This Will Be Our Year: Boutonnieres and Tuxedos

The wedding day sure looks different from the other side of things. While my bridesmaids and I spent hours "in" hair and makeup (leaving us no time for anything other than room service), my groom and his men were able to head to the hotel restaurant for a long, relaxing brunch buffet. Hmph. On the other hand, they had to arrange their own transportation to the venue (we got to take the hotel shuttle, because we delicate flowers can't be bothered drive), and get way fewer pictures of them getting ready. ;)

We can draw the story out by starting when my brother-in-law (HA! I GET TO SAY THAT NOW!)'s girlfriend walked in with the guys' boutonnieres.


They were already dressed in their tuxedos when they arrived at Calamigos, so there wasn't much left to do but put on the finishing touches!

(Apparently that last one was problematic, judging from Middle Brother Spaniel's perplexed face, and the fact that two different people attempted to do it!)
Once the boutonnieres were safely attached, it was time for the glamor shots...


...or should I say, glamor SOCKS?

All photos by Regis Photography and the incomparable Meg Perotti.

Miss anything?
The Spaniels Are Married!
Watching Paint Dry
Vendor FAIL
Putting Our Faces On
Something New

This Will Be Our Year: Something New

We arrived at the venue half an hour early (three hours before the scheduled ceremony time), but there were already guests milling about the property. GASP! Claudia, our ceremony site coordinator, quickly whisked us away into the bridal dressing room so I didn't get waylaid by the early birds.

(Puh-leez. There will be no hugging the bride until my wedding dress is on, thank you!)
And speaking of my wedding dress, I'd like to show you my "something new..."

(They might not be Prada, but they were still pretty! And comfortable enough to dance in all night!)
And speaking of my wedding dress being on...! Remember how I failed to feed myself before the wedding? I wasn't able to turn it around: my dress was too big!

How many bridesmaid does it take to dress a Spaniel?
(No joke; that dress was sliding right down my torso!)
Thanks to some quick thinking and a safety pin or two, I did not flash the wedding guests that night. Soon, all that was left to do was to get into my shoes before heading out for portraits.


I really like the juxtaposition of these two images. In both pictures, I can see my closest friends supporting me on my wedding day—in the first picture, you can see it pretty literally, as BM-Y basically held me up while I got my feet into those shoes. ;) The second picture is still part of the Spaniel-shoeing process, but it looks a lot calmer, doesn't it?

All photos by the fabulous Meg Perotti.

Miss anything?
The Spaniels Are Married!
Watching Paint Dry
Vendor FAIL
Putting Our Faces On

Economics of name-changing

I'm always interested in how people reveal their preferences and values by how they spend their money—that's why I shared my budget early on. (I'm still planning to share the outcome with you, but I'll probably save that for the end.) And since I just completed the dreaded name change, I thought I'd share with you the process and the cost.

The order and prices may be different in different jurisdictions, but here's what I went through in Los Angeles County.

1. Get a certified marriage certificate from the County Registrar/Recorder. Cost: $14. This is the necessary first step pretty much everywhere, and one of the most annoying part of the process for me. I spent two hours in line at the Van Nuys office, so I'd recommend trying a different time of day (Tuesday at 12:30 appears to be a bad time to go in).

Before you get your copy, you'll want to make sure that your marriage license has been recorded, otherwise they'll take your $14 and you'll have to come back later and pay (and wait in line!) again. I don't know how long it takes after the wedding for the document to be recorded—our officiant mailed the license in on March 22, and the date of recording on our certificate is listed as March 26—so I'd probably wait a week or two weeks at least before attempting the first step.

2. Change your name with the Social Security Office. Cost: $0. You can find your local office here. I went to the Office in Glendale right after getting our record from Van Nuys, and there was no wait at all.

