Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Secret Life of Bees: French Bulldog Edition

I wasn’t a Bee yet, when this series started, but I planned on applying and hoped they would bring it back because I really wanted to participate. I don’t even have any fun secret-y type things to tell you all. Seriously, I sat in front my computer screen for awhile trying to think of funny or interesting thing about me and this is all I could think of… I need to get out more.

1 – When I find an article of clothing I really like I buy a bunch of them and wear the crap out of it. In college it was overalls (What? It was technically still the 90’s), after that hoodies, and now cardigans. I’ve also recently re-discovered tights, so if Spring doesn’t happen soon, I may have another addiction on my hands.

2 – When I see a street with my name on it, I insist on taking my picture with the sign.AllisonStreets
The picture on the left was taken about 5 years ago on a girls trip to Napa for a good friends Bachelorette party. I was the DD that afternoon, so when I saw the street sign, I pulled the SUV over and made my drunk friends take my picture. I believe there is also a video of me jumping up and down, yelling “It’s my street! It’s my street!” The picture on the left was taken a few months ago in San Diego. Mr Frenchie and I were driving around neighborhoods so see which ones we’d live in & I spotted this sign when we stopped for lunch. We got several really weird looks as I was posing on the street corner.

*Note: In the picture on the left I’m wearing a hoodie (my favorite one) and in the picture on the right I’m wearing a cardigan… I own that one in 3 different colors.

3 – I am OBSESSED with the television show Friends. I have every episode on DVD, thanks to Mr Frenchie who gave them to me for our first Christmas. Pretty much everything in life reminds me of an episode of Friends. For example, I cannot hear about Yemen without thinking of the time Chandler pretended to move to Yemen to get away from Janice.

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4 – Mr Frenchie & I don’t have cable (or a dish). We watch all our TV online via Hulu or Netflix. For the longest time Papa Frenchie thought we’d crowd around our computer screen to watch LOST with our friends every week and would politely decline our invites for LOST parties. He was relieved to find out we have a computer hooked-up to our television.

5 – It wasn’t until 2010 that I owned a Nintendo NES!

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Growing up my mom wouldn’t let me sister and I have video games because she wanted us to go play outside. Mama Frenchie bought us (Mr Frenchie & I) a Wii for Christmas 2009, which prompted Mr Frenchie to research and buy a refurbished Nintendo NES. I cannot tell you how excited I was to have my very own game of Tetris.

6 – I had my tongue pierced a month into my freshman year of college. Which less scandalous than the tattoo I really wanted and I think it freaked Mama Frenchie out a little less. I managed to hide it from my parents 1 week after it was pierced, at Parent’s weekend and all the way to Christmas break when a friend of our family spilled the beans at a church party. She had accidentally caught a glimpse of the piercing a few months prior when I visited her store to see a friend. She thought my parents knew and started talking about it with my Mom. I think Mama Frenchie was more embarrassed that her friend knew, than mad a me for getting it pierced. Two years later I lost one of the balls trying to freak my roomate out & decided it was time to take it out. You’d think Mama Frenchie would have been excited to see it gone, but instead she got mad at me for sticking my tongue out at her :-P

Friday, November 12, 2010

Frenchie Kisses: The End… of the night.

After the tosses we walked around and mingled with out guests as the night started to whine down.

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We also got a few final pictures in with our wedding party.

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Ohana, our photographers, set up these awesome shots with an old carriage, behind our reception area.

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I have to give them props for rallying our wedding party and getting them to stand still for these shots because, due to all the free wine, they were pretty drunk by the end of the night.

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In fact, I’m surprise I managed to stay serious in these photos because they had us cracking up.

We didn’t have a big exit at the end of the night, we’d already done our toss at the our ceremony.

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Mr Frenchie and I walked around and said good night to as many people as we could. Then we disappeared to the parking lot to meet the car our hotel sent over.

