One of our favorites

I don't think I'll have a moment to post today, but I wanted to put something new on the blog. I thought I'd post one of our favorite pics from the reception. Rebecca loves this one because she thinks it just sums up the night. I think the look on her face is priceless. You can just tell how happy we are!

(photo courtesy of Callaway Gable Photography)

Ceremony a cappella?! A ca-hellyeah!

I can finally tell you about some of the little touches that made our wedding personal! Yes, I didn't tell you everything, and I'm sorry for that. You know I never want to keep anything from you baby... it's just, I didn't know who else was out there reading this blog. I didn't want my wedding invitees to know about all of our wedding details before they got there, and if one of them read my posts, well then, they'd all know everything. I hope you can trust me again one day.

The first wedding detail I want to tell you about is so cool. We had a college a cappella group at our wedding! They performed before the wedding, and then during the ceremony! It was AWESOME. People are still talking about it. It's something that I've wanted to tell you about for so long, but had to keep top secret.

A while ago Rebecca and I were talking about ceremony music. I was absolutely appalled when I saw how much money some musicians charge to come out and play for an hour (tops). When you weigh that against the price of a DJ that plays music for several hours, or even some wedding bands that play entire receptions, some of these ceremony musicians need to get off their high horses and charge a little less. You have to pick from a list of generic wedding music that they already know, and then if you want them to learn something special they charge you more money. It just seemed like a crazy expense that was an easy cut for someone on a budget. Additionally, I've never been a huge fan of conventional wedding music - ie the violins, the string quartet, etc. That's not to say that I don't enjoy it at other people's weddings - it just means I didn't really ever see it fitting into mine.

I've been to weddings where people had interesting musicians play their ceremony. A cousin of mine had a jazzy horn trio (that had a rocking tuba) and they were great. It was the first time that I really enjoyed the song "Stand by me". Her musicians stuck out cause they were awesome. It was a cool touch. Many people have the option of having a friend or a relative sit in as their musicians. I think that's a really cool idea - but it wasn't something that was an option for us.

So I thought about what type of music I would want during my reception. I wanted something fun. Something that people would enjoy while they waited for the ceremony to start, something that I would enjoy walking down the aisle to, and lastly something FUN to run back down the aisle to as man and wife! Unfortunately, and downright surprisingly, I never heard back from Ben Folds, so I had to cross him off my list and look to my backup plan. Ben DID, however, assist in helping me come up with the idea! A while ago, Ben released a cd of college a cappella groups singing a few of his songs. He hosted country wide auditions on his myspace and website. He asked college groups to send in versions of his songs.

I LOVE a cappella music. I think my love for it was conceived during my adolescence while watching "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" on television every afternoon. A group called Rockapella would sing us in and out of segments and then rock us out at the end of each episode. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that they were one of the first bands I typed into Napster years later when you could search for music to illegally download. I was shocked to find out that they had other songs... pop songs... classics... etc. It opened my eyes to a cappella. An a cappella group singing "No Diggity"?! Awesome. So, I love a cappella music.

Flash forward years later, and I'm searching for college a cappella groups to come sing at my wedding. It seemed like a natural fit to our relaxed, different, fun, wedding. Something that screamed us since Mrs. Temple of Groom loves a cappella as well (in fact, sorry Ben, but Rebecca listens to that a cappella cd in the car more than your original music sometimes!). So I listened to a cappella groups sing on their sites, and youtube, and sent emails out to the ones I loved. One of the groups I was most excited about was the first one to respond back to my email: Cloud 9 A Cappella from UCSC (University of California Santa Cruz). They were so excited, and very open to learning the new songs that I wanted for our ceremony.

I have to admit, hiring college students for something as important as my wedding day was a little unnerving. When I thought back to how reliable I probably was in college, and how SOBER I was in college, it scared me a little. But I have to say, Cloud9 was professional all the way. They delivered everything we asked for, and more. They set the tone for our guests. Everyone knew that they were in for a night that was going to be unlike any traditional wedding they'd ever been to. It was the PERFECT start to the day.

We told Cloud 9 that we didn't need them to sing lovey-dovey songs before the wedding. It's just not us, so we didn't require it. So Rebecca and I were happy to pick songs from their list of already performed music. For the pre-ceremony music we chose "Higher and Higher" by Jackie Wilson (you know it "your love, keep lifting me higher! Higher and higher", "Wonderboy" by Tenacious D, a mashup of "Kids" (MGMT) and "Poker Face" (Lady Gaga), and "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey. The sucky thing is that we didn't really get to hear the music! The group sang while we signed our ketubah (Jewish marriage documents), BUT we could hear our wedding guests going wild! When we lined up for the wedding ceremony, we could hear everyone getting into the music! They were LOVING it. Clapping after each song bobbing their heads, it was a success.

When the ceremony started I walked down the aisle to another song that they already knew, but I love, and was very appropriate: "Grow Old With You" by Adam Sandler from the movie "The Wedding Singer". The song is fun, light, and in a way, oddly romantic! When it's sung by live singers, it's classic and many people came up to me and said they loved the version even more than the original.

Then in one of the most moving moments of my life the group sang the first song we asked them to learn for Rebecca's entrance: "In My Life" by The Beatles. It was unbelievable. Not only do I think that it's an incredibly touching song when it was sung live, with feeling and heart, we just got so more than I ever expected. It was overwhelming. Yes, I think I probably cried a little bit. I do know for certain that I took a lot of deeeeep breathes because I literally was so excited and so overwhelmed by every emotion I forgot to breathe! Rebecca walked down the aisle, circled me 7 times (a conservative Jewish tradition), took my hand, and we walked underneath our chuppa (Jewish wedding canopy) to the lyrics "and I know I'll never lose affection, for people and things that went before. I know I'll often think about them, in my life I loved you more." and because these kids were so professional and came to our rehearsal, we were able to PERFECTLY time our entrance under the chuppa with the end of the song - when they re-sing the last line "in my life, I love you more". It sent chills down my spine. Even the first time we practiced it at our rehearsal, we knew we were in for something incredible. Something we didn't expect to be as moving as it was. I'm not afraid to tell you that I'm emotionally moved as I type this blog post! It was AWESOME. Below, listen to an mp3 of a practice session that Cloud 9 sent us a few months before the wedding. Keep in mind this is a practice session where they were first learning the song. Listen to it!


