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Getting Ready ** The Reveal ** Pre-Ceremony ** Ceremony ** The Bride and Groom ** Reception Details ** Reception Moments ** Toasts ** Juggling Show ** Even More Pictures ** Vendor Reviews

Getting Ready

Lots of laughing while we got ready.

The bags I made for the candlelighters, and the tees that were inside. A big hit.

The ladies were extra funny.

That's my MIL, getting the show organized.

The stars needed one last battery each.

The beautiful embroidery Laura Priolo did for my sash, and on the jacket below.

Prewedding High Fives

I wanted the dress bustled for pre-wedding pictures, so I was "pre-bustling," showing
my friends how it would work when I had the dress on. I thought I'd just put it on bustled. I never quite got it right.

The Reveal

Pre Ceremony

That's my dad, in his star vest. And DH, with his camera, doing what he does.

Set up in the planetarium, my friends setting up the candle altar.

I love this picture. After 16 months of getting ready, a half hour before the wedding, I had nothing to do.
Everyone else was taking care of everything. I'm just standing around looking pretty. So I went to take some pictures with Rhee.

This is me ten minutes before the ceremony. My photographer has me in stiches.
She was amazing.

Here we are on a quest for the magical floating veil shot.

My veil is stuck in the top of a redwood tree. Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Now we've got it.

Ceremony

The Bride and Groom

I didn't cry at all during the ceremony. Once we were all finished, I got a little teary.

Reception Details

Reception Moments

Here's my mom with my friend's new baby. She looks pretty happy doesn't she? Hint Hint.

The pic on the right is is my friend, who officiated our ceremony, and his wife.
In this picture they *know* they are having a baby in December, but they haven't told anyone yet! They didn't tell us until after we got back from our honeymoon. But in retrospect, it makes me love this picture all the more.

I love these family shots.

Toasts

The Juggling Show

My friend Sven is a professional juggler, and he did a show at our wedding.
I've watched Sven juggle for over a decade now, so having him do his show at our wedding was fantasic.
The guests had a BLAST!

Really? You want to see more pictures? Here they are, in random order.

 

Vendor Reviews

THE VENUE - Chabot Space and Science Center - www.chabotspace.org

I'm not sure how many folks will end up considering the Chabot for their weddings, but I thought I'd go through the whole review step anyway. In part, because perhaps our process will help some folks get started, and in part to point out some things we learned along the way.

When we first started trying to decide where we wanted to get married, I only knew for certain that I wanted it to be outside. I started looking for either a winery (even though neither of us likes wine) or some place where we could have our guests stay together for a weekend (like avalikelava's location). I ended up pulling together a list of about 6 different "types" of locations, with examples and running it by my DH. The only one that really jumped out at him was the Chabot. My thoughts were "Yeah, that would definitely be cool and unique, and it's certainly "US," our geeky astronomy sides were one of the first things we connected on, but would it be pretty? Would it be wedding-y? What about my visions of oak trees and fields of lavender?" Well, we went up to look at it, and were both sold. It was the only place we looked. We could have our ceremony in the planetarium, and gosh darnit if there weren't whole beds of lavender planted right out in the Pleideas Courtyard. We liked Oakland as a location, our OOT folks could still make a Bay Area Extravaganza out of their visit, it was close enough to plan logistics. It was a quick decision.

And when you weigh all of that, and start to think about the number of other places in the Bay Area where we could have gotten married in a planetarium and had a reception outside in a courtyard with lavender (let me think, yes, just the one place) it wasn't like we had a wide variety of venues to choose from.

We flat out LOVED our venue. Our guests LOVED our venue. Aside from choosing each other as partners, the planetarium was hands down the best wedding decision we made.

That being said, there were some glitches in our service. The coordinator up there was sometimes difficult to contact. There were some miscommunications ( I started to write her emails that said "Just to make sure we're on the same page, you said this, and I said that, please write me back to confirm we agree on this and that." Which was annoying, but manageable.) The tent really made us grumpy.

Learn from us: If your site has a tent that you are using, make sure there is something in your contract about the quality of the tent and its cleanliness on the day of your wedding. If it's not in there, insist that it be added.

Then a week before the wedding she asked us to reschedule the one hour of rehearsal time we'd already planned our rehearsal dinner around. DH had to get a little Groomzilla on her at that point. She responded well.

We also had to coordinate with the guys who run the planetarium shows in the dome. They were fantastic, after an initial lag in response time. They worked with us for four hours two days before the wedding, getting all the lighting just so. High five to the planetarium guys. They were fantastic.


