Our Wedding: Reception

After becoming the Baldridges and taking our first photos as married couple at sunset, joining our reception felt too good to be true. It was so much fun! All of our favorite people were in one place, everyone was enjoying a delicious dinner, and our incredible 9-piece live band got everyone dancing. We wanted our reception to feel like an easy, romantic summer party under twinkling string lights on the sweeping lawn of a family home.

We decided to have long tables with low floral arrangements and cozy votives candles (battery powered because of California’s fire risks) so that guests could easily carry on conversation across the tables and not be blocked by large flower arrangements.

As guests moved through the buffet and ate dinner, we were able to stroll from table to table and quickly hug and speak to each of our guests. It was really important that we get some face time with everyone there, since so many people had traveled so far.

As dusk fell, we had our first dance as a married couple! We danced to Let’s Stay Together by Al Green, which we’ve always said was “our song” since 4 or 5 years ago :)

Our band did a great job covering the song!

Having a great live band was one of our biggest dreams and splurges for our reception. It was so worth it and everyone raved about how good they were! We used the Lucky Devils Band.

After our first dance, everyone joined in and I was SO happy to see everyone dancing.

Our dance floor under a canopy of oak branches and beautiful lights was so magical. I was so glad we were able to pull off a big outdoor dance party!

We took a break between the band’s sets for some toasts. Our siblings gave a group toast, my mom said a few words, and lastly Grace and I got up to thank everyone for coming.

Later we cut the cake and popped some champagne!

I had our custom wedding cake toppers made through this Etsy shop

We had so much fun and truly never wanted our reception to end! But having a big sparkly grand exit and beautiful getaway car to look forward to helped, and in the end, driving away from our wedding was the best feeling of all because we knew we were stepping into newlywed life. I’m so glad we had an amazing party to celebrate our marriage, but real married life is even better. We’re so grateful!

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Our Wedding: Catering

Today I am sharing all about our wedding food! Having really delicious food was a huge priority at our wedding. We probably talked to more potential caterers than any other vendor. We realized we had two big decisions to make: what to serve and how to serve it. I am so happy with what we ended up with. We decided to center our menu around vegetables, breads, grains, and seafood, which reflected the outdoor summertime Southern California feel of our wedding.

We ended up booking Fundamental LA after our tasting with them because they offered a bunch of fun extras that went above and beyond the standard fare other caterers proposed. As just a few examples, we had a passed “raw bar” during our cocktail hour (raw oysters and sea salt-poached shrimp), a cheese and mezze station for guests to graze before dinner was served, a s’mores cart with torched-to-order s’mores alongside our wedding cake, and deliciously creative main dishes. Our tasting was so much fun!

After trying Fundamental’s food, we decided to serve three passed appetizers: seafood on ice, fig and ricotta bites, and veggie burger sliders. We also had the cheese and mezze station set up during cocktail hour.

For dinner, we opted for a buffet set up. It fit with the laid-back, fun outdoor party we wanted for our reception. At our buffet we served the BEST mac n cheese, blistered green beans, dill and walnut crusted salmon (probably my favorite dish we served), a cauliflower shakshuka bake with tahini-yogurt dressing, and a chopped salad with roasted tomatoes and burrata. We also had a selection of breads on the tables for guests.

As I will share about in an upcoming post, Grace and I chose to eat a quick dinner by ourselves before joining the reception to greet our guests, so we actually ate a full meal of our wedding food! After hearing so many stories of couples who don’t eat a thing at their own weddings, this was important to me. Our wedding food was amazing so I’m happy we were able to enjoy it!

For dessert, we served wedding cake by Susie Cakes, and Fundamental had torched-to-order s’mores for our guests. Our wedding cake was three different flavors (one per tier): red velvet, carrot cake, and coconut-pineapple cake. I can’t wait to eat our top tier on our first anniversary in about 9 months! It’s in our freezer right now :)

If you’re in LA, I highly recommend trying Fundamental LA’s food! They have two locations (one in Westwood and one Downtown) and everything is delicious!

All photos (other than my photos from our tasting) are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Our Wedding: Bridal Party Attire

As you can see from the photo above, we had a huge wedding party. Involving our loved ones in our wedding and rolling deep (as our florist said-haha) was a major part of our vision for our wedding, and I loved it. But it did mean having to figure out a lot of logistics when it came to creating a cohesive look for our bridesmaids and bride’s men (or bride’s butlers as I like to call them).