THEN, if that wasn't enough, Cloud 9 learned one last song for our wedding march back down the aisle: "Crazy In Love" by Beyonce! When they blasted the "horns" at the beginning of the song as we ran back up the aisle, it was AWESOME. We could hear them belting out their song from back inside of the house on the venue. There was SO much energy. Our guests stood and danced, and when the group ended you could hear everyone go crazy for them. It started the day on the right foot, it brought so much energy to the end of the ceremony that we carried on through the rest of the night. It was just US. We successfully injected a little of our personality into something that sometimes either gets overlooked. (Okay, not as much of our personality as the group of people that danced to Chris Brown down the aisle, but enough of our personality without making a youtube spectacle - Rebecca wouldn't allow it.....) Before they left, we were able to go thank the group but I don't think they'll realize how special it was to us. They were moved during the ceremony and the songs, and I think everyone else was too.

So there you have it, the first detail I kept from you guys. A college a cappella group as our ceremony musicians. Something I haven't seen before, and something I kept close to my chest. I can not endorse this idea enough. Lastly, here's a couple great pictures our photographers (Callaway Gable Photography) took of the group!

(visit Cloud 9's website to listen to their music and watch videos of past performances!)

My Photographers Could Beat Up Your Photographers!

Let me just say how extremely happy I am that we chose to go with Callaway Gable Photography as our wedding photographers. The way I see it, a good photograph will transport you back to the moment it was taken. You'll feel it with all of your senses. That's what Brian and Allie gave us. I can't say enough good things about these two. If you're serious about having photographs that you'll actually look at for a lifetime, artistic images, beautiful wedding shots, you need to add Callaway Gable to your contact list. At least give them a call and talk to Brian. Let them work out a package that best suits you. This goes so far beyond me saying "hey, I think I had a great wedding, and you should use my vendors". This falls into the category of, "Look, if you're someone that's looking for a photographer you can trust and with whom you'll feel absolutely comfortable - I've done your homework." Prior to our engagement session, Rebecca and I had probably about 2 nice pictures together that we liked. I'm telling you, the two of us never thought we photograph well, and when we try to take a picture together it usually looks mediocre at best. We figured that in our wedding pictures we'd look fairly awkward and posed. I was completely afraid that we would never look like a wedding couple. Instead, two kids playing dress up. Callaway Gable proved us wrong. While they both have the eye it takes to be a photographer, Allie really knows the right poses to highlight your best features. We looked like ADULTS. We looked like models. And most importantly, we had a blast. Brian and Allie were EVERYWHERE and yet they felt like they were nowhere. They were complete pros. Again, if you don't at least contact them then I have to assume you aren't really serious about your wedding photography needs.

I've decided not to do one massive photography post, but also to mix in their pictures throughout all of my wedding recap posts. Any picture you see was taken by them. I figure instead of just telling you about wedding details, I'll show them to you!

I feel like Brian and Allie drove up the coast not only to shoot our wedding, but to be with us as well. Over the last year and half, these two became our friends. In fact, the first time I called Brian to inquire about our wedding photography I was on my way to Vegas for a friend's bachelor party. We spent roughly an hour on the phone talking about wedding photography, my blog, what we wanted out of our pictures, and about life in general. I have to admit, before the call I questioned why Brian couldn't just correspond over email, but AFTER the phone call I was so happy that we spoke. It made me realize that Brian wanted to know me as a person instead of just an email address. We became friends. I instantly trusted him, and knew that he was a wedding photographer because he loves the work, he loves weddings, he loves LOVE. A work done by a vendor that has such a passion for what he/she is doing is always going to be better than the work by a vendor that is doing it for a paycheck. I felt Callaway Gable was perfect. They aren't photographers that pigeon hole themselves into one style. So many photographers I was looking at either did that "photo journalistic" approach OR traditional photography. The way I would describe their work is a casual approach to high fashion images. On their blog they call it "New Fashioned Wedding Photography" I like that a lot... it's basically capturing life the most beautiful way possible...

Brian and Allie got to our venue and immediately started casing the joint... they walked around and got a lay of the land and you could get a sense that without even having taken one picture - they knew every shot they were going to get that day. I didn't have one of those "I hope they do well" or "I hope they take a picture of..." moments, because I knew we were in good hands. I'm sorry - I know I'm rambling on and on about them, but in a moment you'll see why.... Brian and Allie came to me before I started getting ready for the day and chatted for a while. Just about cool details I had planned for the day and about how excited we were. Then they said they'd been driving around town for about 30 minutes and found incredible spots (fields, barns, etc) and if I was up for it, they'd like to go off site to do our wedding portraits. I was down because I knew if they thought it was cool - we'd love it. They went and asked Rebecca. She was game because it took her mind off of being nervous and anxious before the wedding! Below are the incredible images of us getting ready for the day, our first look, and our pre wedding portraits. Later I'll post pictures when I talk about specific parts of the day (ie, when I talk about the ceremony I'm going to post Callaway Gable ceremony pictures, when I talk about the awesome dance party that the reception turned into, I'll post Callaway Gable reception pictures....).

Before I Was Spoken For...

I'd like to think that we were pretty damn prepared. The week before the wedding I continuously emailed our coordinator (With Bells On Productions) and asked her what we were forgetting. We did well... we were on it. For some reason though that seemed to stress me out even more. I was stressed that I was leaving something out, and spending restless nights trying to think about what I was forgetting seemed to be my business leading up to the wedding.

The week before the wedding we had family come to town. They all stayed with us. All together 10 people at our house for the few days leading up to the wedding. Family that had never even met one another, living in close quarters. We went 0 to 60 QUICKLY. Thank God we each have friendly families, because that could have been bad. MRS. Temple of Groom's family was the first to arrive to our house, then my family filtered in. Reality quickly set in that the wedding was coming. Mistakenly I figured that the days leading up to the wedding would be filled with lounging and relaxation - feeling more like when we go back home for the holidays and less like a hurricane of wedding related content.