CATERING - Miraglia Catering - Karen Zachary

We had to choose our caterer from a list the planetarium supplied, or pay an extra fee. We ended up emailing most of them at one point or another, but from the first email we got from Karen, we didn't really consider any other caterers. Karen had an enthusiasm for our wedding that exceeded anything I would have expected from a vendor. Now, I imagine Karen is generally an enthusiastic person, but every time I wrote or spoke to her, about any detail, no matter how small, she oozed excitement about our reception. In her first email she wrote that her team had never forgotten ANYTHING "not even a single ladle." Like me you are probably thinking that's a bit of a stretch. I tell you, I totally believe it, now. Every interaction we had with Miraglia was well-organized and professional. We didn't hire a Day of Coordinator, in large part because of my extreme faith in Karen's ability to coordinate and lead every detail of the reception. It all came off beautifully.

All this, and I haven't even told you about the food yet. :) I've probably had a dozen people tell me it was the best wedding food they've ever had. We wanted a casual menu, almost BBQ, since it was Memorial Day Weekend, and the groom's family is from Texas. Karen got right behind that plan, and came up with a fabulous menu of enchiladas, pulled pork, burgers, mashed potatoes, and adobo chicken.

Karen also handled our rentals and the lighting, and was an incredible source for ideas and suggestions. Every idea we had, she took seriously, and explored. She found pictures of a bar we could have rented that was like the one from the bar scene in Star Wars. She found a place that would have silk screened our trees on fabric for the ceremony dcor. She sent us pictures from a wedding table decorating show she visited.

I could write and write and write about how helpful Karen was and incredible the food was and how thrilled we were with the service we received. If you can work with Miraglia, you should do it. I'll leave you with that.

CAKE - Jen's Cake - Jen and Anthony Kwapinski

Cake was an area where we set out to save some money. Sure, I had visions of fondant in my head, blue fondant, at that, when we started out. As we got in there and looked around though, I realized that a $7 or more / slice cake was not * that * important to me. (It was never important to DH :) Jen and Anthony were a great fit for us. And so were sheet cakes. Jen's Cakes start out a little lower cost than some of the others we looked at, especially without the fondant. Then, by going with a two tier cake for pictures, and having two sheet cakes on the side, we were able to get 250 servings of cake for $435. So that's $1.75 / slice. As for the tastiness, we had fewer than 125 guests. We ordered cake for 250. DH really wanted to have left over cake. That's how good it was.

Surprising fact : We just threw the left over cake in a tupperware in the freezer, before we left for our honeymoon. Three weeks later, it's still good. Not as good as the day of, surely, but surprisingly tasty. I just had some. :)

Something I goofed on : Minor glitch. Learn from my mistake. I forgot to tell the caterer we had TWO flavors of cake. They only cut and served one flavor. OOPS. Not a big deal though. Guests staying at the hotel got to sample the chocolate the next morning. It was our "morning after brunch."

FLOWERS - Minie Mitchell - Wish! Flowers
Flowers were another item on which we had a small budget. Our site didn't lend itself to a lot of florals, and it seemed like if we were going to do flowers they'd have to be done on a grand scale. DH was opposed to them sort of on principle...spending a lot of money on something that was going to die so quickly. I didn't have much in the way of floral vision, it wasn't part of my dream wedding. I have enjoyed seeing what so many of you ladies have done with flowers, with your floral wizards, I really almost WANTED to want more flowers. But I didn't, and it wouldn't have worked well for us. So our floral needs were minimal.

Having said all that, though, Minie was a wonder. I would recommend her to anyone, and it sounds like she wants to focus on weddings with a large floral presence, where she can really showcase her extraordinary talents. Still, if you are like me, I'd check in with her, just to see. I needed a bouquet for me, hair flowers for the candle lighters, a few corsages, and a few boutineers. All this came in around $600, which felt comfortable.

Like I said, I didn't start with a particular vision, just some things I kinda liked. I took those to Minie, and she got the gist. When we met again months later, she'd brought a picture of a bouquet she'd seen that fit my kinda "vibe" and I said "Let's go with it." It was definitely lovely, not exactly what I'd set out thinking I'd want, but then, I didn't care that much. I definitely think that if I knew EXACTLY what I wanted, and I had told Minie clearly, then she would have delivered. I'd recommend Minie both for folks who have a strong sense of what they want in their flowers, and for folks who just want to hand over the floral part to someone with a lot of talent.

