With this ring, I thee blog.

I'VE MOVED (AGAIN)

2011-07-07T14:02:00.001-07:00

If you used to follow this blog and never made the switch to my Newlywed blog now is your chance to follow all of the latest in my life... I now switched over to Wordpress so follow me at my new blog:

www.mesoolala.com

Review: CSN Stores and a Man Cave

2011-02-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

If you haven't checked out CSN Stores it's a must! I have talked about them a few times on the blog and I've been nothing but satisfied with the numerous purchases I've made through them. With over 200 online stores, you can find everything from stylish furniture, counter height stools , or great cookware!

When the hubs and I decided we were going to purchase a new home the one thing he asked was if he was going to be able to have a man cave. I of course said yes because I'm a good wife (ha!) and it's a good way to get him to go away when I want to watch trashy reality television that I can't convince him to take part in.

I asked if I could make it a surprise and completely design the room and he said yes and followed it with listing the few things he wanted to make sure would be included in this said, "man cave". Who started this "man cave" shenanigans anyway?

I decided it would be sports themed since he always wants to try to put it randomly throughout the house and I'd rather have it in a more appropriate location. I've picked out some old baseball pictures that will adorn the walls and I will have a whole unit that will hold a lot of his sports memorablia he has as well as a large amount of our Angel's Baseball collection.

I'm going to go with a Red and Gray theme to go with a lot of our Angel's stuff and thought it would be fun to find some items on the CSN website to add some special sports touches here and there. Check out some of the items I found that will be perfect...

How cool would it be to get him this chair?

Gosh if there was room (and I had the money) I would so get this pool table!

They even have matching ball and pool cues!

Very fun to have with other Angel's memorabilia like our bobble-head collection

Freakin' sweet.

This clock would be cool to have.

I could seriously go on and on, there is tons of great MLB memorablia (or any sports for that matter) on the CSN website!

*I will be given credit to use towards my purchase for writing a review.

Love Palm Springs!

2010-11-10T07:50:00.000-08:00

And I'm really hoping to win this fabulous weekend getaway to give to my husband for a Christmas present... we love Palm Springs!

http://www.relentlessbride.com/2010/11/giveaway-renaissance-esmeralda-resort.html

The Renaissance Esmeralda Resort looks fabulous!!!

Wedding Necklace Tips for the Bride (Sponsored)

2010-10-15T09:16:00.000-07:00

The wedding is one of the most important events of a woman’s life, right next to child birth, first house, first kiss etc. This is a widely established fact that most women know almost instinctively. In fact, the importance of a wedding for a woman is such that some women start playing wedding in their younger years already. Owing to such significance that weddings have for a woman, it is not a surprise that they try to get only premiere jewelry necklaces for their weddings. However, wanting the best look and achieving it are two very different things, and many women falter in their efforts to look good due to a lack of fashion sense. However, the following should turn out to be helpful with regards to wearing premiere jewelry necklaces on the basis of the type of wedding dress.

1. Gowns with a low neckline:  Gowns that have low necklines need to be supplemented with necklaces that drop down instead of hugging the neck. The reason for this is that short necklaces with low neckline gowns can make a woman’s chest too broad or wide.

2. Off the shoulder gowns:  Off the shoulder gowns or strapless gowns provide the freedom to be able to choose flashy attention seeking necklaces or necklaces with large pendants. Furthermore, a bride can also use chokers with particularly flashy pendants because of the larger area of space to work with. A choker with a strapless or off the shoulder gown results in both the elements i.e. gown and necklace to be showcased due to the space between them.

However, both the tips listed above would be moot if the wedding gown is enough by itself. For example, a highly embellished wedding gown with sequins and lots of pearls does not warrant the use of a particularly jazzy necklace or, for that matter, any other premiere jewelry. On the contrary, gowns that are particularly aggrandized are better supplemented with simple necklaces. In fact, the more subtle and low key the necklace is, the more it will be able to set off the beauty of the wedding gown.

The wedding ceremony is one of those extremely rare and wonderful experiences that a woman remembers and cherishes throughout her life. This is the reason why the bride to be should never just pick up the biggest necklace or the most low key premiere jewelry. She should find the right combination of everything.

*This post was sponsored by Abazias Diamonds.

Blog Book

2010-09-28T10:19:00.001-07:00

How awesome would it be to have your blog documented down in a book for a keepsake to have? Well you can do that! I would love to do that with this blog... check out the giveaway here to get your own blog printed!

http://2momstalk.blogspot.com/2010/09/blog-book-giveaway.html

Giveaway Alert with Happy Hour with a Housewife!

2010-09-07T16:53:00.000-07:00

Hello dear readers... as you can see from this title boy do I have the giveaway for you this week!

Before I get to that let me just share some info leading up to my dear giveaway... I know a lot of my readers are engaged, have y'all looked for Mother of the Bride dresses? Some girls are so scared about what their mom is going to wear on their wedding day and I loved what my mom picked out. It wasn't frumpy, and was perfect with my wedding. Designer Apparel.com is the spot! They have dedicated a part of their site specifically to help brides and their mothers find the perfect Mother of the Bride Dress... with brands like Adrianna Papell, Tadashi, and Eileen Fisher you are bound to find something perfect for your mom! They help you find the best deals at different places and target down to what you are looking for and where you can find it (i.e. places like Nordstrom, Bloomingdales or Neiman Marcus) - they are just great at making your shopping experience more enjoyable with price comparisons, sale notifications, and notices of free shipping!

So here we go ladies... here is the giveaway I have for you...

$100 Nordstrom Gift Card!

To enter please go here:

http://www.happyhourwithahousewife.com/2010/09/giveaway-100-nordstrom-gift-card.html

Please note, entries posted on this blog post will not be counted, you must enter on my other blog, Happy Hour with a Housewife.

Good luck!

Great giveaway!

2010-09-03T14:46:00.001-07:00

Who doesn't want a free honeymoon... or in my case a anniversary trip!?

You can win a week trip to St. Maarten which was one of my stops on my Honeymoon and it was GORGEOUS!

Find out more info here:
http://blog.weddzilla.com/amyjean/westin_stmaarten_giveaway/2010/09/01/

Win a Free Blog Design!

2010-07-08T16:47:00.000-07:00

Who wouldn't love a free blog design?

Especially if it's from the super talented April Showers!

Go here to enter, you have until Sunday... http://www.aprilshowersblogdesign.com/2010/07/giveaway.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+aprilshowersblogdesign%2FvgNX+%28April+Showers%29

Wedding Items for Sale

2010-06-15T23:27:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to post some of my wedding items, it's not everythign so check back often but I'm getting a majority of the stuff on there... check it out!

http://buymywedding.blogspot.com

Also, if you haven't done so already you need to start following my new blog since I'm not on this blog anymore!

www.happyhourwithahousewife.com

Have you made the switch?!