3. Change your name with the DMV and get a new driver's license/state identification card. Cost: $31 AND YOUR SOUL. (Mr. Spaniel just renewed his license and had to pay more than me, so this may or may not be an accurate amount.) I visited the DMV in Pasadena, which was ridiculously busy—I tried to sign up for an appointment online, but couldn't get one until the middle of June! I hear you can get appointments more quickly at the DMV in Lincoln Heights. Anyway, I walked in, waited in line for an hour just to get a number, and then was immediately called to a window. I got a temporary license with my new name, then was directed to another line to take a new picture (and oh my goodness am I glad I went home in between steps 2 and 3 to fix my hair and put on makeup, because I wasn't sure if they'd take a new picture or not and five to ten years of an ugly ID would just be upsetting!). And since my license was up for renewal soon anyway, I had to come back the next day, wait in a line again, check in for a written exam, wait in another line to take a written exam, actually take the written exam, and then wait in two more lines before I could get my updated interim license. Seriously, the guy ahead of me told me he'd been at the DMV for 4½ hours. Budget lots of time for this step.

4. Renew (or apply for) your passport. Cost: $110. This step can actually cost closer to $150 or more depending on your travel plans and whether or not you already have a passport, but I included the cost of the actual renewal application (you need Form DS-82) ($75); the cost of passport photos; paying for overnight return shipping (suggested by the State Department at $14.96 extra), a weather-proof, padded mailer and priority mailing with delivery confirmation (also suggested by the State Department). You'll need to include your marriage certificate, so make photocopies in advance.

If you're in a hurry, expedited processing costs an additional $60, and you'll probably want to overnight your application (about another $15). If you haven't had a passport before, there is another $25 processing fee. And if you're really in a hurry, you should make an appointment at a Regional Passport Agency.

5. Notify any professional or licensing agencies you belong to. Cost: $5. Lucky you if this doesn't apply to you, but I had to notify the State Bar of the name change right away via certified mail.

6. Notify your creditors and banks. Cost: $5. The cost of notifying your creditors really depends on how many you have—I only included the cost of postage here. My student loans have been bought, sold, consolidated, whatever over the years, and I discovered that I needed to send notice to six different lenders. Yikes! I made my own form letter and just merged the account information into each one, enclosed a photocopy of the marriage certificate, and mailed them off. I am waiting until I receive my new driver's license from the DMV (about four to six weeks, I'm told) to mail the notices to my bank so that I don't have any trouble with my ATM or credit cards not matching the name on the picture ID that I actually have.

All in all, my name change cost me $165, half a tank of gas, half of one day and a quarter of the next in line, and extreme mental anguish. ;) I guess that is how much Mr. Spaniel's desire to share a family name is worth to us! The funny part (to me) is that, because of a glitch in the system when we got our marriage license which caused Mr. Spaniel's new name not to be recorded correctly, Mr. Spaniel gets to do all of this again himself in a month or two once the amendment is processed! At least then we'll be even!

And with that, back to recaps!

This Will Be Our Year: Putting Our Faces On

While MOH-S and BM-Noe did the dirty work and made phone calls when we found out that make-up artist was canceling on the day of my wedding, the hair stylist arrived. After chiding me for not calling her sooner so that she could bring her make-up and help me out (I have no idea why I didn't think of that), she got to work making me look pretty.

I wasn't sure exactly what I had wanted my hair to look like, so I brought this picture of Emmy Rossum during our earlier trial and told her, "like this, but lower on top and curlier on bottom."

(source)
Since Febe is my regular hair stylist, we'd had several chances to practice my 'do for the big day. The first time, we learned that my hair extensions hold curl much better than my natural hair does, so she used a holding spray on my hair the second time. The second time, we learned that my natural hair with holding spray holds curl better than the extensions do, so we used it on both the extensions and my own hair on the wedding day. Trial and error, right?

Also, because she is a magical hair mind-reader, Febe seemed to know exactly what I was talking about with my vague description, ignored my constant style-waffling, and got to work on pinning my curls and styling my extensions.

(She found my extension hanging system... amusing)
Outside of the bathroom, however, a miracle was occurring—or, rather, a miracle worker arrived. One of the many calls that MOH-S made during the morning was to Image Resorts in Camarillo. The receptionist placed a call to Aliona at home, who called us back to quote us a reasonable emergency makeup price, get hired, get directions and save the day. While Febe was curling my hair, Aliona prettified MOH-S and BM-Noe (who I hope will forgive me for posting these ridiculous pictures of her!).


When it was my turn, I showed Aliona the same picture of Penelope Cruz that I showed the first MUA.

(source)
And like the first time, I didn't look like Penelope Cruz in the end. DAMN IT AGAIN!

