aaaaand we're back!!!

Phew! I was seriously turning a shade somewhere between cerulean & indigo there, waiting for our FUCKING INTERWEBS TO GET WORKING. Ahem. I'm sorry. I don't mean to swear. (Really. I try not to. I just suck at not-swearing.)

In case anyone has been wondering about the brevity/simplicity of my recent (aka post-move) posts, allow me to elucidate: We had DSL service at the apartment, with a small-ish provider whose service/pricing/support we adored. So naturally we tried to just shift our account with them to the new Owned By Us address. We had to wait 5 (five!!) days, because AT&T makes you suffer if you don't use their 'net service, for the phone to get "turned on". I guess the guy who had to flip a switch was busy that week. Anyway, once the 5-day time frame had elapsed: still no 'net. So we called, and were asked to wait ANOTHER 2 (two!!) days for a technician to come out & investigate.

Which he did. I was here. And a Very Large Dude, who was surprisingly friendly AND helpful, played with some wires outside the house (even though it was raining). And he diagnosed us as 3000 ft. too far from the DSL hub to get service. (Insert Lumbergh voice here:) "Greeaaaaat."

So: back to square 1. Call cable company. They'll come out in 3 (three!!) business days. Except that the 3rd day was Effing President's Day. (Stoopid Presidents.) So we just. finally. got. service. today.

(By the by, my interim posts were made via a nifty iPhone app called BlogWriter. I was very pleased with the results. Get the free version, unless you have the urge to post photos -- then it's a worthwhile $1.99. But you can't delete posts ... hence the bewildering stuff that I just got rid of, from my "learning curve" phase.)

At any rate: Howdy! I'm still here! And we still have no bathroom to speak of. (Epic Construction Timing Fail.) But here's what we do have:
An uber-fancy new light/fan, with switches that independently control both functions! And paint! And some bead board (slightly visible)!

A couple of fixtures! Including a rain bath shower head, and that awesome outlet-find light for over the (eventually) medicine cabinet.

And various kinds of flooring! That's the river rock stuff in the shower floor, and those (totally my fault, expensive-ish) penny tiles on the rest of the floor. Also, a better look at the bead board.

Now all we need is for the Effing Grout to dry, so we can re-connect the toilet. That's all I care to say about that ... except that NO, I'm NOT enjoying this part.

i heart my hat!

My veil/hat/fascinator thingy (yes, that's a technical term; please try to keep up) is ready!


(I think I'll wear it a little more to the side than the bottom photo shows.)

It's PERFECT!

I met the lovely, amazing Kelly, aka Satanica, at a local craft fair called Unique L.A., back in December. I'd gone to the event on a hunt for "stuff I need for the wedding," without having any idea what that stuff might be. After wandering around cluelessly for almost as much time as I had on my meter (parking downtown = grrrrr) I found her stand. As I pawed, repeatedly, through a wide variety of veiled hats & headbands, she mentioned that she could custom-make something for me, if I didn't see exactly what I wanted. Oh, swoon.

The best part is that I bartered a little for an extra-friendly price. I'm "donating" my modelling skills for her upcoming photo-shoot needs. Hooray!

And just in case you're wondering, Satanica is her stage name, from back when she used to twirl fire batons.

** Holy crap ... I have a veil. I'm getting freakin' married!

fortunately i've found a whole new conundrum

I made it to the jewelry trade show on Friday, and had great success -- I got a super deal on enough gold chain to make b-maid bracelets ($3.85/foot!) and finally figured out what to put on top of those cufflink bases. Green-hued mother of pearl beads, $3 for a strand of twice as much as I needed. So now I'll have these to give as gifts to the groomsmen: (In retrospect, that's a terrible backdrop for the photo -- my apologies.) I really tried to go with something they could use again. Believe me, I spent waaay too much time dithering about going for something a bit "bling-ier", to match the b-maid earrings, plus a few other even sillier ideas. But in the end, I think I did good. Mr. UB agrees.

Are brides "supposed to" give gifts to the groomsmen? I don't care -- I adore all of the guys who'll be standing up with My Guy, and it seems unfair to only give thank-yous to the people standing behind me at the ceremony. Best of all, it came to a total of less than $14 for all 5 pairs.

So, with the attendant thank-you gifts under control, I decided it was time to move onto a whole new problem: Project Honeymoon.

Mind you, I only consider it a problem in the budgetary sense. I have a permanent case of wanderlust, and I still feel the pull of my ex-patriate past at regular intervals. Neither Mr. UB nor I are afraid to fly, and we both love adventure. So it's definitely not the travelling itself that's the "problem." Rather, it's trying to find something that feels appropriately special that we can afford.