2010-05-18T09:33:00.000-07:00

I have recently noticed that a lot of my REGULAR readers haven't realized that I have a new blog... so in case you missed it head on over to my new and improved blog (I'm very proud)!

www.happyhourwithahousewife.com

If you haven't headed over there yet you should... you've been missing out on honeymoon recaps and wedding teasers!

Don't forget to follow! :)

Lookin for Housewives & Baby Makers

2010-05-17T13:43:00.000-07:00

As I was looking at my blog reader the other day I was realizing there are a lot of blogs that I used to follow that have pretty much fallen off the face of the planet. There is also a lot of blogs that are brides about to get married and I will continue following them as long as they continue to blog... but now I'm not on the hunt for bridal blogs... oh no, now it's time to turn my obsession to so much more!

I could sit there and run into tons of blogs but I want to know the BEST OF THE BEST, the ones you love to see have a new blog popped up... I'm looking for newlywed, trying/new moms, cooking, housewife, you get the idea... so share with me a few of your FAVORITE blogs and I promise I will share a few of mine (yes you can shamelessly plug your own if you don't think I'm already following you haha)...

So let's hear it, who are your favorite bloggers?!

Flowers You Want on the Cheap

2010-05-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

There were flowers I just had to have in my bouquet. Unfortunately they were all the most expensive flowers you could want. Not only that I wanted a big, round, full bouquet. Cha-ching. Add a few more bucks right there. But let me tell you, you can have your dream bouquet by messing around a little bit.

First of all don't insist that your bridesmaids must have the same flowers as yours, my BMs had a few of the same flowers but then she added in a few less expensive flowers that I still loved and took up space -- for example spider and button mums.

{READ MORE}

P.S. I'm only going to do the "Read More" posts a couple more times before I'm done on this blog... be sure to add my new blog to your reader before you start miss the posts!

Honeymooners in the Everglades

2010-05-05T16:50:00.000-07:00

The Everglades was one of my favorite parts of the trip! We had a blast... our fanboat drive was a blast and we got to spot lots of gators.

{READ MORE}

Honeymooners in Ft. Lauderdale

2010-05-05T15:51:00.000-07:00

Seriously, my Honeymoon was fabulous... me and the Hubs had the best time! One time I'm so glad we did was make the decision to spend a few days in Florida before we left for our Carribean cruise.

We took a redeye flight from Long Beach to Ft. Lauderdale on Thursday evening and were scheduled to arrive in Ft. Lauderdale a little before 5 am. I was really concerned we wouldn't be able to check into our hotel but of course I told the Hubs that I took care of it because I don't want to listen to him REALLY stress out about it. Luckily bc it was our honeymoon they took pity on us and knew we were exhausted... we walked into the hotel room and passed out until 9 am before I forced him to get out of bed and start our trip!

We threw some clothes on and went to check out our hotel... we stayed at the Embassy Suites right near the beach in Ft. Lauderdale and we loved it!

{READ MORE}

P.S. For a little while I will be double posting so that I can forward some of my readers to my new blog this way. There won't be ANYTHING posted here ever that isn't posted on my new blog so feel free to unfollow this one if you'd like.

Extra, Extra!

2010-05-04T12:08:00.000-07:00

Well everyone, I'm back from my honeymoon and I had a fabulous surprise! Joy (AKA Miss Poodle on Weddingbee) from How Joyful completed my template for my new blog and it just went active today!

But wait, I'm sure ya'll are like "WHAT ABOUT THE RECAPS?!"... we all know the brides whos blogs we follow for months and then the day after the wedding they disappear never to see a recap. That's really disappointing and it happens a lot... don't worry I won't do that to you!

What I will do is make you go follow me at my new blog though because I will be doing the recaps there starting this week with my honeymoon!

I'm so happy with my new blog so go check it out and tell me what you think!

www.happyhourwithahousewife.com

Giveaway Winner!

2010-04-20T16:35:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot!

The winner of 50 Thank You Cards from Digital Media is

"I Do Budget Weddings"

I just sent you an email so if you can get back to me with your full name and email you'd like to use I will try and get that to them ASAP!

Thanks to everyone who entered!

Tweeting My Wedding

2010-04-20T14:55:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, I Tweeted my wedding.

No I didn't PHYSICALLY Tweet my wedding but I hired someone who thought it was the best idea ever when I brought it up to him... as a joke.

A couple of months ago I mentioned to MOH-KC's little brother that I wish I could tweet my entire wedding so that all of my online bride friends could get a little taste of the wedding. I mentioned that my mom would probably sacrifice me if she knew I was on my phone the whole wedding and said he should do it. He immediately said he would do it and basically didn't let it go... it was seriously an hour and a half before my wedding when I got a text from him saying "What's your Twitter password... time to get Tweeting!"

I sent it on over and had the BEST time reading all of the tweets, seeing his TwitPics, and reading all of your responses on Sunday night! I know many of you don't have a Twitter so this is my way of doing a mini recap through the eyes of a guest and their blackberry...

Just as an FYI, this post will get long and obnoxious. :) Enjoy!
__________________________________________________________

Hi! It's me, @mcompean, the official tweeter for Laura & Brad's official wedding day...get excited! http://tweetphoto.com/18873025
4:15 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Cool Breeze...sun shining....good day for a wedding, I would say. Countdown: 1 hour.
4:17 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

I see the lido marina!!! http://tweetphoto.com/18873462
4:19 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

I promise pics of her the second I arrive! :) RT: @Em219: @MeSooLaLa You're cute...now let's see some pics of Miss (almost Mrs.) Laura!!
4:21 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

This Just In: wedding pre-photos finished. Wedding party en route to the yacht! Ready or not, here it comessss :)
4:37 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Spotted: the beautiful mother of the bride! P.s. 30 minutes! http://tweetphoto.com/18878163
4:52 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

This area is so cute. Lots of shops and boats!
4:57 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

As Michael Jackson would say...this is it. http://tweetphoto.com/18879666
5:03 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

I spy a photobooth being set-up!
5:18 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Partys startinggg... http://tweetphoto.com/18883719
5:33 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Just got a sneak peek of the bride. One word: gorgeous.
5:47 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Getting our "safety orientation" on the boat. Lol. Yay
6:00 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

So cute! http://tweetphoto.com/18887803
6:04 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Just a reminder, this is @mcompean ... Lol. I doubt twitter is the last thing on Laura's mind right now. 10 minutes! Eee!
6:05 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

The crowd looks so beautiful! Everyone has a smile on their face! The boat has now left the port!
6:14 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Its starting!
6:15 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Beautiful bride http://tweetphoto.com/18889769
6:18 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Laura and her pops! http://tweetphoto.com/18889838
6:19 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Wedding Prayer.
6:20 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

