I was going through some photos today and started looking at my Tanzania photos. Ahhhh, how amazing that trip was. Derek and I have been dreaming of returning. Doesn’t look like it’s in the cards for this year though…anyways, enjoy the photos!
(above: this is one of my favorite photos from the whole trip…)
Photos of our engagement and wedding! We got engaged on June 11th, 2009, and got married on August 8th, 2009! Yes, that’s only 2 months of planning…but somehow, our wedding could not have been more perfect, even if we had had a year to plan!
Derek lured me into a photobooth to take some fun photos, little did I know, that he had already taken pictures with proposal notes! When he handed me the photobooth strips for safe keeping, he had slipped the proposal in there. When I looked at it I just about fainted. First of all, I had never told him that before I ever even met him I used to say that a photobooth proposal would be the BEST way to get engaged! And second of all, how stinking romantic. I mean, my goodness. Does he know me, or what?! Truly a dream come true. After much screaming and crying (all happy), I said “YES!!!”
Quickly thereafter the engagement, we scheduled an engagement photo session with Vasna Wilson. A friend and incredible photographer, who we were lucky enough to have photograph our wedding also.
Our ceremony and reception was held at Radonich Ranch in Los Gatos, California. Under the tall, beautiful trees, on a perfect August afternoon, we were married with 70 of our closest friends and family present. It really was magical.
We were married by our friend Mark Scandrette, who conducted a beautiful and creative ceremony. Our closest friends were our attendants. (My little sister, and maid of honor, Janelle Gates, handmade my headpiece for me.)
Details! From the top left: 1. Our guestbook, which was also made by hand by my sister, was filled with photobooth strips from our engagement and the wedding. 2. Jars filled with flowers and candles were hung from the trees by ribbon. These jars were all recycled and collected for the 2 months prior to the wedding. 3. Flags made by my mom, Jennifer Gates, from her plethora of beautiful quilting fabrics. 4. These were packets I made that were the escort cards, and a favor; filled with California poppy seeds. 5. A friend of ours, the fabulous Anna Bond, designed our invitations, and gave me the flexibility to hand screen print them myself, which allowed me to use the screens for other purposes as well, such as for our programs! I am obsessed with her work…I find myself lucky to know the lovely lady! 6. My beautiful bouquet, which I assembled myself, from the flowers that our wonderful wedding coordinator, Marky Carr, got for us.
WE’RE MARRIED!!! Vasna got some amazing photos of the two of us together, rejoicing that the day had finally come for us to be husband & wife, partners for life.
The photobooth. This was one of the best things about our wedding. We rented a photobooth from Classic Photobooth Rentals to make up our guestbook, and double as a fun take-away gift for our guests. The result was an INCREDIBLE guestbook, and some insane photos of people having a great time in it. We also had an old typewriter for people to type their notes to us with, and photo corners to adhere the scraps of paper and photobooth strips to the book. We thought this detail to be only fitting of us, considering our engagement (not to mention my obsession with photobooths)!
My beautiful friend, Amy Ross, made our cupcakes for us: Lavender cupcakes with lavender cream cheese icing. Yummm! I made the toppers out of styrofoam letters from Michael’s, which I painted to match our decor. My dad assembled the AMAZING tiered tree cake stand for us. I have it in my home now as decor! I love it. Derek and I chose to serve our cupcakes together, since we didn’t really have anything to “cut” (seems kind of silly to cut a cupcake).
Our first dance was to the song “You and I” by Ingrid Michaelson. I would suggest listening to it if you haven’t heard it before…super sweet. :) Since I LOVE dessert, we had a SECOND dessert during dancing: ICE CREAM CONES! Woo! We served Balsamic Strawberry ice cream from Bi-Rite Creamery, out of San Francisco. Marky (our wedding coordinator)’s husband was kind enough to make us that nifty serving box thing for them. Soooo cool, right?