Starting with our original ideas, Mr. UB first thought of Italy. Rome, specifically. Which is a place I absolutely want to go with him ... just not for our honeymoon. Why? Because I lived in Italy for 4 years, and Rome was my 2nd home while I was there. So perhaps it's weird (he kinda thinks it is), but I want our honeymoon to be a place that's brand new to both of us, so that we can discover it together. Or alternately, a place where I won't mind failing to show him everything that I love, just in case we never make it out of the hotel room.

My original idea looked like this: Right? Right?! There's just one problem: the part of the world where most of the places that look like this is located, specifically Bora Bora/Mo'orea, is "pricey," to put it mildly. As in most of them start at $900/night. Ouch. (Have I mentioned that I have exquisite taste?)

So: back to the drawing board (aka Google.) I actually got a manageable amount of hits for "Over Water Hotel" once I took out the duplicates. And a few were easily eliminated right away: a lake in Switzerland (not tropical), the coast of northern California (not exotic) and a place in Bermuda (just not "it") are out. There's a beautiful place in Western Samoa that's run by an American couple who dropped out of the game a few years back, and it looks amazing.

source

It's called Coconuts Beach Club, and it's not outrageously priced. The trouble spot is getting to Samoa. It's admittedly less trouble from L.A. than from just about anywhere else besides Australia, but that doesn't make it easy. Even if you don't have a layover in Fiji, the positioning of the Int'l Date Line means that getting there technically takes three days!! Even if you "get them back" on the return trip, it seems like the kind of travel that needs a longer time frame than we're likely to have. Oh, and those flights are about $1000/person. Again: ouch.

And then I stumbled onto this place. It's in Panama. Now, just to prove that I still have a shred of sanity, my first reaction was Panama?!? But upon closer inspection, I have to admit that I'm falling for the place. It's a very small resort, and it's actually affordable. During the time period when we'd be going, those bungalows are under $350/night. And non-stop flights from L.A. to Panama City can be had for under $500/person. You can even get there for less, if you're willing to take a flight with stops. Normally, I'd totally go for that, but I hope we can splurge $100 since it's our honeymoon. Also, we'd probably have to spend a night in Panama City before the island-hopper plane to the resort, and that could be really cool. I don't think I'd want to spend a lot of time there, but one night would definitely be fun.

So now it's time to see what we can actually afford, and try to make it happen. Maybe we can do one of those travel registry things? I much prefer a swell vacation to kitchen stuff. I'll buy my own damn blender.

a work in progress

We want to have a website, Mr. UB & I. You know ... for the wedding. Not because people need to know every stinkin' detail about our lives *cough i do that here cough*, but for practical purposes. And by practical, I mean to keep things within our budget.

1) Save-The-Dates: Yes, I'm still adamantly refusing to refer to these by their acronym. Also, to paraphrase the marvellous Ania, we are in a new millenium and there's nothing tacky about an electronic Save-The-Date. Especially if we use it to introduce our website, which will be chock-full of oh-so-much useful information (see below). I don't plan on doing anything as generic as an eVite, mind you. I'll be putting my photoshop skillz to use & making a lovely PDF image.

Also, no paper or postage costs for this round.

2) RSVPs: According to many recent wedding veterans, a disturbingly high percentage of the rsvp cards that are mailed out with return postage already on it simply do not come back. I don't know why. Nobody seems to. But I'm not keen on spending extra monies on a) little cards, b) little envelopes, and c) postage (again) just to have it thrown away. If I'm going to have to pester people with calls/emails to get their yay or nay -- and from what I hear, I will -- then please don't make me also have to stuff the gigantic "grrrrr!" back down my throat. I don't edit myself well. Seriously.

3) Stuff we don't want to include in the invitations: Things like maps, hotel info, and whatever else I haven't even been told about yet that we're "supposed to include" ... Really? People are actually this together in their planning process? There's nothing they've left out/forgotten/spaced on, by the day the invites get mailed? Interesting. Where does one find such people, as I've never met any?

4) Registry: I can't decide which is sillier -- the idea of registering for gifts ("buy us this!") or the hubbub surrounding how to, and especially how NOT to, let people know the damned registry exists. So it'll be on the website. Done.

At first glance, it seems like there are lots of resources out there to create a free wedding website. However, upon further inspection, "free" has a variety of definitions. The most common one seems to be We'reTooCheapToPayForTheUpgrade.com/OurNamesHere. No way am I putting that on the invitations I've poured blood, sweat and tears into. Hell to the No. In all of my searching, I couldn't find a single hosting site that lets you have OurNames@OurWedding.com without an annual fee. And none of those are cheap.

So: Plan B. Build us a website. Daunting, but I've done it twice before. Of course, my computer had its "memory incident" since then, and while I managed to save all my data (phew!) I lost many of my programs. Which just means I have to figure out how to use iWeb.

