wedding

Wedding Weekend – Part 3

July 8, 2014

I promised not to keep you waiting. So here are the wedding photos. We received 400+ photos from our amazing photographer and friend, Matt. He did such a great job capturing our special day! I still cannot believe how incredible these photos turned out. I’ll quit yapping, so you can look! 🙂

Read Part 1 | Part 2

20140517A_0228
20140517A_0247 Carmel Highlands Wedding
wedding-carmel-highlands-private-estate5 20140517A_0120

20140517A_0470 20140517A_0442 20140517A_0721-2
20140517A_0589-2 20140517A_0540-3 20140517A_0523 20140517A_0739
20140517A_0800 Private Estate Wedding California 20140517A_0895 20140517A_0890 Breon and Julia - Our California Wedding 20140517A_0933 20140517A_0948-2 20140517A_0986 20140517A_1035 20140517A_1117 Monterey Beach Wedding Photos California Beach Wedding Photos 20140517A_1348 20140517A_1282 Amanda and Breon CA 2014 Spindrift Estate Wedding Point Lobos Wedding California 20140517A_1366-3 Carmel Highlands Private Estate Wedding Carmel California Wedding Private Residence 20140517A_1776 20140517A_2175 20140517A_2948-2

Resources:

Coming Soon – Honeymoon Photos!

Wedding Weekend – Part 2

June 30, 2014

I know that it’s been awhile but I finally pulled together part 2 of the wedding weekend.. This isn’t everything so stay tuned for Parts three and four. There was a lot of photos and activity so here we go.

Back to Part 1 | Jump to Part 3

Friday

I woke up early Friday morning and walked out to the living room to find a few people awake as well. Breon still had a couple of hours (he likes to sleep). So I grabbed my camera and Steve (B’s cousin) and I walked down to the ‘beach’ to take some photos! Here’s some of what we saw.

After walking the steep steps, we found this little cove above that you could sit and just relax. We’ll have to go back someday and do just that.

Steve spotted two seals when we were taking photos. I only had my fixed focal lens so I couldn’t zoom in to get the shot. But as you see below (with a cropped photo) they are swimming together. HOW CUTE!!

The rest of Friday was full of errands. We got our marriage license. Bought a cake and did shopping for our wedding evening meal. After returning to the house. We had some down time then we drove to Pebble Beach to have dinner with the Z fam. It was a blast!

Saturday – Part 1

I woke up the morning of the wedding really early. I don’t think I was nervous per say probably more excited than anything. I grabbed a cup of coffee than took a shower. I got to work on the decorations right after.

We didn’t do too much in terms of decor. The backdrop of the ocean speaks for itself. So when picking out what I wanted to do… I tried to make it easy and DIY.

We did paper flowers for each chair. These are super easy and I’ll have a tutorial in the near future for them. If done with wire, you can add to chairs very easily!

I also did tassels which were fun to make. #sarcasm. It was a lot of work to make them and I ended up tossing them. They were fun and bright and added to the ceremony but they took a total of 4 hours to make… looking back, we could’ve done without them. #IBlamePinterest

Lastly, we did centerpieces with gold glitter dipped ball jars and babies breath. These had to be my favorite because they cost maybe $3-5 to make and were so pretty to look at.

The real fun began at 9:00 when the hair and makeup artist arrived… but more on that in Part 3.

Read Part 1 here.

Wedding Weekend – Part 1

May 29, 2014

Two weeks ago (holy crap), I wed my bestie and love Breon in a ceremony overlooking the ocean. It was spectacular. But let’s start at the beginning.

Jump to Part 2 or Part 3

Wednesday

2014-05-14-12.30.27

Bright and early, my mom and I left for Carmel. We traveled a day in advance of everyone to get grocery shopping and misc. errands done. Upon arriving in Pebble Beach (that’s where their house was), we checked into this amazing house…

77_01

We quickly got adjusted sat outside in the nice dry heat (90 degrees) and made our lists. We then proceeded to spend hours shopping for the essentials. After shopping, my mom made a quick dinner for the both of us (thanks, mom) and we put together the welcome bags (more on those later).

Thursday

I promptly rose at 6:00 am (Thanks Pacific Coast time)! I continued more lists and prepped to check into our house in Carmel. With the welcome bags in the car, my mom and I drove to TJ’s, ACE hardware, and Safeway before heading to Carmel.

Oh. My. God.

06adfe34-ba6b-47e1-99a9-4a8106b0c27c.1.10

The views were breathtaking. Upon opening the front door, you’re welcomed to a wall of windows overlooking the most beautiful scene of the Pacific Ocean. Waves were crashing in the distance and, I kid you not, there were seals playing within earshot. I was in love.

2014-05-15-13.16.12

2014-05-17-07.13.52

I put the welcome bags in place, took my computer out to the sun porch and finished some final emails. I made lunch and ate out on the deck with nothing but the sounds of the ocean!

After lunch, my dad, step-mom Patty, and step-siblings Jack and Claire arrived and had the same reaction I did. We walked down to the “beach” (which is a bunch of rocks on the ocean level) but that didn’t stop them from jumping in.

2014-05-15-15.00.44 jack-claire

We mostly relaxed and enjoyed the house. We left and stopped at a deli before heading to the beach for our first group get-together: the Beach Bonfire.

Beach Bonfire

In case you’re wondering, you can have beach bonfires in Carmel, CA. I had difficulty finding other locations in Northern Cali (maybe I didn’t look hard enough). You can set up a bonfire on Carmel Beach and enjoy the fire into the dark. We loved it. Some of us cool people even made s’mores. The best part is you can find firewood at most of the grocery stores and they have easy to use styrofoam coolers for beverages.

Breon had taken his mom, her boyfriend Bob, and his cousin Steve into San Francisco for the day. I hadn’t seen him until he arrived at the beach. We kissed and watched the sunset with our families. It was awesome.

2014-05-15-20.00.48-1 2014-05-15-20.02.13

Stay tuned for Friday, Saturday, and the HONEYMOON! 🙂

Printable Goal Worksheet: How I Document My Goals

December 31, 2013

Scroll down for worksheet
Update: I have reorganized the worksheet for easier filling out process! Re-download now!

One of the things I love most about starting a new year is creating goals. Last year, at an all staff meeting our CEO asked us to write down three things that we would do in 2013 if we had 50/50 chance of dying in the next 5 years. That’s a pretty amazing question to think about for the year ahead. What would you do if you had limited time left on this earth? I’m guessing losing weight or quitting smoking wouldn’t be on it, right? Mine didn’t either. Last year on my list I wrote…

Get married
Go back to France
Write my book

While I didn’t actually do those things, I am getting married this year (May 17, 2014), I did go back to Europe (London…where I got engaged), and I wrote out the characters for my book. I realized though, that health is important to me so here’s my bucket list this year…

Get married (didn’t change)
Get healthy
Travel and spend quality time with loved ones

I’m sure some of you are saying, “But Amanda, those aren’t specific enough…how will you accomplish them?”

Luckily, I have made and FAILED many goals. I have learned from various goal techniques what it takes to make goals happen and documenting them in a way where you won’t forget them over the year is key! So I am going to help you learn from my mistakes.

Here is a downloadable + free goal worksheet that will help you plan your resolutions so this year they’re fail-proof. Of course, you’re going to need to throw in some determination in there, but I can’t do that for you! I will be posting my resolution worksheet tomorrow on the blog so you can see what I have come up with. Yay!