We decided to have a huge bbq for extended family that was in LA at our house 3 days before the wedding. With the help of our families we pulled it off, and it was a very nice night. Looking back though I kinda have to ask ourselves if we're gluttons for punishment! We could have spent that night relaxing with our families...but it was their first time with one another - it called for celebration. Additionally one last large detail that needed to be planned - our parents really wanted us to turn the guest house at the Cass House Inn (where we got married) into a hospitality suite. The night before the wedding, we had a meet & greet and invited anyone that was already in Cayucos to come have a bite to eat, have a drink or two (or 5), and hang out with my family. Also, they bought enough alcohol to stock in the suite so anyone that wanted to party after the wedding reception was over, could filter in and get his/her drink on - This proved to be a LOT of work for our families. Well all the work was worth it, the meet & greet the night before the reception such a nice evening and a way for our families to meet one another. Maybe planning two huge parties before the wedding was not the best idea - but it was the first time we had our entire family together - so it just seemed like we should take advantage of that fact.

Rebecca and I did a good job organizing everything we needed for the wedding into our storage room, but when you added all the hospitality suite necessities to the mix, it was overwhelming! So much stuff. Luckily my sister-in-law brought her boyfriend who was trying to make a good impression on the family and seems like an overall workhorse was "happy" to do the heavy lifting when it came to loading the car! While I wouldn't do anything differently if I got to relive the week over again, I do wish that there had been time for our family to just be with one another and relax a little bit. Rebecca and I were getting no sleep due to the wedding jitters and spending the nights on the couch. It was making for a pretty stressful week even though we had everything under control. That's the worst part of weddings. They are more stress than just about anything and you tend to take your stress out on loved ones. At least they understand.... it just sucks. The whole thing is so backwards - your family comes to town BEFORE the wedding, and you want to scream because you've got so much to do - then you have the wedding and it's perfect, then when you're so relaxed and calm, the family leaves. It seems so backwards. Our families left right when we were ready to just veg out and enjoy them! Alas, that's not how things work out - and it's a good thing that they are family and can understand we're just at our wits end w/ stress.

The night before the wedding I actually slept pretty well. I'm not sure if that's because I had my own room, with a bed, instead of the couch, or if it was because I knew that everything I worked SO hard for over the last year and a half was about to pay off in a major way. It was so weird to say goodnight to Rebecca and then leave her in her own room. I like the fact that not sleeping with one another the night before the wedding and not seeing one another before the festivities start builds anticipation, but it's just so weird to be apart before such a monumental occasion. Before bed I considered writing my last blog post as a single man, but i just decided to take in the moment. So many people have given me the advice to relax and try to take in everything because it will blow by so quickly. So that's what I did. I laid in bed by myself and just relaxed. There was not one nerve coursing through my veins that was nervous about marrying Rebecca. Instead I was nervous/excited to see what the day would look like. For a year and a half we spent so much time working on each individual detail of the wedding - it became hard to step back and see the big picture. I was so anxious to see what the entire day was going to look like. Would the details that we'd come up with really going to pay off, and would our guests think they were as cool as we did? I couldn't WAIT to see everything and everyone come together. It almost felt like it was never going to happen. I feared that something wouldn't go as planned. It's been my experience, with most events, that there's bound to be a hiccup somewhere. Murphy's Law rears its ugly head somewhere and things don't go exactly as planned.... what would that detail be that didn't pan out? Right before bed I took one last stroll outside around the grounds of the Cass House. I walked down the lawn where we'd be married, and around to the opposite side of the house where our reception would be. The calm before the storm. A chilly central California coast night. I was glad that we upped the amount of heaters we needed. That walk around the house got me so excited, and made me realize that no matter what - if Murphy's Law bites us in the ass, everything will still be okay - we will still get married, and that's the most important element of the day.

I'm Married!

I haven't posted anything for a while. My last post was so long ago that I'm a completely different man than my previous posting self.... Now I am MR. Temple of Groom. That's right. I'm MARRIED! What an awesome whirlwind the last few weeks have been. What an incredible release of stress. I can't wait to tell you everything. Ceremony details, things I learned, etc etc... I think this week will be filled with blog posts!

There's so much to cover. I can now give you details to things I didn't want to talk about on the blog, which wound up being a smart decision. I quickly realized that more of my invited guests read my blog than I originally thought. The fact that I broadcasted that I was going to wear converse shoes with my suit caused more confusion with my male invitees than it should have. "We know that the invitation says 'cocktail attire' but we also know that David plans to wear converse with his suit, does this mean we can wear t-shirts?" I'm slightly exaggerating, but it did cause issues. SO, I left out a lot of my wedding details with the knowledge that soon after the wedding happened I would post about them. And it will keep me blogging for a little while.

I'm trying to think of the best plan of attack to post everything....do I do one huge post about the wedding, do I post about things in chronological order?

For now, I just want to post that I'm married. It was the best day of my life. Everything was so perfect. The day was flawless. The day couldn't have been more catered to Rebecca and me.... god, I wish we could do it all over again.

Bubble Boy

The wedding is officially "THIS WEEKEND". You have no idea how in-fucking-sane that feels to say that. I'm getting exponentially more excited as each day passes, but at the same time I'm getting exponentially more scared.

It's definitely not nerves or cold feet - I'm scared that I'm going to either physically or cosmetically fuck myself up before the wedding. By the way, I'm totally writing this blog post as I wear a crest white strip on my teeth. I have 27 more minutes to finish up before I have to go take this off.

People, I'm downright nervous to leave the house. Every time someone cuts me off on the freeway I ask myself if this is the asshole that's going to ruin me for my wedding. I keep waiting for that giant underground zit that I get on my nose from time to time to rear its ugly face. So, I wash my face thoroughly... but can I overwash my face? I'm scared of that too.

I've been taking a vitamin that my parents got me a few months ago called Purple Defense. I have no idea what's in it, and for all I know it could probably just be crushed up kool aid powder - but honestly it helped me fight off a sore throat last week. I haven't gotten my annual cold yet this year. When I get a cold, I get a fucking cold. I do it right. I'm anticipating getting one on friday and it scares the shit out of me.

A few weeks ago I planned my bachelor party. I will post more about that later this week, but basically I rounded up about 20 of my friends on a saturday morning and we played flag football on a high school football field. Oddly enough I wasn't really scared that I would hurt myself there because it would be TOO perfect. Of course the groom that schedules a football game when he's lost 85% of his athleticism would get hurt at the party... it was just too perfect so I actually wasn't scared. BUT you can bet your ass I was afraid running down the stairs of my house to leave for the game. A trip and a fall because I was too excited to go play ball seems like it would be perfectly fitting. Side note, the game was fun and I couldn't move for a week because my muscles were so sore, but it was great.

