Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Making the Move...

Since I'm no longer a Miss, I have decided to make a little move:

Mrs Hydrangea

:)

The posting will be light, as this is mainly just for wedding things. For my everyday blog, visit me here:

This Casita

TTD

I just found out that our "trash the dress" session made it online!


I didn't even know that www.trashthedress.com existed! It's a pretty cool site and you could definitely get some inspiring photos for your own wedding day/ day after shoots! Thanks to our photographers, Cesar and Tanya, for submitting it and congrats to them for taking such awesome pics that they were chosen to be posted!

Happy Holidays to everyone and we'll see you in 2009 :)

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Post Wedding Shoot

Ok, I keep teasing you with these interruptions from our wedding photos. I apologize for that, but it is always with good reason, right?

About two months after our wedding, we decided to do a "day after" photo shoot. I wanted to put the dress on one last time before storing it away forever, and Mr. H and I wanted some really great shots of the two of us, since our wedding day was so busy and we only got a few posed pics together.

Since we have possibly the coolest photographers ever, Perez Photography, we set out one afternoon in our wedding getup, which, I've never had much luck shooting in. I took my bridal portraits in May to avoid the summer heat and got the hottest day ever, then we scheduled these pics before it got too cold outside only to face a cold front with the chilliest wind I've experienced in a while. Totally worth it, both times.










Oh, I forgot to mention I chopped off my hair :) The day after we returned from the honeymoon I chopped off 10 inches to donate to Locks of Love. My hair had grown at least an inch and a half in these pics from it's original chop!

For some more pics, you can see them here!

Ok, for real this time, celebration pics from the wedding are coming :)

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

A Break From the Photos...

Our videographer rocked our socks off with his preview. The final video is coming to us tomorrow, but, being the wedding obsessed Mrs. Hydrangea that I am, I had to share this with you all (and PLEASE note, this is all thank you to Chris Watson Video who, by far, surpassed anything we could have envisioned):


Untitled from Chris W on Vimeo.

I hope that you all enjoy it as much as I did. I promise that the last couple of wedding posts will be here soon, but this sums up our day as about as best as I could. We'll see the full video tomorrow, so don't be surprised if I bring more posts out about it.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

09.27.08 Details - Part Two

I don't know whether it was the blood, sweat and tears , and I do mean a lot of tears, that went into planning our wedding that made me want detail pictures so much, or if it was just so that I could always have these visual reminders of everything that was seen, heard and enjoyed from the most perfect night of my life, thus far. Either way, I am so happy that Perez Photography (all photos below credit to them) went out of their way to capture these images :)

One of the larger table arrangements. I believe that we had a total of five different floral arrangements for the various tables.

The head table :) While everyone else sat at circulars, we got a nice big rectangle with florals that weren't too high, so we could see everyone sitting with us. The damask runner and details in the room were all provided by our florist, Bella Flora. They completely outdid any expectations that I had for the florals and killed (in a good way) that room that night :)

Full shot of the head table.

Our room in green with our monogram on the floor. Lite Dallas (who also happens to be owned by our DJ Andy Austin) did an incredible job at pinspotting the arrangements, the gobo on the dancefloor and the lighting around the room. The colors changed throughout the night and really gave the room a great feeling.

The room in blue.

The cake. By far my only disappointment with our entire wedding. I hate that you can see the foil from the board that it's on. The monogram was supposed to be in fondant, not icing, and the layers were supposed to be more distinct in different sizes. The groom's cake (seen later in pictures) was only black with white borders. It was also supposed to have a monogram on it and, when we cut into it, it was the wrong flavor. My mistake for choosing a lesser known bakery to do our cakes. They looked semi-decent on camera, so oh well. You can't win everything :)



The table numbers designed by me and my final choice of table number stands.

My last minute station signs that were placed in frames on the various food stations.

The cakes. Note the groom's cake. On another note, those cake stands that you see were actually made of steel (and VERY heavy) by my dad. I gave him the task to create the stands and boy did he do that. You can't see the detail of the stand, but they were plain, simple, modern and fit the room well. One is now on our front porch as our pumpkin stand. It holds 3 multisized pumpkins - they were seriously that big!



Yum - food! Many people said that they didn't think that we had enough and in hindsight we probably should have ordered more. We also think that they were used to the station idea so they kept going to the same one instead of wandering around the room.



Up next, a few more details and then we're on to the best part of the night - the entertainment!

Details - Part Three

As promised, the last bit of details before the final celebration!

*All photos credit to Perez Photography

Last minute I decided to make Bride and Groom signs to be placed at our spots at the table. We wanted to sit right in the middle of the table facing out to everyone who was there, not to the dancefloor. It gave those few minutes, between everyone visiting us to say hello, to really soak in all of the people that came together that night :)

One more shot of the food station signs.

The hallway that led to the pre-function area and ballroom was lined with these vases. At the end of the hallway, right before the entrance, there were white curtains that were tied with beautiful floral arrangements a la Bella Flora.

My 3"x3" escort cards.

The sign-in table next to the escort card table.

Our gifts :) I just love the sculpture on the wall. It makes this picture just so much more interesting.

Mr. H knew from day one that he wanted to have a cigar roller at our event. We ended up using Sabino Sotelo with d'Havana Cigars.

