Santa Cruz Wine & Crab Taste Off 2012

Back in January, Erik and I decided to venture out to the ocean and check out Santa Cruz. It was a rather rainy cold day, but we still had fun.  I think that we attract rain every time we go wine tasting. Back in April we went to Illinois wine country and it rained, in November we went to Healdsburg and it rained, and now in Santa Cruz, it rained. But we did not let that dampen (hehe) our mood.

We first went to brunch at a local place, Zachary's.  It definitely lived up to its Yelp reviews and fortified our tummies for the wine tasting awesome that was happening that afternoon (I think 30+ wineries were represented).

Next, the Boardwalk. I have a feeling that this may be a better adventure when it is NOT raining outside, but we got the general feel for the place.  I was sad that none of the stuff was open.  I was looking forward to riding rides built in the 1920s.  At any rate, according to my guidebook, it was built in 1907 and is the only boardwalk left on the West Coast. (sad face) It also is the oldest amusement park in California, which reminds me that we need to go to Great America before it closes to build the new 49ers stadium (right behind our neighborhood).

Two things. 1) My husband is awesome and 2) They have fried Twinkies in California. You'd think with all the regulations forcing people into healthy living that these would be banned, but no, it is a boardwalk afterall.

From the pier. If only it were a sunny day...

One of the largest 4 remaining classic merry-go-rounds in California. These horses are hand carved and have real horse hair tails.  Apparently, the 342-pipe organ in the center is a rare 1894 Ruth Und Sohn band organ.

Entertaining kiddos since 1911
Built in New Jersey

Four generations of Marini's have made the salt water taffy here since 1915.

After braving it in the "cold" we headed a little further south to Aptos where the wine and crab festival began. Here's a link to 2013's event. We had a great time as always.  This event was particularly fun because the restaurants were competing to get the best dish.  With our tickets, we each got 2 appetizers at both restaurants we selected to visit. We met some fun people, drank some excellent wine (and won a wine tour at a local vineyard!), and tasted some delicious food.

We wore dark clothing because it was a wine tasting after all (and people throw elbows to get their pours -- I'm not joking). The view at Sanderlings at Seascape Beach Resort was amazing. This place may end up being a nice little weekend get away for us this summer.

Workin' it.

Could he get any cuter?! I think not.

Ceremony Planning

Erik and I have been working on the ceremony in the background. We've done it in the car on the way home from Mother's Day and from his grandfather's 80th birthday party as well as from another friend's wedding. This planning of the ceremony, however, ended after I moved to NYC (as with most other wedding planning until last week!).

Soo.... in comes our officiant. He emailed me last week and was like, "Hey, um... need the ceremony...." So, Erik and I got back on it. And, after a few reviews from bridal party and non-bridal party members, it is perfect! I'm so excited about it. I was reading it tonight out loud to see how long it was going to be and it is 12 minutes... before adding dramatic pauses and time for readers to get to the microphone. So, are probably looking at a 30 minute ceremony from start (walking of the g'ma) to the end (us leaving!).

I'm going to send it to our officiant in the morning (E is still deciding on his reader). After that, it's program time!

First Invites Out

Because my law school friends are scattering to the 4 winds, we distributed some invitations early (by only a week) last week at my Champaign Shower (will post on that soon). It was surprisingly stressful to get everything together. Stuffing the invitations was surprisingly time-consuming. I know I keep saying "surprisingly" but I guess I figured that since the addressing was so easy (and Erik stamping the return addresses and sticking labels on the RSVP envelopes was easy for me - not so much for him) that I assumed that putting them in the envelopes would be easy. Nope. Thank you, Martha Stewart, and your crazy "good" idea to number the RSVP cards for the silly guests who forget to write their names! This added a level of complexity to the invitation stuffing — especially since the addressed envelopes got out of alphabetical order. That was an unintended consequence of delegating the return address stamping (with our awesome embosser) to the groom.

Oddly enough, this kind of snuck up on us. Erik had ordered the paper for the accommodation inserts several weeks ago, and we were in a holding pattern until that came. Bad news: The paper didn't come in time. Result: Scrambling to get some decent paper at Kinko's and printed enough to give to the people heading out of town! Erik went the morning of the shower to pick them up. Can you say stressful?

At any rate, the ironic part was the paper came the next day! E is picking up the finished product today from Kinko's — I can't wait to see it on the Cougar 80 Cover paper we got. We plan on using this paper (we ordered 100 sheets) for our seating cards too - waste not, want not.

Sealing up the invitations was also a momentous occasion. I made Erik lick them since I was running late getting ready (have to look pretty for my shower). Here are the photos (you can see they obviously tasted bad):

You can see the pure yuckiness of the envelope glue. Just keep in mind - they were sealed with love. Again, we thought about that Seinfeld episode with Susan & George's wedding invitations. Please try not to notice the crazy mess in the background of the photo. I thought about cropping it out and then reconsidered. It was finals week. Judge if you want but it was spotless by that weekend!

Doesn't he look happy to not be licking the envelope?

Anyway, the rest of the invites will go out this week. I'm going to ask the Post Office hand cancel them; however, I'm a little worried that they may not (see the link). I'm thinking since this is a relatively small town they might. I'll keep you updated. As for the stuffing, I'm having a girly-wedding-help-day with Bmaid Steph. We're renting Bride Wars and stuffing the invitations/ painting the guest book — there may also be some day drinking involved (we'll see if I can convince Steph).

Cake Cutting Song

My first response to seeing this post on Weddingbee was "I have to have a what song?!?!"

The scary thing is I thought of a song instantly. A horribly inappropriate non-wedding-related song: "Cherry Pie" by Warrant. Please click on the hyperlink to see the band in all its cheesy greatness. You will totally see why this is just soo funny to E and me. Also, you can click below just to hear the song without the video.

The thought of all our loved ones looking on at us about to have this intimate special moment - symbolizing our first joint endeavor as husband and wife—and then this 90's hairband rock song comes on. Priceless! We just have to make sure that the photographer captures the moment.

Of course, we decided to switch to something more sentimental and meaningful to us (Head Over Feet by Alanis Morissette) but we will enjoy razzing our guests—at least those ones that don't religiously follow the blog! Also, the version below is not exactly what we are going for (I prefer the studio version), but I just figured out this whole embedding youtube videos into the blog and just couldn't help myself!