Lastly I'm completely fearful to go outside without a proper SPF because I do burn pretty easily. That's what I want, my face to be peeling the morning of my wedding. On the complete other side of the spectrum I'm nervous to stay IN the house because my white pasty face can and will only get pastier... there's no way to win here. I guess the only way to win is to stay inside and then get someone to come in and fake tan me! You think I'm joking but I'm completely serious. I recently had a conversation with Chris from The Man Registry about tanning. He said that while he doesn't want to out any of his friends, he's known quite a few guys that have tanned before the wedding. I think it's a pretty solid idea. I'm worried about looking orange, but I think I've found someone incredible that could potentially do a great job. Her name is Jenna and she runs a company called Here Comes the Sun. The name is worth hiring her alone. She'll come to the house so I don't have to be seen sneaking in and out of a tanning salon. I'm really considering this because she PROMISES me it'll be completely natural. A few weeks ago she tanned the wedding party of a wedding I attended, and they all looked natural.

SO, all that being said, I'm kind of ready to purchase a giant bubble, a hazmat suit, or ANYTHING else that will shield me away from society for the next week. I refuse to touch shopping carts with my bare hands, and prior to eating food from any restaurant, I think I'm going to need to talk with the cooks to make sure they aren't, haven't been, or getting sick. I'm seriously freaked out. Is this normal before the wedding?

Comment away. I'm going to go take off my crest white strip and I'll be back to see if you all think I'm crazy.

What to do?

I've got so many damn things to post about. Just a few days away from the wedding I don't have any shortage of things to talk about. So many awesome great things to type and the excitement is really setting in.

That being said, I need to get something off my chest because right now I'm really upset. One of my all time best friends just wrote me an email telling me he's not coming to my wedding. Thanks for the 6 days of notice. He says he's just got budget issues right now and can't afford to come out here. That would have been a great and fine excuse had it come 2 months ago when our invitations were sent. I definitely understand and empathize. However, all this tells me is that he obviously had no intentions to come if he's looking to score cheap airfare a week before the wedding. Of course it won't fit in your budget if you're just planning the trip now!

My question to you, is do I write him an email to let him know how I really feel? Tell him how upset this makes me, or do I just swallow this, and type back something along the lines of "okay, we'll miss you"? I keep going back and forth in my head. On one hand what will an email really telling him I'm upset accomplish? He'll feel bad, will I feel better? Is it worth it? On the other hand, what he did isn't okay, and he should know, right? I just don't know what to do. This really sucks that I have to even think about this a few days before the wedding.

What should I do?

Let There Be Cake

Okay, I'm a hypocrite. At least I can admit that though. If you've been a blog follower of mine for a while now, you'll know what I'm talking about.

That's right, we are having a wedding cake. HOWEVER, it's only a cake for us to cut into. All this being said, let me get defensive for a moment. We are on a very tight budget. We literally had to turn pennies into dimes. I say literally because for the last year and a half in my basement I've been working on a machine that turns pennies into dimes. See the big stores only have pens that check if a $100 bill is fake, but they don't have pens that check our dimes! Of COURSE we get odd looks from our vendors when we pay for everything in dimes, and yes, a couple of them have called us out that the dimes are a weird coppery silver color and don't have a real shape to them, and YES I may have drawn Roosevelt's face with crayon on top of Lincoln, but results are results. We're getting married in 9 days and it's all thanks to my penny pincher (which is a trademarked name).

Oh my god, what am I typing? Wedding stress has gotten the best of me. Oh, right, cakes. Okay so yes, we're on a budget and the main reason Rebecca and I weren't big on cake is because there's usually a big budgetary concern that comes with having a cake. Not only is the cake expensive, and rightfully so for some of these awesome works of art, but also, sometimes the wedding venue slams you with fees such as cake cutting fees, bringing in cake from outside vendor fees, etc etc.

That being said Rebecca and I definitely wanted some sort of desert to feed one another. A macaroon is a favorite of hers, so that would work, a tartlet, anything. It just didn't matter. But, at our last meeting with our venue, as we were working out our wedding menu the issue of cake came up. They asked us if we wanted a cake, just something small to cut into. We said no, that we'd rather have other desserts. Then they said a magical word that changed everything, "free". That leveled the playing field. I realize that there won't be enough cake to go round. Not everyone is going to get a slice. But you know what?.... fine! I'm okay with that. We've got plenty of other incredible desserts that will be on that table, and people will be happy. Rebecca and I aren't deny ourselves to partake in one of the most typical wedding traditions there is. I wouldn't have been devastated or even saddened if we didn't get cake, but I can admit that it's really nice that we'll get to cut a cake and feed it to one another. Of course it won't be as grand and artistic as if we went to a genuine wedding cake artist (Fantasy Frostings) but it will be perfect for us.

What an excuse!

As of our RSVP by date (June 20th) we were missing answers from about 30% of our guest list. I'm not sure if that's normal or not. I've only planned one wedding before so I'm a little new to this. Maybe it's because our wedding is a destination wedding to about 50% of our guest list and some are still on the fence about trekking out here? At any rate I started emailing a few people who I knew I most likely wasn't going to hear from unless I emailed them. I had a pretty good feeling about each person I emailed, but it's always good to get something in writing so we can start to finish this wedding planning! (I know it's TOTALLY unrealistic, but it'd be great to just be done with everything so we can relax for a few weeks before the wedding... does that ever happen?)

So I emailed one of my friends, and the answer I got back as to why he hadn't yet RSVP-ed was not a complete surprise (based on everything I know about him), but was probably the most appalling/great excuse I've heard. There's definitely a group of guys that I'm worried about putting near an open bar, but at the end of the day it's going to spell fun. Here's his excuse:

"I was drunk at my house and Stacie goes "fill this out now and send it" and then I was like fine and then made a bunch of rude, crass and unfunny jokes all over it. Like "food preference: fresh poon" and then Elizabeth and Stacie were like,

"That's pretty ballsy considering their parents will probably see it" and I was like hell yeah I'm a badass!

And then I woke up the next day and threw it away so it would never accidentally get sent because I don't know what my drunk self was thinking.

I'm coming to the wedding."

The unfortunate thing is had he been sober in the morning, he would have seen the envelope was addressed to US, not our parents.

