Wedding Pictures!

Our wedding photos are officially on their way! I got these shots from Quan today.. Thought you might like to see them. :)

Light and Love.

“In the presence of the light and love of family and friends, I take thee to be my beloved, promising to be a loving and faithful partner. I ask you to be none other than yourself. I promise to cherish and delight in your spirit and individuality, to face life’s challenges with patience and humor, to respect our differences and to nurture our growth. This commitment is made in love, kept in faith, lived in hope, and made eternally new."

Photo by Quan D Nguyen

Bread!

I simply cannot get over how amazing and cool bread machines are! We received a Zojirushi bread machine and we are in love.


How could you not fall in love with something that makes things as delicious as this?



We bought a bunch of boxes for our favors for the reception and we ended up running out of room in our suitcases. Val had his heart set on using them, so I felt like a jerk telling him I wasn't going to bring them along.

So while I was setting up the machine for our fourth loaf, I had an idea.



Homemade bread mix!

My Indesign class was cancelled today, so I decided to practice on the program by making simple labels to dress up my bread boxes. Four whole wheat, four white. And Val will get to see his cherished boxes on a daily basis now. What better way to celebrate them?

Married!

We did it! We're married!!

We celebrated our 5th year anniversary of the day we met by being married while surrounded by 16 of our friends and family. It was such an incredible and beautiful day, and words simply cannot describe how lucky and elated I feel to be part of the Vanderschaegen clan!

So what's next for this page? Well, I'll be expanding it. This will evolve to become our household adventures blog. But for the time being, we'll try to squeeze in all of the little details of our wedding while it's still fresh in our minds.

A huge thank you to all of our friends and family for the tremendous amount of well-wishes and the joy and love you have given us.

Basic Time Schedule

And a Quick Summary:

12pm San Francisco City Hall
1:30pm: Lovejoy's Tea Room
7pm: Hornblower Dinner Cruise (Pier 3, San Fran)

Hotels!

Apparently there is a WhiskyFest in San Francisco on October 16.

This can cause me to:

A) Panic
*or*
B) Pretend that the rest of the world wants to celebrate our union.

Either way, hotel rooms might be booking up.

Here's a list of hotels that are close (<1mile) to the City Hall:

Hotel Whitcomb
An Historic San Francisco Hotel - more info
1231 Market St, San Francisco, CA‎ - (415) 626-8000‎

Embassy Hotel‎
610 Polk St, San Francisco, CA‎ - (415) 673-1404‎

Phoenix Hotel
601 Eddy St, San Francisco, CA‎ - (415) 776-1380

Hotel Monaco‎
501 Geary St, San Francisco, CA‎ - (415) 292-0100‎

Keep in mind that I've never stayed in San Francisco, so your guess is as good as mine when it comes to how lovely these places will be. They look pretty cool, especially Hotel Monaco and the Phoenix Hotel.

If you're keen on reviews, I would suggest looking up a particular hotel on Yelp.com.

And if you want/need a map to see the locations of these places, click here.

If you need any help at all, send us an email. We're working on transportation issues as well, and we'll keep you posted as soon as we get more details.

Prehistoric Love:

Introducing my first Flash movie. Also known as "Why your invitations are late."



As soon as this quarter is over, I swear I'll have more time for this whole wedding thing.

A Dash of Life in General

Life has been a bit hectic lately. I had the amazing opportunity to go back to school full-time, so I seized that opportunity by the horns. I figure that we only live once, and I couldn't bear the thought of spending another 6 months at the bank. I truly love my coworkers, they're great people and I consider some of them my closest friends. Sadly, the job wasn't the right fit for me. I need a bit of creativity, something a bit more technical, something that I could really throw myself in and grow as a person.

Working at a bank isn't a bad gig. Great hours, amazing benefits, and an exceptional chance to meet incredible people. But after 3 1/2 years, I had no intention of making it a career. The mechanisms of the job itself became dull and opportunities lackluster.

I am forever grateful that I have found a partner and companion that could see that I was struggling with the day-to-day. And it is such a blessing that he was willing to let me take a chance on a new life for us.

So now I'm halfway through my first full-time quarter at Lake Washington Technical College. The quarter has been intense, I can feel my rusty synapses coming back to life. Plus I'm creating things that I'm proud of on a daily basis. You can't really ask more of life than that!

Where to go!

Our Wedding Day: The Preview

Our wedding day will consist of three parts: The Ceremony, The Reception, and the Dessert.

We will be getting married in the San Francisco City Hall, an impressive and gorgeous building that has agreed to give us free reign of their northern gallery. The ceremony itself will be a civil ceremony that should last an excruciating 10-15 minutes. We have twisted the arm of the amazing photographer Quan Nguyen to photograph our wedding, ensuring that those fleeting 15 minutes will stay etched in our memories for all time.

