The Proposal: An Excerpt

For the full post please see this.

Here is an excerpt:

In my last post I mentioned how the fiancé and I wanted to enjoy the first day or two of our proposal by ourselves. And that’s true… but I also had another reason for keeping it to ourselves in the very beginning. I knew this proposal wasn’t over yet.

Many years ago the fiancé and I were talking about weddings, engagements, and proposals. Neither of us was quite ready for that step, but we like to talk about everything. I mentioned that I could see myself proposing to him and that I didn’t think the proposal was only the man’s job. While the fiancé agreed that a proposal wasn’t just a “man’s job,” he also confessed that proposing to me was something he really wanted to do. I knew then I had to let the fiancé propose first. And I mean first, because I had a plan to propose back to the fiancé after he asked me.

We returned home from Hawaii (with a ring on my finger) late in the evening. The next morning the fiancé had to get up early to run an errand, but was planning to return to bed. While he was gone I left a little present on his pillow*:

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When he came home he was very surprised! I proposed to him and he accepted! Although he didn’t technically say yes until a few minutes later over breakfast ;).

Now the engagement was 100% official and we started spreading the word like peanut butter on toast!

*About a year before the actual proposal I felt it was time to get prepared and I bought these cufflinks as a proposal gift. I considered getting him a ring or a watch, but I knew that he really wanted nice cufflinks, and this way he can wear them on our wedding day. Turns out he actually bought the ring around the same time—we had them both burning holes in our pockets (or secret hiding spots) for almost a year!

The Proposal x 2

Okay, ladies & gents, it’s finally time for me to tell you how we got engaged! In two parts!

Part 1

For our ten-year anniversary the fiancé (then BF) and I decided to go on a short trip to Maui. I had always wanted to do something special for our ten-year anniversary, especially since there were so many years we couldn’t celebrate (my favorite is when we had a big fancy dinner planned for our 6^th anniversary and my brother called the day before and said this: “There was a small fire in my dorm room and now it smells funny. I’m coming to stay with you this weekend.”).

Neither of us had ever been to Hawaii, and we were very excited. I thought a proposal was possible; I had recently re-warmed to the idea of marriage, I had just finished grad school, he was almost done with grad school, it was our 10^th anniversary, and we were in Hawaii. It just made sense. We had an amazing time the first couple days in Hawaii; we snorkeled with sea turtles, we hiked to petroglyphs, we drank many pina coladas and mai tais. But after our actual anniversary day ended without a proposal, I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. We only had one day left on the island and we decided to drive the Hana Highway. The Hana Highway is a beautiful (and intense) drive with many places to stop off and explore. About halfway through the drive we pulled off to do a short hike to a small waterfall. We were all alone there, so I went to set up a picture.

This isn’t the best picture of us (at all!), but you can see Mr. Cheetah holding the ring box in his clasped hand on the right.

Right after the picture was taken Mr. Cheetah turned to me and showed me the ring. And didn’t say anything! Finally I said “and?” He asked me to marry him, I said yes and then came the very sweet speech. :) Which I wish I remembered better...

Here’s the ring! It’s a lovely sapphire and he picked it out himself. This photo was taken right after his proposal.

And one more back home:

And a better shot of the proposal spot:

Unlike most newly engaged couples, we didn’t start calling people right away. We wanted to enjoy the new engagement and the last hours of our vacation just the two of us. But I did call my sister from the airport the next day.

Part 2

Mr. Cheetah and I wanted to enjoy the first day or two of our proposal by ourselves. And that’s true… but I also had another reason for keeping it to ourselves in the very beginning. I knew this proposal wasn’t over yet.

Many years ago Mr. Cheetah and I were talking about weddings, engagements, and proposals. Neither of us was quite ready for that step, but we like to talk about everything. I mentioned that I could see myself proposing to him and that I didn’t think the proposal was only the man’s job. While Mr. Cheetah agreed that a proposal wasn’t just a “man’s job,” he also confessed that proposing to me was something he really wanted to do. I knew then I had to let him propose first. And I mean first, because I had a plan to propose back to Mr. Cheetah after he asked me.