{These are all of the bridal party ones... not showing you the TwitPics but you can click on the links if you want}

Omg this is surreal! http://tweetphoto.com/18890547
6:24 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Aww! http://tweetphoto.com/18890467
6:23 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

So pretty! http://tweetphoto.com/18890410
6:23 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Love it! http://tweetphoto.com/18890345
6:22 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Bridesmaids! http://tweetphoto.com/18890294
6:22 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Gorgeous backdrop and amazing speaker http://tweetphoto.com/18890849
6:26 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Gus is reading a cute poem called "I like you" ...its too cute
6:27 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Brad looks great!
6:29 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

The pastor just said brad has a "special package"....I'm not going to ask.
6:30 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

"Because she is Laura Frances...and there is simply no substitute" -brad on why he wants to marry laura
6:38 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Communion and sand ceremony. So symbolic. So much thought was put into the ceremony!
6:49 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Yay!!!! You may kiss the bride. Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Lewis!!!!! http://tweetphoto.com/18894196
6:51 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

I'm gonna be brutally honest and say it: I'm kind of in LOVE with this boat! Level 1 here we come for the PARTY!
6:57 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Lol the mints r cute http://tweetphoto.com/18895496
7:01 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

The gorgeous sunset view from floor 1! http://tweetphoto.com/18897277
7:14 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

The official tweeter with the newlyweds! Ahhh! http://tweetphoto.com/18897730
7:18 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

The food is SO good.
7:38 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

So now during dinner I will tell you all of some fond memories I have of laura! Get ready..
7:38 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

My parents used to pay her to drive me to concerts. Lol. And sometimes even for her to go with me (aka ludacris concert) thx lo-lu!
7:40 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

I miss our del-taco runs :(
7:51 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Laura's dad giving a speech. She's so lucky to have a dad like him. He loves her so much and her new hubby! So cute
7:52 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Hehe http://tweetphoto.com/18904972
8:14 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Photobooth fun http://tweetphoto.com/18905039
8:14 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

The first dance! http://tweetphoto.com/18905351
8:17 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

They're too freaking cute... I'm pretty sure he's singing to her! Love.
8:17 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Dance partay http://tweetphoto.com/18908934
8:45 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Cutting of the cakey http://tweetphoto.com/18910185
8:55 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Too cute http://tweetphoto.com/18910268
8:55 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Wowwwww http://tweetphoto.com/18914294
9:29 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

All the single ladiesssss...bouqet time http://tweetphoto.com/18913905
9:25 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

Cookie Buffet http://tweetphoto.com/18917943
9:59 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

(Yah, remember my last minute cookie bar idea?! Success. That thing got wiped. out.)

Um those snickerdoodles I just devoured were breathtaking. Can I have more?
10:01 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter

The end! What an amazing and fun wedding! Signing out now! Congrats again you two! If you liked my tweets, follow me @mcompean ! Cheers!
10:18 PM Apr 17th via UberTwitter
_________________________________________

So I hope you enjoyed my redonkulous Tweet post... it gave you a nice little recap of the wedding to get you ready for the big recaps next month!

REVIEW: Brazillian Blowout

2010-04-20T13:57:00.001-07:00

Okay, let me clarify.

A Brazilian Blowout has NOTHING to do with anything referring to my hoo-haw.

When I started discussing my appointment to get a Brazilian Blowout for the wedding / honeymoon people thought I was sharing too much in public. The Brazilian Blowout is actually an organic treatment (that's right, no chemicals)... after the process depending on your upkeep (the amount you wash it, the type of shampoos you use, etc.) it could last around 8-12 weeks.

This all natural treatment took about two hours and left me with AMAZZZZING smooth and healthy, frizz-free hair, with killer shine.

I went into the salon looking like this:

That's what my hair looks like while air drying (it still was damp so not at it's full lion potential).

This is how the process went in short detail:

1) Wash hair hardcore for like 10 minutes to make sure ALL buildup and products are off of the hair.

2) No Conditioner was used so spend another 10 minutes combing out my mane.

3) Comb in the Brazilian Blowout product stuff that she paints in inch by inch (kinda like putting color on your hair).

4) Blowdry the product into your hair... you do not wash it out. Right now it already is looking amazing.

5) She then flat irons the product inch by inch to really heat up the hair to lock in the product. OMG, I love my hair.

6) Then she washed it. WAHHH?! My hair looked gorgeous and it was so sad for her to wash my hair.

7) Repeat -- blowdried my whole head and flat ironed the whole thing again.

And then I looked like this...

Seriously, in love. The point of this whole process is to eliminate frizz when letting your hair air dry or blow dry. I actually was able to blow dry my hair yesterday and not straighten it after... I've NEVER done that. Not only that it cut the blow dry time down rediculously! It usually takes 30-45 minutes to blow dry my hair completely depending on how wet my hair is but yesterday it probably took me 15 minutes MAX and it looked great.

I was told I'll never go back but it can be a little pricey, the upkeep is way cheaper then the original first time process so we shall see... I'm going to see how long it lasts and if I continue to feel it makes a huge difference.

As of right now though? I'm in love with more then Mr. Mojito.

I'm baaaackkk...

2010-04-20T13:45:00.000-07:00

...but only for a second! Just had to check base with ya'll to let you know that I had a FABULOUS wedding. Like seriously, a lot of people say that but mine truly was amazing. I can't wait to share all of my thoughts and experiences with all of you... I leave for my Honeymoon on Thursday so I might try to write a post or two before I leave but no recaps will be starting until May... I'll be introducing my new blog then!

I'm basically obsessed with this picture because of my bouquet.

I was telling Em (Burning River Bride) that I wish I could have it replicated on a weekly basis to sit on my desk at work... I could gaggle over it forever.

Please excuse whatever I'm awkwardly doing in this photo... but isn't my new hubs sexy?!

It's so fun... things aren't much different but I feel like I'm playing house. He got home from work late last night and we seriously laid in bed talking for an hour and a half just about the wedding and how happy we were.

Now I'm ready to go to the Carribean and I can't wait to share everything with ya'll... I'll try to get some posts in before I leave.

Thanks for all the well wishes everyone...

-Mrs. Mojito

(Damn, my automatic signature doesn't work anymore!)

This is it!

2010-04-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

It's finally here, the day I will become Mrs. Mojito. It's been 14 months since we booked the venue, and 10 months since Mr. Mojito proposed and the time has just completely flown by. I can't believe that this evening aboard the yacht I will be hand in hand with the man of my dreams, calling him my husband in just a few short hours.

To my family and friends...

You guys are my everything. I'm the person I am today because every single one of you have been a part of my life. You have supported Brad and I since day one physically, emotionally and in the case of the wedding - financially. I'm so blessed to have such incredible people in my life, and my day is going to be that much greater because every. single. one. of you are in it.