The yummy Paciugo cart that we had at the reception. Mr. H and I snuck out to get some before they ran out and Mr. H was bummed he never got to eat any of his because we got so sidetracked from the cart to our table that his had melted :(

Yes, I even customized the cups for the gelato. I couldn't resist - and, while I thought we'd have plenty extras, we didn't have many at all!

Our favors for the end of the night. Vases of baby's breath. I had intially started with this idea for the escort cards, but they were too big for our guests to carry around during cocktail hour. Many guests had left before these were all in place, and many just walked right by, so we had about 100 of these babies to transport back to my parents' house the next day. Next to all of them was a Thank You sign from the two of us.

Up next? Let's get the party started!

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Before We Finish Recapping...

I just have to make a confession. As on top of things as I was for the wedding, I completely slacked when it came to the thank yous. Yesterday I finally finished my side of the family, and up next is Mr. H's side. I haven't hit the two month mark since the wedding, but it is creeping upon me at a fast rate.

To make myself feel a little better about waiting so long to write them, I took the awesome photos that we received on disk from Perez Photography and made a little collage to print onto a postcard. I opted to use Vista Print because I used them quite a few times and was always happy with the quality. I chose the extra large postcards, knowing I wouldn't save on postage, just so that everyone could enjoy the pics as much as we have! So, without further ado...

The front side ... I chose to do all color except for two of our favorite black and white photos (which are also my fav pics from the wedding...period). There's also a little teaser of the photos to come in my last few posts!

The back side. Yes, I made sure to get our monogram in there one more time. I also added the lines for the addresses because I'm super anal and didn't want to write them in slanted.

Am I the only procrastinator around the hive? How long did it take you all to complete your thank you notes?

A Festive Anniversary

As I was driving to work this morning I realized that two anniversaries will occur on Thanksgiving this year - which, happens to be two days after my birthday - not that you needed to know, I just find that particularly important :)

Mr. H and I went out on Thanksgiving Eve in 2005 and we both, not purposely, made each other jealous by talking to the opposite sex. It was after this night out that Mr. H decided to kiss me - a night that I will never forget. Since we spent just about every single day together since that night, I consider Thanksgiving to be our pre-wedding anniversary.

(picture from here)

This year, Thanksgiving just so happens to fall on the same day as our wedding, so we will not only be celebrating my belated birthday and Thanksgiving with our families, but also our three year "togetheraversary" and our two month wedding anniversary.

Have any of your anniversaries fallen on holidays and/or other special occasions without intention?

*One a side note - I think it's only fair that you celebrate every month until you've hit the one year mark, then you can just celebrate your wedding annually :)

Thursday, October 30, 2008

And Miss Becomes Mrs.

I was completely surprised that our ceremony was exactly one hour long, maybe even a little less, considering all of the Spanish traditions that we included in our ceremony. We were so on top of things, time wise, that I waited in the bridal room for almost two hours before I could see Mr. H again!

Here are some highlights of when we finally said our I Dos, after 14 months of planning!

*All photos credit to Perez Photography

All of our padrinos, lined up in a row.

Mr. H walking his parents down the aisle before the rest of us make our debut.

I just love this pic because of my bridesmaid - her face says a million words :) Not to mention it shows all of their amazing dresses. Letting them pick what they were going to wear was, by far, one of my best decisions. They all did amazing!

There are a few pics that are our favs from the wedding, and all of them are in this post. This one I love because all three of us were so nervous, but so excited, to get down the aisle. At a couple of points down that walk I had to slow one down and speed one up to make it there. I wanted to enjoy every moment, especially after all of our previous bees' advice, so I slowed it down and truly enjoyed the walk.

One of the best pics of the wedding - Pops H and me. My two brothers are in the background. I have to admit, that is one hilarious face on Brother H in the front. It's almost a sweet, yet totally older brother face to make. My dad's grin, and mine for that matter, say it all. We were happy!

The arras. I am so glad that we chose to incorporate the Spanish traditions into the mass. I made sure to put explanations of all the traditions in the back of our programs, mainly for my side of the family.

The lasso, another Spanish tradition. I chose to use a beautiful rosary as our lasso and am so glad that I did. This will definitely be passed down to our children in the future, along with the arras.

I just love this pic that Cesar and Tanya took during the ceremony. To see everyone holding hands and praying at our wedding is just touching.

Another one of our favorites from the wedding. Just days before, we stood near this same location and lit candles for Mr. H's grandmother, who is very ill and was unable to attend the wedding. Instead of just standing there and talking, Mr. H and I actually said our Hail Marys (good thing, b/c I had no clue that Mr. H was mic'd).

And it's official - we are married! It was a good kiss too, I might add :)

Another one of our favs from the wedding. Our grins say it all, and are so natural. We were toally happy to have finally said our I Dos.

My niece, who attended the ceremony but not the reception, didn't want to walk with her parents, but with her grandparents instead. She might look sad, but she wasn't. While everyone was taking communion, and we were kneeling at the altar, I heard, "Stephanie, Stephanie.... STEPHANIE," and, when I turned around, there she was waving and smiling as big as she could. It was one of the most memorable moments for me. And walking back down the aisle with my parents was one of their most memorable moments as well.

Mr. H's parents. I promise they do smile.

With our awesome Father John. His homily was filled with humor, seriousness and great messages for marriage.

Mr. H's parents and our padrinos. I promise they are happy - they don't smile for ANY pictures.

Mrs. H's family. We aren't a big bunch, but we are a lot of fun!

Our bridal party, once again!

Stay tuned for more details and the party of a lifetime :)