See You On the Other Side!

I definitely feel a bit like Alice walking through the looking-glass as all of my dreams, ideas and plans become a very surreal amazing reality this week.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

Like the Walrus and the Carpenter, I'm ready to party baby. Their "talking points list" pretty much covers the insanity that is my family and friends when we all get together. Today our guests are starting to come into town and today I felt the first real jitters at the thought of all the people from all of the various parts of ours lives in one place at one time. What an amazing magical blessing. I plan to soak it all up. Therefore, I think it best I bid off for the a while so that I can focus on becoming Mrs. Ford.

The time has come to say adieu to the old me, the old him, and to say bonjour to the new Us... Mr. and Mrs. Ford. I love this man with all of me and am so blessed to be his partner and best friend. Thank you for sharing in our journey to the altar, I hope you stick around for the wedding highlights and of course, all of the good life to come.

Much love to everyone out there, and please send us your good vibes!

Rehearsal Dinner Venue

Pretty excited to celebrate our upcoming marriage with all of our favorite people on this beautiful patio! Can't believe it's almost here already... Pinch me!

My Gorgeous Ring!

I finally got my amazingly gorgeous wedding ring and I am bursting at the seams to share its gloriousness with the world! In a few short days it will have a new permanent home on my left hand ring finger and it is sooooo hard keeping myself from wearing it all the time. Confession: J and I definitely have had a "ring day" or two when we wore them out and about but I felt like such a sneaky cheat!

It is the most beautiful perfect ring I have ever seen and I am pinching myself from disbelief that my wonderful fiance gave it to me. It is so breathtakingly stunning. Oh my gosh, it's PERFECT! YESSSSSSSSS!

Our Cute Bachelorette & Rehearsal Party Invites

Welcome to wedding week! Eeek! Everyone keeps asking if I'm stressing out or getting nervous but so far I am cool as a cucumber. I am just trying to stay that way. I think once ALL of our friends and family descend on Palm Desert I will start to feel overwhelmed and amazed and probably about every emotion out there all at once, but for now I am just enjoying the last few days of my engagement. We have been doing a good job of spending time together doing a good mix of work and relaxing. It has been a really amazing time together.

I wanted to share some of the adorable mail we recently received with you. My Almost-Mother-in-Law designed and created the very cute invitations for the rehearsal dinner (shown on the left). The envelopes matched those of our wedding invites and had very sweet green vellum confetti inside along with a vellum map of the restaurant, hotel and main highways down here. So adorable. She did such an amazing job.

I also received an invite to my bachelorette party (shown on the right, I'm glad I'm invited!) from my Matron of Honor Lindzee and thought they were so darn cute and festive that I had to share. I love how both of these gals stayed true to the overall look of our wedding without even asking me a thing. That's love right there!

I am SO excited for both of these upcoming events, and I am stoked that I will have these sweet invitations to treasure for a long long time.

Behind the Scenes: Wedding Mayhem

First and foremost, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BENNY! My little bro (and world's cutest ring bearer to be) turns 10 today! Do you remember being 10? I do, it was such an awesome age. I hope he loves every second and I hope that now that he is a double digit he will dance with his big sis at her wedding next week!

Oh my gosh, it feels INSANE to say there is one week until our wedding. With the help of family and friends (and of course each other) we have officially kicked our wedding to-do lists ASS. It has been such a long crazy journey that I have enjoyed and absorbed every minute of.

I know that things will inevitably go wrong on the wedding day itself and that you can't control how people are going to respond to all of this hard work, so I have really tried to enjoy every bit of the planning process. By doing so I have just felt so blessed to be entering into this marriage with such a bang and to be so fortunate to get to create this amazing event with my amazing fiance. I am so proud of every single "completed" check mark on that mile long list because we put heart and soul into every inch of this wedding. Marrying Jonathon is a dream come true for me and I have just been pinching myself everyday for the past 13 months. And now it's here!

Since I am trying hard to keep a few of the details new and interesting for you on the actual wedding day, I thought I would just share a sneak peek into the madness that has been our lives lately. I have loved having projects and focus in my creative life and I am really nervous about where that energy will go after the big day. I am hoping I can channel it all into making our new home beautiful and cozy, and that I can get you all to come visit us there.

Just a small sample of our wedding mayhem...

It's going to be so amazing!

Sexy Bridal Shower Highlights

Happy St. Patrick's Day yesterday! Hope yours was safe and fun. I am marrying an Irishman in a week and a few days so you know we celebrate every year in one way or another. I am noticing that each year we have celebrated together has gotten progressively tamer, I guess we really are getting older. The constant through the years is that I make Jonathon corned beef and cabbage every Patty's day. I don't eat red meat, so every year I drool over the delicious smell of beef and beer simmering, but this year I thought, ENOUGH, I want some! So I made my own non-beef version with Jonathon's leftover carrots, cabbage, onions, potatoes and of course beer! It was soooo good. Ahem... on to the wedding stuff!

With a week to go until my bachelorette party (yes!) I thought this would be a good chance to post some of the highlights from my sexy bridal shower earlier this month. I haven't posted it yet because I mostly received lingerie and I want to keep that a bit private, but I am putting up the safer stuff. :)

My mom's best friend Rose threw this shower for me, she has been like my aunt my whole life and she did such a beautiful job of hosting. Thank you Rose!

Pretty, no? She also makes a mean guacamole. It was fun spending time with Rose, my mama and future mama and Rose's daughters Lisa and Julia who are like cousins to me.

Rose got me this amazing chocolate, strawberry and whipped cream cake that I ate like 5 slices of and which was from a very fancy French bakery in Montecito. It was so freaking good I can't even tell you how good. It did, however, say "Congratulation" on it, which cracked me up anew every time I looked at it. How perfect is that?

No seriously, I think that is the best cake I have ever eaten...

I just had so much fun at this shower hanging with the girls and joking around. We also played a couple of bridal party games like Bridal Bingo for which Rose had some cute bride and groom wine stoppers as prizes. My friend Tiff won twice and hilariously ended up with a pair of groom wine stoppers. We DO live in California, so....

I was a bit nervous about the gift portion of the shower since I have some very crazy friends and also a very crazy mom. My bridesmaid Julia at one point before the shower said "I seriously can not believe what my mom got you" so I was completely expecting to be mortified but things were a lot tamer than I imagined. Good thing too, because as you can see, I blush rather easily. How amazing is this homemade gift bag from my friend Julie? It says "Congratulations" on one side and "Jon is a lucky man" with another naked dude on the other side. :)

Of course, some of the "sexiest" gifts besides the lingerie were from my mom. I'm sure there's something so wrong with that, but I wouldn't expect any less. I know the picture's super dark but you can see my reaction below. We were pretty much laughing for a few hours straight. I had so much fun.

I love my crazy mom.

Plus I now have a perfect "bowquet" for the rehearsal that I am a little excited about.

After all of the guests left Jonathon came home and tried to guess what all I got, but I did my best to keep it all under wraps. It was such a fun day all in all, I felt so special. I love my friends!

Gifts in the Mail

It has been serious gift central around my mom's place lately. It has been so overwhelming and so freaking awesome! It really feels so amazing to be showered with lovely items with which to decorate and fill our future home.

With Jonathon's career likely taking us across the country fairly soon, it feels so good to know that we will have little (and big) reminders around our new home of the people that love us. Such amazingly beautiful things to remind us of our beautiful friends and family. I hope they all come visit us too!

I mean seriously, look at those stacks of boxes! We look like a crazy Crate&Barrel ad. :)