To Mr. Mojito...

You are my rock. You are my strength. That might seem so cliche for me to say, but it's so true. You've made me realize what love is, and how so many things I thought I felt in the past was never anything to compare to what I have and feel now. I am so excited to become your wife today and to embark on this journey together. You were my first real true love and I'm so excited for all of the other "firsts" we have to come -- homes, trips, children. It's all so much to look forward to and I thank God every day for putting you in my life.

And of course to my blogging friends who've been here for it all...

I can truly say that I have met some of the best people I've ever met in my entire life through this wedding process (big hugs to Kelly the original Miss Pugs, Stephanie from I Do at the Zoo, Em from Burning River Bride, Ali AKA Mrs. Frenchie, and I could continue...). Some of you I've met, some of you I plan to meet, and some of you will just be people that will stay in my life hopefully for a long time after this wedding. I never knew what I was getting into the day I found Weddingbee which inspired me to start this blogging journey and meet girls that would be more honest then some of my own friends. You have been here to listen, give advice, and keep me busy for the past fourteen months while I should be working.

Thank you everyone for your love and support over this time and I'm so excited to start this journey as Mr. Mojito's wife.

I love you all more then you know!

Signing out for the last time as a Miss... Miss Mojito <3>

P.S. Be ready for the debut of my new blog once I get back from the Honeymoon! I will be transitioning you all into my new blogging home as I start my recaps!

P.S.2. I hopefully will have a couple pix to post in the next couple days before I leave for my honeymoon!

Yo! I'm getting married tomorrow!

2010-04-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

At the moment I plan on not taking much of a break from Twitter tomorrow... you will be hearing from me or my official wedding Twitter sidekick who will be signed into my account throughout the night to take pix and post onto my Twitter account!

If you don't follow me already make an account to follow along throughout the day!

@MeSooLaLa

Time for my rehearsal dinner...
OMG I'M ALMOST MRS MOJITO!!!

Don't forget!

2010-04-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

My giveaway hosted by Digital Room

is open until April 17th!

Be sure to enter here:

http://withthisringitheeblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/is-this-bad-time-for-giveaway.html

Slacckkkkerrrr

2010-04-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

Okay seriously, this past weekend had the potential to be a wedding filled weekend... a day to truly get everything done. I even had off Friday for one of my furlough days... confession: I'm a bridal slacker. I didn't do ANYTHING wedding related. Okay wait, I wrapped the groomsman gifts at midnight on Friday night. But other then that? Nothing. And it wasn't even that I was busy... I was just being lazzzzzzy.

Replace Bud Light with glass of Gevurtztraminer(sp?).

Friday I laid around all day and caught up on some Ellen episodes (if you know me you know my love for Ellen)... also hit up the dentist, doctor, and a quick lunch at BJs with my dad. Ohhh and picked up a few honeymoon items at Old Navy, wow they have a lot of cute new stuff for the summer!

Hahahhaha... the Shake Weight I totally want one!

Mr. Mojito didn't get home until around 7:45 and we were starving so just grabbed some quick dinner and then vegged the remainder of the evening.

On day down, no wedding stuff accomplished.

Saturday... I sleep. The latest I've slept in a while. Feels awesome. Watch more Ellen, wow startin' to really give myself some free Tivo space to fill up while on the Honeymoon! Mr. Mojito is off galavanting with his parents... they are buying us a new BBQ, finally! No more George Forman meats... I've been dying for a BBQ. It's going to come fully assembled to our house the weekend after we get back from our Honeymoon. We then head about an hour down to Temecula where we had our Wine Club dinner... after three glasses of delicious wine and a tasting in the cellor we enjoy a delish homemade Hungarian meal and then head back home by around 8:00. By 8:02 we are passed out on the bed. 10:30 pm we wake up. Holy crap what happened. I go back to bed, wake up at 4:00 am... can't go back to sleep.

Another day down, no wedding stuff accomplished.

It's now Sunday... realizing OMG I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING FOR THE WEDDING... so I decide to head down to this big crew member sale that Disneyland is having for their staff... spend money that we don't have, grab some lunch and head to some training for Dakota.

Please note this is NOT the Disney merch I purchased.

It's now 4:00, I have two hours to kill before heading to my hair appointment, hmm I think I'll watch some Ellen.

Oh wait, hair appointment... that's kinda wedding related! Brad got his hair cut for the big day, looks sexy. I then got my hair trimmed and died, looks fab. Wasn't THRILLED with my first hair trial so she did another one - LOVED it. Took pix, but can't upload them for some reason. So guess what... you'll just get to see the real deal in a week. :)

My hair ALMOST looks like that if I let it air dry. Scary right?

Basically that was my weekend, 100% not productive but whatever... it was a nice weekend with the FH and I have all week to continue to stress out. Looking forward to Thursday though... massage, nail/pedicure appt, and my brazilian blowout! Can't wait to tell ya'll how that goes! :)

Is this a bad time for a giveaway?

2010-04-08T16:21:00.001-07:00

Probably seeing that I'm nine days (omg!) away from my wedding, but oh well I'm doing it anyway! I can't resist a giveaway from my readers.

Today I'm bringing my readers another giveaway hosted by Digital Room!

I feel like a lot of my readers are getting close to their big day and experiencing lots of showers. Isn't now a great time to get some of those thank you cards going?

So here is the giveaway prize to one of my lucky readers:

(50 ct.) 7 x 5" (folded to 3.5 x 5") Custom Thank You Cards with plain envelopes
Shipping: FREE UPS Ground Shipping
Eligibility: Limited to US Residents only. Must be 18 years old and up.

To enter: Please comment on what you would use these cards for.

The first one is mandatory, these are options to get yourself extra entries:

Become a follower or let me know you are already a follower.
Follow me on Twitter @MeSooLaLa
Tweet about this giveaway -- don't forget to tell me your Twitter name and include @MeSooLaLa in your tweet as well as a link to this post!
Post about this giveaway on your blog and send me the link.

That's five possible, entires. Good luck!

The giveaway will end on MY WEDDING DAY, April 17!! My goal will be to post the winner before I leave on my honeymoon before April 22!

*I will be receiving 50 thank you cards from Digital Room for hosting this giveaway.

Wedding Chicks Just Rocked My World...

2010-04-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

...but a little too late. Won't be able to use these for any of my stationary but they were just too cute not to share! I'm going to try and get creative with what I could use these for.

Honestly, I just saw Wedding Chicks post this on Twitter and I always wondered why nobody had this yet on a wedding website. Wedding Chicks is now offering FREE custom monograms. I'm sure the collection will grow over time but right now they have a few cute monograms that you just plug in the names, dates, and colors you want and it gets emailed to you in SECONDS for you to use. I made a few in my colors and also some in other colors just to share. They also have it to make custom "Will you be my ..." monograms to use on tags, cards, whatever.