At the end of the day Rebecca and I realized that since we're having a family style dinner w/ each table getting a meat, veggie, and fish option that putting a spot on the RSVP that said "Dietary Restrictions: _____" was a tad unnecessary. I didn't know it would lend us to getting answers like "Fresh Poon". However, while I'm on that subject, it's just speculation, but if that is indeed where he wrote on our RSVP, does that mean that he CAN'T eat that and only prefers stale? Okay, I'll stop - this is a wedding blog... class it up Dave...

Not just a videographer!

Scratch another major item off of our wedding checklist. A few weeks ago we hired a videographer for our wedding! Daniel Boswell joins the Temple! Welcome to the family! Calling Daniel a wedding videographer doesn't even scrape the surface, or enlighten you as to how talented the guy is. His videos are cinematic! I really want to introduce him to you all.

When I was a kid, my dad was always the one with multiple cameras strapped around his neck. He had multiple regular photograph cameras as well as video camcorders. Every milestone, play, sporting event, birthday, etc etc was captured onto video. Recently, after watching many home videos, I realized how special they are to me, and how important they are to have. I just watched a video of myself at 3 years old holding my baby sister for the first time asking my mom if she had a vagina - then laughing. A memory that would have been lost forever had it not been captured on tape. Photographs are extremely important, and to me, video is equally important as well.

Saying all of that, when we first started our wedding planning a good videographer was absolutely something in which we wanted to invest. However, as we've been planning and searching for a videographer we watched our budget dwindle. Soon we realized we didn't have two pennies to rub together and videography was starting to look unrealistic. I know this isn't an option for everyone, but because I live in Los Angeles and have friends that shoot behind the scenes footage for DVDs, I turned to them. I figured I'd get two guys to come shoot the wedding then give me all of the footage and in my "free time" I'd edit our wedding video together. When we started factoring in all of the expenses of getting these shooters to the wedding it seemed just as expensive as hiring actual wedding videographers. I also researched buying lots of FlipHD cams, having friends shoot the wedding, loading all the footage to a hard drive, wipe them clean, then returning the cameras to Walmart. I was just too worried the cameras would get damaged, or lost, and I really worried about video quality and sound quality as well. It seemed to be a lost cause and a black day for Temple of Groom.

That was until I saw a video of Daniel's work. Watch it, then keep reading:

Um, what? Wedding videography can look like that? Seriously? I have to have this. It's so important to me. I HAVE to have this. I. Have. To. Have. This. After watching this video twice, getting chills and choked up watching the wedding of TWO STRANGERS, I decided to do some research. Surely this is extremely out of my budget.
When I got to Daniel's website I realized something very innovative and incredible - the video posted above is not something that Boswell took home edited over a couple weeks and sent the newlywed couple - it's something that he shot on the day of the wedding and EDITED on the day of the wedding and projected AT the freaking wedding! Two shooters (Daniel included) come to the wedding and capture everything up until the cocktail hour. Then while the other shooter continues filming everything, Daniel sneaks away and edits all of the footage. It's called his cinema reale package. Unbelievable.
So Rebecca and I reevaluated our budget and moved some things around in hopes that we could hire Daniel. We crossed some things off... x's and o's... DIYed a couple more things.... did the math... crunched numbers... carried the 1 - then emailed Daniel a hail mary "please let this work" email.
He called back shortly after. The impression I got from him immediately is that he, like our other vendors, is extremely passionate about his work. He does it, because he loves it - not because the wedding industry is a great place to make money, but because he genuinely loves the rush he gets from shooting, editing, and watching everyone's joyful faces as they watch his work. It's so special. Then, unbelievably, as if the wedding hand of God touched our phone conversation, Daniel's rate fit into our modest budget. It was, perhaps, one of the happiest moments I've had during this whole planning process.
If you're looking for a special wedding video, look no further.
PS. If you'd like to see the video of me holding my new baby sister - get your friends to follow Temple of Groom! If I get 7 more followers to subscribe to the feed on the left side of the page - I'll post the video.

My Gift to Ben the Groom

This weekend a fellow groom blogger is tying the knot: Ben the Groom. First and foremost, congrats to one of our blogging brothers! I think this is the first groom blogger I've seen get married off since I started blogging!

Ben is faced with a dilemma that in less than 2 months time I'll have to figure out myself: where do groom bloggers go once married?! Hopefully Ben will stick around long enough to show us pictures of his wedding and fill us in on everything he learned from the wedding!

I figured that I would get something for Ben... my gift..... the gift of song. (click play on the youtube video then read my lyrics starting at :15 along with the music).

"Ben the Husband" in the key of "Ben" by the Jackson 5

Ben, we hope that you will blog some more

You finally reached what you were posting for

Grooms can sometimes feel alone,

The Knot won't throw us a bone.

But you, my friend, helped me

you were my Wedding Bee. (you were my Wedding Bee)

Ben, you're always posting everywhere,

about what guys should wear as underwear.

If I'm ever in a bind

and don't know where to find

Your posts, one thing I know

You're twitter's where I'll go (you're tweeting all the time)

I used to say - wedding industry

never had, guys like me.

But I was wrong, obviously

Now it's "us", now it's "we"

Ben, most people would turn you away

People don't listen to a word grooms say,

Tweens don't tweet half as much as you

making weddings work for you

I'm sure you'll post again

as a husband blogger Ben

DIY? Ok, np!

This weekend we saw a major DIY win at the Temple of Groom household. Very exciting when one of these diy projects actually works as planned.

We finally crossed the escort card board off our list. Not going to lie, Rebecca did most of this project, but I was there when we bought everything and I'd like to think I helped out a lot.

Saturday morning was spent at Michael's getting our ketubah put on stretchers and wandering through the aisles for a few hours. One of the larger items on our to-do list is the escort card board.

Obligatory rant: Okay look, I get that there needs to be escort cards, or some sort of cards that tell everyone where they should sit. I just think it's one of those things that we easily start to stress about. Oooh, what's a cool way to tell people where to sit? Look, I love all the little details as much as the next guy, strike that, MORE than the next guy - because I have a wedding blog and the "next guy" doesn't. It just seems like one of those details now where we have to think about what we're going to do, and make it look nice and presentable, because if we DON'T have it, mass chaos ensues. And you know what, I will say this, I wasn't incredibly helpful during the planning stages of our escort card board. Instead of having a definitive idea, and executing it, Rebecca shot so many ideas my way. And you know what? I liked them all. They were all fine. It was something I just wanted to get done, and I didn't really care what the finished product was: cute little paper chairs with people's names printed on them, just printed out little cards, etc etc etc... It was something that I said, and I admit this goes against the nature of my blog, "If you like it, I'm totally behind you". That being said, I do love the end result.