We returned home from Hawaii (with a ring on my finger) late in the evening. The next morning Mr. Cheetah had to get up early to run an errand, but was planning to return to bed. While he was gone I left a little present on his pillow*:

When he came home he was very surprised! I proposed to him and he accepted! Although he didn’t technically say yes until a few minutes later over breakfast ;).

Now the engagement was 100% official and we started spreading the word like peanut butter on toast!

*About a year before the actual proposal I felt it was time to get prepared and I bought these cufflinks as a proposal gift. I considered getting him a ring or a watch, but I knew that he really wanted nice cufflinks, and this way he can wear them on our wedding day. Turns out he actually bought the ring around the same time—we had them both burning holes in our pockets (or secret hiding spots) for almost a year!

*all personal photos*

Color Me Bad(d)

Which one did you have a crush on?

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I’m an artist, I deal with colors all the time. In fact color is a hugely important aspect of a lot of my work. So why am I crazy struggling with our wedding palette!?!?

A room at The Viceroy

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The Viceroy has a very defined color palette of black, white & yellow. It looks fantastic and I definitely want to work with it—but I also definitely want to add to it. My first thought was pink. All sorts of pinks look great with the Viceroy Palette and I’ve always pictured myself with a pink bouquet. So I pictured black, white, yellow, soft rose, & bright raspberry. I also wanted a more neutral color to work with, so I threw in grey.

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My first color palette. And I like it. But I just can’t commit. Some days I think about throwing out the pinks and putting in orange. Or going citrus on it with orange and lime. But most the time I just think about adding a color to the above palette. Aqua. Coral. Or maybe Charcoal.

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Here's a gorgeous wedding with a similar palette to my first idea:

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I love this inspiration board with pink, yellow & aqua. An addition of black and white would add a touch of elegance, I think.

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Coral can look great with pinks & yellows too:

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Sometimes I like the more neutral tones of grey:

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It’s getting down to the wire for me to pick bridesmaid dresses and start planning the invitations, so I want to have this figured out sooner rather than later. So Hive, which color palette do you like best?

Woo-hoo!

Okay, I was just about to write a post about color palettes—but I can’t anymore because I just got some exciting news!

Bridesmaid Buenos Aires is engaged!!! And she is getting married in THREE weeks! Ahhhh! I’m SO excited!

As you may have guessed from her oh-so-clever moniker, she lives in Argentina. I have known BM BA forever, she is a good family friend and really she has been a part of our family since she was 6, joining us on family vacays and everything.

Here’s a picture of me and BM BA:

Yup, in matching shirts. That’s how we role.

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BA and her fiancé (!!!) have an amazing international love story. A few years ago BA decided to move to Argentina for a year to teach English. She had an amazing time there and became friends with many people, including a great guy named R. After the year was up, BA moved back to her hometown of Chicago. Many months later R decided to move to Paris, and he stopped in Chicago to visit BA for a week first. It was there that their friendship evolved into something more—but it was just a wonderful, but short, week. Neither BA or R knew if it would ever be anything more. He was in Paris, she was in Chicago. They kept in touch, but weren’t a couple until BA went to visit him in France for a week. Now they were in love. So when R moved back to Argentina, BA soon followed. After living there together over a year R popped the question with a strawberry ring pop. Since they are an international couple they decided to have a short engagement followed by an intimate wedding in Buenos Aires. Next year they will have a bigger wedding celebration in Chicago. Woo-hoo! Congrats BA & R!!!

The engaged couple!

Aren’t they adorable?

Picture from BA

Are any of your bridesmaids engaged?

Look at What I Got in the Mail!

An invite to my own bachelorette! I’ve never gotten an invite to a party in my honor before! Woo-hoo! Or, since it’s in Texas, yee-haw!

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My lovely sister, the MOH, sent these out and is arranging a bachelorette weekend with the other bridesmaids. Since my ladies live all over the place (3 in IL, 3 all over CA, 1 in South America), it just made sense to travel somewhere for the bachelorette. We wanted somewhere warm, centrally located, and easy & cheap to get to, and Austin it is! I’ve never been to Texas before (unless airports count), and I’m crazy excited! Like save-a-horse-ride-a-cowboy excited! Okay, maybe that doesn’t make sense, but I wanted to say it. I’m going to Texas!