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It was actually really fun sneaking away with my new husband. We still had a lot of the night left because our reception ended around 9:30. We went to our hotel room and drank champagne on the balcony of our room and talked about the day.

The End :)

You’re not rid of me yet though, I still have a few more post planned with the Bee Series.

Did you miss anything?

We're Here and We're Married Birdie Details
Papa Frenchie’s Speech
The Other Details

***Note: All photos, unless otherwise noted, are by the fabulously talented, and super awesome to know, Ohana Photographers***

Friday, November 5, 2010

Frenchie Kisses: The Other Details

I’ve already shown you all the Birdie Details from our wedding, but I had to show off the other details.

I really didn’t want a flowery arch, but Mama Frenchie and my florist talked me into. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised with the result.

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A last minute DIY project, thanks to this post by Mrs Lightning.

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My gorgeous bouquet, that still can bring myself to throw away.

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Mr Frenchie’s manly boutineer and FIL Frenchie’s tie from the 60’s, gifted to Mr Frenchie around the time we got engaged. MIL Frenchie’s dress ended up matching the tie perfectly.

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My bridesmaid’s colorful and wild bouquets.

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My wedding clutch that Etsy seller, IMH Designs overnights to me days before the wedding. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to decided on clutch.

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My bright yellow Calvin Klein pumps. Like the clutch, I couldn’t decide which shoes to purchase. In the end I decided to wear a pair of yellow shoes I already owned and they were perfect.

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Our rings on a bunch of grapes from the vineyard.

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The “Wish Dish” – at the meeting with our DOC 2 weeks before the wedding, Amanda suggested a “Wish Bowl” when we had no clue what to do for a guest book. Mama Frenchie surprised me by getting this made at Color Me Mine. We nicknamed it a “Wish Dish” because it wasn’t really a bowl.

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Like many other brides I wore two garters. The one below was the same garter my mother and her mother wore in their weddings. Mama Frenchie also made me a similar one for the toss.

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My favorite champagne… err, Sparkling Wine…

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… and a closer shot of Mr Frenchie’s Grandmother’s glasses.

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So Far... We're Here and We're Married Birdie Details

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Frenchie Kisses: The Tosses

With everyone gathered in the same location happily eating cake we decided it was time to toss some stuff. For the garter toss Mr Frenchie chose the Pink Panther theme song, by Henry Mancini.

Mr Frenchie is a big Henry Mancini fan and the Pink Panther album was one of the first CDs he burned for me. We thought it was a great garter toss song without being too trashy.

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I’m really ticklish so my facial expressions from Mr Frenchie getting the garter are pretty funny!

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Mr Frenchie’s groomsman, Jeremiah, caught the garter.

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He stayed true to the tradition and proposed to his girlfriend Tiffany, this past February. Mr Frencie and I are honored to be members of their wedding party.

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For the bouquet toss, I chose Clumsy, by Fergie. No real significance other than I think the song and I thought there might be some “Trippin’” and “Stumblin’” to get at the bouquet ;-)



When we were trying to decide whether or not to do the toss, I tried to add up how many ladies I thought would participate.

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I grossly under estimated how many ladies would tell me I had to throw it to them. I didn’t want to throw the toss (hardy har) but I thought I’d aim in Tiffany’s (Jeremiah’s girlfriend) direction.

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You can see Lindsay (groomsman, Brandon’s wife) coaxing Tiffany into position, on the right of the picture above and below.

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However, after all my single friends came up to me separately through out the night scheming to get the bouquet tossed in their direction, (*coughChristianne(front and center)cough*) I chose to just close my eyes and toss.

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The next set of pictures are among my favorites of the night. When I threw the bouquet, I tossed it too high and it hit the ceiling, sending it straight to Erin and Christianne.

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Both of them put up a good fight.

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The guests look shocked and worried… who’s going to win?

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With only one hand left on the prize, Christianne appears to be losing the tug-o-war…

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.. and Erin wins the bouquet!

