Wedding Update
Why didn’t anyone tell me that wedding planning is so crazy?! And expensive. WTF. And also does it seem like most wedding vendors (at least in Arizona) don’t really care, because they’re too busy with other people’s weddings? Most places in the Valley are booked solid for two years!
We decided on a place in Greer, AZ actually – in the middle of the forest. We’re going to get married in the middle of nowhere with Sunrise Ski Mountain in the background (where we got engaged!) and then the reception will be just down the street at a lodge where people can stay on-site in cabins.
We got engaged at Sunrise Ski Park! (in the Summer of course) 
Our ceremony spot! You can see Sunrise in the background.
Engagement Party
We kicked off our engagement with a super fun party that we coupled with our housewarming party since not everyone had seen our house either. We were so shocked that so many people flew in from out of town for it and sooo appreciative. It was at our casa but mom helped plan most of it and she got the cutest invites from Minted! We also got our thank you’s from Minted too.
Click here to get 30% off Save the Dates from Minted
We had our friend Jason park his pizza trailer in our RV area in the backyard and cook his delicious pizzas which was the perfect casual food. He is also doing our wedding food for the rehearsal, wedding, and day-after brunch. He seriously makes the best food I’ve ever had in my life. He was trained by James Binkley of Binkley’s (the only 5-star restaurant in Phoenix) and he’s opening up a restaurant in Uptown Phoenix soon! Follow them on Facebook here.
Anyway, the party was sooo much fun I want to redo it, and it was definitely a good learning experience about our friends and family and how much they like to drink…we were out of alcohol after two hours! And we were scared we got too much, ha! We also have the B E S T party host that I also used for my friend’s baby shower, so if anyone in the Valley needs a recommendation hit me up!
Oh, did I mention the nightmare we had from the downpour of rain the day before and day of?! We were freaking out and got tents from friends and family – they all fell over in the storm overnight and our backyard was a swamp. Our families and us were in the pouring rain just hours before the party setting up the tents again, drenches. The rain thankfully let up but we for sure found mud all over the house for like three weeks after!
Sweating for the Wedding
Diet:
I started the Faster Way to Fat Loss last June and I love it! It is such a sustainable lifestyle that you can really do for the rest of your life! The whole theory behind it is depleting your glycogen levels completely once a week so you can burn fat, then cycling your carb intake throughout the week. The best part of it is that you can drink! I have failed at every diet that has told me “absolutely no alcohol” because it just isn’t realistic to me, and completely unsustainable. FWTFL also puts you into smaller private Facebook groups where you can post questions, and the coaches in the group coach you through your nutrition. It also comes with a workout portion but I am doing my own workouts. I might incorporate FWTFL workouts in my routine in the Summer when the wedding is getting closer.
Click here to learn more about Faster Way to Fat Loss
I also listened to Kelly LeVeque’s “Body Love” book on Audible. You can read my full review on the book here and listen to it here.
Workouts:
I’ve finally found a workout plan that is good for me and my crazy life. I used to do trainers but I found myself leaving work at weird hours so I had to work around that, and honestly I just felt judged by most of my trainers. I also love lifting at the gym solo, but can not handle the meat heads, and it does take some motivation to even leave the house to get there.
I bought a spin bike over the Summer from Spinning.com – the orginal Spin bike! I got a lower-end one, I don’t need anything fancy (hence why I didn’t just go for the Peloton). It also comes with a year free of Spin.tv workouts, and there are a ton of free spin workouts on Amazon Prime and YouTube that I’ve been doing.
I needed something else on top of cardio so my friend introduced me to a Pilates Studio in Gilbert last Summer called Power Core Pilates. Tbh, it’s kinda expensive so I only went once every other week until I realized that they were on ClassPass and I signed up for it again! The classes are actually cheaper on ClassPass. I used to use it when I lived in Gilbert and worked in North Scottsdale (anyone in the Valley knows that this takes about an hour in traffic, the worst ever!), so I had to do workouts around my work schedule and found classes in both Gilbert and Scottsdale that I loved.
Click here for a free month to ClassPass!
Stress:
I bought this infrared sauna to help relax. I haven’t used it much since we got Finley because he’s scared of it but there are soo many benefits to infrared, not just detoxing!
I’ve also been trying to not pressure myself into doing so much, and have been trying to just enjoy this time and take it slow. The FWTFL program also tells you to prioritize sleep and relaxation over workouts because high cortisol levels (caused by stress) make you retain weight.
Beauty Plan
I’ve started on a skin regimen to get my scars away and my skin glowing! And I finally found my favorite hair products, including this Revlon blow dryer that has changed my life and hair! I’m planning on doing a post about that one soon, but I made notes on it below. I’ve also been trying a tonnnn of new makeup, so stay tuned on a post of all my makeup reviews.