I thought these bird ones were really cute. One idea I had was since clearly my wedding is only a week away, if there is one you really like you don't even have to put your wedding date. Just your names with your new last name or something and then you can put it on stationary or something through Uprinting or Vista Print.

This one rather then putting the bride and grooms names I put a made up name and then bridesmaid underneath instead of the date. You could use this for their thank you card or something else for your BMs.

I decided to do this next one in Mocha and Grass Green... the colors of my cousins wedding that I'm going to be in, in October.

So not only do they have the monogram templates but they also had templates for the "Will you be my...?" cards. They had this cute florish one where you could customize the colors and the title (Bridesmaid, Maid of Honor, etc.). They also had one that I loved with some tandem bicycles.

If I ever would have seen this early enough for the wedding I probably would have used the sea horse one, it's so cute and it matches all of the suite we used for our rehearsal dinner as well.

Don't you just love finding freebies? What are some other ways you could use these templates from Wedding Chicks?

DIY Invite Savings?

2010-04-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, Em from Burning River Bride and myself exchanged a couple of tweets on how doing DIY invites might not actually save you that much money.

Sure there is the exception... I did invites from Michael's for my friends wedding and spent just around $50. But when I weighed out the options of fabulous custom invites to doing it myself it seemed like a no brainer. Now I'm doing the math and wondering.

When I first got engaged my obsession was pocketfolds. I'm an organized person and the thought of everything neatly tucked and organized in a beautiful metallic envelope just tickled my fancy. Had to have it. Then I researched... Holy smokes! $4, $5, even $7 a pop per invite?! I'm going to need at LEAST 100 invites, I couldn't even imagine spending that kind of money on something so many people care less about while I on the other hand love some good stationary. So I started thinking of alternatives on how I could get something as fabulous but on my budget...

So this is what I decided. I would purchase the pocketfolds and then do all of the printing myself. Simple enough right and I'm sure super cheap! So I went on Cards & Pockets and fount the pocketfolds I wanted on sale for like $.70 each. Didn't sound too bad. I was convinced now I could do each invite for about $1 without postage. Psh, this is just the beginning.

They're back to $1.38 each, I scored.

I then started designing things and realized I didn't like any of it. Nothing I had was great and I just didn't have the best design skills to do something I wanted to portray for MY wedding. So like always I started searching around on the Weddingbee classified. I found a ad for a designer who was starting to do wedding invites and looking for some people to design for to use for her portfolio. I've told you tons about Leslie from Slieberry Designs. She's awesome, and was my invitation hero. I got her services free of charge and she did all of my design for all of the pocketfold inserts as well as the actual invite. She even offered to do any other stationary needs so I had her do the menu and all of the other things I just ended up taking care of myself.

Everything turned out great and I was so happy with the results. Since my RSVP card insert was double sided and because I'm a horrrrrible person to use a paper cutter I decided to leave this to the professionals. It probably wouldn't have been TOO bad to have them print... but I forced them to also cut them all for me... and I HAD to have the maching pearly metallic paper! I ended up spending almost $300. The paper was pretty pricey and after all of the "design" fees (to fit everything on the paper to get the most of the paper), the printing, the cutting, etc. it really added up.

Because of the price this was all ending up to be I ended up forgoing my belly bands I designed and didn't even decide to seal it. I didn't seal it because I decided to go with clear vellum envelopes, which with the fuschia metallic pocketfold underneath it looked GREAT. I purchased 100 vellum envelopes on eBay for like hardly anything. Do envelope shopping on eBay people. I'm always successful with that. People try to charge rediculous prices for envelopes.

Next fee increase? Forgot that a pocketfold is clearly going to make my invite weigh more then an ounce. That's going to make the price go up. So I had to get the <>100 pocketfolds with shipping - $75.00

100 vellum envelopes - $10.00

100 $.61 stamps - $61.00

100 $.28 stamps (for RSVP postcards) - $28.00

Printing - approx. $300.00

Design Fee - FREE (God bless you Leslie)

TOTAL: $474.00

Price per invitation WITH postage: $4.74 each

Worth it? Sure. I guess. I've had GREAT compliments on my invitations, which if I didn't I probably would have been pissed. LOL I still think for all of the work I had to do myself it was a little pricey.

What I'd do? Make an impact. Write on a 3x5 card the date and info, tape a few dollars to it. Your guests will thank you and they will never forget your invitations. :)

So did you try to go a DIY route to save money and in the end realize you didn't save any money at all? I want to hear your stories!

New Father / Daughter Dance Song

2010-04-01T16:06:00.000-07:00

So for me the Father / Daughter dance seemed like a never ending big deal to me. I'm a big time daddy's girl and this was going to be a very important and sentimental moment for me. There were a few songs he liked, a few I liked and we narrowed it down to a couple still not sure what we were going to do.

Then MOH-KC sent me a link to this song on Monday...

Perfect. That's the one. Simple as that.

Sent one of the newest songs by Edwin McCain songs, "Walk With You", over to mom and dad and they agreed.

Now there's only one more thing I need to figure out...

How the hell am I going to get through this song without turning into one hot mess?!

Day After Shoot Amazzzingness

2010-04-01T11:12:00.000-07:00

On Green Wedding Shoes this morning I saw a shoot that was just too good to not share with my readers if you don't follow GWS. OMG, the details!

The cupcakes, the bout, the bouquet, the desk, the dress, everything. This shoot makes me envvvious of not taking advantage of my epix. They were very original and such a fun experience, but I see pix like this and wish I would have done more.

PURE AMAZINGNESS OVERLOAD RIGHT NOW.

GAH! Not over it, just so love them. Hope you enjoyed!

You can see even MORE (so much more) here:

http://ashleymaxwellphoto.com/blog/melissa-travis-day-after-session/

Did you see those Programs and Invites?! Holy cow.

Why wasn't I invited? Love weddings like this.

*Photography by Ashley Maxwell

A Little Guest Book Direction

2010-04-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

With one of my Uprinting freebies I received 250 business cards. Not having a business at the moment it was time to get creative on what I wanted to use them for that was wedding related. Most of the girls that win this from Uprinting use it for photo sharing cards. I already got those from Vistaprint like 14 months ago... I think it was one of the first wedding related things I did.

I knew from the beginning I didn't want to do a traditional guest book. A book filled with signatures just seemed like another item to add to the "wedding box" that will be in my garage for years and years. So I wanted to do something a little more creative and something that would have messages and I could look at for fun once in a while. There are so many great guest book ideas out there. Here are a few of my favorites...

I love the wooden bench that everyone signs. Great to have on a porch or a garden forever to have a memory of your special day.

Love the rolodex idea too!

We decided on postcards. So EVERY TIME we went to a beach or ANYWHERE that involved a beach city over the past year and was located in California we stopped in stores and picked up every post card we could.