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Having caught the bouquet at a wedding before, I know that feeling! I love Erin’s smile :)

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Are you having a garter and bouquet toss are your wedding?

So Far... We're Here and We're Married Birdie Details
***Note: All photos, unless otherwise noted, are by the fabulously talented, and super awesome to know, Ohana Photographers***

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Frenchie Kisses: … and then there was cake!

After dinner, mingling and other wedding reception type things it was time for cake.

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When we started planning our wedding I saw a picture of a cake buffet and fell in love. I wanted a cake buffet. I loved the look and also liked that it meant I could have several cake flavors.

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Our baker had an amazing book filled with amazing she’d made for other weddings. I hope she wasn’t disappointed with how simple we wanted our cakes decorated, but I had a vision, you know?

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We had three different flavors: champagne with champagne buttercream icing, almond with raspberry filling and almond buttercream icing, and chocolate with chocolate mousse filing and chocolate buttercream icing. Our favorite was the champagne and that is what we chose to cut into for out cake cutting.

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We chose to cut out favorite flavor, Champagne, for our cake cutting. The top and bottom tier of the main cake were supposed to be the champagne flavor. We didn’t want to cut the top layer because we wanted to save it for our first anniversary. That meant we had to slice into the bottom tier, which was much easier in theory, but we managed ;-) Heck, when there is cake involved, I’ll make it work.

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We cut and served the cake with the same silver cake server my parents used at their wedding.

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Mr Frenchie is lactose intolerant and had run out of Lactaid pills at lunch, right before the wedding. Since, his meal was dairy-free he hadn’t run into any issues until it was time to eat cake with buttercream frosting. I had to try hard to get him a piece of just cake. I ended up serving him a teeny tiny piece and he gave me this HUGE bite. I kept telling him to make it smaller, which I’m sure looked funny to our guests.
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While our caterer sliced the cake for our guest, we took the opportunity to thank everyone for coming and say a special thank you to my parent’s for throwing us such a wonderful wedding.
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Our champagne glasses were from a set we found at Mr Frenchie’s Grandmother’s house. She past away before I was able to meet her, but about a month before the wedding Mr Frenchie and I drove out the her house to pick up a few things. FIL Frenchie told us we could have anything from the house that we wanted and I knew those glasses would be perfect when I spotted them.

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FIL Frenchie was very happy we found someway to incorporate her into our wedding day.

So Far... We're Here and We're Married
Birdie Details

***Note: All photos, unless otherwise noted, are by the fabulously talented, and super awesome to know, Ohana Photographers***

Thursday, October 7, 2010

LA Bee Meet-up

Last Saturday Bees from all over LA (and one from Orange County, me) swarmed C&O's Bar & Grill. We dined on an endless supply of garlic bread knots and tasty Italian food.

(Not pictured: Mrs Kiwi & Baby Kiwi)

I had so much fun meeting you all and hearing about your weddings. I say this every time I meet new people from Weddingbee, but this community is full of the sweetest and prettiest group of ladies. I hope we can meet-up again soon.

Have you gone to a meet-up? Check out the local boards for any meet-ups in your area or to organize your own.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Los Angeles Bee Meet-up - C&O's Bar & Grill

Just a reminder for the LA Bee Meet-up this Saturday!!

I've tallied up the RSVPs, so far, on the LA Boards here. Please make sure I didn't miss you! Also, if you were a maybe, please clarify if you are coming or not. I'm looking forward to see you all tomorrow night :)

We're meeting at one of my favorite restaurants from my college days in LA and the home of the BEST garlic bread knots EVER!


When: Saturday, October 2nd, 2010 @ 6pm
Where: C&O's Bar & Grill
3016 Washington Blvd
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292

Note: There are there are two C&O's on Washington about 1 mile apart. We are meeting at the Bar & Grill because it's larger and easier to find parking.