I hope you love our wedding. It is still so magical for me to even think about. It was truly a PERFECT day. Thanks to everyone who helped out!!!
xo
m
today I went to Anthropologie (my favorite store in the universe), because for my birthday they sent me a 15% off card! so I put it to great use. really I didn’t need anything there, but since it’s my birthday, I bought a gorgeous set of wooden coasters for our living room. I spent almost 2 hours in there though, looking at everything and getting super inspired, like I usually do when I go in there. here are some fun photos I took while inside.
this year is my first year to actually be able to decorate my home for Christmas. in the past I have always had roommates with their own style or decorations, so I haven’t gotten to truly make it my own until this year! we finally got our home to a put together enough point where we wanted to have a housewarming/Christmas celebration. we packed 20-25 people into our apartment over the course of the night and had a wonderful time. it was suuuuuper cozy and warm. I made cranberry scones, chocolate chip cookies and apple cider (in my crock pot!). a delightful time indeed.
for our decorations I decorated our tree with some mini white frosted globe lights, and some sweet lace snowflake ornaments. very simple! I picked up some feux cranberry branches from Michael’s to put in some of my collected bottles on our mantle, and I hand needle felted a little garland for the mantle, and strung it on some leftover ribbon from our wedding. I also used a lot of candles that were leftover from our wedding to warm the place up. floating candles in some beautiful blue glass bowls, and I put some fresh cranberries in the water to float around the candle. cranberries are sooooo beautiful, I’ve had so much fun using them! next year I think I’ll make actual cranberry garland, I just didn’t have the shalack or whatever so they don’t rot. :)
today we are flying from san francisco to orlando. one of my favorite things about flying in the winter time is the views of snow from the airplanes. these are just some iPhone shots of the snow below, but man is it gorgeous. I wish there was a little less cloud cover in some shots, but it still makes for some beautiful pictures.
Today online I randomly saw an ad for this website called boygirlparty.com. The art that was with the ad looked interesting to me, so I followed it. This little website has some really darling prints and magnets and totebags…etc. They also have some interesting little things such as recipe cards with sweet little characters cooking drawn on it. Just so cute. Take a look!
Last week I did a photo shoot with a bunch of beautiful brides. It was a blast, and I was fortunate enough to work with the fabulous hair and makeup stylist, Jocelyn Gomez. For all you brides out there, these brides have been married for about a year, and they busted out their wedding dresses and got all dolled up for a post-wedding bridal portrait! I’ve never really thought about doing/suggesting this before, but I must say…it’s brilliant. As a bride on your wedding day, it’s tough to concentrate on taking really great, relaxed, playful photos when all you want to do is hang out with your guests and cut the cake! I would highly recommend these portraits to you; and if your hubby wanted to dress up too, then that would make it even BETTER!
Enjoy the photos! These are a very SMALL selection of what was taken…
The adventure continues. We traveled mostly by train, and had a fantastic time. I hope you enjoy the photos!
Paris:
Cinque Terre:
Rome:
That was it! By the end of our trip, we were exhausted, but we saw so many amazing things, it was totally worth it. Thank you to the family members that made this incredible trip possible…and thank you soooo much Katie & Benny for getting married in Italy! Haha.
Well, as most of you know, Derek and I had the opportunity to have the most INCREDIBLE honeymoon. It was almost a month long, and it included traveling to Florence, Venice, Paris, Cinque Terre and Rome (in that order). Today I only had time to Photoshop Florence and Venice photos before Derek had to kick me off his computer to get back to work. Haha. But here’s what I have so far, and I’m going to try to finish up the rest of the cities today! Looking at these photos really brings back to mind the incredible fun that was had.
In Florence we were with some close friends, and we attended one of my best friends’ wedding! Katie traveled to SF for our wedding (and was one of my bridesmaids), so naturally we were first in line to attend her’s. It was an INSANELY magical wedding…it literally could not have been more picturesque or dream-like. Insane.
(the above may not be the most exciting image, but it’s my place card with my married name! i was REALLY excited! “signora hansen”!!)
Next up, Venice!:
Choosing a new calendar for an entire year is so difficult for me. Fortunately, now that I have an iPhone, I no longer NEED a calendar I can write all over. But now the most important thing to me is beautiful design. Last year I got a beautiful, simple letterpress calendar with interesting type faces from the Curiosity Shoppe. The paper is amazing, and this calendar has served its purpose. However, the end of the year has come, and it’s time for something new. Here’s what I’ve been noticing around. (The first is my favorite so far, by Hammerpress; another design by Hammerpress is featured on Design*Sponge today.)
Pretty cute. I found it on the Curiosity Shoppe website here.
This beautiful calendar can be found on the Paper Source website. Just lovely, and can be used to wrap gifts in as you finish a month! Genius!
We’ll see what I end up with. So many choices. I think I’m leaning towards the first option though. It’s interesting and unique, and would make a fun art piece for our home for the year. Not to mention, it makes me think of my dad. :)
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