Afterward, we will be ushering our beautiful friends and family to our tea reception at Lovejoy's Tea Room. It will be a menu of scones and crumpets, with smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches (and if that doesn't suit you, you'll have 15 other selections to choose from) and of course, wedding cake!

And if the tea reception just wasn't enough for you, and you would like to spend some time admiring the beauty of San Francisco Bay, please consider joining us for the dinner cruise. We'll spend three hours drifting along the bay, enjoying the view of the Golden Gate Bridge while spending time with the ones we love.

It's been a while!

Wow, has time flown by! I've been a little distracted by the craziness that is work, and Val is working mandatory seven day work weeks. I haven't had much time to work on this wedding planning thing, and truth be told, I haven't even wanted to.

After much thought, we've decided to call everything we've planned thus far off.

And I have never felt so liberated!

So the new (and much improved plan!) is a courthouse wedding. In San Francisco. In five months.

Cake!

So my lovely coworker and friend had a birthday on Wednesday. I figured I'd practice my cake baking mojo in honor of her birthday. And hey, a girl's got to get all the practice she can before the big day, right?



Behold my strawberry confection! It has 4 layers, two white, two pink. The filling is strawberry buttercream. The tiers were stacked alternately, and then frosted with a stiff buttercream layer. I then covered it with a marshmallow fondant.



It was a tremendous amount of sugar. We were all buzzing around the bank like bees drenched in mead. I was really thrilled that it turned out okay- Jess seemed to really like it!

Hair!

I've been growing my hair out deliberately to please the husband-to-be. For some reason he seems to adore long locks. I needed a change. My hair was ridiculously long and gross, so I decided to do something about it.
,br>

I love blond hair.. Sadly, the blond I love is a brilliant, bright blond. My natural color is a dark blond, and I was so tired of being an ash, almost gray blond. It's a discouraging color. There's enough gray from the weather in Seattle. I do not want to look in the mirror and be reminded of how drab the climate is here!





So I booked an appointment on Thursday after reviewing some lovely pictures of strawberry blond beauties. I saved some of the pictures to take to the stylist, but really didn't think my complexion could handle reddish hair.





To my surprise, the stylist (Judy from Salon Zeka) was very encouraging, and she custom formulated a hair color that would look decent with my skin tone. And Voila! I am no longer an ugly drab dishwater blond, and am now a vibrant strawberry blond.





Val is happy because I kept the length. I am happy because I'm no longer super frumpy. Yay for compromise! And I am so in love with the color. Will this be the color I will walk down the aisle in? I don't know if I can handle that kind of comb-ittment.

renewal!

I am sitting in the zeka salon getting my hair done. I have decided to go with a strawberry blonde color and I am so excited to see how it turns out!

When in Home Depot..

You know you're an obsessed bride-to-be when you go to Home Depot and find inspiration in the paint section. Maybe it was all the fumes, but I was able to pick out our theme colors in only 15 minutes flat.

More Friday Night Fun

I found the car of my dreams, for only $9.99. Granted, it's a 1:18 model. But it's adorable, and it's a replica of a VW Karmann Ghia, of course.




Naturally, I had to take pictures of it.










And of course, with my ring.




























Thank you, Ebay, for providing a lovely source of wedding inspiration. Ghia cake toppers anyone?

Friday Night Fun

Today was a fantastic day for us! Not only is it the first day of spring (hello Spring, I've missed you!!) but we finally feel like we are getting married. Yes, we (gasp) live together, and yes, I've got a ring on my hand... But today, we have proof. Solid, tangible, oh-my-goodness-it's-actually-really-happening proof.



Behold.







We have an embosser!



Of course, like the rational woman I am, I spent the majority of my evening embossing random things (Napkins? Check. Receipts? Check. Coupons? Check.) then photographing my embosser's lovely work. Once I got bored of that, I had to photograph my engagement ring and our new embossed initials. Ah, the joy of being a simply entertained woman!













Not only that, but someone called Val my husband for the first time yesterday. I was locking up our condo and on my way to the grocery store when the sweet neighbor lady commented "Hello there! I never see you, I always see your husband."





I didn't bother correcting her. It sounded too good to fix.

Invitations!

Our Venue

At one point Val and I were 99% sure that we found our venue shortly after our engagement. It was at a place called Thornewood Castle, a giant, regal manor that is nestled south of Tacoma. It is grand, and beautiful. But also very formal.



We sat on it for a while, then decided we'd check out the church that we drive by every time we visit my family. It's a tiny chapel, right on the road in Port Gamble. Port Gamble is an old mill town that dates back to 1853.



After researching it, we discovered that this church was built in 1879, that it's ideal for smaller weddings, and that it was within our budget for a venue. We didn't even sleep on it, we decided to book our date right then and there.