We had them from every beach around, God only knows how much money was spent on post cards.

We tried to have NO duplicates and ended up collecting close to 200. So now how was I going to execute this to make sure I get a good amount of them back? Well first of all I didn't want to do a guest book table. I've learned from many weddings if there is a "message" that needs to be written people sit at the table forever thinking of what to say so people don't want to wait and they just pass on by saying they will come back... well they never do. So mom ended up personalizing some cute "Mr & Mrs. Mojito" pens that was like 500 for $10 or something and we are putting the pen on the postcard and sitting at all of the tables for people to just fill out during dinner. I will have the DJ remind people to fill them out and my coordinator will be going around to collect them.

But then I thought, what if people just think all of our beach postcards are part of a beachy decoration we have going on? So this is where my business cards came into play...

They are 2x2 and are actually using my font that is in all of my other stationary, Suzie's Hand. Unfortunately it didn't trigger on my Uprinting proof but they turned out great! So basically each postcard has a pen cliped on it with the little business card tucked in with their directions on what the postcards for. They look really cute and will just be sitting above their place settings at their table spot.

All of the postcards purchased are 4x6 so after the wedding we will purchase a 4x6 clear album where we can put each one in and you will be able to see the picture on one side and the message on the other!

What are you doing for a guestbook? Something a little more traditional or did you come up with some creative way?

Shower #3: Co-Wed Shower with Mr. Mojitos Fam

2010-03-30T16:10:00.000-07:00

Just saw this was chillin' in my drafts and I realized I never wrote a post for this! So yeah, two weekends ago it was an AMAZING weekend weatherwise in So Cal... it was in the low 80s, crystal blue skies, almost got a little too hot when you stood in the sun too long... but honestly, I would do ANYTHING to have that weather for my wedding in a couple of weeks (yah that's right people, a couple of weeks - holy crap!)

So Mr. Mojito's mom and sister told us right when we got engaged that they wanted to throw a shower for us. Since it would be Mr. Mojito's friends and family we instantly decided we would go with a "Co-Wed Cocktail" theme... mostly because you make it a foofoo Bridal shower no men are going to be easily dragged into this.

Mr. Mojijto's mom, dad, and sister went ALL OUT. The food was frickin' amazing let me tell you... FFIL Mojito is a bomb ass cook and he made all of the food. Just realized I went straight for a pic of the booze rather then the food...

There was sushi, coconut shrimp, chicken terriaki kabobs, cocktail weenies, cheese and crackers, fruit, and my person favorite... FMIL Mojito's famous Crab Cake Appetizer Bites... OMG OMG OMG. I could eat them hot, cold, whatever... they never get old. For drinks they had different wines, champagne and soda as well as spa water, mojitos (of course!), and mai tais!

After lots of eating and drinking we decided it was time to open up gifts. Because Mr. Mojito's sister wanted to have at least one game she did gift bingo where everyone had a bingo card and they marked it off if I opened a specific gift... surprisingly I think the guys were into it more then the girls. That was the only game we did bc they knew guys weren't into the shower game thing which was perfect to me.

I have no idea what was so funny. We have funny guests I guess. I don't remember anything funny happening about that picture... although we did already get it like two presents before opening it. Whoops, thanks Target. When I went online to check too it said "Requested: 1, Received: 2" -- TARGET FAIL.

Other then that we just took some pictures with some of our bridal party that was able to make it to the shower (shoutout to GM-Matt and BM-Lauren who came from AZ!)

Pretty sure Brad is making fun of me for ALWAYS putting my hand on my hip in pictures...

MOH-KC made the boys pose...

Last Thursday my office through me a work shower and we got some more lovely things off of our registries. That was four showers, whew... glad those are over!

Tomorrow I have off work for good 'ol Cesar Chavez Day (pretty sure TONS of you don't get that holiday right?) so Mama Mojito and I are heading down to Newport to meet up at the yacht with our coordinator and all of our vendors to just basically finalize everything. I think tomorrow will do one of two things...

1) Stress me out even more.

2) Make me feel accomplished and at ease.

Let's hope for the latter. It's almost hump day ladies... enjoy your week!

Dress Fitting Numero Dos

2010-03-25T16:50:00.000-07:00

Hellllllloooo ladies... S.H.I.T. -- SO HAPPY IT'S THURSDAY! :) That's what we say here at work when we have off on Fridays!

So after a dentist appointment yesterday afternoon I headed on over to my dress alterations lady to see what she had done so far. It was so fun to actually see my dress FIT me... not too big, not too small. Of course I was an idiot though and totally forgot my undergarments... she also didn't do me SUPER tight in the corset, just enough to get an idea on how it all fits and stuff. Seriously though, what a difference in my dress!

Besides just checking out the alterations she made to my chest, height, and sides she also sewed in some of my fuschia tool underneath with the other tool. It wasn't what I was expecting but for good reason. I wanted layers and layers to make it super fun and dramatic... but she couldn't for a reason I NEVER thought of. She did as much tool as she could without seeing the fuschia through the dress!

I think it's still just a perfect touch though and although it's not a ton of fun fuschia fluffiness I'm still happy with the little bit of I'll get to show off for a few pix!

She also has my veil that she made me all done she just wanted to check the length, she's going to cut off about 5 more inches and then add all of the rhinestone details.

I'm going to go back next week just to do the final fitting (she has to close up all the seams, etc.) and if everything is good she said she would have it pressed and ready to go for me to pick up the week of the wedding. She was going to give it to me but when I explained that I have a big shedding black dog and it won't be able to go back in the back bc it will get wrinkled she offered to hold onto it for me. So let's just hope my fabulous Fiona doesn't decide to disappear on me in the next two weeks and we'll be good to go!

Late Night Sweet Buffet

2010-03-24T08:43:00.001-07:00

I caved.

I said I wanted a candy buffet then decided it was going to cost to much and nixed it.

Then I got another idea.

Thanks a lot OMG! I'm a Mom!

{Which FYI if you don't follow her do it NOW, she's hilarious and you won't regret it. She is Mrs. Dumpling on Weddingbee and has a HILARIOUS baby blog now}

I'm doing a cookie buffet. I am planning on having 5-7 cookies... depending on how many donations I can get. I'm saving money by having all of the apothecary jars donated to me by my fabulous wedding coordinator Katy Carrier so that is zero dollars I have to spend on making it look fabulous. Since the dinner and the dancing is on two separate floors. Once dinner is over and everyone heads upstairs for dancing I will probably have the cookie table set up so that when the yacht docks and everyone is getting ready to leave they can stop at the cookie bar. But then another part of me thinks TRAFFIC ZONE... do we really want to try and have 175 people trying to grab a couple of cookies on the way out? Which makes me wonder if we should just have it set up the whole night? Def. something to talk to my coordinator about.

