Not Merely Living

M+V Wedding Recaps: the girls get ready

By the time our photographer Ashley arrived, my room was abuzz with excitement. The girls were all getting ready, and my hair was ready to go (thanks to Ashley S. from Fower & Gold), and Alexia was putting the finishing touches on my makeup. Our room at the Omni was perfect because it had two separate spaces. While the girls got ready in the front of the suite, I was nestled quietly in the bedroom:

I Loved my sparkly kate spades. I planned to change out of them after the ceremony, but they were so comfortable I wore them all night!

Before it was time to put on my dress, I was able to steal a few quiet moments to myself.

Then I had my only pre-wedding sip of champagne when my Matron of Honor Tino proposed a toast:

Above: the DIY flutes I made the lady (tutorial to come), Tino gave an epic toast, my ladies showing off their new rings in their favorite colors

I love that Ashley caught this special moment between me and Tino:

I read Viet's letter to me (love you husband) and opened his perfect gift:

A beautiful, perfect emerald necklace (to match my wedding band). My mom and gram's reactions are priceless.

And then Tino helped me get into my dress.

It's funny how all the moments from that day have stayed with me so clearly. I was so present in each of those moments that I can close my eyes and remember how I was feeling. When my grams began fastening her pearl necklace around my neck (the one my gramps gave to her on their wedding day), I felt so much love and so much emotion:

Once we were all ready to go, we took a short limo ride to the church and then tucked ourselves away into a side room.Throughout each of these moments leading up the walk down the aisle I felt especially lucky to be surrounded by my amazing friends:

we sang "We came to dance" by Taio Cruz to get pumped up before the ceremony. Bridget captured it on video. Pure Joy.

 

 Up Next: Grinning down the aisle.

  All photos taken by Ashley Forette.

M+V Wedding Recaps: the boys get ready

Welcome to the week of Wedding Recaps!

The boys got ready a few floors down from the girls:

Viet put together an amazing kit for his groomsmen in a waterproof box:

The kit included a watch, pocket knife, and batman cufflinks. :)

We exchanged gifts and letters while we were getting ready. Viet loves and collects cufflinks, so I got him a special pair:

Once Viet and the boys were ready to go they had time for some photos on there way to the church:

and then they waited. . . 

Up next: the girls get ready :)

 All photos taken by Ashley Forette.

M+V Wedding Recaps: Waking Up

On our wedding day I awoke in our hotel room next to three of my dearest friends. I rolled over to see Shap lying next to me, and I believe I said something along the lines of:

there's no one I would rather spend my last single night with. "there''s no one i'd rather wake up next to on my wedding day" (Correction after Shap read this post and reminded me of what I really said. :)

We had several deep laughs and waited as long as possible to open the drapes. I was (surprisingly) calm and happy. Having my dearest friends at my side really helped.

These are the pictures I took on my iphone before our photographer arrived:

first waking moments

lights on/sunlight streaming

 

city morning

hello wedding pedicure

hello my city

hello bride

blurry pic, but I love it anyways:


shenanigans

Room. Service.

One Episode of Sex and the City

a beautiful rose

Friends of Honor gifts to be opened

It was the perfect wedding day morning. Happy Friday :) Stay tuned for more wedding recaps and wedding DIYs next week! 

 

Magic

*****************************************************************************************************

Today I'm feeling the need for some magic. Magic in the possibility of what's to come. Magic in the dream. Magic in believing in impossible things.

I'm feeling as though I am just barely making it through this week, and as such, I desperately need this magic to help me make it through.

Look closely:

                                                                    Source: citified.blogspot.com via Mere on Pinterest

Sometimes magic is courage:

 

 

                                                        Source: bugeyedboo.tumblr.com via Mere on Pinterest

 

Ninjas are definitely magic. Still. Every Time. They never lose their magic:

 

Sometimes magic is stopping to remind myself that I (We) do good work.

 

With Care. 

 




 

                                                   Source: nauticalstripesandcritterskirts.tumblr.com via Mere on Pinterest

 

Magic. Hope you're believing today. Check back tomorrow for the start of our wedding day recaps!