The main new things that I’ve incorporated into my beauty routine are:
- GloPro once a week
- LaNeige Water Sleeping Mask 1-2x per week, and Lip Mask every day
- Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides: just once scoop per day because I can only have under 50 cals in the morning with FWTFL (serving size is two scoops), but I’ve still seen so much healthier hair, skin and nails!
- Adding the Dermalogica Pre-Cleanse before washing my face to get rid of the extra dirt and debris
- Lash serum – I put it on my brows too
Here is what I’ve been doing:
Skin:
Hair:
Planning
Stationery
We used Minted for engagement party invites – we were going to do Paperless Post but wanted to make it a little more formal…but I am actually using Paperless Post for our upcoming Super Bowl Party which has been so easy to work with! They have different cute animated templates (that aren’t cheesy) to choose from and personalize, and you can text your friends the invite rather than email it (I mean, do YOU have all of your friends’ emails?!).
I think we’re also going to do Paperless Post for our rehearsal dinner to avoid the hassle and extra $$, and to be able to track RSVP’s better. We also aren’t sending RSVP’s with our invites, we are making everyone RSVP on our website so we can track them easier! It is also hard to send RSVP’s with out invites cause our invitations are wood planks (bougie, I know!). My mom packaged all the cards for our engagement party (Thank GOD) and I didn’t realize how much work it is until we did our Christmas card which was also through Minted.
Click here to get 30% off Save the Dates from Minted
Planning Services
We opted not to do a full-on wedding planner because of the cost and you know…Pinterest is available. But dang it’s been hard! There is so much to think about and it’s soo hard to keep it all organized between costs (who have we even paid?!) and deadlines and follow-ups. I’ve actually been using Trello to organize what I can (click here for the post on how exactly I use Trello to stay organized), but there is seriously just no way to stay organized with it all, thank God we’re having a long engagement!
My cousin is a day-of coordinator and planner so I’ve been asking her for a lot of advice, but it’s still so hard…and I’m an organized person! Our venue (thank God) comes with a planner that helps with things that are logistics-related, and we hired her on top of that to help with our separate ceremony/reception situation and setup/cleanup.
And have I mentioned that most wedding vendors do not care about you?! They are too busy with so many other weddings that they never follow up, which adds another thing to my to-do list. I had to fire a couple people I was working with because they just wouldn’t respond to me, and when they did they forgot everything we talked about! Can you imagine how terrifying that is for someone planning the biggest day of their lives?!
A company called Honeydew reached out to me to do an interview for them (you can find that interview here) and after learning about their services, I decided to use them to find our bartender which I was having trouble finding. I was actually blown away by their service. It was so easy to use and within 2 days of my request they researched vendors I hadn’t even heard about and negotiated every little detail with them, down to our signature drinks and preferred glassware. They gave me 15 different options all laid out organized to where you can see the differences between them, and picked the best 3 for what we are looking for.
They offer one-off research and planning for $200 each, or full-on planning for $4,500. To me, that is SO worth it. Check them out here.
The Dress
I tried on a few dresses a couple months after we got engaged because I knew I would probably want to custom make something. I tried on Galia Lahav at Destiny’s Bride in Scottsdale, and Berta at Nordstrom Scottsdale. I was open to finding “the one”, but there was so much I wanted to change about it! I tried so hard to not be that picky, but I am actually cursed with overly expensive taste – I can sniff out the most expensive fabrics from a mile away. Which is why when I tried to work with this new company called Anomalie to custom make my wedding dress, they weren’t able to work with the fabrics I wanted to use because they were over $100/yd – shocker! So I started from square one – thank the Lord I started the process early, or I would’ve been so behind schedule!
I researched probably around 50 dressmakers literally from all over the world to see if they 1) made custom dresses, 2) would work with my fabrics and 3) didn’t want to charge me the cost of an Ivy League college tuition. That brought me to Angela Kim! She’s in Asheville, NC which is perfect because Danny’s best friend and his fiancé just moved there last year and we had been trying to plan a trip to see them, so this was the perfect opportunity. We had also heard some great things about Asheville and its breweries so we were super excited to try them all out!
Vendors so far:
Photography: Rock Sandretto
Stationery: Minted (events), Paperless Post (rehearsal dinner), and Wright Armory (invite)
Planning Services: Honeydew and Chantal Powell (read more about planning in the section above!)
Tables and Benches: Rustique Rentals
Venue: Greer Red Setter
Dress: Custom Angela Kim Couture – we’re taking a Galia Lahav design and updating it to exactly what I want!
Food: (redacted to protect the company as we fired them. See why in my newest post)
Engagement pics below by Rock Sandretto
