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).

Vendor Love - Enter my happy place.

I haven't really gotten burnt out wedding planning lately. One thing that's certainly helped is that things are coming together pretty well, and the high-stress stuff is done. Most recently, we got our invitations back from the printer and they look great. All that's left to do is print the envelopes tie ribbons around our cards and mail them. Things are really coming together. Right now we're trying to figure out our centerpieces and that's kind of driving me up the wall. I mean why on Earth should we have to spend so much thought about something so insignificant?! Nobody remembers the centerpieces unless they suck so much or are overly awesome. We don't have "overly awesome" money, so we just have to spend enough to make them not suck. It's a CROCK that we have to spend just enough money on them so they don't suck so they are forgettable. Thinking about this makes my blood begin to...not boil cause I'm not really THAT mad or concerned that it won't get done... but let's say simmer. My blood is simmering.

Whenever I start to get in one of these moods, I've figured out the remedy to get my blood back down to tepid: think about the vendors that we've committed to. I happen to LOVE our vendors and think that they are so passionate about what they do and they do what they love, that the excitement can't help but to rub off on me. Thinking about my vendors ultimately makes me happy about the wedding and makes me wish the wedding was less than 100 days away (can you believe it, 100 days!!!!). I've blogged about each of our vendors in the past but today as I was trying for a 4th time to complete a blog post about something else and kept getting frustrated, thinking about them put me in a happy place. SO, I just want to take a second to talk about them out loud.

The Cass House Inn: My love for our venue is no secret. The town it's in, the aesthetics of the grounds/building, the food, it's the whole package. Unbelievably the Cass House worked in our budget. Though it's a small trek from LA, I'm looking FORWARD to that. I really like it here in Los Angeles, but I'm excited that the wedding will not take place somewhere in town. I'm not making a dig on anyone that chooses to get married here, because look, there are some INCREDIBLE spots in town, I'm just saying that Cass House is Rebecca and me incarnated into a bed and breakfast. The owners put so much attention into every detail at the Cass House. They couldn't be cooler with the wedding and forming the wedding menu. So far, they've just been awesome. We'll get married on their lawn in their flower garden, then have our reception in their herb garden. It's going to be awesome. A smile on my face.

Callaway Gable Photography: Brian and Allison are geniuses. How cliche would it be of me to say a picture is worth a thousand words.... super cliche?.... okay... but guys, seriously - their wedding pictures aren't just photographs, they are art. The first conversation I had with Brian we clicked. He said something that kind of stuck with me about his photography - he said that a good wedding photograph will make you remember the moment with all of your senses. It's such a cool thought. If you can remember the smells and the tastes of a moment by looking at a picture, then your photographer has really done his/her job. Brian and his wife Allie are a phenomenal duo. Brian's work has appeared in countless magazines and he has such an incredible eye for composition. Allison first appeared on the cover of Teen Magazine when she was 13 and went on to have a very lucrative modeling career. It's for this reason that she knows the do's and don'ts of posing and making a couple look the best they possibly can - she also knows the best angles to capture a moment. The two work flawlessly together. They can do it all. Lastly - I just want to show you some recent engagement sessions pictures that they just posted!

DJ Evoke: I've told you about Samantha aka DJ Evoke a few times already, but she's totally great and I just wanted to talk about her a little more again. Even though a while ago she was preparing for her move from the LA/Beach area to San Francisco she managed to make time to get a mix to me. She wasn't thrilled with her mix because of technology/time constraints so instead of just shelving the whole mix project until she got settled up north, she somehow found the time to make an entire playlist of music for Rebecca and me. We listened to over 2 hours worth of music she sent to us on a car trip up to our venue. At the end of the playlist Rebecca and I both realized that she totally gets us. It was exactly what we want for our reception. I'll fill you in about Evoke from time to time, but I can already see that this is going to be an awesome collaboration between two bloggers! (in case you've forgotten Samantha is a wedding blogger and you can follow her on twitter too! @teambride).

With Bells On Productions: I never thought we would have wedding planners/coordinators. I figured it was a luxury that was just never going to happen. That's when a friend/coworker/honorary family member named Sissy swooped in and made my dreams come true. I've worked with Sissy (co-founder of "With Bells On") on and off for the last 5 years. She hired me on my first Los Angeles job fresh from college. Here are a couple of things I know about her: she's SO meticulous and has an eye for detail like no other human I've ever met, she knows what needs to be done on a minute-by-minute basis, she's got mad skills at planning parties, she's got an unparalleled passion for party planning & coordinating, and she keeps in excellent company with Rachael (the other co-founder of "With Bells On"). I can't tell you how much weight is off our shoulders knowing that "With Bells On" has our backs on our our wedding day. Just the fact that they'll make sure everything is happening and set up, and... I know you get it, but just know that this is probably another entire post about how great this is going to be to have them there.

I'm sorry if some of you think this post is a little infomercial-ish. But look, the way I see it, I've done so much homework for any of you that need excellent vendors but don't know where to turn. I'm telling you, just thinking about any/each of these guys makes me feel so much less stressed because I know we're covered. One of the best parts of wedding planning is just knowing that you don't have to worry about something on your day. You can just trust that it's going to get done and you don't have to think twice about it. Each one of these vendors has done that for me. This weekend we had a slight centerpiece fiasco (I'll blog ya about it later.... that was such a stupid way to say I'll post about it later) and I could have easily lost my shit... instead I put myself in my happy place and thought about how great everything is going to be with our vendors.

Oh, and a beer while lounging on our new outdoor furniture (wedding present from Rebecca's grandparents) is also my other new happy place. Who's coming over for drinks this weekend?