Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Romance Novel Save The Date

A friend of mine sent her save the date to me a few weeks ago, and from the moment I saw it I knew I had to put it on the blog. It's kind of the best save the date I've ever seen. The delay in posting it was only caused by my pure jealousy that I didn't think of doing this first AND because I wanted to give it a few weeks before it totally dwarfed my Facebook inspired std.

SO, without further ado: Adrienne & John's romance novel save the date! Below you'll see their faces photoshopped onto an incredible romance novel cover they found. Excellent photoshop work!

(click the awesomeness to enlarge it!)

Apparently John proposed via text message. I've been told it's a long story! One of these days I'll make her tell it to me, but on top of wedding planning she's also planning a cross country move! Btw, I blurred out their website address because after you see how awesome their save the date is, I know a lot of you are going to want to see what their wedding is like. Can't wait to see the pictures. Good luck Adrienne!

Friday, March 26, 2010

Need a band? Call your Synagogue!

I can already feel it - these guys are gonna blow UP! Maybe we should have asked our Temple if they have a house band we could hire. Orthodox Jewish band covering Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" at a wedding of Shia and Perry. (Love how they incorporate the names into the song)

Well I've always heard, Ain't no party like a Hassidic Jewish party cause a Hassidic Jewish party don't STOP (unless it starts on Friday morning in which case it does stop for shabbat)! Oh man, I have like a million of these! Leave your best Orthodox Jewish band covering Lady Gaga jokes in the comments below.

Damn, one more, I can't stop: Wow, I know Lady Gaga loves shocking us with her wardrobe, but really, putting on a beard, yarmulke, and peyas is a little anti-semtic.

Now I'm done. Enjoy the video.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Tracking my "over-it" level but getting excited!

Have any of you hit the point where you start to doubt or second guess everything you've planned for your wedding? That was me several weeks ago. Maybe it's the fact that we're most likely going to exceed our budget, or that I feel like we're just working our butts to the bone planning and stressing, or maybe it's just run of the mill general second guessing that comes from contractually agreeing to many different people that it's hard to see the big picture! Anyway, I hit the wedding wall. My "over-it level" was at about 90%.

One thing that helped me get exciting again was a visit to our wedding venue - Cass House Inn. A few weeks ago Rebecca and I drove up the California coast to our wedding venue for the day. We needed to see our reception area for some measurements, have a food tasting, and look for rental vendors (for tables, chairs, linens, etc). Over-it level 92%.

When we got to the small town where we're getting married it immediately made me feel like we'd made the right choice in venue. The town is so peaceful and it just helped mellow me out. I could hear myself think. I could hear the ocean. It was so nice. Over-it level 76%.

Even though I'm on a diet (probably something else that's contributing to my hostility and irritation) we walked over to the Brown Butter Cookie Company. We've decided that we're not having a cake at our wedding for dessert. If you actively follow the blog, that won't be a surprise to you, but if you don't - let me fill you in quickly about my decision - cake is completely overrated, the end. So our venue is going to make small bite size desserts. You go over, you pop a truffle in your mouth, you have a glug of wine, and you get back to dancing. Sounds awesome. Well, Rebecca and I found this cookie company next to our wedding venue that makes some of the best cookies I've ever had in my life. They're made with brown butter, and sea salt. They're awesome. We decided to work with the 2 sisters that own the cookie shop, and in addition to the desserts our venue will make, we're also giving out cookies. I like sweets, sure, maybe not as much as people that would call themselves chocoholics or people that need a sweet fix, but I'm telling you, these cookies kind of make my knees buckle they're so good. Over-it level 53%.

Rebecca and I met with the owners of our venue, and they are just so easy going and cool. The chef (one of the owners) came out and talked to us quickly about our wedding dinner menu. He can basically do anything we want. He just needs a few keywords to go by, or needs to know what we like/dislike - needed to know who we are, etc. SO, we just told him that we've been going to the farmer's markets lately. So we're kind of on this whole eat fresh, eat local kick. He and his wife smiled and let us know that that's exactly what they're about. We told him we're also adventurous and while we will have many people at our venue that aren't we do want to introduce unconventional wedding ingredients to the menu. We were talking about small passed appetizers and the chef said "Pizza from our wood fire oven, but how about we do a duck and caramelized onion with brie and a balsamic reduction?" Um... Over-it level 39%.

After our meeting we had to drive about 25 minutes to the rental company that our venue suggested. Before we hit the road though we swung by our favorite sandwich spot in town. We ordered some sandwiches for the road. Ruddell's Smokehouse is a small sandwich shack that makes the most amazing smoked fish sandwiches I've ever had. I desperately want to buy sandwiches or tacos for everyone coming to the wedding the night before the big day, it just unfortunately doesn't fit into the budget. Sad. The sandwiches are awesome. I had to pull over to shove mine down my throat because the windy mountain roads weren't easy to navigate while trying to eat a Smoked Albacore sandwich. Plus I wanted to savor the sandwich. Delicious. Over-it level 22%.