When I first met with Minie, and I was still trying to work out some way to get large trees into the ceremony area, she went out of her way to explore some options for me, which I thought was awesome.

MY DRESS - Kirsten Tucker, seamstress - Kirsten Tucker Designs

I started out knowing I'd probably end up having my dress made. I had something fairly specific in mind, I wanted a silver dress, I didn't think I'd be able to find what I wanted in a store. Still, I went to a few stores and tried on dresses, and if you're thinking to have a dress made, I'd still highly recommend spending a few hours trying on dresses in stores, for a few reasons:
1) When else in your life are you going to try on wedding dresses? Take your mom and your friends, have the experience of having people bring you wedding dresses. Take in the OOOHs and the AAAHs. Check stuff out. Have fun. Go out to lunch afterwards. It's a rite of passage. Live it up.
2) You find out what looks best on you. You find out what you want in a dress, even if you pretty much have a good idea already. You'll definitely learn stuff. Use the expertise of the bridal salon employees. They do this all day, they usually know their stuff.

After the dress trials, I gave Kirsten a call. I went to meet with her, and took pictures of the dress that was closest to what I wanted, pictures of dresses with features I wanted to add, and pictures of me in some of the dresses I'd tried on in the salons (so she'd have an idea of what worked and what didn't work on me.) From that, and our conversation, she was able to make a rough sketch of the dress I was talking about.

The next step was a muslin mockup of the dress. Kirsten made the whole dress out of inexpensive muslin fabric, and we were able to make tweaks to the neckline and the sleeves and stuff. Kirsten had warned me in advance that the "Muslin Stage" was bound to be a little freaky, and it was, a little. Muslin's not pretty, and though it really helps to have an idea of what the dress will look like, when I left that day, I felt a little weird about it. I had a lot of confidence in Kirsten, and I'd only seen raves of her work on theknot, so I told myself to just have confidence that it would all work out.

Kirsten helped me pick out fabrics for the dress, and she ordered them from Thai Silks in Los Altos. She sent me some swatches in the mail once it arrived, so I could carry them around in my wallet and drool over them occasionally. The fabrics were absolutely stunning.

Kirsten also set up the fabric for my sash, so that I could send it off to Laura Priolo for embroidery. She marked out the shape of the sash, and marked which side of the fabric Laura should use as the "UP" side. I sent that off to Laura, and she sent it back, and I dropped it off at Kirsten's place.

The next time I saw Kirsten the dress was in the real fabric, and in a fairly finished state. This was when I could really tell what an amazing job Kirsten had done translating my idea into an actual dress. It still needed a lining, the hems were unfinished, and a few other details, but my dress was close to finished.

I went back one last time to pick up the final dress. I was so thrilled with how it turned out. I had tons of compliments on it, I felt incredible wearing it, and it was *the dress* I wanted to get married in. That's just a great feeling.

Some folks here haven't had quite the same experience that I had with Kirsten, and I'm sorry to hear it. I enjoyed working with her quite a lot. She was no-nonsense, but extremely professional, and incredibly talented. I think part of the reason we worked well together was that I was able to give her a lot of time to do my dress. I got to her more than a year before my wedding. It sounds like she's getting busier and busier, so if you're thinking of having your dress made, that's something to think about. I would not hesitate to recommend Kirsten, and if I were going to start the wedding process all over, she'd be one of the first calls I made. I think her work was fabulous.

EMBROIDERY - Laura Priolo - pigsew@aol.com

Laura was another jewel from theknot. She lives in Napa somewhere, and I've never met her, but I am thrilled with the embroidered details she created for our wedding. We communicated entirely over email, and shipped stuff back and forth in the mail, and it couldn't have been easier. I sent her a pdf of the tree we used again and again. She did whatever shshe did with it, and sent me back beautifully embroidered sash fabric, and my jazzy wedding sweatshirt. She always emailed me to let me know my packages had arrived on her doorstep, then she'd estimate how long it would be before she got the item back in the mail to me. She'd tell me when she sent something my way. Her turn around time and communication were both excellent. I'm only sorry I didn't have more stuff for her to embroider the tree on.

OTHER APPAREL DETAILS--

Crinoline - I got my crinoline from Kirsten, and dyed it myself, using the Rit Dye in the bathtub technique. The teal crinoline made me happy. It was easy to do, and ended up looking great. It's one of those things I did entirely for me, and not at all for the guests, and I'm glad I did.