While having 10 bridesmaids each might seem excessive, I can’t tell you how much it meant to both of us. I’ll be writing more about this in depth, but our wedding was the first gay wedding either Grace or I attended. I was (and still am) a strong believer in the idea that our wedding was just a WEDDING, not a “gay wedding,” but let’s face it, our wedding was still different than 99% of the weddings most of our guests had been to. Knowing that, we kept with tradition on a lot, but we also felt free to set things up the way we wanted. Having all our besties up there with us as we said our vows was part of that. As a kid coming out, you worry about how you’ll be accepted by your friends. And when Grace and I imagined our future wedding when we were young, I think we both had a cloud of uncertainty over it.. would we be legally allowed to? Would people want to celebrate with us? Would it be weird?

Having 20 people—yes, TWENTY—in our wedding party felt like a redemption song after years of worry. We feel so lucky. Now, onto what they wore!

With 16 ladies and 4 men in our wedding party, I knew that asking all the women to wear the SAME dress would be ridiculous. I’m pretty sure the height variation among our bridesmaids went from 5’1 to 5’11. Plus, I had always loved the “mismatched bridesmaids dress” look, if done right.

Grace and I came up with this color palette—cool blues, soft pinks, and some grays and periwinkles mixed in—on our drive back from Alaska right after we got engaged. We were in the car watching a sunset and Grace commented how pretty the blues and pinks streaked across the sky were. We had been talking about wedding colors and decided to model them off of that, particularly given the meaning that trip held for us.

Once we got back, I started gathering some inspiration pictures so we could give people an idea of what we had in mind. I also found links online to dresses in a range of prices that would work well for what I had in mind. Once I had collected all of that, I sent out a huge email and Google Docs spreadsheet to help all the bridesmaids figure out what we had in mind for dresses. Even though I sent a few specific dresses as examples, I also left it open for people to find their own dress that fit the palette. Everyone sent me photos as they tried on dresses over the next few months, and I even got to go with one of my friends in person since she lives in LA! Many of Grace’s bridesmaids live in Europe, so I’m glad we had it be flexible since it would be hard for them to find the same dresses as the girls in the US were buying.

With 16 different bridesmaids shopping for dresses, I truly had no idea what the whole palette would look like together until our wedding day. To say I was thrilled with how it turned out would be an understatement.

Our friends have great style :) I was blown away by how beautiful everyone looked, both individually and as a group! I am so grateful to everyone for going along with my vision, and I LOVE looking at the photos of the whole group together. I’m biased, but I think it looked stunning.

These colors! Such eye candy.

For the guys, we had they all wear the same exact suit as Grace, from Suitsupply. The only difference was that they all wore the jacket, while she wore the vest. I had them all pick out ties that would match the bridesmaids’ color palette, but in the end, it was too hot to wear them! And I think the open-collar look works with the Southern California outdoor vibe of our wedding.

I absolutely loved the way our bridal party looked all together, and I recommend the mismatched look if you have a large party! I think it worked because everyone had a dress that worked for THEM and their body and style :) We love our bridesmaids and bride’s butlers so much!

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Our Wedding: Bride & Bride Attire

While I always knew I wanted to wear a dreamy white dress on my wedding day, Grace didn’t have a lot of examples of what someone with her style might wear. Today I am sharing both of our (very different) processes for finding our wedding look! Grace did not see my dress until the moment I walked down the aisle, but I helped Grace figure out what she wanted to wear (and get it custom fitted) and as a result she didn’t want to hide it from me until the wedding.

I loved the way our outfits looked together on our wedding day, and I was especially glad Grace loved her wedding attire, as someone who had to “go rogue” without a lot of examples of what her wedding outfit could be.

Finding “The Dress”

Going into wedding dress shopping, I knew a few things: I wanted a very classic look, I did not want a strapless dress, I wanted a lot of tulle and volume in the skirt, and I wanted to keep my dress a complete surprise from Grace and almost everyone else (a few bridesmaids saw photos beforehand, but my dad didn’t even see my dress until my wedding day!).

The day after Thanksgiving when I was in my hometown (Raleigh, North Carolina), I went to a local bridal boutique called Traditions by Anna with my mom, my sister, and one of my oldest friends and bridesmaid to try on gowns. But before we headed out that day, I had to look through my parents’ wedding album for some inspo. Doesn’t my mom look so classic?!