We had our meeting at the rental company. It went well, but I quickly realized this is going to slam our budget. Damn it; over-it level 28%. The woman at the company couldn't have been nicer. I think I just underestimated how much goes into weddings. I think I just underestimated how much this stuff costs. Stuff sounds so cheap when you say it's only 45 cents per plate, but then when you multiply it in your head and then add it to the list of other stuff you need... damn it. Over-it level 31%. Again I want to reiterate that the company we may use couldn't be nicer. She's working with us... it's just AHHHHHH!!!!!!! FUUUUUUUUCK!!!!! (sorry, I really try not to curse on the blog because I don't know how you guys feel about it... but seriously... fuck... ) That felt pretty good. COME ON though... lights are so much more expensive than I thought they were. We're not having flowers.... lights are cheaper... right?! Yes, but still super expensive?!?!? DAMN it. This fork vs. that fork... round table vs. straight. It's so much to think about. The company couldn't have made it easier, but I just realized that there's so much to planning that I hadn't even thought of. Over-it level 34%.

I got back in the car... over-it level still relatively low compared to where I had been at the beginning of the day! Immediately I ate a cookie. Over-it level 30%. Lights and forks? What lights and forks. Me want cookie.

To cap off the day Rebecca and I headed back to our venue to do a dinner/tasting. Since the chef doesn't have a set wedding menu and will really work with us to make whatever we want, our venue doesn't do a conventional wedding tasting. IE here's your meat option, here's your chicken option, here's are your appetizer options. So we did dinner, and they also hooked us up with wine pairings so we can see how they roll w/ their food & beverage smarts.

GOOD GOD the food was awesome. I won't completely bore you with course by course details, but holy eff the food was good. They started us with an amuse bouche (amuse the mouth, a small little bite to start the meal) that was a king crab fritter on some type of aoli sauce with a piece of parsley on top. WOW. So that's how you do things here, huh? Over-it level 22%. Then we had about 5 courses, each one better than the last. My steak was unbelievable. Perhaps one of the best steak dishes I've ever had. It was perfection. I can easily be a self proclaimed foodie snob when it comes to food so I'm not just giving props to our venue because we've put a non-refundable deposit down. Over-it level 12%. The wine pairings... oh man... all of these wines were very very good but then once you began eating the dish the wine was paired with its flavor transformed. It made them GREAT. The food and beverage just worked so harmoniously together. 5 glasses later: over-it level 3%. I decided that it was probably smart to have some coffee for the trip home. French press (see post below) awesomeness.... over-it level 1%.

As I walked to the car to head back to Los Angeles, I really felt so great about every decision we've made so far. What a great feeling. You know what? Before we hit the road, let me go back into our venue and go to the bathroom real quickly.... oh man, even their SOAP is awesome.

Over-it level 0%.

Monday, March 22, 2010

TEMPLE OF GROOM - GIVEAWAY!

- GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED -
STAY TUNED TO THE BLOG FOR MORE GIVEAWAYS!

I've been a little nonexistent in the blogesphere the last couple weeks (did I really just use the word blogesphere?) so I wanted to do something a little special for my return!

I'm pleased to announce the first giveaway on my site! Very much thanks to a company called CSN Stores for hooking up one lucky follower of my blog. CSN has over 200 stores on the web that sell: kids bedding, furniture, cookware, barware, etc. Basically everything. If you want it, CSN Stores sells it.

One lucky Temple of Groom follower will win this awesome 5 Piece Primula French Press Coffee Set.
I'm telling you right now as I type this at 2pm on a Monday that I wish I had this coffee set in front of me right now. Daddy's day is draggin!

To enter you must do 2 of the following 3 things by noon on Friday (3/26):
1. Become a follower of the blog (click the "follow" button on the left side of the page under "Become a Temple of Groom Follower")
2. Leave 1 comment on any post in the blog!
3. Email templeofgroom@gmail.com - it doesn't have to say anything in the email - I just want to be sure I have a way to contact you! BUT if you want to say something in the email, it would make my day because I don't have caffeine to keep me awake.

Randomly one person will be picked and will win.

Good luck!

UPDATE: Congrats to the winner of the giveaway: Dana! Thanks to everyone that entered. I'll hopefully have another giveaway and you'll win that one, I promise.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Time Flies!

Exactly one year ago right NOW I was on top of a mountain (Masada) in Israel. Crouching down on one knee, ring in hand. It was the best day ever. Our first day in the last week w/o rain (who knew it rained in Israel?!), and our first day after our bronchitis had started to clear. God said, "Let their be light so this poor fool can propose to his girlfriend".


An entire year has gone by? That's nuts to me. It feels like it was yesterday. Each day in Israel thinking that would be the day I would propose, but the moment never presented itself. Now a year later and we're in the homestretch of our wedding planning process. So much has happened this year that I'm truly thankful for. Our engagement, our pup Ernie, our house, this blog, our family and friends, anyone that reads this blog, etc. etc etc. It's just been an overall great year. So many great blessings. The best part is that we are about to get MARRIED this year, so it's not like things are dwindling down and going to get any less exciting any time soon.

I know this post isn't quite what you all have grown accustomed to on my blog, but I thought it was necessary!