Shoes - My shoes came from PerfectDetails.com. They have a good collection of shoes in sizes 10 and 11, which is nice. I ordered a pair of one style, and they arrived and didn't look that great. Not great enough to get married in,and not great enough for what I'd paid for them. I wrote their customer service email, and didn't hear anything back for several days. I was just about to give up, and live with the shoes, when I got an email from their customer service department. We exchanged emails, and they didn't have any more of the exact shoe I wanted. However, they offered me a similar shoe, and the woman even offered to drive them to my apartment. We ended up meeting near my office, and she had a variety of shoes for me to try on. I ended up getting a discount on the shoes I ended up wearing. So overall, I was pleased. I had them dyed, at Master Cobbler on Winchester, near Steven's Creek. The service was fine. I took my shoes in months before I needed them, so they had plenty of time. The staff warned me about the difficulties of getting the grey / silver shade spot on. The swatch came back perfectly. The shoes ended up being a slightly different color, but it was so subtle I didn't care.

Tiara -- I ordered the "Grace Tiara" from Coleen Collection of Ireland. Their service was great. I didn't see any colors that matched my dress, so I sent them swatches, and they picked out colors that matched beautifully. I couldn't be more pleased with the tiara they made. Plus, when you write them, you get to send a letter to Ireland. A thrill in and of itself. Highly recommended vendor.

Veil - I ordered my veil from Orange Blossom Tiaras, largely because they had a platinum colored veil. I think I probably could have made a veil for way less than I spent on mine, but the veil was beautiful, and the service was great.

GROOM'S APPAREL -- Eli Thomas for Men, Santana Row We waited a long time before we went shopping for Nathan's tux. We started looking about three weeks before the wedding, in the height of prom season. What can I say, we like a challenge. :) Nathan wanted to buy a tux, rather than rent one. Eli Thomas was OUTSTANDING. Their service was impeccable. They got the tux altered in one week. They ordered a tie for us, and had it their within a few days. It's the sort of store where they greet you by name, the second time you visit. They also rent tuxes, and I would encourage you all to go there. We were both extremely pleased with the tux Nathan ended up wearing. I don't think you can see it in the pictures, but the vest has a subtle silver dotted pattern, that matched my dress perfectly. And it looked like little stars. Go to Eli Thomas.

PAPER STUFF - DIY

Everything we sent out, we made ourselves, but here are a few of the places we got our supplies.

Sir Speedy, San Jose - Printed our STDs for us, and the quality was good. They did a good job of turning our file into the components of our planispheres, and their turnaround time was good.

Paper Source, San Francisco - I bought a bunch of blank cards and envelopes from Paper Source. We used some of the blank cards and envelopes as our RSVP cards, and some became "Welcome to Oakland" signs. We still have a bunch of them, enough notecards to last a lifetime. It was good to have extra supplies, that way when we needed to print something out (like a sign for the basket with the coloring books) we had coordinating supplies.

Renaissance Writings - We ordered our pocketfolds, outer envelopes, and the silver cardstock with the stars on it that became the innards of our invitations. They have a good supply of Envelopments, at the cheapest prices I could find. They delivered remarkably quickly, and always exactly what we'd ordered. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.

HAIR AND MAKEUP – Meaganne McCandess – www.prettydish.com

Finding someone to do my hair and makeup was tricky. I put it off for a long while, and then got really stressed about it. I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of money, but I did want someone to come to our hotel room….After I found Meaganne, though, I didn’t have any more wedding stress dreams….true story. Meaganne and Jenifer (who Meaganne found to help her) did my makeup, my mom’s makeup and nine heads of hair on our wedding day. Each and every one was just spectacular! My mom is anxious to meet Meaganne again, to learn some makeup application tricks. My hair and makeup were just what I wanted, I love the way I looked on my wedding day. Having Meaganne around was like having my hair and makeup done by the big sister I don’t actually have. She was mellow, but fun, and a great addition to our prewedding hang out session. If you’re looking for a hair and makeup person, contact Meaganne. She’s wonderful.

