Wedding Highlights!

I can't believe it's November.. 6 months since the big day. An entire half year passed by.. and I must confess, the Thank You cards are still sitting there waiting for me to finish and send out. eek!

Our videographer just posted our wedding highlights on his blog. He did such an amazing job on the video.. it just brought back all the memory and reminded me that I really need to get on those thank you cards asap!

Here it is!

Maggie + Kevin // Highlights from Americana Cinema on Vimeo.

LA Times!

It's been a little over a month since the wedding and we're in the LA Times!!

LA Times asked our wedding planner, Amanda Ma of Fresh Events Company, for a story on a unique wedding... so she referred them to us!! Rena LeBlanc of LA Times interviewed us for the story and it was published in yesterday's Sunday Times!! The article is featured in the Image section under the Together page! I've never really been one to think about t

Honeymoon Sailing in Northern Europe

Among our many reasons for having a wedding on a yacht (a private and intimate venue, the beautiful scenery, everyone arriving on time, everyone staying until the end of the wedding, etc..), the main reason is because we love cruises!

In keeping with our sailing & world travel theme.. we have booked our honeymoon trip for late August and will be sailing in a 8day/7night cruise in Northern Europe! We'll fly into Hamburg, Germany and start our cruise in Kiel, Germany. The cruise will make its way to Copenhagen, Denmark - Stockholm, Sweden - Tallin, Estonia - St.Petersburg, Russia and back to Kiel.



After the cruise, we're going to spend a couple days in Amsterdam, a couple days in Bruges, Belgium, head down to Paris for a few days and then.. no Europe trip would be complete without a visit to my favorite place, London! hopefully, we can visit a couple cities in France on our way down to Paris and then make some day trips around England as well.

So excited for this honeymoon!! yay!!! I'm going to do my best to post pictures and travel logs on the places we've visited on this blog, so check back between Aug 26-Sep 15!

Mr. & Mrs. Lo!

Our weddding has come and gone! There is so much to post about the day's event, but for now I just want some post-wedding r&r. So I leave you with this:

5 more days!

OMG 5 more days!

Less than 2 weeks to go!!

The wedding is getting really close!!

Last weekend my girls threw me a beautiful bridal shower at the Langham Huntington Pasadena. We were served afternoon tea and my bridesmaid prepared some fun games! I had so much fun and it was really great to see my mom, grandma, cousins, and close girl friends all together. Thank you girls for throwing me such a amazing shower! (Special Thanks to Jacklyn, Lulu, and Christine for coming out!)

"Mrs. Lo" to be

It took some thought, but I made the decision to change my last name!!

We went to the district office in East L.A. to apply for our marriage license. The room had a very interesting altar set up for those getting married there.. so we decided to take "prom" photos in front of it haha..



Other takes:

OMG - It's MAY!

Where has the time gone? April is gone and MAY is here!!

So much has been happening since the last post that it would be impossible to list every little detail.. but here are some highlights!

- We bought our RINGS! we finally got around to getting this done! Thanks to the awesome people at Inta Gems in Downtown L.A.! Kev found them on yelp with 5 star reviews and you get 20% discount if you mention that you saw them on yelp! Check them out: http://www.yelp.com/biz/inta-gems-diamonds-and-jewelry-los-angeles (Ask for Jossi or Peter)

- RSVPs are flowing in! Thank you everyone who has been prompt on RSVP! I know we got the invites out kind of late.. but if you haven't already, you can RSVP online! It'll only take less than 5 minutes! http://www.projectwedding.com/ourwedding/kevinmaggiewedding/rsvp

- Food tasting was AWESOME! The Pecan-Crusted Pacific Sole was sooo delicious. Our other menu selection is Tender Roasted Adobe Beef. Since we have buffet-style dinner, guests will be able to try both dishes if they want and also have 2 salads and great sides to choose from.

- Video Shoot with Americana Cinema. We have a special "love story" video that will be playing during the wedding! We don't want to give it away so here's a sneak peak:

Last Single Weekend!

My bridesmaids took me to VEGAS for my last single weekend!

Thank you May, Jenn T, Jenn S, Laura, Esther, Jill, Natasha, and Wendy for taking time off your busy schedules to celebrate with me VEGAS style! :)

And a special thank you to Jenn T's parents for helping us get two beautiful suites at Palazzo!!

This is the only picture I am going to post. hehe..

Invitations are out! RSVP!

The invitations are mailed out! It's been a long process and we were worried about not getting it out on time since we're a bit late on sending it out.. but the invitations came out beautifully and are sent out! Scott from Spiffy Press did an amazing job translating what I pictured in my head into something real and amazing. I've had amazing feedback on the invitations and I really hope it is something my family and friends will save as a souvenir keepsake from our wedding! Isn't that the best part about a cruise.. taking pictures and bringing them home as a souvenir?

Here we are working on mailing out our invitations:

Double-Digit Days till the Big Day!