I will make some type of sign that will have "Grab a late night snack" or something. Another great piece of information I found out is apparently Smart & Final has like a pack of 200 take-out boxes for $12! I bet many of brides don't know that, that's a steal on Chinese take-out boxes! I see what they try to make you pay on wedding favor websites and it's redic.... so I'm def. excited to hear about that deal! I plan on putting little signs on sticks that will just stick out of the jars rather then doing ribbon wrapped around the jars with signs. I'm going for something like this:

I was so frustrated I couldn't find a pic on what I want to do but that gives you an idea... I will just put a stick in there to say what it is rather then on the jar.

Here are the cookies we will be using... a couple of my store bought faves and some homemade:

- Oreos
- Circus Animal Cookies
- E.L.Fudge
- Homemade Chocolate Chip (Gus' mom makes THE BESSST)
- 2 others homemade chose by my friend Gus' mom.

So I'm think it will probably be 5 or 6.. what's cookies without milk? So I plan on getting a cute tub and havin' some milk cartons on ice for people to grab with their cookies on the way out. I know there are plenty of people who aren't fans of milk so I probably won't buy any more then 100.

I just need to check prices on those though because if they are too pricey I will just forgo on the milk idea. They don't sell them at Costco or Sam's Club but I heard that they do at Smart & Final so I will check out their prices there. I also have a ton of friends in the Dairy business so I will check if they have a hookup for me.

All in all I don't think this project will cost me too much money and I think it will be ANOTHER special touch that will make people remember my wedding forever.

What's His is Mine...

2010-03-19T15:13:00.000-07:00

...and what's mine is mine.

Okay, in all seriousness I do know how to share. So what's mine is also Mr. Mojito's I guess. If you've followed me on Twitter for a while you've heard my saga of trying to find a job and more importantly of when Mr. Mojito was looking for a job. While we were in Texas for his sisters wedding back in December he got the call from University of Phoenix offering him a position... something that was actually putting his degree to use and something that was actually his "dream" career. Realizing we were getting married in only a few months after his first paycheck in mid-January we figured let's just merge bank accounts now and get his paychecks set up in my account, etc. That way we don't have to do the same work twice. To me this was awesome, Mr. Mojito makes a lot more money then I do which means a lot more money in my account that I don't usually see. Ahhhh, my first perk to being married... well even though I am not married yet. It's been nice though, I've been able to get all of the things we need. Just pay bills without asking him for some money to help, and my favorite... never figuring out who is paying for what! Now one of us just brings out a card and pays for it. Period. I love that. I think Mr. Mojito also likes me asking him for his card in public... makes him feel like a "man" haha :) Man I love that boy, err, I mean man. :) When I told people we were merging our bank accounts they had such a crazy look on our face, something that was such a huge deal (which it is), but to us it's been GREAT... and haven't had ONE argument about money since we did it. A lot of people still have their seperate accounts even after they are married... that just wasn't something we needed to do. Honestly Mr. Mojito's only concern with all of this was "How am I supposed to surprise you when I want to buy you something nice?" Which is true, there aren't many secrets when you share an account... I happened to go online to pay some bills about an hour after he ordered me flowers. Wasn't as much of a surprise but I still loved my flowers!

What is something that you and your fiance find to be a big step? For those of you ladies that are already married, what was the biggest adjustment for you both? This might have been a big deal for Mr. Mojito (if it is he hasn't shared it) but to me it's been nothing but making my life a lot easier.

Wink {Freebie Alert}

2010-03-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

Today on Freebies 4 Mom I saw she posted about a sister website to Shutterfly called Wink. I decided to look into it further and all of a sudden a bunch of wedding ideas came to mind!

Basically Wink is a super simple website. For $2.50 (including shipping) you get to make a photostrip carrying 3-5 pictures on one side and on the other side you can type of a message to be included. Wink has a free iPhone app and of course you can use your computer.

You upload the pix from your phone, computer, Facebook, etc. So let's say you just were at a wedding and had the time of your life. You snapped a few pix on your iPhone and at the end of the night you could upload them into a photostrip, write a message on the back telling the new Mr. and Mrs. it was the time of your life and it would be in their mailbox in a couple of days. How fun!

Here is a way you can get one for COMPLETELY free to check out the service...

1. Click on "Special Offers" at the top right of Shutterfly's home page

2. Look for "Free Photostrip" to click on

3. Click on the "Try Wink" orange button at the bottom of the page

4. Login using your Shutterfly email/password, as soon as you do you get 1 free photostrip credit

5. Choose your template - 3, 4, or 5 photos (I chose 3 above)

6. Choose your photos - from Shutterfly, Flickr, Facebook, or your computer

7. Choose your effect - black & white, sepia, or vivid (I chose vivid above)

8. Click the blue "Send" button in the bottom right

9. You can "Add Recipient" and enter the mailing address (even from your Shutterfly address book)

10. Add your personal message (up to 140 characters)

11. Send your photo strip to yourself or someone else, your total cost is $0.00 (no coupon code required, for new Wink users only, shipping is free)

Here is mine that I made and sent to Mr. Mojito of our precious little Dakota pup...

So I thought of a few ways these can come in SO handy...

(1) Save the Dates - at $2.50 a pop if you aren't having a HUGE wedding or are only doing STD's to your OOT guests then this could be perfect. Use a few pix from your e-pic session then type your STD information on the back.

(2) Thank You Notes - You can use it for thank yous to your bridal party, for gifts, family, whatever.

(3) Asking your BMs - This was my favorite idea. You choose a few pix of you and your friend and then write them a sweet message asking them to be in your bridal party. Plus this gets shipped to their house as part of the fee. Postage is practically $.50 and you pay more then $2 for a card... so I think it's a pretty good deal! Plus something cute they can hang up somewhere at work or on a fridge.

(4) Vendor TYs - If I was a photographer or something I would make a photostrip with three of their teaser shots from their wedding and send it right after so they get that in the mail. Thank them for choosing you and they already have a couple pix right there on a strip to enjoy while they wait patiently for hundreds of pictures from you... that nice touch might buy you extra time. :)

Anyways, just thought this was a fun little thing that you could get creative with... let me know if you use your freebie and how you used it!

*Wink and/or Shutterfly is not giving me anything for writing this post.

Blog Farts

2010-03-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

Ok seriously, I don't know what it is... I just have been in NO mood to blog the past week. Maybe it's been the lack of readers & comments or what... but I just haven't had a desire. Could be going through one of my blog fart moments. But yeah... just went through a list of my draft blog write-ups that I've been meaning to do but none have left me dying to share with you. I am determined to write something today... just wanted to let you know I haven't disappeared.

I went to do some registry organizing this morning and was extremely disappointed to see that my Kitchenaid Mixer, Hand Mixer, and possibly even the blender -- all in the matching Martha Blue... have been discontinued.