Because this was going to be my first time trying on any wedding dresses, I wasn’t that concerned with whether or not I would find “my” dress that day. But as I went through the store and saw so many stunning gowns, I started to get a strong feeling that I would find my dress there.

I pulled 7 dresses to try on, and honestly, I could have ended up with almost any of them. They all felt magical and I was feeling smitten with several. The dress I ended up getting was the last one I tried on. My mom had mentioned beforehand that she was really excited to hear Traditions by Anna carried Carolina Herrera, as she had always loved that designer and would love if I ended up in one her gowns. Well, sure enough, the Carolina was the last dress I tried on, and we all agreed, it was perfect.

I wasn’t an emotional mess by any means when I found my dress. I didn’t tear up, but I had a strong instinct that this was my dress, and it felt effortless to say “yes.” As soon as I did, our attendant in the store popped some champagne and we all celebrated!

The way it works in a lot of bridal boutiques, and did in mine, is that you don’t just walk out with the dress—they take your measurements, and the designer makes one especially for you. For my particular dress it took about four months to make, and the boutique then mailed it to me in California.

I also bought my veil at the same time, which I LOVED—you can see the beading at the edge in the photo above.

Revealing my dress to my bridesmaids for the first time!

On my wedding day, my dress felt like a dream. It was long and dramatic, which I loved, but we bustled it for the reception so I could actually dance without tripping myself. I wish I had a reason I could wear it again!

Finding Grace’s Attire

Grace wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to wear at our wedding, but she knew she didn’t want to look like a woman in ill-fitting menswear. Because of that, we knew she would probably need something custom. What we ended up going with was somewhere in between. We both liked the idea of a bright, summery blue—lighter than navy—and she ended up finding a beautiful color at Suitsupply. She went with her mom and one of her bride’s men, Jack. What she decided was that the guys in our wedding party would wear the exact same suit, but they would wear the jackets, and she would wear a vest instead. That way, she stood out a little bit and had her own look. I think the vest ended up looking amazing.

Similar to the situation with my gown, Suitsupply makes their suits custom, so Grace had to wait a few weeks to get hers in. But once we got it, it still didn’t have the perfect fit we were hoping for, so we went to an incredible tailor that we both loved—MH Tailoring & Alterations in Beverly Hills. They took the suit from something just-okay to a perfect custom fit that Grace was so excited to wear on our wedding day. Getting it re-tailored (even though it was already custom made) made all the difference in the world, so I highly recommend that for women who want to get married in a suit.

Finding the little flying heart collar clips was such a fun detail for Grace’s look. She also decided to wear a boutonniere that our florist made for her.

Overall, even though my wedding look was very traditional, my advice is to wear what YOU want. Questions about what Grace would wear was one of the most consistent things people would ask leading up to the wedding, and I think that kind of stressed her out, but in the end we were able to find something that we were both so happy wearing. It’s cliche, but it’s YOUR wedding and you are the one wearing the clothes—so remember that you have to be happy with them not only on your wedding day, but for years to come as you look back on photos of your wedding. I’ve seen photos of many beautiful weddings where there are two brides both wearing dresses, but that wasn’t Grace’s style at all, and I’m really happy with what she picked. I’ll be swooning over our photos for the rest of our lives!

All photos, other than my dress shopping photos, are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Our Wedding: Vendors

I have wanted to plan my wedding my whole life, and assembling an awesome team of vendors was one of the hardest (but also most “worth-it”) parts of pulling off my dream wedding. Every detail turned out even better than I could have imagined, and I am so grateful to all of our vendors for making that happen!

Our vision for our wedding was a big, summertime, outdoor party. We wanted it to feel like everyone had gathered on the grounds of a family home to dine al fresco and dance the night away. We only ever looked at one wedding venue, because as soon as we stepped onto the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve (yes, longest venue name ever), we knew we’d found where we were getting married. Our venue is a historic ranch house, with a long history as a filming site (parts of Gone with the Wind were filmed there), surrounded by a 3000 acre nature preserve. It really felt like we had our own little hilltop all to ourselves. It is located in Calabasas, about 45 minutes to an hour from where we live.

Once we had our site booked and our date reserved, we moved on to booking other large vendors, like photography, catering, an event coordinator, florals, etc. One thing I loved about our venue was that it was an entirely blank slate—we could bring in any vendor we wanted and make the space our own. However, that also meant it was a LOT of work, as we had to bring in everything from rentals, to outdoor lighting, to sound, to linens and china. We even had to build out an outdoor kitchen on the back of the house. I loved being able to customize the look of our wedding, and to me, it was worth it to have a lot of leg work in booking vendors.