PHOTOGRAPHY – Rhee Bevere – www.textureandcolor.com Who doesn’t have a hard time finding a photographer? It’s sort of an agonizing decision, isn’t it? I must have looked at hundreds of websites. I was looking for photographers before we were engaged. DH is a digital photo nut, and has a clear idea of what sort of aesthetic he wanted in our pictures. Very few of the people we looked at suited his style. We ended up meeting three different photographers, all of whom had photos that DH liked. Rhee was our last meeting. As soon as I saw how she and DH were chatting about lenses and prints and flash and so on, I knew she was the one for us. I knew he’d be excited about the pictures if she was behind the camera, and I loved her work as well, so that was that. We worked with Rhee twice between when we first met her and the day of the wedding. She did our Epics, which were so much fun, and turned out fabulously. She also made a trip to our location a few weeks before the wedding, to sort of scope the scene. In each instance, I was impressed by how knowledgeable she was, and how much fun she was, and how well we all clicked. On the day of the wedding, Rhee was worth her weight in gold, heck, her whole team was worth their weight in gold. When I remember the day, I remember how seamlessly the whole team fit in with our day. Really, you’re inviting your photographer to witness some of the most intimate moments of your life, and expecting them to capture them on film (or digital media, if you’re a digital sort of person.) Having Rhee there was like having one of my dearest friends in the room, who just happened to be a stellar photographer. I remember her cracking jokes with my friends, working with (or around) my unwieldy family, and generally keeping me calm and occupied before the ceremony (you know, helping me fish my veil out of the top of a redwood tree, the usual sort of photographer-bride moment.) Of course, most of the moments she captured, I don’t remember her or any of her team being there at all. They were everywhere at the reception, and yet they were almost invisible. It’s amazing. We love our photos, and we loved having Rhee at our wedding. You should definitely consider her for your wedding photos.

Things We Didn’t Have & Didn’t Miss-

A DJ – We aren’t really dancers, and didn’t hesitate to cut the dancing from our wedding reception. Given that, we never considered hiring a DJ. We did our own background music with a system that Nathan put together. We had some tunes, a microphone, and a “Reception Master,” or one of my friends who introduced us, let people know what was going on at the reception, and introduced the toasters. A few folks did a little dancing near their chairs, but overall, I would say no one missed the dancing.

Attendants – I had five of my girlfriends as candlelighters. They chose their own dresses, they hung out with me while I got ready. Two did readings, two gave toasts, and one was my reception master. I ordered them flowers for their hair. It was so easy. DH didn’t want to have a bunch of people on stage with us, and if we’d had attendants, it would have been a 5 for me, 1 for him sort of a thing….We skipped a formal bridal party, and it turned out great.

A Day Of Coordinator – I was nervous about this one, I’m not going to lie to you. All through the planning process I went back and forth. I never investigated a DOC seriously because I had Vendor Hunt Burnout, and because I just didn’t want to spend the money on a DOC. It turned out really well for us. I’m not sure it would work for everyone, but that said, I don’t think everyone needs a DOC, even for a large-ish wedding.

A few things people really suggest DOCs for, and how we handled them:

• I “ran” our rehearsal, though that’s a bit of an overstatement. We were in a planetarium, that didn’t have any rules about ceremonies, so that was easy. I had everybody sit down. For those folks who were walking in, I showed them where they’d start, and where they’d end up. I had everyone else scatter through the audience to check sound and visibility. We went through the walking in twice (with the planetarium guys doing their thing.) Then we did a quick run through of the ceremony. Then we did the whole thing seriously from top to bottom again. I asked if anyone had questions, went over the set up, and then we left for dinner. We were in and out in under an hour. We had a pretty simple ceremony and everyone involved was friend or family (so I had no trouble bossing them around.) I think a DOC would have just slowed us down here.

• I delegated the living daylights out of ceremony and reception set up. Karen and the Miraglia team had most of the reception details under control, so I didn’t have to worry about that. As for ceremony décor and reception décor, I gave lots of people one task. I had one friend set up the centerpieces and another in charge of hanging the lanterns and another in charge of setting up the place cards, and so on. Everything was as close to “set up” as it could be. Everyone was able to do their tasks in the half hour before the wedding, or the half hour after the wedding. So many people wanted to help, and we’d done so much on our own, I didn’t feel bad at all about asking for help on the big day. And I lucked out. Everyone did their jobs beautifully.

• My Mother In Law Rocks. By the time we got to the hotel, a few days before the wedding, I was soooooo done with planning. My MIL stepped right in, and did so many things I’ve lost track of what they all were. She WAS my DOC in many ways. People wanted me to have a plan for who was driving which supplies in which car to the ceremony, and at the end of the night, they wanted to know how everything was getting home again. My MIL offered her services, and I took them. She was a wonder. There was a point while I was getting my hair done that I literally felt the wedding leave my hands. Stuff was leaving the hotel room on carts, and I just sat back and watched it all go. So many people stepped in to do so much, and my MIL kept them all organized.