So here's what we got:

Michael's: 18x24 picture frame (50% off!), magnets, small paper flowers, spray paint, chalkboard spray paint

Home Depot: large piece of sheet metal

When we got home I fixed the pool shed roof that I fell through a couple months ago and Rebecca started spray painting the picture frame a high gloss white. Then she cut sheet metal down to 18x24 and sprayed it with chalkboard paint.

I came in with an 18x24 piece of plywood that we mounted the sheet metal onto and then fit it into the frame! "We" made an awesome framed magnetic chalkboard. Then Rebecca took the small paper flowers glued them onto the magnets. Once we have our guest list finalized and our seating charts done, I'll print names out on small pieces of paper and we'll use the flower magnets to put them on the chalkboard.

Sure we could have bought something exactly like this online w/o having to spend a day working on it, but we have such a connection to this damn chalk board now! It's great. At the end of the day we did save money too. We love it. We'll hang it in our kitchen when the wedding is over. Who would have thought, I'd love an escort board?

It's just nice to have a DIY win!

Did you miss me?!

Wow. It's just been a completely insane couple weeks for me, and unfortunately the blog suffered. I apologize! Let me fill you in on what's going on.

SO, let's start with all things wedding. Each wedding bullet point I've got to tell you guys about deserves its own blog post, but I'm being realistic and know I may not get to write 10 more posts this week. SO, I'm going to briefly tell you about a lot of stuff with hopes of elaborating later. I really promise to blog more.

I am less than two months away from making an honest woman out of Rebecca! I can't believe that. We've had a longer engagement than anyone I know, and I can't believe it's coming to an end. I'm extremely ready for it to come to an end. I can't stress that enough - I'm just ready for this wedding to happen! I know it's cliche to say, "it'll be here before you know it!" but that's totally what happened. I guess things are cliche for a reason.

The RSVPs were rolling in about a month ago, then they mysteriously stopped. We now only get one every other day! The RSVP by date is this Monday and we're still waiting for 41 responses! Not really sure what people are waiting for. Maybe they feel bad RSVP-ing no? We're missing responses for nearly 30% of our guest list! Did this happen to anyone else?

We booked a videographer and he's fucking incredible! He's an addition to the wedding I'm extremely excited about and I can't wait to tell you all about him. He will get his own blog post no matter what. BUT, just a spoiler - his name is Daniel Boswell and he's ridiculously talented.

The latest big project I've been working on is a DIY photo booth(ish) station at our wedding for our guestbook. It's a pretty ambitious project. The pictures will be taken with my computer's camera. This is something I'll definitely post about - but basically I've got a program on my mac that all the guest has to do is enter his/her name and it takes 3 continuous pictures, formats them, and sends them to a small little portable printer! Our hopes are that guests will take their pictures, sign them (write notes on the print outs), then put them into a little metal birdcage we bought that will serve as our guestbook! Right now I'm just researching feasible ideas for backdrops (do I even need one?) and little photo table lights because our reception is outdoors at night. I've got my bar mitzvah guestbook and I don't think I've ever looked at it, but if I had photo booth pictures of my guests I think it'll be something I like to look back on. More on this idea to come.

I tried on my suit the other night and I fit in my suit pants! I've lost 20 pounds since I went on my "I will never forgive myself if I'm this fat for my wedding" exercise/diet regiment. That was a big victory. I've got two ties that I'm trying to decide between. I may wear one for the ceremony and one for the reception because one is more casual than the other. I think I'll post pictures of them both and ask for your help. To-do post #3! I've gotta go get my suit altered a bit - that's something kind of big on my list right now.

Rebecca spray painted a ton of these mini ceramic birds to accompany our centerpieces. They look pretty awesome. I'll post a picture soon. We just need to figure out what to fill our big vases with. Rocks? Sand? those little jewel things?

We've been adding songs onto our "To Play" and "Do Not Play" dj lists. This is pretty fun. Thank you google docs. It's an immediate hotline to our DJ (DJ Evoke AKA TeamBride). She's been awesome. We have a meeting tonight with our coordinator who I'm sure will remind us of about 600 things that need to be done before the wedding. That should be fun.

Now, onto my regular life.... I started a new job last week. It's awesome. I just realized I've never talked about work on my blog. For the last few years I've assisted a film/tv director named David Wain. He was on the 90's comedy show The State and directed one of my favorite movies "Wet Hot American Summer". I got a job with him a few years ago on the movie "Role Models" and have been with him ever since. For the last 1/2 a year though I had to take another job because he wasn't working on anything major. Last week I finally got the call to work on his next movie "Wanderlust" which will star Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston and is being produced by Judd Apatow. I'm extremely happy about the new job. It's been extremely busy though. David and his writing partner Ken Marino have let me sit in on writing sessions, and meetings, and rehearsals, and it's just given me so much self worth again. I'm really enjoying it.

Now for the chaotic part - I'm going to have to move for a while. Last week we thought I was going to have to pack up and move on Monday to prep this movie in NYC. I would leave - fly back to LA for my wedding in August - then immediately turn around and fly to Georgia where we'll shoot the movie. It definitely freaks me out to move before the wedding, but I'm happy to do it for this job. The move is definitely still up in the air and could likely happen, so I don't want to breathe a sigh of relief yet.

SO, every free second I've got has been trying to cram things in before I leave, IF I leave and spending some time with Rebecca and the pup because we'll definitely be apart for at least the last quarter of the year.

Oh, and I had a birthday! I turned 28. I cooked a big 9lb pork shoulder cuban style with rice and black beans! It was incredible. I drank the entire day, and it was just perfect. Rebecca and I got wasted and tried to out-embarrass one another in front of our friends. Chris, from The Man Registry, was there and I'm a little surprised that he spared me from a comment or a tweet about something I said or did. I think that was probably his birthday gift to me, and a delicious 6 pack of Fat Tire.

Which reminds me, I'm knee deep in my wedding beer tasting "research" and it's going very well. I let a few friends taste some beer options on my birthday and all were well received.

Man, this post just made me realize that I need to get back posting. I have so much to talk about. I've missed blogging, but hopefully you understand!