M+V Wedding Recaps: Rehearsal Dinner

When we drove up to Viet's aunt and uncle's house, I saw the balloons from the street: rows of balloons lining the fence. Before I even got out of the car, I was already tearing up. 

It's hard for me to even pull together the right words to describe our rehearsal dinner. It was a night filled with so much emotion for me. 

Viet's family planned the most magical and loving evening for us. They welcomed my family with open arms. Our families came together and really embraced each other.

I couldn't have imagined a better rehearsal dinner or a more special meeting of our families.

Binh (Viet's cousin and groomsmen) introduced the heads of Viet's family (as is tradition) and said a stirring speech.

                    Viet's parents, aunts and uncles

 
                    my parents

                    my cousin, aunts and brother

                    a feast.

                    my dad and Vu (Viet's cousin and groomsmen). Both dentists and fast friends

                    Viet and his mom

                    us and my family

I will always remember that night as one of the most magical nights of my life, and I will always, always be grateful to Viet's family for the love and care they took in celebrating our union.

DIYing a nautical bridal shower

For Tiffany's bridal shower, I found some perfect DIY projects online that matched the nautical theme we were going for.

 

The original DIY inspiration from Martha Stewart of the origami placecards we were going for:

Tiffany's mom mid-folding of a placecard:

Our final product:

The trickiest part was definitely the final origami step where you have to do a bit of finagling to get the paper popped into the final boat shape. My advice: be gentle. :)

I bought the bamboo off amazon (the same ones I used for our wedding drink flags).

Our inspiration from Oh Happy Day:

Our final product:

This blue magic went impromptu from garland to BOA. An amazing unexpected dual function (this transformation was completely due to Tiffany's awesomeness):

Here's the truth of the truth about these garlands: they are the hardest beautiful project ever. The project is a breeze until you get to the fluffing. The fluffling takes quite a while. But as it doubles as a sweet Boa, I say it's worth it! :)

This my favorite project for the shower. Here's the inspiration from Design Sponge:

The Design Sponge step by step tutorial is very helpful. I think the key is getting the right rope. I picked mine up at our local Ace hardware store: Wellington Light load conomy Multi-Purpose rope (3/16 in.).

Here's how ours turned out:

There you have it! Happy Crafting!

 

Weekend of Sunshine

 

It was beautiful in San Francisco this weekend. The sun was shining and the wind was blowing. I was lucky enough to be out, about and celebrating in the light.

This weekend I

+Celebrated two coworkers' birthdays with some pool at Benders

+Picked up some great finds at the Renegade Craft Fair

+Had a quick brunch and picked up some macarons at La Boulange

+BBQed in the afternoon with tasty new wine and blooming flowers 

+Sang Sound of Music's "Do-Re-Mi" at the top of my lungs Musical style with the windows and volume up (FIVE times)

and Yesterday, well yesterday was Awesome. We threw a bridal shower for my dear friend Tiffany.

The day started out with a slight hiccup when two hours before the shower started I accidentally cut my finger so badly I had to go to the ER. So excuse my typos. I'm typing one finger down. :)

Luckily, Tiffany's mom and friends came to the rescue and got to my house early to get everything set up in my absence! 

                    our cute little origami sailboat placecards

                  favors

Check out the beautiful bride:

So excited for Tiffany and Tim! I'll post a list of all our DIY projects for the shower this week. :)

Happy Monday!

This Week

>My husband was super cute. He made me dinner. We watched Batman Begins. :)

In this picture he is actually saying "Haelp":

>We celebrated Kara's birthday:

>We did Wedding Prep for Tiff!!

>a lil mini bachelorette action. We're pretty much in bachelorette mode til her September wedding. :)






Happy Friday Friends.

This weekend I'm looking forward to doing lots of celebrating. Hope you will be too :)

XO,

Mere

Currently Coveting in July

Last night I took an incredible Photoshop Elements tutorial with Victoria from Vivaleur  and Vmac+cheese. If you're looking to pick up some more Photoshop skills, I highly recommend Victoria's tutorials.