I would go back and relive our wedding in a heartbeat if I could. Here’s the team that made it happen:

Venue: Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve

Site Management and Event Hosts: Diablo Dormido Weddings

Event Coordination: Claudia Casanova for One Darling Day

Photography: Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Florals: Whit Hazen

Catering: Fundamental LA

Reception Band: Lucky Devils Band

Paper Goods: Shine Wedding Invitations

Event Rentals: Smart Party Rents

Vintage Lounge Rentals: Salt Buffalo

Custom Outdoor Lighting: Pacific Event Services

Guest Shuttle: Riz Transportation

Rolls Royce Getaway Car and Driver: Classy Chassis

Hair and Makeup: Absolutely Beautiful Brides

My Gown: Carolina Herrera

My Shoes: Bella Belle

Grace’s Attire: Suitsupply

Wedding cake: Susie Cakes Bakery

Custom Cake Toppers: Etsy

We had our ceremony and reception all on one site, which was a big part of our vision to make things easy for guests and have them be able to move seamlessly between the two. The way our wedding was set up is that our ceremony was around the back of the ranch house, overlooking a beautiful canyon, and then after the ceremony guests moved back toward the front for cocktail hour and then dinner and dancing. Because it was a hot day, we had our caterers set up infused waters and agua frescas for guests to grab when they arrived at the venue for the ceremony. All of our tables for dinner were set up on the lawn, and I’m SO glad we opted for the big wood tables rather than using smaller tables with tablecloths. Then under a canopy of oak tree branches was our dance floor, with our 9-piece live band set up at one end of it. Two of our musicians played instrumental music for our ceremony, and then our whole band played during the reception. They were one of the most fun parts of the night!

I could stare at images of our wedding flowers all day. I was head over heels for my bridal bouquet, and our florist Whit Hazen made our INCREDIBLE wedding arch for our ceremony as well as 16 bridesmaids’ bouquets, a handful of boutonnieres, garlands of flowers in the trees where our reception was held, and several other arrangements. Hiring her for our florist was one of the best decisions we could have made in terms of the look of our wedding.

I will do a whole separate post about catering and our vision behind that, but Fundamental knocked it out of the park. I am hungry right now just thinking about our wedding food! And the best part was that we actually got to eat it (which so many people have told me is rare for the couple at a wedding). I was honestly so full from eating at my wedding that I couldn’t try it all, haha!

You can expect more posts in the coming days and weeks about our reception, attire, food, sunset portraits, grand exit, details, invitation suite, and many more, but I wanted to take this opportunity to give a shout-out specifically to all our amazing vendors. I wish I could throw another huge party and bring them all together again!

Last but not least - I have gotten so many questions about our wedding cake toppers (they were custom made to look like our two dogs). Here is a link to the Etsy shop where I ordered them. They were amazing to work with!

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Our Wedding: Ceremony

I am so thrilled to begin my wedding blog series today. When planning this series, I knew without a doubt that I wanted to begin with a post about our ceremony: it’s the reason all of the other details exist. Our ceremony was the most important part of our wedding day, and I will always treasure the memory of promising my life to Grace with all of our family and friends as witnesses.

We chose to have a traditional Episcopalian wedding ceremony, and our Priest and dear friend Rev. Ed Milkovich married us. It was important to us that our wedding officiant was someone who knew us both, encouraged us in our faith and in our relationship, and would be in our lives after our wedding. We love Rev. Ed and are so happy he officiated. The morning of our wedding, he gifted each of us with beautiful rosaries that he made by hand, selecting special stones for them and writing out a prayer for us to read before walking down the aisle.

During our ceremony we exchanged vows and rings, Rev. Ed said beautiful prayers over us, and our guests were invited to affirm and witness our marriage.

