I am sooooooooooooooooooooooo excited that we got our wedding photos back today!!! Here are just a few of my favorites:

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My wedding day was by no means perfect, but it went perfectly in my mind. My family was amazed by how calm I seemed about everything when things were going wrong, expecting me to be a ball of frazzled crazy bridezilla nerves yelling at everyone.

What helped me keep my cool and enjoy the day even when things were completely off track? What helped me achieve wedding day zen?

from http://www.chroniclebooks.com/

My wedding day mantra helped me! I just told myself, “Nothing can ruin my day. I can let things ruin my day, and I choose not to let anything ruin my day.”

The necklace I made using my grandmother’s pearls broke, my shoes weren’t the perfect off-white, Calla Lily Dude was wearing white socks (given to him by the formal wear rental place), we were completely off the time line, some decorations didn’t make their way to the venue…

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It feels amazing to be back as Calla Lily Blossom! I am so excited to share parts of my wedding day with the BridalBuds garden, especially my favorite part: our DIY ceremony!!!

Our ceremony was truly magical, but of course, I am absolutely and completely biased. Short and sweet, it was an intimate feeling, very personalized event. To create our own ceremony, we blended together elements that matched our vision, borrowing from humanist and atheist traditions as well as traditional civil and secular weddings.

Our unity candle lighting

(Sorry for the poor quality picture, but we’re still waiting on our professional pictures)

Making it extra special to us, Calla Lily Dude’s dad performed the ceremony after being deputized as a Deputy Commissioner of Marriage (check your local/state requirements to see if this is a possibility for you!).

After Calla Lily Dude and I exchanged vows, all our guests participated in our unity candle lighting ceremony using the candle favors that I made.

Here is the wording that we used for our ceremony:

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Yesterday I accompanied Calla Lily Dude to Selix Formal Wear to reserve his attire for the wedding. In choosing what he wore, he didn’t want anything too formal and Selix had just the thing:

from http://www.selix.com

That’s right, Calla Lily Dude is wearing a suit! A tux would be out of place at our informal wedding and all-you-can-eat BBQ, laid back reception.

I love that he can rent a suit since it doesn’t really make sense for him to buy a suit right now. He was able to rent everything he needed, from socks and shoes to mother of pearl cuff links to coordinated with my pearl jewelry.

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If you do a Google search for “wedding hairstyles” or something similar, you get a ridiculous amount of results to comb through to find a little inspiration for your wedding day look. Quite frankly, it can be overwhelming!

After giving up on using Google and other search engines, I found some hairdo inspiration from one of my favorite stores. While looking at dresses to suggest for my future mother-in-law, I noticed a few of the hairstyles of models from Nordstrom.

pictures from http://shop.nordstrom.com/

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When considering the location for our engagement photos, it was easy for me and Calla Lily Dude to choose UC Davis because we lived in Davis, CA at the time and met going to college there.

But, I found it was not this easy to find the perfect location to take pictures the day of our wedding… While I love our lake-side venue, the immediate exterior isn’t as picturesque as I would like (and right next to a bird estuary!) and the interior won’t be decorated in time to take pictures before the ceremony.

And lo and behold, the gorgeous lake-view promenade I had my heart set on as perfect location to take pictures before the ceremony…

from http://www.victorvolta.com

…is currently under construction and will not be ready in time for our wedding

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When it came to the kind of cake that we should have at our wedding, only 1 choice seemed right: carrot cake! We met at a potluck over my homemade carrot cake, which is the only cake Calla Lily Dude likes.

The tricky part was that I am very picky about carrot cake and rarely eat carrot cake that I did not make myself. I have tried carrot cake from several bakeries, and didn’t like any, so I decided it to take on my wedding cake as a DIY project…

This seemed out right crazy, so I decided to recruit a few gal pals and make an event out of it a few days before my wedding and the DIY Cupcake Bake Party idea was born.

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After some DIY fun, a trip to FedEx Office (formerly known as Kinko’s) to print and cut them, and stuffing envelops, I was so excited yesterday to send our invitations out and I think they’re gorgeous (but I’m biased).

It was a triumph! It was something to check off of my massive to do list! It was something to celebrate… until Calla Lily Dude asked “When are we sending out invitations?”

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As you may remember, I have never been a fan of shapewear, or “torture devices” as I like to call them, but I did manage to fall in love with a  Frederick’s of Hollywood waist cincher.

As much as I loved the look I got wearing the waist cincher, you could see the boning under my clingy wedding dress. This led me to buying even more fabulous shapewear. I ended up buying a deep plunge bodysuit from Dr. 90210 himself, the Dr. Rey’s Shapewear line.

from www.etonline.com

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With just over a month to go, I finally booked our honeymoon! Long ago, we talked about what we wanted to do and settled on enjoying some outdoor activities, pampering, and great food in Mendocino, California.

We even set up a honeymoon registry chock full of all the things we wanted to do after some preliminary research, such as a sea kayaking tour, side-by-side couple’s massage, and hike in Van Damm State Park followed by a picnic lunch. However, it was not until this week that I finally made reservations.

After much research on the internet, at sites like Mendocino.com, Mendocino-honeymoon.com, CaliforniaTravelDream.com and TripAdvisor.com, we will be staying at the Little River Inn just 2 miles outside of Mendocino proper, in a room with a peaceful ocean view and lots of privacy.

from http://www.littleriverinn.com/

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