Friday, September 30, 2011

Pictures! Pictures! Pictures!

Pics ah Heeeehyaaa!!!!!!!! (Jersey Shore anyone...anyone?)

Check out the blog post by our AMAZEBALLS photographer and his wife Jason and Lucia Angelini:
Boston Wedding: Celia and Jake at the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. Lucia is a freaken ROCK STAR! Girl just had a baby and within days, she was back to editing our photos! I shit you not. I ♥ them, as in Jason and Lucia! I also ♥ the photos.   

Our first look, and one of my favorites. Jason Angelini Photography

Contact us if you want to see more ;)

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

High on lights

O! M! G! People. Our. Highlight. Video. Is. Here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Check it out!



Celia + Jake from Boston Wedding Films on Vimeo.



We love, like LOVE it!!! Thank you Mike and Michael of Boston Wedding Films.

Jake's favorite part is where he dropped a Venn diagram reference in our wedding video. To quote hime. "Sorry ladies, I'm off the market now."

Paula's favorite part is our first look, where I tapped him on both shoulders to confuse him.

All of it is my favorite. I was afraid that our song choice might be dated in 10 years, but our cinematographers think that it'll stand the test of time. Either way, I'm glad we went with it!

Enjoy!

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Random Thursday

It's been a long week or two around these parts filled with friends, babies, soul searching, new routines, and crafting. I owe you guys recaps and and wedding related "glory", and I'm dragging my feet. In the mean time, I leave you with some randomness.

How adorable are these little ballet slippers? Baby H is 8 weeks old.
(I think I cropped this photo in too tight..)

Remember my post on revamping an Ikea dresser? Apparently there is a whole community out there that repurposes Ikea furniture. They call themselves Ikea Hackers. I found a blog completely devoted to Ikea hacks. I can't even tell you how many hours I spent surfing through it. Some of it is pretty ugly, but there are a couple of gems in the mix!

I found out I was REALLY lactose intolerant not too long before the wedding. It's not a reach to say that I have a lactose allergy. In searching for non-dairy recipes I stumbled across Dairy Free for Baby. The authors' little one's are not only extremely intolerant of lactose protiens, but soy protiens as well. It's gut wrenching to read about what their babies have gone through.
As you know, one of my new found hobbies is photography. (If you've figured me out, you'd swear that I have some form of ADD/ADHD and jump from one thing to another.) While perusing through one of my favorite food/photo blogs, Cannelle et Vanille (Aran's photos make me drool all over my keyboard), I learned that the author was going to be teaching at a craft retreat in Colorado. And you know what? I am going to go. I get to learn about food styling and food photography at one session. AND. I can learn about lifestyle photography at another session. I have friends that live in Fort Collins, so I can visit them while I'm out there.

Speaking of photography. My camera and I are about to go on our first trip. I purchased my camera last November, but it hasn't been outside of Massachusetts/Connecticut! Crazy! I am headed to Chicago for the weekend. My BFF Jack and I are ready to explore. While I am there, I hope to take cool photos much like the Bonnie Tsang does on her trips. Of course my photos won't be anywhere near as amazing.

Bonnie Tsang Photography

Thursday, September 8, 2011

10 in 115

10 in 115 is my take on 100 in 1001. 100 in 1001 is a personal growth project in which you make a list of 100 things that you want to do and the goal is to complete your list in 1001 days.

You could joke that I just finished 100 items in 700-ish days. But with all these crazy ideas in my head, I think I should jot them down and see how I do.

Target date: 12/31/2011
  1. Finish the 2 crochet projects that I have started.
    • I start projects, but rarely do I finish them. Usually, I just mess up towards the end and then proceed to unravel the entire thing.
  2. Make a profit off a cupcake order.
    • I lose money on most jobs. Guess its time to get serious and raise the prices.
  3. Clean out my closet and take out all the old clothes that I do not wear.
    • I still have articles of clothing I bought in Hong Kong 6 years ago that I have never worn or will ever wear.
  4. Cook a three course meal.
    • I haven't cooked a good meal in a long time. And to think, I used to cook every night for my roommates during my internships. 
  5. Throw a dinner party.
    • Even better, a murder mystery dinner party.
  6. Clean out my car.
    • It was looking pretty bad just before my sunroof shattered. Insurance covered the clean-up, but now that the family is gone, my car is now one large trash can. Don't believe me? There are two empty Starbucks cups in the center console storage thingy. I had to move them from the cup holders in the center console to make room for my fresh cup of coffee the other day. Yea...that's pretty bad.
  7. Explore Chicago with my BFF Jack.
    • OK, so this is a gimme since we are planning to do this at the end of the month. I just need to buy my plane ticket and book the hotel.
  8. Redecorate our bedroom.
  9. Design, create, and mail out Thank You's to our wedding guests.
  10. Plan my trip home.
    • Winter isn't the best time to go home, but I'll take what I can get.

Let's see how I do at the end of the year, then perhaps we'll move onto 100 in 1001.


Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Jill: an interior designer?

Last year I saw this set up and swooned. Curtains used as the headboard? Genius!

HGTV Dream House 2011 - Master Bedroom via HGTV

If our bed frame looked like that, I would have redecorated our bedroom immediately. Instead, I said to myself, I'll figure it out after the wedding. Although, I have to admit my head was swirling with different ideas for a about a week. I was trying to come up with ways to change color of our furniture without replacing it or painting it. I'm still working on it.