I registered our domain name (and got the exact one I wanted, thank you) for $2.19. And the hosting of our site for 1 year is $56.88. Still not free, but a lot less than the $100 average on other sites, and I have total creative control. Also, we can keep the domain name after the wedding & use it for general info about us. For anyone who cares, that is -- whatever, it's still a non-disposable item, even if it is electronic, and that pleases me.

I uploaded the first version today -- some of the links are a little wonky, and I haven't quite sussed out how to make my updated pages get from my laptop file to the interwebs, but it does exist. And that has to be worth something. Right?

Check us out if you're interested: JessAndJudd.com
Domain registry & site hosting via GoDaddy.com

shout-outs & stuff I've seen

As I mentioned in a previous post, my wedding dress arrived. And I managed to get through the alteration experience without passing out.* (*barely, but who's counting?) But I've been remiss in letting you know about the amazing people who made it possible for me to get a dress I love on freakin' eBay:

1) Julie at bobsbijoux eBay store. We chatted back & forth via email before I made the leap, and she did so much to calm my nerves about buying a wedding dress online. She was happy to let me exchange it for another size/style if I needed to, with just the cost of shipping, and even offered me some advice when I was wavering between 2 similar styles. Her shop sells overstock & past season J Crew dresses, in lots of colors and short & long lengths. Great stuff for brides & b-maids. I got mine for $122.95 with shipping!

2) R & L Tailoring & Alterations. I found them on Yelp, and wasn't disappointed. They couln't have been nicer, and their price ($75 to take in a wedding dress all the way down the sides & in the back where the zipper is) was very reasonable. They don't have a website, but you can find them at 1263 Smithwood Drive, L.A. 90035 (just a few doors north of Pico, between Beverly Dr. & Beverwil.) 310-557-0249. Read more reviews on yelp here.

3) My dress has pretty thin halter straps, so I realized after very little searching that I was going to need one of those 100-Ways bras from Victoria's Secret. They've been discontinued in stores (probably b/c they're being sued by someone who claims they stole her design) so you can only get them online. The neutral ones are $37.50 now (down from $50), but you can get it for $19.99 if you can make do with a slightly funkier color. The sale ends tomorrow, according to their website.

In my search for a few more wedding things today, I came across these at Ikea: Not my colors, but if they're yours, Ikea Burbank has them on sale for 49 cents each. They're hidden down in the bins right before the cash registers, fyi.

I also managed to order the paper for our invitations today. I finally decided that I'm fed up with regularly cruising the aisles of Michael's for one color, and JoAnn's for the other. (Why can't one or the other carry both? It's the same freakin' manufacturer, for peet's sake.) Even with shipping, it's cheaper to go to the source & get it in bulk, anyway. These are crappy pics plucked off their website, but here's what I'm getting: The top back color "Blonde Columns" is actually just a textured, solid-color cardstock. It's really nice, and I like that it echoes the columns in the achitecture of our ceremony site. $40/125 pieces of 8.5 x 11. We can get two invites per sheet, based on the size of our design -- which leaves lots of extras for screw-ups/people we forgot.
We're getting the 2nd color from the left, "Artic Ice."It just happens to perfectly match the gold ink that I found to stamp the invites with. I like that it's a soft sheen, and not one of those "where are my sunglasses?" sparkly papers. We want classy, not Ceasar's Palace. $13/25 pieces of 12 x 12.
(All images & prices available at The Paper Company.)

Finally, my search for a petticoat continues. I've found a couple in vintage stores, of which L.A. has a ton, but nothing that's quite right. (I have until October, so I'm not worried yet -- check back in August to see if I'm in a lather about it.) But I'm happy because today's outting reminded me of the existence of one of my favorite places: Shareen Vintage. It's an absolute treasure trove of vintage clothing, in a warehouse down where the 5 & the 110 cross. Shareen, who was there today, has an incredible eye, and even better sources. (Seriously, I don't know where or how she finds her stuff. But I wish I did.) The best part: her prices are insanely reasonable. I had to take slow, deep breaths to keep from walking out with a whole new spring/summer wardrobe. (Her collection at the moment is heavy on dresses. How does she get inside my mind?!) No hits today -- one slip was too poufy, one was too big in the waist -- but I told her what I need and I will be going back. She's got locations in Venice & NYC now, too -- info, etc. on her site.

I'm sure this is normal

This absolutely terrorized me for almost a week:

Why, you ask? Is my mail carrier mean? Did I have an early childhood incident with a slightly mangled box? Did the return address label say Kaczynski? No -- it was far worse than that. This box contained my wedding dress.

