Reaching Centerpiece Peace

As I'm guessing any reading this are avid wedding blog readers, you know that centerpieces can often break the bank. When Rebecca and I were planning our wedding we'd spend time figuring out our budget and things we wanted to spend money on, then go bang our heads into the wall when we realized that we forgot to budget for centerpieces. If there's one business I'd now like to get into, it's the centerpiece business. Centerpiece business owners should probably just go ahead and read a different post because this isn't going to pretty.

So, let's think of a business model. What's something that people don't really care about all that much, but feel obligated to spend tons of money on? What's something that people don't REALLY know the cost of so we can just say it's SUPER expensive? What's something we can get for cheap, but can mark up 1000%? What's something that people could most likely do themselves, but once they really think about doing it themselves they'll say "meh, let's just pay someone else to worry about this!"? CENTERPIECES! Let's do this! We'll make a killing!

I reached inner centerpiece peace during a conversation with Rebecca. A moment of clarity during our planning. If you're looking to save a buck you only have to spend enough to make your centerpieces forgettable. We'll never be able to afford enough to make guests go home and say "damn those were beautiful elegant centerpieces" - so we just wanted to spend enough to make guests go home without saying "damn those were the stupidest/ugliest centerpieces". Just make them forgettable! That being said, I think we came up with great centerpieces, that would be classy, nice, and perhaps just 1 notch up from unforgettable.

We quickly decided not to have flowers arrangements. It was just not in our budget. We could go to the flower market and get wholesale flowers, but we questioned if they'd survive a 4 hour drive the day before the wedding and if they'd really look fresh. Plus we questioned if we'd want to actually arrange the flowers. We were lucky enough to be married in a garden, and then have our dinner/reception in an outdoor area surrounded by flowers and fresh herbs. We didn't need to spend the money on the flowers. We decided that we wanted to decorate with light. I just think there's something nice about a candle, especially at an outdoor wedding.

We went out and we found affordable glass vases and candles. Rebecca found awesome ceramic birds at a great price, and spray painted them to give them the vintage feel. Then we hit ebay and found vintage photo frames that Rebecca spruced up with high gloss yellow spray paint. Did I forget to tell you guys that I'm married to Banksy? So much spray painting before the wedding!

Our final centerpiece arrangement I think was a masterpiece. I think it was exactly what we wanted. Something pretty, casually chic, with a pop of diy. The vases were ultimately a bit beautifully forgettable, but we made our centerpieces memorable by our guests by injecting some of ourselves into the table. The birds and the picture frames that had our table numbers, which were funny pictures of our puppy. He couldn't be at our wedding, so we wanted him there somehow. Here are some pictures of our tables:

Lastly, I just want to mention that our centerpieces are now for sale! We've sold the birds, but everything else is still available. We have 12 large vases (I think they are like 20" tall), 33 smaller bubble looking vases, and 8 picture frames. Email me if you want prices! Let us help you reach CenterPEACE-of-Mind!

Our Wedding Video

If you frequent my blog, you've most likely read about our videographer, Daniel Boswell. Allow me to once more get on my soapbox and shout out how badass I think this guy is. I know that posts get tired and old where you hear the writer say over and over again that you need to hire his/her vendor cause they are the best - but, seriously, you need to hire Daniel Boswell. The guy is brilliant. I'll let his work back me up - but stick around for my thoughts after the video because I'll explain to you that this was SHOWN at the freakin wedding reception.

Pretty awesome, right? Let me tell you a little bit about the process of the man that Rebecca and I would refer to as "The Boz".
Daniel and his team of 2 other shooters got to our wedding as Rebecca and I were getting ready. They were so quiet and so professional that they just blended right in. Getting ready in front of them felt natural. Rebecca told me that she even asked "When do you think the videographers are going to get here?" and they were already there shooting video! It allowed us to get ready naturally. So Daniel and his shooters film as we get, ready, we have our 1st look, we have pictures taken, we sign the ketubah, we get married, we cocktail hour, then our first dance. That's all the usual. Here's where the incredibly awesome part kicks in.... Daniel has his 2 shooters continue to cover the wedding reception while he hauls ass and edits the footage from earlier in the day. He's like a mad scientist in his lab, importing footage, editing, etc. In the time that it takes most to import a photo of their dog sneezing to upload to youtube, The Boz has already imported and edited together footage up until our 1st look. The guy is a machine.
About half way into the ceremony while we're cutting our cake, Daniel is on the dance floor setting up a projector and screen.
(remember: wedding photos taken by Callaway Gable Photography)
All our guests gathered around and watched the 4 minute video of footage they didn't see throughout the day. The awesome thing about Daniel Boswell's work is that our guests really enjoyed watching it. Even though they JUST saw us get married and have our first dance, they were still captivated by the video. They hadn't seen our 1st look, or the getting ready footage, so it was something new to them as well. I was worried that it would maybe be that cliche "Wanna see slides of our vacation" scenario - but it totally wasn't.