Any suggestions about what we should do in Austin, y’all? See, I’m breaking in my Texas accent already.

Jr Bridesmaid, Come on Down!

So now you know how I asked most of my bridal party, but I had one lady left. My cousin "Kales". She is 15 so she is sort of in limbo between junior bridesmaid and bridesmaid. While she isn’t old enough to have a lot of the responsibilities of my other bridesmaids, she will be dressed the same and stand up there beside me with all my other ‘maids (7!).

Although BM Kales lives 2,000 miles away I was lucky enough to see her shortly after the engagement. I wanted to invite her to be a part of my wedding party in a similar way as the other BMs.

While looking for vintage Palm Springs images (a new fave pastime of mine), I found it. A cover of a Betty & Veronica comic book called “Palm Springs Weekend.” After some adjustments in Photoshop, I had the front of the card down:

If you look closely you can see “my” character says: “Palm Springs is the Tops! I meant to ask you…” And “Kales” responds: “What is it, cousin?”

And the card interior:

I attached the card to a candy bouquet, just as I had done with my other ‘maids.

She accepted! My bridal party was complete!

Here’s a picture of a bunch of us:

Little Bro, MOH Sis, BM Kales, Baby Bro, Mr. Cheetah, Me

*all personal photos*

On Being a Feminist Bride

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You may be surprised to find out that I wasn’t always sure I wanted to get married—especially since I love weddings and had ideas for my own wedding before we even decided to get hitched. But it’s true, as much as I love weddings and other celebrations, there were a lot of conflictions in figuring out if marriage was right for me. It was never about spending the rest of my life with Mr. Cheetah. I was always sure of that—and after being together for a decade (and living together most of those years) we already felt very committed to each other.

I’m a feminist (so is Mr. Cheetah), and I have given a lot of thought about what it means for a woman to enter into marriage today. In the past there were many sexist aspects of marriage. A woman was to obey her husband, domestic abuse laws did not exist, a woman’s worth was closely tied to her virginity, her property became her husband’s after they were wed, her name was never carried on—she had to take his. And the list goes on. Women were in a tough spot; there weren’t many choices for them. Very few careers were open to women, and women did not get paid well (remember women today still make less than men). Often women had to get married just to have a livelihood.

A couple years back with the recognition of same sex marriages in many places I could really get behind the idea of marriage—it’s all about love and legal rights. Hey, I like love and equal rights! That’s the kind of marriage I want! But then prop 8 happened here in CA claiming the marriage was about traditional (read: bigoted) roles. That’s not kind of marriage I want. Thankfully there has been some positive movement on the equal marriage front and I can’t wait for the day that ANY two people can be joined in marriage if they desire to do so.

So why am I getting married? While I believe that you can have meaningful lasting commitments without marriage and that it is a personal choice for all, I ultimately decided I wanted the legal recognition & rights. Being legal next of kin is very important to us. If we have a family this will make things easier as well. Plus, we are really looking forward to pledging our love in front of our nearest and dearest come March. I do not want an old school or “traditional” marriage. I want my marriage. We define what that is. This is one of the many reasons I’m keeping my name and Mr. Cheetah is keeping his. We can be joined, be a family and still have our own histories, identities, and lives.

I give a lot of thought to the meaning that is present in my actions and intentions in my daily life. So I have taken that approach to my wedding and marriage as well. As I said before, we’re both keeping our names, I’ll remain a Ms., he’ll remain a Mr. I will not be “given away” or escorted down the aisle. Mr. Cheetah will walk down alone, and I will walk down alone. After the ceremony we will walk back as a married couple together. Even the word “wife” conjures up ideas of traditional roles and marriage for me. I think we’ll use spouse. There was equality in the proposal too—I guess I should tell you guys about that—post to come soon!

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Huge Bridal Sale at Rue La La!

If you are looking for an amazing deal on an amazing dress, head over to Rue La La right this second! Just in case you don't know, Rue La La is a members only flash sale site like Gilt Group.

This Impression Bridal gown is marked down from $1800 to only $299!

image from Rue La La

There are lots of other dresses on sale, including Nicole Miller and Sue Wong. Also included in the sale are suits, tuxes, jewelry, even invitations!

