Announcing....

This is just a short post to let my lovely friends and family who were perhaps unaware that I applied to be a blogger at WeddingBee.

So I shall now refer to myself as Miss Robin, and M as Mr. Robin. There is really a reason, I am not just crazy. And I may post about some things again. Thanks for the patience.

see the resemblance?

Going to Seed...

Flowers mystify me. Seriously.

Mostly this is because I am allergic to a wide variety of them (among other things). So it isn't like i really keep many around the house, or garden extensively. I am in love with green flowers. Perhaps because they are so strange, everyone always thinks the chartreuse spider mums that I have on the kitchen table are spray painted that color, but they are vivid and lovely green all on their own.

But I have been trying to decide what will go in my bouquet, and keeping with that we had the first meeting with our florist yesterday. Which is when I discovered that unlike almost every other area in the wedding I have no strong immediate feelings toward the flowers. As I rambled on and pointed out various things I liked in the magazine, I could tell there was no cohesive vision coming together.

There were blue flower, green flowers, foliage, chocolate cosmos, and on and on. And I was just getting confused.

Thank God that M is more involved than any groom I have ever known and that we are so good at communicating now. We got in the car and he almost immediately said to me "I think that there are too many colors in your bouquet. I liked how simple the cream and green would be." And I definately agreed. I am sure I would hate the fussy tri-colored bouquet that would include all those blooms.

So I am limiting it to two colors. So what do you think?


Cream & Chartreuse












Chartreuse chrysanthemums (photographer:Stephanie Pieruccini)

Chocolate Cosmos and Green Flowers



(Imagine bright green instead of the light pink)
From Jupiter Images









Cream and Chocolate






















Chocolate Cosmos and Star of Bethlehem.
I couldn't find a bouquet with these together.


Green and more Green













From my florist

Oh My Goodness Gracious

I came home from the REACH benefit tonight and what was waiting for me? My Envelopments order!!!

That was as fast as the website promised. I mean, I know that the site said 2-5 business days, but I was thinking that perhaps it would be about two weeks. It has been five days! When you think about the fact that I ordered on a Sunday and the transaction probably didn't got through until Monday. Impressive.

So as soon as my roommate finalizes the designs we can begin to assemble!

The step by step DIY to follow, I just wanted to say that Paper by Joy is the place to order Envelopment from. Fast , fast, fast and everything is perfect .

The Wedding Show Sponsor is Stalking Me

It seemed innocent enough. Go to wedding show last weekend, enter contests, see if you win, and while you do that search for florist or at least floral ideas. Right?

Apparently not.

Not even four hours after departing the wedding show I get a call from Celebrity China (terrible name, I know) the show sponsor saying that I have won some toasting glasses and a hotel stay for two nights. Well Hooray... Oh wait.

Because then the kind lady says that to get these "prizes" M and I will have to show up at a cooking demonstration at this particular time (Monday night) and in this particular place (all the way across town). And the longer she talks the more it sounds like a timeshare presntation. Not that I am knocking those.

When M and I were in Mazatlan pre-engagement we went to an awesome timeshare presentation for a resort and recieved $150 in restaurant credit (to amazing gourment places) and $100 cash. Plus French Toast!

But I decided that I didn't want to go to one for wedding stuff. I knew they would just try to sell us stuff we didn't need, and M and I are so trying to make this a celebration of the people we love. Of our circle coming together to watch us commit before God to living our lives as one, and then having an amazing night to party in honor of that. Not a time to buy a deluxe, limited edition, lifetime guaranteed china set. We would rather take the $$ and go to Argentina and work on a vineyard for crush for a honeymoon. We are weird like that.

But they won't leave me alone!! We didn't show up Monday, so the lady called and left a message Tuesday morning about coming on Tuesday night. Well obviously we didn't show up... and I have received two more messages since, one sad, and one starting to sound annoyed. But both persistant

We aren't coming, take the hint. Sorry.

Envelopments... or Why Did I Want to Make Invites

Short Engagement. DIY Invites. These things should not necessarily go together my fellow brides. This is the only thing in my whole wedding planning so far that is giving me those little hyperventilating feelings. I have no invites out, and am not doing Save the Date cards, today is October 19th. (I am breathing into paper bag, hang on)

Okay...that's better. I wanted to do my own invites for several reasons, which are:

1. My roommate and bridesmaid is an awesome graphic designer
2. I have specific color/design ideas
3. It seemed fun
4. I like to make things
5. Invites are freakishly expensive

So my mom and I trundled off to Paperzone yesterday to be overwhelmed by paper choices and colors. While there I did fall in love with Envelopments.