Glad to be back(ish).

Four Weddings, One Angry Blogger

*Spoiler Alert - many words in this post will probably be in CAPS*

Usually I like just about anything on TV. I watch everything from the critically acclaimed Emmy winners to the guilty pleasure reality shows (c'mon Rehab at the Hard Rock.. best show ever... anyone with me?). About 9 times out of 10 I can find something redeemable about any show I'm watching. I just love television.

That's how I felt until this last Saturday when Rebecca and I watched TLC's "Four Weddings". In-fucking-furiating! When I think about that show.... show.... make.... David.... ANGRY!!!!!!! MUST PUNCH SOMETHING. (breathing into paper bag so I can write the rest of this blog....)

For those of you that aren't familiar with this show, allow me to tell you about it. Actually let me give you an unbiased description of the show. According to TLC, "Four Weddings" is a show in which "Four brides have agreed to attend- and score- each other's weddings. They'll be judging the food, dresses, venues and overall experiences. The bride whose wedding rates the best wins a fabulous five-star honeymoon."

Wow, well reading the description this sounds pretty good, right? At one point or another we've all gone to weddings and silently judged them to ourselves... not for prizes, but sure, we've left and said, "Gosh, it was a beautiful day, but the prime rib was SO bad!". Even though not to one another's face like "Four Weddings", that is judging... so this show, in theory, should be great.

Then I watched it.

First of all the major flaw of the show is that they pitted a woman that had a $15k wedding against a woman that had an $80k wedding. Look, I'm not saying that the woman with a 15k wedding can't win and can't have the best wedding in the world because look, my wedding is WAY WAY WAY closer to that amount than to 80k and I think we could easily be planning the best wedding in the world, BUUUUUUUT come on, this is not a very level playing field. I'll get back to the monetary discrepancies in a bit because the other problem I had with this show were the women on it. Oh my god, did I DESPISE the women on this show and the terrible things they would say about one another's happiest day ever. Their fucking FAKE friendships they had with one another, their over the top judgements, their "I'm on TV I should wear my emotions on my sleeve, and their "if I'm not having fun I should look like I'm being tortured" attitudes. These women were so fake and so unfair I couldn't believe it. The woman that had a $45k wedding had a SPREAD for her cocktail hour: many different food selections, lobster, etc etc etc. But because the woman that had a $15k wedding had a much more modest cocktail hour she OBVIOUSLY didn't try hard enough. What bullshit. Look, I will say this, in defense of the women (I can't believe I'm defending them) the bride that had the cheapest wedding really could have stretched her dollar further. She had no entertainment for her guests, there was no dancing, the food didn't look very appetizing, the wedding looked bland. And if you're in a competition where I'm forced to judge you, then your wedding lacked. But you know what, when you go to this woman's wedding, you can look a little happier. It's a few effing hours, you don't need to sit there acting like it's dental work. Some people wear their emotions on their faces and can't fake excitement - it's so immature. A few women on this show fit that category. I wish I could have shaken these ladies and told them that the bride didn't REALLY want you at her wedding. She wanted the chance to win an awesome honeymoon (the episode I saw it was a great trip to Bora Bora). There were most likely guests the bride had to cut from her invite list....legitimate family and/or friends that were were on the bubble, so she could accommodate three absolute STRANGERS for a chance to win a great honeymoon. The least you could do is blend in instead of sticking out as a woman nobody else knows TEXTING AT A GOD DAMNED WEDDING CEREMONY. (counting backwards from 100 so I can complete this blog post)

If I've laid out reasons 1 and 1a why I hate this show, here is reason 1ab (because I hate everything about it EQUALLY): the women refuse to accept any cultural differences! Like I mentioned before one woman was TEXTING during another bride's ceremony because "the whole ceremony was in a different language and therefore completely boring and according to her, they should have hired someone to translate." Um, REALLY? You're an adult. You can't enjoy experiencing a wedding that is culturally different than yours? You can't take ANYTHING out of a new experience? Furthermore she bagged on the bride's religion saying that she would never set foot in that denomination's church again because the ceremony was too long and if she was ever invited to another wedding of that faith, she'd skip it and only attend the reception. The bride then gave her rival a low score for her "long, boring, different language" ceremony. Later in the show, at another bride's reception she surprised everyone with a huge band of bagpipers, drummers, and authentic Irish dancers. It was a great personal touch and an excellent surprise for wedding guests. It was a pretty awesome experience for everyone EXCEPT for one of the rival brides! This woman complained that the performance wasn't appropriate for a wedding and not everyone likes bagpipes. Oh REALLY? Hey fuckface, you had STEEL DRUMMERS at your wedding and everyone went with the flow. I know that it's still a competition so you want to diminish your rivals' accomplishments, but at the end of the day this is their WEDDING. It's personal. You are a guest. Temper your judgements.

On that note here comes reason 1abc I hated this show. The women took it beyond judging the wedding. They started judging one another. One woman didn't like another woman's dress because it still showed her tattoos. Look (expletive) the other bride is different than you are! She has tattoos and even if you don't like them, SHE does. If she had worn a gown that covered all of her tattoos you would have complained that she was wearing a burka. One of the women was a bit older than the other three and her wedding was shit on because "the guests seemed a little on the older side, so there wasn't much dancing". I'm blind with anger.

If this show's aspiration is to give an immediate gut punch to a bride who thought everyone enjoyed her wedding then it succeeded with flying colors. I know that the person with the lowest point total at the end of the day claims, "I wouldn't have changed a single thing about my wedding" but she's going home thinking that 3 people truly didn't enjoy her wedding, and if THOSE 3 didn't like her wedding at all, who else didn't? That's horrible! I know she signed up for that abuse.... but nobody deserves that. I've seen how hard this wedding planning is, and how time and energy consuming it is and that's not fair to do to anyone... well maybe to the woman who lost because her wedding WAS the worst. OH GOD! It's rubbing off on me... I'm becoming horrible.