Aliona insisted that dark eye makeup was not "bride-appropriate" and that I had to go lighter. She also wouldn't put on fake eyelashes, telling me that, without a trial, they might fall out and it would be a disaster. I was not exactly in a position to find a new makeup artist with only a few hours left to go until the wedding, so I relented and figured I could ask her to change anything I didn't like when she was done.

(Primed and incredulous)
(What's with all the purple?)
Luckily lavender was one of my wedding colors, because I felt a little like Grimace when I looked in the mirror at first. Still, I was starting to warm up to the lavender eye shadow (but was definitely pretty iffy on the purple lipstick) while Febe finished off my hair.


When my hair was done and I got to see the look mostly completed, I decided I was on board with the purple Spaniel after all. The purple lipstick still looked weird and unnatural to me (of course, being a wearer solely of clear lip balm only would have made any color weird and unnatural), but I got positive feedback and I ended up really liking the way it came out in pictures. But I really loved the eye makeup. My eyes are on the dark side of brown, and they tend to look black in pictures. Even in these simple snapshots, I feel like my eye color looks much warmer and brighter. And in the pro shots? I HAVE EYELASHES!

(Photo by Meg Perotti)
After my hair was done, we had just enough time to clip my veil in, get the bridesmaids into their dresses, and hop into the shuttle to get to Calamigos and get me married!

Did anyone else find themselves doing their makeup trial on their wedding day? :)

Miss anything?
The Spaniels Are Married!
Watching Paint Dry
Vendor FAIL

This Will Be Our Year: Vendor FAIL

I can be a bit of a worrier at times, and like Miss Cola, I allay some of my anxiety by making back-up plans. This came in handy when I had to find a new DJ with less than two weeks to go before the wedding, because I had a list of phone numbers ready, our ceremony music all burned to a disc, and most of our other songs already downloaded should an iPod reception become a necessity (though where I would get the speakers, I hadn't figured out yet). Luckily, I didn't have to, because we found another DJ within two days who only charged a little more than our original, and who we trusted to show up (at that point, we hoped for little else).

Thanks to the-until-recently-Miss Rainbow, I taught myself how to do somewhat decent wedding makeup—more than I would normally wear, but still not enough to totally save my face from disappearing due to camera flashes—and had most of the necessary tools in my big makeup bag. But for whatever reason, the worrier in me decided to relax—maybe I thought the DJ fiasco would be my only wedding crisis?—and I left the big bag at home—I only packed my everyday makeup, what I would need for the honeymoon (a "kit" that includes only tinted moisturizer, bronzer and mascara). After all, I'd confirmed the location and arrival time the night before with the artist I had found on Craigslist who did my makeup for my bridal shower, and even though I didn't fall all over myself about the job she did, I felt at ease since she'd been so accessible and I could see my eyelashes in the pictures with the help of the fakies she applied.

What in the world was I thinking?

(source)
I woke up at 7:45 on Saturday and hopped in the shower while waiting for breakfast to be delivered to the room for me, BM-Noe, and MOH-S (my other bridesmaids planned to meet us later in the morning). When it arrived at 8:30, I decided take a quick look at my cell phone just to make sure there were no last minute questions from my vendors that I needed to refer to my Day-of-Coordinator. What I found instead was a text message from my make-up artist's "neighbor":

This is [No-show]'s neighbor. No-show was just taken to the hospital with a fever of 104 and is covered in a rash. She gave me your number so I could contact you and let you know she's not going to be able to do your wedding. She was literally more concerned about that than herself but she is very sick.

Funny how No-show's neighbor was able to send me a text message from No-show's phone, isn't it? Or how No-show was able to post new ads on Craigslist and continue to post to Facebook and Twitter, but not respond to my phone calls in the following weeks about returning my deposit for a month and a half afterward?

(source)
When I finished reading the message, I definitely started to panic. I barely had any makeup with me; what was I going to do? I'll tell you! I was going to sit back and let my amazing bridesmaids save the day!

MOH-S got right on the phone with her mother, who lived near the hotel where we were staying and had the number of all kinds of salons. She started calling them as soon as they opened, while BM-Noe talked me through our other options, like heading to the drug store to pick up the (many) items I was missing, or calling up the nearest MAC counter at a mall a few minutes away and getting us all in for some emergency wedding make-up. She also called my most stylish bridesmaid, BM-Y, to stop by a little earlier either to help us with our application (seriously, yo, we are clueless), or to make some phone calls herself since she had friends in beauty school (some training > no training!).