We had a very large wedding party (we had 26 people to get down the aisle, between our 20 total bridesmaids, our 4 parents, and ourselves), which was so wonderful. Being surrounded by a 20-strong SQUAD up there as we said our vows was one of my favorite parts of the wedding. Grace’s bridesmaids (and men) processed first, followed by Grace walking down the aisle with both her parents, followed by my bridesmaids, with my sister (and maid of honor) going last, and then my brother escorted my mom to her seat, and then my dad and I walked down the aisle together last of all. As I’ll share more about in a future post, Grace and I chose not to see each other all day before I walked down the aisle to her (we did not do a “first look” before the ceremony), so the emotions were running high as we finally saw each other. It was a precious moment and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Our vows were a mix of the classic lines, “to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, to love, and to cherish, all the days of my life,” as well as some additional lines we promised each other. We both started our vows with, “[Grace/Elizabeth], today I give myself to you,” which was one of my favorite parts. I told Grace, “I will care for you, stand beside you, and share with you all of life’s adversities and all of its joys, and I believe in you from this day forward.” She promised me the same with a little bit of variation: “I will protect you, encourage you, and share with you all of life’s adversities and all of its joys, and I believe in you from this day forward.” We both ended our vows the same way: “With these words, and with all my heart, I marry you, and bind my life to yours.”

When exchanging our rings, we both said in turn, “I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow. With all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you in the name of God.”

Another meaningful part of the ceremony was when Rev. Ed joined our hands together and wrapped them in his Priests’s stole while he pronounced that we were now married. If you watched Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s royal wedding, you might have noticed that Bishop Michael Curry did the same thing with their hands. It’s a special Episcopal tradition that I am so glad we included.

We also had some of our close friends do readings and lead our guests in a prayer for our marriage. I’m so glad we were able to incorporate even more of our loved ones in this way, and we cried as each of our sweet friends came up for their readings. We had a reading from Romans that we both have always loved, a reading from the Willie Nelson song “Hands on the Wheel” (yes, our dog is also named Willie Nelson), and a traditional Episcopal prayers of the people reading.

It was a hot summer day the day of our wedding, so we had handheld fans on each seat and parasols available at the beginning of the aisle for guests to grab. We also had little packs of flower petals on each seat for our guests to toss as we walked back down the aisle together as Grace and Elizabeth Baldridge. Hearing Rev. Ed say “you are now married and bound to each other as long as you both shall live” and walking out through a flurry of rose petals were two of the sweetest moments of the whole day. We headed back into the house to sign our marriage license and then take sunset portraits with our amazing photographers!

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

My Autumn Bucket List

Today I am sharing all about my Autumn Bucket List, which has brought me so much joy this season! I got the cute template for the list through A Beautiful Mess, one of my favorite blogs that I have been reading for years. They send out these templates each season to their newsletter subscribers.

A little backstory: I am NOT a Fall-loving gal at heart. I love spring and summer. I had wanted to move to California since I was a little girl specifically because it’s warm almost all the time (later, I realized it has other amazing qualities, but the biggest draw for me was always the weather). I have a distinct memory in 5th grade of trudging through dead leaves in our driveway thinking, Fall is so depressing. I think this was the first time I ever thought of anything as being “depressing.” My whole life I have struggled with major blues when it starts getting darker and colder. I don’t love Fall colors, I have only recently started enjoying Fall foods, and I typically look forward to absolutely nothing about Fall. I guess these are all probably signs of seasonal affective disorder, but as I have never been diagnosed with anything like that, I hesitate to use any official terms.

Although I cannot change how Fall affects me, I can change my approach to it! Last Fall knocked me off my feet with feeling sad from the change in seasons. I was so busy I didn’t have any time to counteract it. But this year, for my first married Fall, I wanted it to be a happy time. Making a fun Autumn Bucket List and intentionally checking off the activities has made the BIGGEST difference in my attitude toward Fall this year. This has been the happiest Fall of my whole life!

Also, I am married to a Fall-obsessed Scorpio, so it’s been a lot of fun to do the bucket list together since she already enjoys the season so much.

If you can’t read my handwriting above, here are the items on my Fall bucket list:

• Haunted Hayride

• Try a new WeHo (West Hollywood) restaurant

• Light our fireplace candelabra

• Refresh guest room

• Bake something festive

• Add some indoor plants

• Make a home office

• Send lots of happy mail

• Make pancakes

• Semler album release (Grace’s musical project is called Semler)

• Take dogs on a day trip

• Plan our New Orleans trip

• Spooky movie night with our popcorn machine

• Have friends over for brunch

• Put flannel sheets on our bed

• Homemade soup

• Donate extra kitchen stuff

• Trip to DC

• Make our wedding album

• Read a cozy book

• Order our first ever Christmas cards

• Slow cooker meals

• Buy candy corn

• Journal more often

• Hot chocolate in our “B” mugs (B for Baldridge)

• Underwood Family Farms

• Autumn stove simmers

• Open the windows in nice weather

• Host a dinner party

• Decorate seasonally

The ones I’ve highlighted on the list are ones we’ve already completed (but some we’ll do again for sure - like homemade soups and sending mail to friends).