Valere wants a traditional wedding, and I think this church will be perfect for just that!

Wedding colors!

The hunt for our wedding colors wasn't exactly an easy one. I knew that I had to have dark blue incorporated somehow, as that's Val's most favorite color in the known world. I wanted to add a bit of a salmon orange to it, as my engagement ring is a lovely reddish-pinkish-orange sapphire.





When we put these colors together, it brought to mind a specific Florida football team. I was a bit frustrated, and uninspired. We needed a third color to tone down the event, to make it a bit more cheerful.





Along came robin's egg blue. With this color, our other two colors finally got along.

Our theme?

We've struggled early on with what we wanted for a theme. I've bounced back and forth from elegant, classic, demure, traditional, contemporary...




Now all I know is that the wedding we'll be having will be a fun, lighthearted, slightly vintage celebration with a twist of tradition. Sounds like your favorite kind of wine, doesn't it?






If I had to summarize our wedding in picture alone, this would be it:











I know you might be slightly confused as to why I'm showing you various images of the coolest car ever made.. but really. If I had to describe how I want my wedding to feel, I would want it the way I feel when I see a VW Karmann Ghia. It's like looking at sunshine.






It's not the fastest car in the world, but it will get you where you want to go. It's not a high end vehicle, but it exudes charm and warmth. It's classic, but adorable. Whenever I get lost along the way of wedding planning, I'll simply go back to the Ghia.

Our Venue!

Valere and I are getting married in Port Gamble, Washington. It's a small historic mill town that has a gorgeous old church.

We had originally planned to marry

Groomsmen!

So I am pleased to find out that Valere has asked my brother to be one of his groomsmen! We've been taking our time getting all of our attendants lined up, but we're getting there.



I can't believe we've already been engaged for a year! And it's already March- we only have eight more months to go. I still need to find a photographer, a caterer, musicians, and an officiant. And I still don't have a dress.



I can say yes to Valere with no problem, but making decisions about the details just doesn't interest me all that much. :) All I know that when I walk out of that church, I will be Mrs. V and that's all that matters.

Life is a Highway: The Roadtrip

Val and I are embarking on a good ol' American road trip!



We researched all of our options, from cruising to Mexico, sunbathing in Aruba, snorkeling in Hawaii. None of them felt "right." After lamenting my lack of travel in our very own country, Val brought up the idea of taking a road trip.



I didn't jump for joy the first moment he said it, but the more we researched various areas to visit (Dinosaur National Monument!!!) the more appealing it got. Besides, the first trip we ever took was a drive down to California. It was on that trip that I declared my love for my future husband. It's only fitting that we celebrate our marriage with a good journey through a few states.





Here's the rough draft for our adventure, subject to change. :)

Welcome!

We secured this domain right after we got engaged. Promptly thereafter we completely forgot about it. Now that we're getting closer to that wonderful day, I figured it would be nice to get this blog going.



There are more facets to a wedding than I previously thought. As some of you may know, I really was a huge fan of eloping. Running off somewhere exotic, getting hitched, sending postcards to the world to let them know that we've made things official. Val, on the other hand, put his foot down.



As I get more involved with the planning process, I am grateful for him for making his stand. I think that when all is said and done I will be happy that we've gone a more traditional route. Plus, planning on a budget has been really fun- I am having a great time exercising my creativity on all the minute facets of our wedding.

Wedding Cakes!

I have a feeling the economy might get worse before it gets better, as a result I am looking for ways to trim our svelte wedding budget even further. I'm searching everything I can to make our day fun and cost efficient.

One of the things I kind of fell in love with was the idea of making our own cake. My mother made her own wedding cake- I think it would be a sweet tradition to make my own as well!

As I am not much of a baker, I am going to have a lot of practice ahead of me. So with $7 worth of materials on hand, here's what 4 hours got me:



I definitely won't have sprinkles on our actual wedding cake. I felt inspired by the swift approach of Valentine's Day to do something mushy and colorful.

Dwight Schrute's Ideas on Wedding Planning

Awesome T-Shirts & Hoodies

My nickname was J-Rex through high school for a reason.

Sing-a-long

Why Hello, Blog!

Fancy meeting you in a place like this!

Life has been a blur. A mix of work, school, and wedding planning.. mixed with a good dose of babies, medical issues and a slight struggle with mild depression. It's the end of January, and the world is still marching onward.

Speaking of marching... I want to elope desperately. I want to run off to Thailand, get married by the Andaman Sea in a Buddhist temple... The only thing in our registry would be hope for a more exotic life. Val wants to make me an honest woman in the most honest of ways- a classic church in a historical town. Herein lies the beauty of our pairing.

He is calm, thoughtful, meticulous. I am brash, irritable, impulsive. He has toned me down to be a better functuning member of the human population. Ah, to love and be loved.