Friends that work in the film industry were baffled at how great the video was and how quickly it was put together. I think that they liked the video not only for content, but also for the fashion in which it was created. Family members were completely moved. Everyone loved it. WE loved it. Chris Easter from The Man Registry was at our wedding and can back up how awesome it was. "I actually was shocked when the video started playing and I realized it was the wedding that had JUST HAPPENED. Somebody give this guy an Oscar for editing on the fly!"
From day 1 I've said that the most important thing is to pick vendors that truly love the work. Vendors that aren't doing it for a paycheck, but do it because they are passionate about weddings, or the service that they provide. This rings true with Daniel. He enjoys the thrill of meeting the deadline - having to get things done in such a hurry. If you don't understand how impressive this is I'll tell you, it usually takes HOURS for someone to even load footage into a computer to edit. Additionally, once you get it into the computer, looking for shots and organizing footage can be an all day event. I'm just saying, it's fucking impressive, okay?
Anyway - that's our Same Day Edit wedding video! More wedding details to come!
BTW, if you're interested in hiring Daniel, please visit his website: http://imagiqueweddings.com/

Where the hell have I been?!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I'm back. Wow. Hi guys. I owe you an apology. I went out for some milk and eggs, and I just never came back. No explanation. No card. I just vanished. By the way, when a person really does leave like that, why does it always seem like he/she's going out for milk? I don't drink milk, so I don't know if it's something about that beverage or not, but it always seems like on those shows when someone talks about their husband leading a double life, he always goes out to get milk and disappears. Anyway.... life has really been crazy the past 1/2 a year, let me fill you in.

As you know, I got married! Sunday, August 8th Rebecca and I became Mr & Mrs. Temple of Groom. It's a long last name, but it's a family name, so she was happy to take it. Monday morning our families took a tour of the Hearst Castle since we were married only 30 minutes away. Then we drove back down to LA. One by one our family members flew back to their respective homes and by Wednesday Rebecca and I were alone in a quiet house with our pup. (note to our families: I'm not saying that we were happy to be alone, just commenting that by Wednesday every one of our house guests had left.) Rebecca and I gave ourselves one day of pure and utter crash on the couch bliss and the next day we went to Disneyland. Which has become our ritual prior to me having to leave town..... which is what I had to do one day later.

Sunday morning Rebecca drove me to the airport and I flew to Georgia for the next 3.5 months to work on a film production. One reason I didn't really say too much about that was I didn't want to publicize that I was away and left my new wife home alone... I know I can trust you guys... but something about broadcasting that I was away didn't seem like a wise choice. I've seen one too many stories about online predators scouring Wedding Blogs and it scared me. Anyway - my new married life was put on hold for a little while.

My days in Atlanta, then 2 hours outside of Atlanta in the middle of nowhere, and then back in Atlanta were chaotic. I was working 16-18 hour days, 6-7 days a week, then falling asleep on the phone w/ Rebecca for the last half an hour of my day. The job was incredible though. Such a great experience. I was promoted. I was honored to help out creatively. I was working with the greatest people. Although exhausted, it was rewarding. I'll fill you in a little bit about the project. Did you see the movie "Role Models" with Paul Rudd and Stiffler? My boss (David Wain) directed that movie and that was our first project together. Throughout the years we've worked on other projects together, but this current project was his next big movie. It will be called "Wanderlust" and will star Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston. One of the movie's producers is Judd Apatow, so this film not only gave me the opportunity to meet him, but also to work with him. So I spent about 6 weeks in the middle of nowhere Georgia working with David Wain, Ken Marino, Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston, Alan Alda, Justin Theroux, Malin Ackerman, Lauren Ambrose, Kathryn Hahn, Joe Lo Truglio, Kerri Kenny, etc etc etc. I drank actual moonshine and I ate fried food all day every day (which is something that I totally deprived myself of leading up to the wedding). Ate at Chick-Fil-A as many times as I could. A delicacy for the Eastern transplants to Los Angeles (yes I know we finally have one or two open...)

ANYWAY, right before Thanksgiving I got back to LA. It's been wonderful. Rebecca and I had a very quiet Thanksgiving together which is exactly what we wanted. We made a small turkey and all the accoutrements and it was great. THEN about a week later, and this is pretty funny...Our place got broken into. After I proactively didn't say that I was out of town for the very reason of not tipping people off, I get back, and our place gets broken into! We see the humor in it now. Burglars made off with my computer, a plasma tv, earrings, a bag of mine containing a bunch of my things, etc etc etc....all material items that are replaceable. Funny though, when I called Rebecca to tell her that our place has been broken into and I didn't know what all was missing yet, she immediately started to panic that our brand new wedding gift Kitchen Aid mixer was surely gone. She cracks me up. Yes, the thieves couldn't wait to get their damn hands on our mixer. They don't know EXACTLY what they'll use it for, but they're just so cool looking that they had to get it on their counter at home. I'm happy to say, the mixer was not stolen. At the end of the day we're better off because now we have a killer state of the art security system.

SO, that brings us to the Holidays. We had a great quiet Holiday at home. I know that sounds boring to most, but I spent so long being away from home and just exhausted myself so much that being home and doing nothing is perfect. New Years Eve we made a great dinner for one another and rang in the new year with our new favorite cocktail. If you like Root Beer do yourself a favor and buy a bottle of ROOT. Long story short, pre-prohibition people drank Root Tea which was a blend of teas and herbs and alcohol. Prohibition happened and they stripped the alcohol from Root Tea, carbonated it, and then oddly renamed it "Root Beer". ROOT is just pre-prohibition Root Beer. SO, you take 2 ounces of ROOT and mix it with 2 ounces of Cream Soda and you have one killer cocktail.

SO, that pretty much takes us to the present. That's where I've been and what I've been up to! I'm going to start blogging again. I took time off, but hopefully you understand why. I still have lots to talk about. I never fully finished telling you about my wedding. This will be great though, I get to relive it now - 5 months later - through talking to you about it.

It's good to be back!