Hopefully you'll be able to see a difference around here thanks to Victoria!

This month I'm coveting some every day items and a just a few registry items that are still lingering on our list. . . 

These magical hairclips from Nordstroms; Print with Avett Brothers Lyrics from The Oysters Pearl; Silk pentuck henley tank from Banana Republic; Fina Firenze Lacy Stretch Belt; Gap Always skinny white jeans; my favorite kate spade bangle in these new awesome colors! (mint, kelly, orange); green and blue hatch washi tape from wishy washy; Feminist Ryan Gosling by Danielle Henderson (author of this hilarious tumblr); and a pretty waterproof picnic blanket from Crate and Barrel.

For our registry, I really want to purchase a few more pieces from our registry: Lenox Crystal flutes, Kate Spade Gardner Street Green china, and the matching Kate Spade vase.

What lovely items have caught your eye this month?

DIY: Nautical Shower Invitation in PSE

I've been bumbling around and slowly trying to teach myself how to use Photoshop Elements (PSE) 10.

I want to be able to design my own things, but I have literally negative experience so my learning curve has been pretty slow. I finally feel like I've picked up a few key skills (some by googling and some just by trial and error), so I feel confident enough to try out my own projects (like making a bridal shower invitation!).

My dear friend Tiffany is getting married in September, and I was stoked  when she agreed to let me host a shower for her at my place (which is happening this Sunday).  Remember when Tiffany got engaged on a sail boat? Her wedding is going to have some nautical touches (think sailboats not sand/starfish).

I took a stab at designing her shower invite in PSE. Please note that I am definitely not a PSE expert. I'm sure that there may be many better ways to do what I did, so I'm just sharing with you the way I made it happen. 

Here's my step by step process. I wanted to use the colors of her bridesmaids dresses: an ocean/teal, dark maroon, and a royal purple. I wanted to incorporate a slightly nautical touch, so I went with ropes. :)

Here's the final product (excuse the blurring for privacy):

One biggg lesson I learned with this project is that the way the color looks on my screen does not= the color that prints (thank you husband). Viet patiently explained to me what was happening after I spent a significant amount of time designing the invite and picking the colors perfectly (I may or may not have saved the color swatches from our JCrew bridesmaids dresses to use for the invite).  I was a bit frustrated I couldn't get it perfect, but I decided it was good enough. :)

 Step 1:

Once I created a new file for an A9 card (8.5 x 5.5 inches), I clicked on the brush tool to create the border.

 

Step 2:

I selected the brush I wanted to use by going up to the top left corner box (the top yellow arrow) and pushing the drop down arrow to get a variety of different brush options. The 2nd yellow arrow is pointing to the brush groups (I'm making these terms up as I go :)). I liked the "Pen Pressure" group the best. and My favorite was the Torn paper (medium sized) option #27. When looking in the boxes, you're really just trying to find the right simple shape you are looking for. You can customize how dark the imprint will be and how spaced out each of the images will be by clicking on the opacity button and the little tool button right to the right of the opacity button. 

 Step 3:

To use the brush, I just held down the main button on my mac and moved my mouse around the outside corners of the image. It took several practice tries to get it looking exactly how I wanted it:

Step 4: 

I wanted Tiffany's name to really stick out, so I used an all cap font I downloaded from dafont.com. It's called "Claire Hand."

 

Step 5:

I wanted some sort of symbol to pull the whole thing together, and I found the perfect rope heart on istockphoto.com. I opened it into PSE, and then I dragged into the mainscreen from my project bin using the moving tool (top left).

Here it is up close:

I used the paintbucket tool to change the color of the heart to pink.

Step 6:

When searching for nautical inspired invitations to get some inspiration, I found one that had really cool writing that looked like a rope on dafont called "Rope MF."

Then the rest of the invite was just simple text.

I used a corner cutter from papersource to round the edges.

Here's how the invite ended up in PSE (notice the color difference):

What do you think? Do you like my design? 

For you PSE experts, is there anything I could have done better/easier?

Happy Wednesday!