I really should stop counting down, because it's starting to freak Kev and I out on the limited number of days we have until the Big Day! and all the little details we have to hammer out before then. But the great news is that we got to view our engagement photos from Santa Barbara. Here's a sneak peek:






For more pictures, check out our wedding website: http://www.kevinmaggiewedding.projectwedding.com/wedding-photos

The password is kevinmaggie.

Also check out our photographer's blog: http://fotonuova.blogspot.com/2010/04/travels-with-maggie-kevin.html

Santa Barbara Photo Shoot

This weekend has been crazy!! I catered my first tea event for 60 guests on Sunday (which meant prepping all night Saturday = no sleep! and lots of help from my cousins and Kev) and then trial hair/makeup this morning before our photo shoot at Santa Barbara.. busy busy busy!

The photo shoot was fun! It was kinda awkward in the beginning, but a lot easier by the end of the day. Kev is a natural at this apparently.. haha.. Aaron (our photographer) would tell Kev to get closer.. and closer.. and "connect".. at first, we were like.. connect? like KISS?

We also brought Ronald & Batman with us and Natasha, one of my bridesmaids, was awesome to come along with her dog, Lucy, and dog-sit for the day when we weren't using the dogs in the shot.

Our first shoot was at the Goleta Train Depot (this train station is such a hidden gem and such a beautiful place to take pictures) Since I didn't take any pictures of my own today, I searched for some pictures online of this train station, but none of the pictures really does it justice:

We spotted our next photo spot across from Goleta Train Depot in an orchard field. So we thought.. why not? So technically, we did trespass onto private property to take pictures.. but it was totally worth it. :) And what an amazing coincidence that it happened to be a lemon orchard! We have a sparkling lemon beverage that we're serving during our wedding.. so it was a perfect way to tie that into the wedding. Apparently, Goleta is known for their lemons! I found this image of a lemon orchard and a vintage postcard from Goleta:

Then we didn't want to miss the sunset, so we rushed to Franceschi Park.. a beautiful hidden park up in the hills of Santa Barbara overlooking the entire city. I have no idea how I stumbled upon this park 3 years ago. I just went past the Mission and get driving up the hill until I came across this park. Then for our 9 year anniversary, we went to Santa Barbara and I took Kev to this park. It is truly breathtaking at sunset.

Here are some photos when we went there for our anniversary.. and yes, we did take pictures as you can tell from the shadow on my sweater.. haha. At least this time around, we went with professional photographers to take a picture of us sitting on that exact bench. :)

only 72 days to go!

Look at this cute icon I found on moo.com:


updates:
- booked invitation designer: Scott Wallin @ Spiffy Press
- booked videographer: Gilber Le @ Americana Cinema
- trial makeup w/ Grace of Beauty by Grace on 3/22 before engagement photos
- engagement photos @ Santa Barbara w/ Aaron Gil of Fotonuova on 3/22

- bought wedding favors @ LittleThingsFavors.com

- bought flower girl dresses @ MyGirlDress.com

- bought wedding centerpiece votives, jars, & candles @ Moskatel's in Downtown LA

I can't believe there's only 72 days left to go.. there's still quite a bit to do.. with the major one being... wedding dress alterations!! eeekk! I'm making progress with working out and personal training.. but really got to focus on the eating. There's just too much food all around me (especially working at a restaurant company).. Time for extreme self-control. This has been a slow week since I sprained my back on Sunday during an exercise and had to take Monday and Tuesday off work to re-cover. I tried swimming yesterday, but still have a couple days before I regain enough strength in my lower back to continue with TKB (turbo-kickbox) and my regular workout/training routine.

We're really excited about the engagement shoot at Santa Barbara this coming Monday. Our photographer and I have been working hard on finding great locations to shoot at. I'll post pictures on our wedding website soon!

New Years has come and gone

January passed by in the blink of an eye..

updates:
- booked makeup artist: Grace Illasco @ Beauty by Grace
- booked florist: Michelle Kim @ Larchmont Village Florist
- met with designer Scott Wallin @ Spiffy Press for invitation design
- refined wedding colors and theme
- on the hunt for a videographer since the one we wanted was already booked..
- setting a date with Aaron Gil of Fotonuova to take engagement photos at the Santa Barbara train station
- Bridesmaids dresses arrived
- taking West Coast swing dance classes at PCC on Mondays & Wednesdays until 2/17.. then we're scheduling for some private lessons!

Seems like the updates are getting longer and longer.. which only means the wedding is going to be here in no time at all. On a personal update, I started personal training a few weeks ago which has been amazing so far. I'm looking forward to the results and happy that I'm finally exercising again. Kev has been supportive and going to the gym with me when he can.

Last night, we had dinner with the moms (Kev's mom and my mom) and Kev's grandma to go over wedding plans. We've been working so hard on the wedding plans that we were nervous they were going to completely throw off our plans.. but it actually turned out really well. We were able to share our plans with them, get feedback on what we could do differently and leave with all of us having a better understanding of what to expect on that day.

With that, let me leave you with this incredible wedding blog that I find myself constantly going back to for inspiration: http://snippetandink.blogspot.com/