Many, many (many) phone calls were placed in the span of a half-hour... but did we find our miracle worker?

Were you stood up by a vendor? Were you able to resolve it?

Miss anything?
The Spaniels Are Married!
Watching Paint Dry

This Will Be Our Year: Watching Paint Dry

So last time, I told you about my super busy month and a half after the wedding, but now that that's all over (yeah right), it's time to get into the wedding preparations!

The day before the Spaniel wedding, we gathered together in our home with a few of our closest friends for a non-traditional mehndi party. BM-Noe, an out-of-town-er, had spent the night since our rehearsal dinner was the evening before (two days before the wedding), so we decided to start our morning with a greasy homemade breakfast (the best kind). While Mr. Spaniel cooked and I did some frantic last-minute vacuuming, Best Man Fan (our photographer for the day!) and his girlfriend arrived.


We'd planned to keep the party really small for the first few hours so that the henna artist, Paula (of Lotus Henna), would have some room to work in our teeny-tiny apartment.

Reviewing the patterns we picked earlier
Setting up materials
For the next three hours, Paula diligently labored over my mehndi, while I froze like a little unprepared popsicle. Apparently henna sucks the heat right out of your skin, and a smarter Spaniel would have maybe worn a little longer of a sleeve. (A smarter Spaniel also would have done her hair or put on some make-up before taking pictures that would be plastered all over the 'Bee, but, um, oops.) But at least I didn't have to ask people to pull my sleeves up all day—they already had to feed me. ;)


I won't bore you with the process twice; here are both hands covered in wet henna paste.


Of course, we did my feet and palms as well.


In some parts of South Asia, men are also hennaed for weddings, though it's not common where my family comes from. But I couldn't leave Mr. Spaniel out of the fun when he wanted his own little paisley.


BM-Noe got into the action, too, and got a little ladybug of her own.

Photo by BM-Noe
(I suggested a paisley ladybug, but no one seemed to know what one would look like and I couldn't draw it for them with my wet henna-hands. Apparently, I can't draw it in Paint, either!)


Before she left, Paula instructed us to dab the henna with lemon juice mixed with sugar to keep it moist so that it didn't crack and fall off (allowing the stain to set for longer so that it would be darker), so I took the opportunity to be the laziest bum in the universe, letting Mr. Spaniel and BM-Noe take turns patting sugar-lemon juice onto my hands and feet. In the meantime, Mr. Spaniel mixed us up some mango lassi, while our friends picked up our delicious feast of naan, papadom, samosas, lamb, chicken, and lentil curries (ZOMG I was so full afterwards! Good thing, though; it was practically the last thing I ate all weekend!).

Meanwhile, a few other wedding party members arrived to have lunch and hang out. We ended up passing the time watching The Namesake (a must-see, I think, for anyone from an immigrant family or an interest in the Diaspora, but maybe not at your mehndi party!) and just chatting.

All in all, though it was nothing like the mehndi I'd originally hoped for or the one I later envisioned, our little henna party was one of the most perfect experiences leading up to the wedding. It was after seeing my henna done that it really started to sink in—I'm a bride! I'm getting married tomorrow! It was a surprisingly emotional event for me, and I'm so glad we were surrounded just by a small group of people who care about us, wished us well, didn't add to our stress and jitters, and were just plain fun to be around. It was a truly wonderful day!

All photos taken by BM-Fan, except where otherwise noted.

Miss anything?
The Spaniels Are Married!

Spaniels' California Adventure: You Can (Sort of) Go Home Again

Before we knew it, it was Sunday morning and time to go home.

On the road again
It was back to the grind of 5:00 AM alarms and commutes across the sprawl of Los Angeles; back to homework, studying, finals, and not drinking all the fabulous wine we came home with. I wouldn't exactly say I suffered from "post-wedding depression"... but man did reality hit hard after the honeymoon! Folks, if you can take an extra day or two readjusting your sleep clock before returning to real life, I highly recommend it!

I did have a few amazing things to look forward to when I got back though. Not only did I graduate law school just five short weeks (okay, five intensely long weeks) after we came back home from the honeymoon...