An example of what some people have done with envelopments. This is my brown, but the blue I picked is much more teal.

This is a line of paper products that includes cardstock, pocket folds, side envelopes, etc. They have amazing new colors and I love the customization, but they are a little pricey. But seriously it is too late. I was in full on impulse purchase mode (this is not a mode that I recommend for wedding planning BTW) and so immediately placed an order for 70 of each of the 5x7 chocolate portrait pocketfold envelopes, 3 colors(blue, green and cream) of 5x7 card stock, small seals, and all of this came to about $300. Which is my whole budget for invites. And we haven't printed a thing yet. Also, I should mention at this point that the guest list hasn't been totally finalized and 70 is probably not enough invitations.

Then the Paperzone employee tells me that these pieces of paper will take 2-3 weeks to arrive! At which point, another cashier pipes up and says "Oh, sometimes it takes as long as 4 weeks." OH MY GOSH!

Stupid impulse mode! I can't wait that long. We are getting married in January!

So today, I come down from the buying high and start to freak for a minute, and then I batten down and do what I do best. Find things on the internet. Within two hours I had found online retailers who could promise me shipment of my order, in the colors and sizes I needed, within 5 business days for no extra charge. And Guess What! I ordered 90 of each piece through Paper by Joy online for only $212. Now lets just hope and pray that they live up to the delivery promise.

Meanwhile, Paperzone I feel a return coming on! Lackluster service and huge delivery time, plus the MOST expensive Envelopments retailer of all the ones I looked at. Avoid them!

Now I just have to draft some slave labor to assemble these invitations.

Teal.. Blue or Green?

This is only a burning question because I am wondering if these could be my "something blue." Or do they only count as my something bluegreen?


These are not the exact sandals I have chosen but the color and feel is the same. The style I purchase is a little more vintage styling, but I can't seem to find a picture and my digital camera is lost forever in Mexico.

They are Chie Mivaras. Let me pause and sigh dreamily. I always knew going into this that I wanted colored shoes, especially after I decided to go white on the dress, and I also knew that budget allowing I would like to buy dream shoes. The type of shoes that I drool and sigh over, but can never justify purchasing. Shoes made of real leather, hand-dyed, and wonderfully designer.

Don't look up how much Chie Mivara's are... please. My practical bargain hunter soul is still a little bit in denial. But I could never let them go once I saw them.

My only concern is a little embarrassing. Matt and I are only a few inches apart in height. I am tall for a woman and he is of Japanese descent. I don't want to be taller, I know it isn't modern or feminist, but its the truth .

You Can't Have You Cake and Eat It Too...

Especially when you don't really like cake. And I want to qaulify that statement so that everyone understands, especially people who have seen me eat cake. I like cake only occasionaly. But mostly the flavors and combos I like are not part of the wedding cake baker's selection. Like I am obsessed with Mexican Tres Leches Cake. But when a cake has to feed the masses it have to appeal to almost everyone...

So to have cake or not to have cake, that is the question.

M is lobbying cupcakes. This will drive my sister insane, she hates cupcakes at weddings. So this plan has two good points. The con to that plan is that I kind of want to cut something. To have that moment. So perhaps a small cake to cut and then cupcakes. I have been looking at these from a local eastside place Bakery Bar:


Way adorable, no?

The other issue that I want other dessert. While I am not a great lover of cake, I am a great lover of sugar in general. I love cheesecakes, tarts, creme brulees and cookies. And I would like to have something sweet from one of those categories... So I was thinking about have a spread of different desserts. I am just imagining a table piled high with jewel colored tarts, creamy cheesecake slices, and some lovely fruit. yum.

Hard decsions.

Ways to Stay Warm

I saw this picture on Sonya Naumann's website Thousand Dollar Dress and loved it. From a cultural standpoint, I really like what she is doing in these photos of women and what they think they should do in her thousand dollar dress. I love this girl, who you can tell from following photos is a librarian, sitting alone infront of the card catalog looking tired and a little surly.

But I must confess I am a little obsessed by the cardigan over the wedding dress. I have been thinking that it can be awfully cold in Portland in January and a nice warm cardigan might be nice. Also it could be so cool in a retro funky way to wear over my glam 30s style dress.

Perhaps some cardigan like this, what do you think?:

Rainy Days Are Here Again...

Or icy, Or windy, Or some combo of all three.

January in the City of Roses is not exactly predictable. I am very aware of this and hold little, little hope for a crystalline clear cold day. Instead, I am betting on rain and temps hovering in the high thirties. I am just being real. Hey, worst case scenario there will be inch thick ice over all the roads (like three years ago in Jan) and M and I and our parents will be the only ones at the wedding.