Act fast, this sale will sell out soon! If you are not a member you can join with my link here.

Inviting the Party

The bridal party that is! Having been a bridesmaid a few times before I know what a commitment it can be, so I wanted to do something special to ask my lovely ladies. As a long time lover of weddings, I was always thinking up ideas, even before we had decided to get married. My first thought was sending each future bridesmaid flowers—but with 7 bridesmaids (and a Jr. Maid), that quickly adds up. My 2^nd idea was getting them all a wedding themed DVD (27 Dresses, or The Wedding Singer, perhaps) with a cute little card… but I was worried that many of my ladies already had (or didn’t want) those movies. I also thought about sending them a cute bridesmaid book, like this. But then I found the perfect item while shopping at Miette in San Francisco (if you live nearby please visit, and have a macaron for me... yummmm).

candy mini bouquet!

6-7 all in a bunch

They are little candy-covered chocolates arranged like mini bouquets! They were perfect! And it was only about year before we even decided to get married! So I made a mental note. About a year later, right after the engagement, we went to visit the fiancé’s family in Sacramento and we all took a day trip to San Francisco. And I had a plan. Get to Miette and buy 7-8 of these bad boys! Mission Accomplished!

And now to the fun part, packaging them up all cute and the DIY “Will you be my Bridesmaid” cards. I knew I wanted the cards to be cute, but also silly (just like me—ha!). I found a great vintage image of a bride and a bridesmaid that I cut out in an oval and then ran through my brand new Xyron. I attached it to the front of a card (from Papersource).

On the inside, one side had that same vintage image—but now I had Photoshop-ed our heads in, replacing the heads of the bride and ‘maid. On the other side I asked the important question, Will you be my Bridesmaid? Each card was personalized for each bridesmaid.

Next I tied the candy bouquet to each card (now in an ivory envelope) with a bit of tulle ribbon.

I filled a decorative cupcake box (from the Container Store) with some shredded paper. I placed the candy & card inside and tied the whole thing up with some more tulle and a little gift tag with each woman’s name.

ready for my ladies!

Since all my BMs live out of town, my plan was to mail them each the little package, but as it turns out, I was going see 5 of them in the next couple months, so I only had to mail 2. Everyone said yes! Here we all are! The Cheetah Girls!

Me, MOH Sister (my sis!), BM Skates (high school friend), BM Mrs. P (college roommate and grew up with the fiancé), BM WD40 (college roommate), BM GF (college friend), BM Buenos Aires (family friend), BM Sassy (cousin)

Are you having a bridal Party—how did you ask them?

*all personal photos*

A Date to Save

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Okay, now that people are starting to get the Save the Dates (don’t worry, post to come shortly!), I thought I should give you some idea about when this wedding is happening. Even after we had decided on where to have the wedding we weren’t sure of when. This is what we did know: I wanted at least 6 months to plan (and get a dress!), and neither of us wanted a long engagement (less than a year). So after we took our schedules and the schedules of our parents & wedding party into consideration we were left with 2 months: December 2010 and March 2011. Then my dad vetoed December—too close to holidays. The Viceroy had two dates left open in March—and I was so afraid I was going to pick the wrong one! Come on, Pink Lemonade, they’re just 7 days apart, get a hold of yourself! So I picked my favorite number and then it was real. After a 9-page contract, this wedding was on like Donkey Kong!

Did you have trouble picking a date?

Decision Time: The Venue

It’s not uncommon for me to be indecisive, so it’s no wonder making the final decision on the venue almost made me pull my hair out (I didn’t though because I’m pretty sure I’m going want that hair come the wedding day).

While Mr. Cheetah and I love both Chicago & LA with all our hearts, we decided we were looking for a destination wedding type vibe, so we happily decided to focus on Palm Springs. To refresh your memory, we had it narrowed down to 3 incredible venues in Palm Springs.