(Yes! I did graduate!)
...but I also knew I had the wedding recaps to look forward to! So while I wait for image files from my photographer and figure out how in the world I am going to write these recaps (why did no one tell me how hard they would be? Where do I even start?!), I have one more (huge, gigantic) thing keeping me entertained...

I was supposed to learn all of this during law school. I tell you, I did not.
So help a sister out! What do you find most helpful or interesting in wedding recaps?

Want to see where the adventure began?
Honeymoon Roadtrip
Sebastopol and Occidental
Timber Cove
Happy Cows Come from California
Carmel and Big Sur
Cambria

Spaniels' California Adventure: Cambria or Bust!

After our disappointment at Hearst Castle, we Spaniels drove the lengthy and arduous six miles to our final honeymoon destination, the Fog Catcher Inn in Cambria.


But don't let the view from the front of the property fool you: we had a fabulous view of a retaining wall from our room. It can't be all panoramic ocean views all the time, now can it? :)

We only had one night in Cambria, and since it was a pretty familiar spot for us (if you remember, we took our first set of engagement photos there with Mr. Spaniel's family), we didn't do much other than sandwich crapping out big-time with dinner and breakfast. We did manage to get a pretty awesome vegetarian dinner at Robin's Restaurant and a delish breakfast with ollalieberry jam at Linn's, and to take some really silly pictures for you, but that's about it.

Aforementioned silly pictures
Our only goal in Cambria was to relax enough to brace ourselves against coming back home by relaxing as much as possible. We pretty much achieved it.

Want to see where the adventure began?
Honeymoon Roadtrip
Sebastopol and Occidental
Timber Cove
Happy Cows Come from California
Carmel and Big Sur

Spaniels' California Adventure: Carmel and Big Sur: THWARTED, and THWARTED AGAIN!

On Thursday morning, we started to make our way down to our next stop, the Tickle Pink Inn in Carmel. This leg of our trip was a wedding gift from the Spaniel-in-laws, who stayed at the same hotel on their own honeymoon thirty-five years ago!

Day 5 route (source)
As beautiful as it was, though, going to Carmel and Monterey was a little bittersweet: our trip was more than half over! It also marked the end of our beautiful and amazing sojourn in Sonoma County, which is absolutely one of the nicest places I've ever been!

But it's hard to feel bad for too long when the view out out of the full-wall of windows in your hotel room looks like this.

(Taken from different corners at different times of day)
We actually were able to see whales from our window the first morning! They were too far away and moved too quickly for me to photograph, though.

Most of this leg of our trip seemed to be spent eating, but we also took the 17 Mile Drive after hearing some of the other guests at the Tickle Pink Inn raving about it.

It. Was. Boring. As. Hell. And the biggest waste of $9.25 and our time I can imagine. I don't even have a good picture of it, it was so boring. Maybe it's worth it if you actually want to golf at Pebble Beach, but I saw much more beautiful scenery for free driving to Carmel from Jenner.

Still, there were some beautiful things other than our hotel room in Carmel; we did manage to take in some gorgeous scenery on a walk at Point Lobos.


A note: if you come to Carmel in March and want to go hiking, bring something warmer than a sweatshirt. :) We left pretty quickly before I froze to death. THWARTED!

We left Carmel early on Saturday to give us time to soak in Big Sur down the PCH, and make a stop at Hearst Castle before our last destination before the honeymoon was over.

I had high expectations for Big Sur, I'm not going to lie. And if we'd started our trip in Los Angeles and gone gradually north up the coast, it probably would have met them. But after seeing the amazing views further north—rocky cliffs next to the wild Pacific, with redwood and fir forests on the other side of the road—most of Big Sur just couldn't compete!

Day 7 route (source)
It was still pretty gorgeous, though... I definitely will be back, someday.


After a few hours in the car, we passed the elephant seals at San Simeon before getting to the visitor center at Hearst Castle.


Sadly, this is the only picture you'll see from us here, because when we got inside, we discovered that every tour had sold out, for the entire day. THWARTED AGAIN!

Luckily Mr. Spaniel and I had been there before so it wasn't the end of the world, but if you're planning on stopping by on a Saturday, it's probably a good idea to know what time you'll be there and reserve your tickets in advance!

Want to see where the adventure began?
Honeymoon Roadtrip
Sebastopol and Occidental
Timber Cove
Happy Cows Come from California