Our Wedding Is In A Magazine!

Screen Capture from Eco-Beautiful Weddings

Our wonderful and awesome photographer Claire submitted our wedding to Eco-Beautiful Weddings, an online & print magazine specializing in green and DIY type weddings!

Check out the Summer 2011 Edition here, we're on page 86-88!

And yes, we know there is a little typo in there...

Toasts, Excellent Toasts

I don't think we need a lot of description here to describe the toasts at our wedding.  Just looking at everyone's faces gives the perfect description.

If you're wondering what that pink substance is in everyones glasses, we toasted with pomegranate cider!

Birthday Banner

We celebrated Zeke's birthday yesterday and I made another banner out of the burlap & jute bunting that we originally made for the wedding. I followed pretty much the same instructions as I did for the holiday banner except I used navy blue cotton fabric with cream colored thread.

Since we still have a lot of bunting left to use, perhaps I'll put some time in to actually making a tutorial one of these days...

Our Favors

For our favors, my mom and step-dad made us custom wrapped "Bees Knees" chocolate bars from their Life by Chocolate business that they own and operate. The print that you see on the side of the bars is our wedding quilt, which my mom also made for us.

A Big Group Picture

One of our favorite things that we asked for with our pictures was a big group shot of everyone at the wedding and they really turned out wonderful.

We have this photo blown up a little bit on our hallway wall and it's so nice to walk by and see another face in that group each time. It really is a great memory to have.

The First Seattle Thanksgiving

Our first Thanksgiving in Seattle was wonderful!  The first turkey we've ever cooked was a success and we had Mary, Zeke's mom, in town visiting. We made pretty much all of the traditional dishes with just a few tweaks to them to fit with our tastes and my food issues, you can find all the recipes we made at my Gluten Free Travelette Blog.

The day before, we brined our turkey in a maple sage brine that we concocted.

We cooked up a pecan pie in a gluten free whole foods pie crust.

We also cooked up some eggnog which stayed cool in the fridge overnight for us to enjoy later in the evening on Thanksgiving.

The day of we got a nice fire going and had the house all cleaned out.

We got all of our recipes lined up and ready to go for the day.

The turkey ended up being done about 2 hours early, so we ended up pushing our whole dinner to more of a "linner". We set the turkey aside under tinfoil for awhile, so it stayed warm until it was time for Zeke to start carving. Which he did with excellent skill!

Our Thanksgiving spread, minus the turkey, of gluten free stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes with all the fixings, lingonberry, and gravy.

We had our table set up in the little breakfast nook we've got, with some hot mulled cider.

Our Amazing Family

Our family is amazing. They all got in on the hilarity of our formal pictures and that sure makes them special.

This one is actually my favorite though, I love the looks on everyone's faces and just all the fun and movement that's going on in this picture.  I'm sure this one will be getting some wall space in our house soon.

My dad's side of the family.

My mom's side of the family.

With Zeke's side of the family.

With my grandmother, from my dad's side.

With my grandmother, from my mom's side.  Isn't her outfit stunning!  It makes me think of Diane Keaton or someone else classy like that. 

With my mom, my aunt, and my grandmother aka the Ibarguen Girls.  Having the four of us all together was really special for me since we haven't all been together in one place at one time in quite a few years.

With all the Pease, Beckstrom, and Zwan cousins!  I thought this photo would be fun since it captures a generation of Zeke's side of the family.

With my stepsisters.  They played an important part in our ceremony in starting our binding together.

With Zeke's brother and sister-in-law and our adorable, and highly active, niece and nephew!

The Wedding Party

We had an awesome wedding party.  

While we could have easily had a huge one, we decided to keep it small to make it easier on us and so we wouldn't burden too may of our friends with the extra expenses of being in a wedding party. 

Our wedding party was perhaps a bit unconventional and further proof that you don't have to do what you see in all the wedding magazines.  I had a maid of honor and a bridesmaid.  Zeke had a best man, a groomsmaid (yes, you read that right groomsmaid...), and a groomsman.  We also included our officiant in our wedding party since if he wasn't officiating the wedding, he would have been a groomsman anyway.

Further proof that our wedding party is awesome.

And if you really needed it...here's a bit more!

Bachelorette Getaway!

Last weekend, I whisked away to Las Vegas for a bachelorette getaway with 2 of my favorite ladies!  While we where there we ate some AMAZING food (check it out on my other blog by clicking here), checked out Red Rocks Canyon, visited the Atomic Testing Museum, and checked out some also really awesome outlets.  (Someday, I'd love to go back there with some more $$ on hand!).

And, we did also partake in one night of bachelorette sillyness...here's a picture of me in my sash, veil, and giant flashing ring...

A Trial and A Shower

Labor Day weekend was all about the wedding!

My mom flew out from New York to spend some time with us in Seattle and then she and I flew down to California on Friday.  Saturday morning bright and early we headed down to Heidi's Studio in the Carmel Crossroads Shopping Village for my pre-wedding hair trial.  It wasn't the full extent of what it will be for the wedding, but more just of a chance to figure out the general concept.

Then we zipped back to Felton for my Wedding/Bridal Shower which Connie & Mary (my step-mom and future mother-in-law) put on for me!  It was totally wonderful and I couldn't believe how many people where there!  It was just a nice feeling and so nice to see everyone before the wedding!

Here's a quick shot of Sam, my bridesmaid, making me a bouquet for the rehearsal out of all the ribbons from the gifts everyone brought.  She did a ridiculously awesome job! Seriously...professional quality.

Engagement Pictures by Our Wedding Photographer!

We got an amazing gift for our wedding. Seriously. Amazing.

I can't remember if I've mentioned it yet on here, but...my Aunt Suzanne (my mother's sister) is gifting us our wedding photography! Her good friend, Claire Barrett will be our wedding photographer and also did a set of engagement photos for us down in the Los Angeles area in the end of June.

Here are some of our favorite shots;

You can see more in the slideshow that Claire put together for us here.

Invitations Are Ready To Go!

Well our invitations are all done and sealed in their envelopes! This is a task that feels good to have completed!  Especially since this was a true DIY project, which we'll have to post more about later.

One of the best parts about our invitations was the help we had from our family.  Our parents acted as great consultants, had some key ideas (thank's mom for suggesting Pages software!) and my dad even helped make them!  And Zeke's (and my soon to be officially) wonderful sister-in-law created the perfect artwork for them. We can't even begin to express our gratitude for all of their help!

On a separate note...bummer on the stamp availability at our local post office.  Not very exciting or creative, but they'll get the invitations out just fine!

Since Our Last Update...

We've been to Tahoe. Just for fun. Too bad there wasn't more snow.

We've been to Austin, Texas for Cara and Mike's wedding reception. Cara was my roommate for three years of college and she and Mike started dating only about a month after Zeke and I. We are so so so happy for them :-).

We've also made some decent progress on planning the wedding. As soon as we sort a couple more things out, we will update you all on those things. We're planning on doing some little features on the blog about all these different things. Right now, we are working on securing a caterer and a day of coordinator. We are also planning on going up to Brilliant Earth in San Francisco soon to pick out the stones for my ring and to order our rings.