1. The Viceroy

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2. Ace Hotel

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3. The Colony Palms

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See? How on earth were we to decide? Plus all 3 venues have amazing event managers. So we wrote out a 30-item list and ranked each one. And guess what? It was a tie. Seriously. A three way tie. The Viceroy was gorgeous. Ace had a great funky vibe that we loved. The Colony Palms was classic and flavorful. The biggest cons: The Viceroy would be a tad pricier for hotel rooms. Ace’s ceremony site was seriously lacking. One of The Colony Palms biggest pros was also its biggest con: we had to rent out the entire hotel—which could be amazingly fun—or amazingly expensive if we didn’t fill it up.

One day Mr. Cheetah and I were discussing the venue (again) and he said this: “Every time I picture marrying you it’s at the Viceroy.”

He was right. The Viceroy was one of the main reasons we even started looking into Palm Springs. We loved everything about it. Plus it was the top pick of our parents and friends. The Viceroy it is!

above Viceroy pics from here

Ah, isn’t it the sweetness? I’m a lucky bride. Sigh.

P.S. I’d highly recommend ANY of the above venues.

Going Back to the Beginning

Or how we first met. You heard a bit about how we met in my first post, now you get the full story. Like a lot of couples we met at college. Like a lot of couples we were friends first.

Mr. Cheetah and I first met the very first day of undergrad. Turns out he went to high school with one of my new roommates, Mrs. P (now a bridesmaid). That first night Mrs. P gathered some of her new roommates (there were 6 of us living in a 3 bedroom dorm room suite) and some of her old high school friends that also went to the same college and together we all explored our new surroundings, Isla Vista. IV is the packed little college town of our Alma Mater, UC Santa Barbara (Go Gauchos!). I remember guys on their balconies yelling out “freshman!” at us and thinking, “how do they know?” ;)

Pretty soon we were all friends. The fiancé had a GF back then and pretty soon I had a BF. By junior year the fiancé and I had grown even closer and he was one of my best friends. The fiancé was now single, I was still with my BF, but things were rocky and I had decided to end it. The fiancé and I were growing closer and closer and we spent almost all our free time together.

And then one night he kissed me. And that was it. I had no idea what I had been feeling for him until that kiss.

A photo from the early days

*personal photo

We’ve been together ever since.

Our First Vendor: Booked!

Is an officiant a Vendor? If so, then our first vendor (before we had procured a date or location even) was our officiant. In fact, our officiant is a dear friend, so I guess she’s our first friendor. This decision was a no brainer for us. Neither of us is religious and we always knew that we wanted someone close to us to perform the ceremony. Enter our close friend, who we shall call BW. BW went to high school with the fiancé and I have known her over a dozen years myself. Years ago BW and I were out to dinner and we were discussing weddings and BW casually mentioned that she would love to marry the fiancé and I when the day came. I told the fiancé about that as soon as I got home and we both agreed: BW was perfect. A wedding decision made years before either of us had engagements on the brain!

BW is a wedding superstar. She herself has been a bridesmaid over a dozen times! She is a teacher and has a theater background, so she’ll be very comfortable speaking in front of all our guests. And most importantly, she is an amazing person who knows us alone and together.

Here we all are:

me, the fiancé, and BW

We knew we wanted to ask BW to be our officiant in a fun way. One thing you should know about BW is that she has a deep, deep rooted love of all things Dr. Pepper. Seriously, a deep, deep love. So I decided to use my art background and have a little glamour photo shoot with a couple old fashioned bottles of DP. We had the final image professionally printed at an 8 x 10 size and we completed it with a frame from Ikea (and it was on sale!). I printed out a little banner asking her to be our officiant, cut it out and simply taped it atop the picture.

the framed photo

all wrapped and ready for BW

The photo gift was a HUGE success and BW said yes! Even though she had long forgotten offering to marry us years ago!

The first item on our wedding to do list: checked!

What was your first vendor?

all personal photos

Bridal Bling at Ann Taylor

I haven’t decided what I want my bridal jewelry to be yet, but I’m finding some great options at Ann Taylor.

I’m pretty sure I want a bracelet, so I might bite the bridal bracelet bullet (try saying that 10 times fast) and pick up one of these lovelies.

all images from Ann Taylor

Ann Taylor Promotion:

An extra 40% off sale items. Use code: SAVE40 Free Shipping on all orders over$125