At the end the show they crowned their victor and it just reinforced everything I absolutely knew I hated about it:

1st Place Winner budget: $80k

2nd Place Budget: $45k

3rd Place Budget: $30k

4th Place Budget: $15k

Fuck you TLC. If you're going to have such a large monetary disparity maybe go the extra mile and find women that don't think the only way to have a successful wedding is to have a culturally bland wedding with a raw bar, live band, and a princess ball gown. It's extremely possible to have a $10k wedding outshine a $75k wedding so maybe do some leg work and talk to brides who are doing work to make the day special despite having a small budget. I'm a firm believer in the fact that a backyard wedding can be as magnificent as a black tie formal ballroom wedding. How bout trying to enforce that TLC? Additionally I'm not casting judgement on people that can afford big budget weddings! I'm fine with a big budget grand wedding too! They are great, and I love to attend them. I just think they should maybe have women that all spent $60-$80k go against one another instead of continuously beating the small budget wedding every episode (Rebecca commented that she's seen the person that spent the most win the other times she's seen the show).

One last note before I hit "publish". This is something I don't usually do. When I talk about someone, I usually make it as anonymous as I possibly can. This time I've decided differently. Nadine, I sincerely hope that you are into googling yourself. I hope that you do a search for "Nadine, Four Weddings, Blog" just to see if anyone has commented on your wedding. You ragged on 3 other women who had only nice things to say about your wedding. You were terrible. I hope you read this.

Anyone else ever seen this show? Anyone else have as many issues with it as I do?

Kudos, Ladies!

One thing I've learned the last year or so wedding planning is that this stuff is EXHAUSTING. It's all encompassing and completely consumes your life. As soon as one task is crossed off the list, the joke is on you because it only gives way to hundreds of other new tasks. It's the most wonderful exciting vicious cycle of to-do's that I've ever seen. Of course it culminates with a glorious day tailor made to everything you love, but for most, that day doesn't come easily.

It's for this reason that I really want to say thank you to all of you, and especially to the bride-to-be bloggers. I honestly don't know how you do it. Rebecca manages to look at EVERY single wedding item posted on the internet and then somehow also finds time to cross things off our wedding checklist. You all blog continuously and yet when I check my twitter feed you've managed to comment and retweet and joke amongst yourselves all while planning. Again, I don't know how you do it. You post new content when you can't find content about which you want to share your opinion. And you do this all while you're planning a WEDDING. It's unfathomable to me how you accomplish this.

When I see a time-dependent task approaching on my wedding checklist I tend to take the "all hands on deck" approach to make sure that it gets done. Somehow you take the "all hand on deck" approach, but unbelievably another hand comes out from under your shirt and you blog about the task, multiple ideas for the task, ways you would maybe do the task differently next time, an eco-friendly way to do the task, a DIY way to do the task, a budget-friendly way to do the task, tweet it, follow people on follow friday, and then craft a 3-armed shirt for sale on etsy. I don't know how you do it. You somehow make blogging a full time job while you have full time jobs, and still find time to wedding plan which is absolutely a full time job. I don't even want to delve into doing guest posts on other sites, because that shit just isn't human.

At the end of a long day of wedding planning all I want to do is collapse on the couch with a beer that I'm "taste testing for the wedding" and turn off the wedding-planning thoughts in my head. I just want to tune out for an evening and relax. The next day, or at the end of the week, I'll come up with a cutesy tweet or post apologizing for my lack of posting and I'll let you know what I've been planning with Rebecca. In the time it took me to enjoy those first sips of my beer on my night off you gals have already found a new engagement session, commented on it, and then posted opinions on making your engagement session personal to you.

Look, I don't want to sell myself short. I've crafted a wedding blog that I hope is entertaining, and I like to think that where I lack in pure quantity I thrive in quality. I really have enjoyed planning the wedding with Rebecca. I am definitely more involved in wedding planning than anyone I know...but I haven't given her enough credit. I don't have the excel spreadsheets, and the crazy to-do lists like she does.... like most of you have... I just am here helping plan every step of the way which I think is pretty damn good. Comparatively.... it's a start.

I exist to give you all a fresh take on wedding planning, and I really do hope that my blog somehow inspires guys to lend a helping hand. It's not a "gay thing" (as I imagine guys see it) to want to help plan, and I hope that this blog helps them realize it. The last year has really just opened my eyes to the fact that WE should be that third arm poking out of the etsy shirt hole. There are more guys wedding blogging than ever before, which I think is really cool. A site like The Man Registry churns out wedding content daily and is something that never existed before. I'd like to think more men are getting involved because of sites like it and the grooms blogs like you see in my blog roll. I feel like we're revolutionizing the way wedding planning is going to happen in the future. I can only imagine more and more wedding blogs popping up soon. I'd love to think that the men in my blog role are the forefathers of bearing some of the wedding planning load.

Anyway, in the past few days that I've taken a breather from my blog it's just become completely apparent to me that you women are not human. It's unreal. As suck-up as this post sounds, something needed to be said. Thanks for the help - Rebecca, the wedding bloggers out there, and even to the countless women who just READ wedding blogs because I know you're reading them ALL and planning as well. If you take time to read groom blogs, you're helping the groom revolution thrive. Support us, and we'll support you! Your daughters will walk hand-in-hand with wedding planning grooms.

Gocco for Sale!

I really hate to use my blog to sell something, but right now we could REALLY use the money for wedding budget help! A few weeks ago I told you about my experience with the Gocco and why I decided not to use this awesome looking Japanese screen printer. I finally took an inventory of everything I've got and I thought I would post it on the site.

SO... here we go. I bought this very lightly used Gocco PG-5 straight from Japan. It has not been used by me and is basically immaculate. I have a lot of extras to sell with the Gocco as well as everything that comes in the original box. I promise you won't find a complete package like this anywhere else on the internet right now as the Gocco and its accessories have become hard to find. Here's what I've got:

(1) Gocco PG-5 + original items that come with it in the package (Riso pen, manuals, template books, vhs instructional video, ink blocker, positioning sheet)

(6) Screens

(22) Bulbs

(32) Tubes of ink in various colors. As far as I can tell there are only a few that have been used. Nearly all of them are unused and in their original boxes. Many different colors. (email me if you want to know about a particular color)

I really want to sell this as a package and don't really want to sell off parts. I'm worried that I'll have a harder time selling off the odds & ends that you don't want.

Email me if you're interested and we can talk about pricing. To give you a heads up of what I'm thinking regarding price - the base model with a few extras sells for around $250 right now. I'm not looking to make money off any of you, I'm going to jack up the price on my craigslist listing, but if anyone in the wedding community wants this I'll just sell it to you for the amount I spent on it.

Email me if you're interested: templeofgroom [at] gmail dot com

Please forward along to anyone you think may be interested!