Here is the dilemma. I love the Pearl District and the Brewey Blocks. They are full of great architecture and some of my favorite spots. I want to go outside and take pictures. But since it will be January and getting dark before the ceremony, we will have to take pictures beforehand, so I don't want to mess up my dress too much. Rain,,, yikes.

Then Amy and I were doing some research for our wedding invites (more on this later) and since we want it to have a vintage feel, I love Art Nouveau but often it is fussy, and so we were looking at old Art Deco posters and I saw these things.

(I love this invite so much, a great mix of deco and nouveau. I want to see if we can use some of the elements, and deco them up more)

But what do some of those things look like graphically, hmmmm...? Perhaps they might look like this:

And look at those colors from Luna Bazaar.
The Chinese parasols are oiled paper so they will keep of the rain for a limited amount of time. So I ordered eight total. Chartreuse, brown, sapphire and several off-white and even some with hand painted designs on them. Ladies and Gentlemen we have a graphic theme AND a way to keep the rain off my dress pre-ceremony. Lovejoy Columns, here we come!

Ths manages to combine all the things I love: vintage sweetness, bright colors, Asian influences (wrong country, sorry M, couldn't find Japanese umbrellas), bold graphic design, and I think that the visual unifying element of the parasols/umbrellas top-down will work well in many areas. Now all I need are blue and green cocktail umbrellas for cake toppers.

The hunt is on!

My Friends Are Grown People...

This is why it is so weird to tell them what to wear. I am having lots of trouble with bridesmaids dresses. The issues are manifold. First there is the cost. I have rarely if ever spent more than one hundred dollars on an item of clothing. The only time that springs to mind is senior prom (seriously that dress was cool.) and now I am asking the women who are unfortunate enough to be my closest girlfriends to shell out well over that for a dress they don't even get to choose.

Which brings us to problem number two. Why, please tell me, does the wedding industry so insist on making bridesmaids dresses look like bridesmaids dresses. Lets face it, if you pick it off the rack at David's Bridal the chances that your lovely friends can wear it to a cocktail party and feel beautiful later are slim. I want dresses that make my friends feel hot, sexy and most of all... themselves. I mean, that's why I love them right? I do not want clones of the perfect 'maid at my wedding, I want my sister (who I have always looked up to and argued with), my roommate (the only girl I have ever successfully lived with, you rock honey!), and my closest friend ( she digs the dirt out of me).

Now is problem three, because there are any number of brides who throw caution to the wind and let their friends choose whatever dress rocks them the most. I, I am afraid, can't do this. I just can't. I have tried to convince myself, that I could, but lets all face it when it comes to design I am a control freak. I have a vision in my head, and it may still be fuzzy and undefined, but it is mine. I have to have some control.

All of which makes me wish that I could afford to inflict upon the 'maids, Lynn Lugo. Her dresses (check the pics) are beautiful silk, and highly customizable. And best of all, many styles look like bridesmaids when you're holding a bouquet and look like sweet dresses when you're not.

Oh Lynn, I wish I could make you mine.... But I shall continue the search, now knowing what I am looking for.

Off Color Behavior

I alway knew that there would have to be color. I am not an all white kind of girl. In fact, before deciding to get a white dress my mother and I had a series of e-mail conversations about it. I was all ready to order Chrissy Wai-Ching's green dress. I loved it, loved the modern styling (oh how the modern and vintage parts of my style confuse even me), I love the color, I love the embriodery, but...

My mother, while being the most supportive woman on the planet, made excellent points. 1) I am not the only one who has been dreaming about this day. M is not a guy that is doing this on the spur of the moment, he truly thought and dreamed through our life together before asking me to be his wife and is very involved in all the planning (which I love), and perhaps part of his dream might be seeing me in a white dress at the end of the aisle. 2. My mom didn't want me to regret not wearing it. She knows me, and knows that for all my love of color and style, new restraunt and crazy trends, that there is a large part of my heart that is deeply traditional, spirtually, emotionally, ect.

So the white dress won, and now that I have picked it out I have no regrets with that decision. My dress is rocking hot white dress.

HOWEVER. There must be color.

So I am on the hunt for colored shoes, shawls, accessories. And since I don't get to have a colored dress there is fallout. I have not two wedding colors, not three. But six.

Truly there are three colors, Green, Blue, Brown, but there are two shades of each. I literally went to the paint store and picked out Dutch boy paint chips. It is awesome. I have a set to carry to match stuff with and gave a set to my roommate who is designing invites.


I am crazy, but at least I know it.