Not all of them are strictly seasonal—like going to DC or making pancakes—but all are designed to help me savor the season.

Here are some photos from us doing the things on my bucket list

Adding more indoor plants:

Semler album release (we had a fun release show at the studio where Grace recorded the album). These are the guys she recorded it with. And yes, Grace dressed as a skeleton:

Going to Underwood Family Farms (our favorite pumpkin patch—and so much more. It’s about 45 mins out of LA and SO FUN. They have tractor rides, tons of cute goats, all kinds of produce to pick, pumpkins, seasonal food booths, and more):

Going on the Haunted Hayride (we went with a few of our close friends and although I shut my eyes the whole time, it was really fun):

Hosting a spooky movie night with our popcorn machine:

I was super proud of my orange-and-black Halloween snackboard I made for the movie night.

Making pancakes (using a pancake mix our friends brought us back from Hawaii recently!):

Decorating seasonally:

Making my home office (still not totally done, and far from done in this photo):

Baking something festive (these are pumpkin-granola muffins, and I also made pumpkin bread this Fall):

And although not on the bucket list, everyone in the family dressed up for Halloween!

Bean and I dressed as Toto and Dorothy

And for a friend’s party, Grace and I went as Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein (perfect newlywed costume, I think!)

Bean went as a hot dog for our spooky movie night

And Willie was the cutest pumpkin

Another really fun thing was that we got our first trick or treaters this year!! Even though we were living in our same house last Halloween, we didn’t get them for whatever reason. Our house is in a neighborhood without that many kids, so I’m actually surprised we had any, but it was so fun and sweet! I think having our Jack o Lanterns lit up on our front steps helped :)

It’s only the beginning of November, so I’m excited to keep checking off more of our bucket list items all month long. We are actually trying out a new West Hollywood restaurant tonight, so I can check that one off tomorrow!

We keep our bucket list taped to our fridge and I really do think it helps me focus on enjoying the good stuff this season. I’ll be making a winter one too—I’ve already been collecting ideas for it!

Hope you are enjoying Fall too, and if you normally don’t, try making a bucket list to see if it helps!

November Goals + October Recap

Sweet November, you are full of good food, time to reflect and be grateful, and a chance to prepare for the Advent and Christmas season ahead (my favorite). I am savoring my first married Autumn (Autumn Bucket List blog post coming in the next few days!) and am excited to settle deeper into this season over the next month.

I’m happy to say I pretty much checked off all of my October goals! Here’s my recap:

• Start my new job well—yes, I can truly say I LOVE my job and it’s the best feeling

• Set up my home office—yes, although I am looking forward to clearing the clutter and making that space work better for me

• Finish my honeymoon blogging and start blogging our wedding!—completed all my honeymoon recaps and although I haven’t started my wedding posts yet, you’ll find one here very soon!

• Enjoy things on my Fall bucket list and savor the season—yes and yes :)

• Make progress on my name change—yep! Made major progress and am officially using my new name almost everywhere

• Finish sorting all of our wedding gifts and writing thank-yous—yes, except we have a small handful of gifts that came with no information and we don’t know who they are from. This has been stressful to me, as I worry the gift-givers don’t know they were anonymous. As weird as it might seem, if you are reading this and sent us a wedding gift and HAVEN’T gotten a thank-you note from us, PLEASE let me know! I would love to thank you!

• Take a trip to DC to introduce Grace to my grandmother for the first time!—yes, so sweet! It was an incredibly short but special trip

• Order our first ever Christmas cards—yes. So so happy and cannot wait to send them out in December!

And here are my goals for November:

• Spend Thanksgiving in North Carolina with my family

• Celebrate Grace turning 28!

• Send lots of fun happy mail to friends

• Design our wedding album

• Host a dinner or brunch at our house with friends

• Take better care of my body

• Rest, be present, and be thankful

• Do all my Christmas shopping (and take advantage of Black Friday sales) so I can spend December resting during Advent

Wishing you a happy, safe, and warm November!

