favors in the philippines! at a whopping P2.75 (that equals about $0.07 if i did my calculations correctly) apiece, our favors were a steal! needless to say, david was ecstatic. i don't even think he took a close look at the favors -- the price spoke for itself! (just kidding, david!) i'll post pictures once i put the favors all together. alone, they look quite cheap (hey, what can i say, they're from pinas!). but paired with some nice ribbon and filled with tiny goodies, they'll be a hit. one can only hope...

the evolution of a color palette

i wanted to generate a color palette from the photo that i found a couple nights ago so that i could have something concrete and visual to carry around with me and have for a reference when buying stuff for the wedding. so, i visited this site's palette generator and had them generate colors from the picture. it was a very simple process:

first, i uploaded the picture onto the website. the generator came up with these colors:



i liked what it came up with, but the generator left out the color green. so then i headed over to colourlovers and used their free program to come up with the exact colors i wanted. i had both windows open so that i could recreate the colors as closely as possible:


finally, after some tinkering and experimentation, i came up with the end result:





voila! so, what do you think? i think it's perfect. i think i can finally start making some concrete decisions when it comes to the wedding details. how exciting!

survival of the fittest

i wish i lived in ny. for this reason only:

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

that is insane. i think i'd want to go this route just so that i could say to my kids one day, "your mommy got her wedding dress by running with a bunch of crazy ladies!" haha...just kidding. i hear somewhere that the dresses that they have retail for up to $10,000 but are priced between $250-$600 at that particular store. that's a pretty hefty markdown, especially for those on a strict budget. i guess the craziness would be worth it, and the experience itself would be pretty cool.

the search has ended (for now...)

one of the first things i did when starting the wedding planning process was to try and pick colors for our wedding. it seemed like a logical starting point from which all other decisions would be made. so, i began my search on the web.

at first, i really wanted to have a black, white & _____ theme:

(image from Jennifer Skog)

(image from Miss Chickadee from Weddingbee)

then, when we decided to have our wedding take place in the summer, i thought that this might be a bit too dark for that time of year. furthermore, it may have set a "super-formal" tone for the wedding, which i didn't really want. it also didn't help that david, my mom and sister weren't really into the b&w thing.


i'm really drawn to blues and greens, so i started to search for ideas with that color combo. seeing as gray is to be the new chocolate brown for weddings, i thought that adding it into the blue and green mix would be a nice compromise to not having any b&w. it wasn't until today that i stumbled upon the following image while on the Weddingwire blog:




it was exactly what i was looking for! i was suuuper excited to finally find the perfect combination. now i just have to approve with the other half of d&d -- you know how into "colors" he really is! you would think that guys wouldn't care much for this stuff...but not david! :)

this in an S.O.S

CALLING ALL FRIENDS AND FAMILY!

one of our favorite photographers (we have many!), apertura, is holding a contest for a free engagement shoot! we really want to book these guys for our wedding, but they are super expensive -- and for good reason. their work is amazing. so, we have a favor to ask of you. if you find yourself bored on a rainy day within the next couple weeks or so, could you please send them a story/short essay and photo of david and i as an entry to their "blogstalkers unite" contest (click the link for details!). they're going to pick the best story/couple and announce the winner on their blog. we thought that enlisting the help of a few of our blog readers would fit perfectly with the theme of their contest.

the photo above and below can be found on their blog. aren't they stunning? so, would you consider helping us out? david and i would be eternally grateful. thanks, friends!

which one comes first?

the good life wedding '09 may be taking a very different turn soon.

for the past month or so, d&d have been discussing the option of taking advantage of the housing market and purchasing a home/condo. we have been driving around our area checking out some properties, and david has been doing some heavy internet research trying to find some good deals for us to begin our life together.

...which brings us to our dilemma. how exactly are we supposed to begin our lives -- with a home, or with our dream wedding?

almost everyone around us has been telling us that if they were in our position, they would purchase a home before getting married. being the somewhat "traditional" gal that i am, i always envisioned it being the other way around -- wedding first, then the house. because of the nature of the economy right now, i am beginning to change my mind about the whole thing.

of course, we always have the option of having a small, family only wedding (which may end up not being too "small" due to the size of our families), purchasing a home, and then having the big party a few years later. there's just something about having 2 weddings that doesn't appeal to me. at the same time, having a home with david seems pretty sweet, too.

david, who is always providing for everything that i need, told me last night that he's going to try to give me a wedding and a house by working his butt off and saving as much as he can. how lucky am i to have someone that would sacrifice his time and efforts to entertain my dreams? :)

so, we're slowly approaching the crossroads right now and will soon need to decide what road we will take to decide our future. until then i will continue my wedding planning and david will continue the house hunt. it'll be interesting to see where life is going to take us.