Wedded Bliss - Five Minutes No Waiting

While we were wandering around in our oh so lovely space imagining it on our wedding day (it takes some imagining when the lobby is filled with ticket buyers, and coffee shop sitters) Heather, the event coordinator, kept telling us about different places people have gotten married in the less than dozen ceremonies held there.

The running theme throughout these seemed to be how quickly they could accomplish the ceremony, "get it over with" and get on to the party. And that was the first time that it had occurred to me that we are not the typical couple to rent this space. Granted there have been very few before us. But getting the ceremony "over with" is not the goal of the day. The ceremony is the day to me, everything else is icing. One couple she mentioned as an idea, had all the guests lean against the rail of the mezzanine, cocktails in hand, and watch the five minute ceremony in the corner near the windows. Not exactly my vision.

We are not getting married in a church, I grant. That is for a few reasons which I have mentioned briefly before. Our church does not have building. This happened a few years ago when we outgrew the one where we were and we have chosen to not get another because the money can be better used elsewhere. So every Sunday we meet in a high school. So M and I would have to rent a church anyhow, and I wanted this night to have an amazing setting. And the churches in town that are amazing settings are amazingly booked, and M and I want an amazingly short engagement.

But the ceremony is something that needs a series of posts all its own. M and I are both Christians and pledging to follow and trust God all our lives as we become one is the essence of this day's celebration for us. Who is going to marry us, what shall be sung, read, ect is something that we have to sit down and give real thought and prayer, and discussion with other important people who we look to for leadership.

I just think that it is strange that people look at us, at the kind of modern fun wedding we are thinking off, and they automatically write off any possibility that we are spirtual at all. The assumption becomes that the ceremony is the least part of the day.

And I am not trying to be harsh to Heather, she is not the only vendor who mentioned it. Just some random thoughts.

My Dress, My Dress

I wish that I had a more dramatic story to tell. A long hard search, scouring many stores desperate and searching for the most perfect dress. But...

It didn't happen that way. We had decided over the several weeks that we were in Mexico post-question popping that we wanted to be married sooner than later. That we were not waiting months and months. In fact the four months that was necessitated by Christmas (we didn't want to try to get everyone together then) was a bit too much.

So the fact that upon return stateside there was only a little more than three months to the wedding meant that I had to choose a dress... and pretty quick.

Luckily, I kind of had ideas. With our dramatic venue (which yes I booked from Mexico pretty much) I wanted something glam, but something that didn't cost and arm and a leg. This is a dress I will wear for only one day in my life, so perspective. So we went to David's Bridal. I thought we would just stop there for ideas and then move to more modern glam boutiques but to my surprise I found the perfect dress. Weird.

It has all the vintage Veronica-Lake-esq glam I wanted and really flatters my figure. I don't think that I want to post the dress here, but I can give you the finalists that didn't make it.







About as far from the dress I chose as you can get, but I loved the lace and sweetheart bodice. Unfortunately I can't do the strapless. I kept putting my hands below the bustline like I had to hold the dress up.









The same goes for this one, though I liked the slimmer cut.

First Things First

You know what they say... Location, Location, Location.

We went to a benefit for a local charity called Belmont Foundation at which Don Miller was speaking about his new book. The book is all about the structure of story, and so he was giving examples about how screenwriters place conversations in strange places so they are memorable. That then they become moments, pictures.

I knew that I wanted to have something memorable. A place that would reflect Matt and I, would reflect how much we love Portland, a place that was elegant. I also wanted to have the wedding by candlelight. So evening was kind of a must for that element.

Weirdly enough that eliminated my first thought, Old Laurelhurst Church. The sanctuary, breathtaking, and I could see myself walking down that aisle with iron lanterns reflecting on the stained glass. But.... we didn't want to have two separate locations for ceremony and reception and Old Laurelhurst charged double per hour after 9pm for their reception room, and quadruple(!)after 10pm. And strangely I wanted a reception longer than 2 hours. Oh and they don't allow beer.

That's right you heard me... NO beer. Decision made.

But then I found this:

Oh, baby I love you. Where is this space of my dreams? Where might we find the wonderland of exposed brick, cement floors, girdered ceilings, and scattered light chandeliers. The Portland Armory, of course. M and I are getting married in the lobby of the new home of Portland Center Stage, the Armory, a building dating back to 1888 that was recently re-imagined and remodeled into a theater. Well, fitting, cause the show (or reception) must go on. On into the night!





















The outside, the building has won quite a few awards for green architecture since opening last year. The toilets even flush with rain water! Not your typical wedding venue selling point, but still cool.