Savory Cocktail Series: "Roman Holiday"

I’m back with the second installment of my savory cocktail series! If you missed the first one, check out the “Bullshy” here. This series is all about inventing and highlighting savory, umami drinks, which are majorly underrated and underutilized in my opinion.

Today’s drink is named Roman Holiday because of the Italian flavors that make it up, but the foreign (English) spirit—gin—involved, evoking an Englander on holiday in Rome. The ingredients are simple. All that’s in it is included in the next picture below, except the ice, salt for the rim, and club soda.

And making it is pretty simple too. All I did for mine was muddle some basil and cherry tomatoes with some lemon juice in a cocktail shaker, then add 1.5 oz of gin and a couple of generous dashes of balsalmic vinegar. The vinegar is really what gives the drink its signature flavor. After shaking everything up, I strained it into a coup glass, added some cubed ice, and topped with club soda. I used a salted rim on my glass and I think it was the perfect finishing touch.

And that’s it! This kind of tasted like a caprese salad was born in a gin distillery, and I loved it. I think it’s simple and pretty in a coup glass, but it could work in a low ball glass too.

Enjoy!

Our Experience with Flytographer on our Honeymoon

As I mentioned in my last honeymoon recap, we decided to get some professional photos taken while we were in Kauai staying at the St. Regis! And when I say “we” decided, I mean me. Grace took some convincing. But I’m so glad we ended up doing it, because I really love how the pictures turned out. I think there are at least a few compelling reasons to get professional honeymoon photos taken:

• You spend a lot on wedding pictures—and your wedding is 1000% more important than your honeymoon—but wouldn’t you want at least SOME nice quality photos of arguably the most special vacation ever? I definitely did!

• Knowing we were getting professional photos taken later on the trip kept me from stressing about not having many pictures of the two of us earlier in the trip.

• Our honeymoon is something I will hold near to my heart for the rest of my life. Photos are a love language for me, and a way I crystallize memories and tangibly cherish them. So having nice pictures from this time in my life was a no-brainer for me.

• I love the idea of our kids looking back at honeymoon pictures of their parents! Maybe they won’t care at all, but I know I’d love to have beautiful pictures like this of my parents on their honeymoon.

Also, the cost wasn’t too bad! To be candid, we spent about $350 on our honeymoon photos. That’s a lot of money for some things, but for anyone who’s paid for professional pics, you know that’s very reasonable. We used a company called Flytographer, which matches you with a professional photographer in the area where you’re going on vacation. I looked through a few galleries of Kauai photographers and selected Brigitte, who had great pics and had taken portraits of some gay couples before (my fellow LGBT travelers, you can probably relate that it gives peace of mind to know someone you’ll be working with is a friend to the community). Here’s a link to Brigitte’s profile if you’re interested in booking her. She was so great!

I’m not sure if there are other services out there like Flytographer, but we were really happy with the experience and I would totally recommend them. Of course, every photographer would be different, but our experience was great.

By the way, if anyone wants to use Flytographer, I have a $25 off referral code for you! Use this: CODE9385 :)

Anyway, our pics! We met up with Brigitte at our hotel and headed out to the beach. She lives nearby and has experience shooting at the St. Regis, and she actually showed us to a beautiful hidden cove we hadn’t seen yet! No one else was around and we got some great photos.

Next, we walked around the Hanalei Bay cove and got pictures in some more locations. One of Grace’s hesitations in doing these photos was that she didn’t want everyone to be staring at us if we were getting pics taken in a busy location. So I was thankful that Brigitte knew exactly where to go—even on the grounds of a popular resort like the St. Regis, she managed to find gorgeous hideaway spots that served as amazing backdrops for our pictures.

I also appreciated how much direction we got—Brigitte took plenty of more traditional portraits (like the one above), but she also did a good job getting action shots and would give us ideas of what to do since I definitely tend to get kind of stiff in front of the camera.

And of course, some classic prom shot pics :)

All in all, Brigitte took photos of us for about an hour, and we got 60 pictures back. Not bad if you think about it as a picture a minute! And those are 60 pictures that she culled and edited down—in reality she took many more than 60. Another one of the best things about the service was that it only took 1 week to get our pictures back, and they even sent us a couple of “teaser” shots after a day or two.

If you are considering getting professional pictures taken on your honeymoon or any special vacation, I say GO for it!! I didn’t realize how easy it would be, but I’m so glad we did it. Thanks for reading!