This weekend is my first one completely off (no weddings, no meetings, no site visits, nothing) since early March, so I’m heading to the beach to catch up on some sleep, some socializing, and some sunshine (although I may be planning to shoot a tutorial on signature cocktails, so it’s not like my workaholic tendencies have completely disappeared.)

Some things I’ve liked around the internet lately:

• Kathy Ebel’s amazing blog Fatherland: There’s No Place Like Home or, How and Why a Nice Jewish Girl Asked Germany to Take Her Back - some of the most engaging blogging I’ve read in years (I devoured the entire thing over a few days.)
• Our Feel-Good War on Breast Cancer – Peggy Orenstein is a national treasure, and one of the sanest voices out there on this topic.
• A wedding RSVP card that covers every horrible wedding guest that could possibly be invited.
• I inherited my grandmother’s diamond engagement ring and love it, but also love this piece from Business Insider “Diamonds Are A Sham And It’s Time We Stop Getting Engaged With Them“
• “There’s just some special sauce here that’s pretty nice.” Stranger than Paradise – The NYT tries to write about West Marin.

And: Lowe House Events is now on Facebook! “Like” us over there for more regular updates on goings on in our wedding world.

Here’s to summer weekends and the Pacific Ocean.

photo: polaroid by me, circa 2002, of the road over Mt Tamalpais.

I occasionally mention to clients that cocktail-style is my personal favorite type of reception, and a lot of people have a hard time picturing how it works in a wedding scenario. Here’s what a cocktail-party reception looks like:

I mean, don’t tell me those people aren’t having an awesome time. Tracy & Leo did one of my other favorite ever wedding things, which is personally serve their cake to their guests. It’s a great alternative to a traditional receiving line, and to me is one of the loveliest acts of hosting a just-married couple can do:

Congratulations again you two!

photos: the awesome Maddie Eisenhart of Hart & Sol West

band: the equally awesome Trio Zincalo

The advantage to giving your flowers girls bubble guns instead of flower petals is two fold. 1) It’s awesome when they’re coming down the aisle and 2) you get to take portraits with them later:

(also, a note: do I get to work with rad clients or what?)

Congratulations again you two!

photos: the very amazing Maddie Eisenhart of Hart & Sol West.

The reception was down the road at the Corinthian Yacht Club, which I always say has some of the prettiest views in all of Northern California:

It was also just a ton of fun. Rachel and Danny are one of those couples who are totally full of life, and their wedding was full of laughter, food, and a packed dance floor (also, one of the best pie buffets I’ve ever tasted.) The room was totally bursting with joy.

Congratulations again you two!

photos: the consistently awesome Emily Takes Photos (click the link to see more!)

I actually majored in Creative Writing and studied (and practiced) journalism in college, so writing regularly again feels nice (even though I may have told Maddie that “I don’t really consider this writing…”) The hope is that it will be a way to help a lot of people figure out their way through wedding planning, especially people who aren’t working with professional planners, and to that end my angle is generally offering advice for weddings that don’t have a ton of professionals working at them (because hopefully if you’ve hired professionals they already know these things!)

You’ll be able to find the whole series here in the future (and can click over now for the first piece – on set up and break down.) Happy planning!

Summer is by far my favorite time of year – somehow it makes everything feel more possible. Of course, summer also means busy season when you work in the wedding industry, and so I tend to spend it working overtime, last year to such a degree that I ended up feeling like I missed it completely. I’m thankful this summer that I get to work in a house with almost floor-to-ceiling windows, and a backyard that I can move to when I need to take a break. The smell of tomato leaves and hose water – together, the epitome of summer – will always be my favorite smells in the world, and right now the tiny tomato seedling I planted eight weeks ago is practically bursting out of it’s pot (it helps that I moved to the hottest, sunniest part of Oakland) and is covered in flowers and baby fruit. Plants are such a visual representation of time passing that it can sometimes shock me, and I’m working on letting them remind me to occasionally slow down.

Some of my favorite East Bay independent wedding vendors and I are putting on a mini-showcase at Toast, one of my favorite restaurants and event venues, later this month – and we’d love to see you there! If big wedding fairs aren’t your thing (they’re not mine) then you should feel at home – it’s going to be casual, fun, and un-overwhelming in scale. In addition to being able to check out a variety of rad local vendors who you may want to work with, you’ll be able to enter drawings for a bunch of great giveaways, including an hour of free consulting with me. More information right here! (the complete list of vendors will be up later this week!)

Last week I bought a house.

It’s still pretty surreal. It was a short sale, and I’d been in contract for over six months by the time we closed. It’s small (although feels huge to me), in what people refer to as a “transitional” neighborhood, needs a lot of painting and other cosmetic work, as well as some non-cosmetic work (hello new sewer lateral!) But it has original 1925 wood floors and trim, a meyer lemon tree in the backyard, half of a neighbor’s orange tree hanging over the fence, and a breakfast room and a backyard deck with a view of both of them.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been more excited about anything. And please forgive me if I show up to a meeting with stray paint in my hair.

Last week I pretty much brain dumped everything I know about alcohol and weddings into one big post over at A Practical Wedding. This is one of the topics clients ask me about the most, so hopefully will be helpful to everyone out there currently planning!

photo: Hart & Sol West

Can someone please explain how it’s January 23rd already? Some random things for you:

• I haven’t actually tried them yet, but I’m excited about this line of colorful compostable ware from Susty Party. Made out of starch and grass fiber, in the US. Rad. (pictured above)
• If you haven’t seen Dan Savage’s brilliant column on weddings yet, go check it out.
• It’s a few months old, but Jessica Valenti’s post, She Who Dies With the Most ‘Likes’ Wins?, is a brilliant must read for everyone. “The truth is that we don’t need everyone to like us, we need a few people to love us. Because what’s better than being roundly liked is being fully known—an impossibility both professionally and personally if you’re so busy being likable that you forget to be yourself.”
• I wrote a piece over at APW on the dreaded Wedding Budget, and answered questions in the comments -  hopefully both are helpful if you’re currently in the thick of things!
• Great advice when it comes to your home – “Go Ahead and Make a Mistake” via Apartment Therapy
• Looking for non-cupcake like (or bank breaking?) flower girl dresses? I put together a board full of them over on Pinterest.