Our set up. personal photo
Then Val introduced me to this:

via Nothing But Bonfires


Drama and clean lines? Yes, please! I am going to try to merge the two ideas together when winter comes. Right now I've got one too many things on my plate.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Drama-rama

With a two year engagement, you would think that we had everything nailed down and all set to go welllllllllllllll before the big day. Well, you would think. And I had hoped. But alas. It was not the case. We had to move the location of our tent a week before our wedding. That's right, a WEEK before!!

From the very first moment that we fell in love with our venue, we knew exactly where we wanted our reception. We wanted it outside, in a tent, smack dab in the middle of the grounds. We wanted to be surrounded by all the neat sculptures that make the park what it is (and it wouldn't be too far from where cocktail hour would be). At the time we were told that we would need to build a floor for a tent since the ground is slightly uneven. Sure no problem, how much could a floor cost?

Original tent location. (personal photo)

We met with our planner, the event coordinator for the museum, and our caterer for our final walk-thru and hashed out all the nitty gritty details with 30 days to go. Ceremony and cocktails on the terrace. Reception in the tent on the main lawn (center of park). Bathroom trailers in front of the carriage house. Paula contacted the tent company for a quote on the tent floor. The estimate was pretty hard to swallow. We hemmed and hawed for a bit and decided that since the RSVP numbers came out lower than expected that we would go for it. THEN, the tent company went out and surveyed the location to get the actual cost. Both Paula and I were hoping the number would come down. WRONG, it went up. WAY up. Try 67% higher. As it turned out that the ground is sloped by 4 feet in that location. The tent company would have to rig up a serious floor for us.

We had to move our tent. We knew there were two other locations available to choose from if we wanted to keep our reception outside. One was the back parking lot. Jake hated the back parking lot. It would have been far away from any neighbors, but we would have been removed from the sculptures and its a parking lot with a GIANT dumpster. The venue and our planner claimed that it would all be covered up and you would never know that we were in a parking lot. But we couldn't see it.

The second was in a secluded spot by the two black hearts sculpture. I disliked this location. It's by two giant black hearts AND there are neighbors through the trees on either side. After scoping out the property, I was hoping a third location would be possible. Unfortunately for us, there are water lines that run underground and is not a dig-safe location. At least that is what I have been telling myself. The venue never gave us a reason.  

I was hoping this spot between the trees would be a possibility. (personal photo)

Technically, there was another option that I considered. I considered moving the ceremony to be somewhere in the park. The cocktail hour somewhere else (I can't remember the life of me where now). And having our reception on the sculpture terrace, under the stars. But there isn't that much space on the terrace. We would have had to contend with a giant sculpture in the middle of it. The lounge and photobooth areas would be detached, lighting would need to be rigged up, and what would we have done with the parasols we were planning on hanging from the ceiling?

personal photo

In the end, we went with the black hearts location with a full floor (one that didn't cost us an arm, a leg, and our first born). We pissed the neighbors off enough to have them call the cops. Whoops. Everyone partied like rock stars and had a blast. How many people can say the cops shut down their wedding reception? 

Our tent all lit up. Photo by DJ Raffi Music and Lighting Productions via Marrero Events.


Thursday, September 1, 2011

Go Speed Racer, Go!

Let's try this again. I had this post written yesterday, but Blogger crapped out on me when I went to publish it.

I must be a glutton for punishment. I thought my days would be spent doing nothing but lounging on the couch with a beer in my hand after the wedding. Turns out that my hands do not know how to be idle.

Yesterday marked the first full week in which life has returned to "normal." But in that time, I haven't really stopped doing stuff. Last weekend, I crocheted almost from sun up to sun down. I have been frantically trying to finish the baby blanket that I started a month before the wedding. There's no deadline, but I think part of my brain views this as an unfinished project from the wedding and that I must finish it asap. Whatever the case, I am so close! I promise to post photos of the finished product.

Work has been hectic, I guess it's good to get thrown back into the muck of things. I must say, my boss was really supportive and tried to keep my plate empty knowing full well that I was designing things at my desk.

Most recently, I signed up for my second photography class. Session begins in two weeks and I am super excited. I decided against taking any more "basic" courses on how to use my camera. Enginerd here likes to learn things ahead of time by reading manuals, online tutorials, asking others for tips, and just tinkering on my own. I've moved on to learning about lighting. I don't think this course covers flash photography, but I will need to toy with that on my own with Old Man Winter approaching.

And as of two nights ago, I will be baking for a wedding. It's not a big gig in terms of quantity or income, but I've got to start somewhere. Plus, its for a friend.

In Jake's world, he started his new job this week! Whoohoo for new adventures.

OK, now let's talk about the wedding recaps. I can technically do them just based on the awesome photos my maid of honor took. I remember thinking, where the heck is my maid of honor? a bunch during the wedding, but now I know. And it was totally worth it. But I also want to turn the clock back and share all the projects I slaved over, and the process of arriving at big decisions like finding my wedding gown. Oh and not to mention, I also need to share all the drama that ensued the week of the wedding. I'm not sure what order I will do it all in, so just hang tight while I figure it out.

In the mean time, I'll leave you with this random photo. I'm tired of posting nothing but text. Aren't you tired of looking at nothing but text?




Me in a giant clog. Amsterdam 2005.