I wasn't expecting to feel this way about it, mind you. Quite the opposite, in fact. Perhaps I should've reflected for a moment on how quickly I ran out of the one wedding dress shop I've managed to walk into, and factored that in. As it was, I left the box sitting there on the chair for several days. I kept "meaning" to try it on. But what if I hated it? I considered grabbing my next door neighbor, Theresa, and making her hold my hand while I tried it on. (Metaphorically, of course -- that would be logistically difficult, if taken literally.) But I decided not to "bother" her, and left it sitting there for another day. (I say "bother" in quotes because she's terribly excited about the whole wedding thing, and has said she's more than willing to help.)

And then, one night, in the middle of a tv show that I wasn't paying much attention to, I just got up, opened the box and the protective envelope inside of it, and tried it on. Right over my wildly wrong-colored underwear. I remembered to put my shoes on, too.

And I didn't hate it. It was a little wrinkled from its trip, but in perfect condition & exactly as advertised. I think I made the right call on the size, too -- it fit in the boobs, but needed to be taken in down the sides. Which I figured was better than the alternative of fitting in the waist with boobage spilling out the top.

Now, of course, I found myself in the position of having a wedding dress without an accompanying wedding dress shop to do the alterations. D'oh! I looked on The Knot and Wedding Channel.com, but all of their recommendations for "L.A. alterations" seem to be in Orange County. Not out of the question, but not exactly convenient either. (Plus, it's scary behind the Orange Curtain, and I try not to go there.) On a whim, I looked on Yelp -- which took a damned long time to load for some reason, but then yielded up gold. Two tailor shops just outside of Beverly Hills with specific reviews for altering wedding dresses. I ultimately went with the place that had six reviews that were all raves, with three of them specifically mentioning that she saved them from wedding dress disasters created by other people.

Of course, getting the dress altered meant that I had to try it on again. In front of other people this time. And while I was standing there, moving my arms out of the way so the very nice people with pins could do their thing ... I literally got dizzy. The room didn't quite spin, but I was definitely light-headed, and possibly green around the gills. "Holy crap this is my wedding dress ohmigod I want it to look perfect I'm freakin' marrying J__ in this dress ohmigod do i hate it is it ridiculously drab what if i wanna change it can i change it of course i can change it i don't wanna change it it's fine ..."

Ahem. I'm a little bit embarrassed by that outburst. I think I just had my first "bride" moment.

Also, it's about an inch or two short. Which I don't think the tailor can fix, but I bet a petticoat will. (And thank you, sis, for pointing out that the correct term is not, in fact, "poufy slip.") And if it doesn't, and the thing people remember most about my wedding a year after it happens is that my dress could've been an inch longer, then we will have done something wrong.

luuuurrrrve!!

Once again, I am in love. Or rather, more specifically, I am in luuuurrrve. With the delectable Ania. She's a wedding co-ordinator, who fell into my lap via the beyond-lovely Mel (Camera-Op Extra-ordinaire) where I am once again working. But ... what-evers. I luuuuurrrve me some Ania. She has resources for everything from cakes & flowers to rings & decor stuff. AND she's committed to fitting into my micro-budget. I would cart her around on my shoulders if I could. She also thinks I've done a good job, on my totally uneducated, out-of-my-depth own, thus far. Woot = us!

craft project #1

I finished the earrings for my b-maids tonight. (And yes, I really should be doing laundry & packing.) I'm pretty happy with how they came out:
And yes, I know that the bottom right pair needs hooks. I ran out of those. I'll get more after Christmas/ next time I'm in west LA.

I especially like the craft paper holders -- it's one of the invite paper samples (one that I'm not using.) My own little "instant re-purposing" project! I'm also really digging the graphic appeal of my leopard-print ottoman. Definitely not part of the wedding decor, but I like the effect in this pic.

Accessories: 2, Dress: 0

Continuing my personal trend of accessorizing a dress I do not yet own, I found a veil today. Well, to be more precise, I found someone who's going to make my veil for me today. I went to the Unique L.A. design showcase in the California Apparel Mart, where I met the fabulous Kelly. She makes these:







Aren't they beautiful? She has all of these & more available in her Etsy store, Satanica.Etsy.net.

The last picture above looks the most like the one she's designing for me, except that mine's going to be on a headpiece with a comb instead of a headband. She's also going to add a few white peacock feathers, which I absolutely fell in love with. The best part: all of the above styles range between $25 to $65 dollars.

Now: could I find something out there that costs less? Theoretically. But with the deals that I've found on my shoes & dress (I do have one in mind), I'm willing to "splurge" $10 more than my ideal price for one luxe item. Especially for something that I love.

And does it appeal to me that my freakin' bridal veil is made by a designer who's site is called "Satanica"? More than it probably should.