Effity-effff! My wedding is in freakin 33 days, could we not wait another month to discontinue the one thing that I based my entire kitchen around. I wanted that beautiful robin egg blue mixer! I hope I can find a Macy's that just happens to have one on their pretty little shelfs or so help me Macy's, you're going down.

Yeah and did you hear that? 33 days. Frick! Soooo much to do, and didn't do any of it this weekend. Today is also the last day to RSVP. Of course there are some we haven't received yet, I'm expecting a swarm possibly today or tomororw. But honestly, I'm really happy with what we've received so far. We only have about 12 people not coming so far, and have probably received about 75% of the RSVPs thus far. So I'm thinking we're doin' pretty well and will be having around 175 people.

Anyways... time for my lunch break and at the moment a delicious lunch with a friend is sounding better then sitting here in the office so like I said I promise to try and get a post in sometime this afternoon guys.

Hope you have all been doing great. How's the wedding planning coming along... ahead or behind? I know Kelly (the OG Miss Pugs) was on full blown wedding mode this weeekend! Congrats Kell... only a few more days until the big day!!!! :)

Giveaway Winner!!!!

2010-03-11T19:04:00.000-08:00

The winner of the giveaway for...

...is LegalyBoston!!

Contact me by Monday at withthisringitheeblog@gmail.com with your name, shipping address, and email so csnstores.com can get this out to you!

Thank you to all who participated!

Ceremony Extras: Communion [Part 3 of 3]

2010-03-10T05:00:00.000-08:00

To set the mood for this moment in our wedding play the tune that will be playing during this time in our ceremony... everyone needs a sexy Aussie in their day.

So before the Sand Ceremony takes place we will actually take part in Communion. My pastor said he doesn't like it to be something that's big in front of everyone but something we just do with eachother in our own little intimate moment.

While we do communion with each other we will have our mothers go up to the sand ceremony table to start it off uniting both of our families. By the time they are done with that Mr. Mojito and I will be finishing our communion and will then go to the sand ceremony table where we will conclude pouring the remainder of the sand in together.

So that is all of the extra touches we are adding into our ceremony -- readings, sand ceremony, and communion. I'm excited that I didn't have to sacrifice anything that myself (sand ceremony) or Mr. Mojito (communion) wanted for our ceremony and we are still able to keep it at a decent time of hopefully 20-25 minutes.

GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!

2010-03-09T16:45:00.000-08:00

Did ya'll not see that I was hosting a giveaway?! Not getting near the response I'm used to! If you haven't yet, go on over and sign up to win your Pyrex cooking set!

http://withthisringitheeblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/giveaway-pyrex-bake-prep-hosted-by-csn.html

Contest closes this Thursday!!

Thrift Store's Can Give You STD's.

2010-03-09T15:35:00.000-08:00

Well, they might be able to give you those kind of STD's too, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this GREAT engagement shoot that a couple did underwater for their Save the Date's. I found this shoot over at Green Wedding Shoes and I just had to share... the couple picked up an old tux/suit and wedding dress at a thrift store and this is what the ended up with... I love it!

Do you not love these accordian STDs? Just another inspiration post I had to share!

Shower #2: Friends & Family

2010-03-09T13:35:00.000-08:00

Are you guys soooo sick of recaps from me yet? Well if so I'd kick rocks... because I'm pretty much going to have a lot of recaps from here on out. The projects are coming to a close (although I still have lots to share, so don't totally leave!) and I'm not really on the hunt for as much inspiration... although I think wedding inspiration is now stalking me. So yeah, I'm at 39 days and I don't think I can manage putting much more on my plate. Especially since my weekends have been filled with things like this post... SHOWERS!

My second shower was this past Saturday and it was great! A couple of my Aunt's organized the whole thing and it was held at my old roomie's clubhouse at her apartment complex. It was the perfect place for a shower!

Once 1:00 hit it was time to hit the grub, everyone was chompin' at the bit. It was catered by Old World Deli which is a little local restaurant I grew up with -- they have some grub sammies & pastas let me tell you. My aunt has known the owner forever I guess so that's why they went with them, good choice!

Once everyone got some beverages in their system it was time for the games... we played a few games and everyone seemed to have a good time with it. The first one was a wedding word scramble, pretty straight forward. The second one my cousin planned... she was gifting us a spice rack and covered up all of the spice names and numbered them... everyone had to guess what all of the spices where. Uhm, they all looked the same. I got like 3 right. Future housewife fail. The other game that was played was the one that goes on the whole party and is done at many showers... it's hilarious how competitive people get. That's when everyone wears a necklace and you can't say the word "wedding" -- I was on a roll and had radar ears and was catching everyone. Someone got me to say wedding though while I was pre-occupied with gift opening, damn. Last but not least was my favorite...

You put a piece of paper on your head and have to draw a bride. I did it once when you had to draw a baby at a baby shower once. Totally hilarious to watch, even funnier to look at the results. Everyone wrote their name on the back and my aunt collected them all. I then went through them all and picked a winner. So funny and I have them all to put in one of my many books to hold onto the memories.

Once we were done with the games it was time for gift opening, there was so much great stuff at this shower! I'm sure going to be all set in my kitchen by the time this wedding is over! I won't bore you with tons of gift opening pix but here is me crying at my shower... pretty typical. Mom gave me some great sentimental things from items that were my grandmas when she got married and also something that was given to me the day I was born.

I will mention two gifts though... one was my new wine cooler! I've been wanting one FOREVER!

And of course my extremely creative Mama Mojito who made me a towel wedding cake that was filled with all of the cooking utensils we wanted! She couldn't fit them all so I also got a bag on the side filled with the rest of the stuff we needed... after all this I'm set! I have more rubber spatulas, cooking spatulas, and whisks then I'll EVER know what to do with.

Once gifts were over it was time to just mingle around, eat cake, and take some pictures with my family and friends...

This is my cousin Ella, if I was going to have a flower girl this little ham would have been it!

This is my friend Linds, she is my work lunch buddy (we pretty much meet every day since we work a mile from eachother) and we were hired together at In-N-Out when we were 16... she's getting married in two weeks!

Mama Mojito and Future Mojito-Mama-in-Law...

My bff from college and old roomie Gus. She is the one doing our reading of "I Like You"...

Here we have my fabulous MOHs and our moms... plus MOH-Lu's sister was there too!

My oldest friend Breann...
Of course the shot with my MOHs... I love my ribbon bouquet! MOH-Lu is doing such a great job! :)
And of course we had to do a shot with all of the girls...

Ceremony Extras: Sand Ceremony [Part 2 of 3]

2010-03-09T05:00:00.000-08:00

In my last post I discussed our readings. The other thing we are adding into our ceremony is the sand ceremony... basically it goes perfect with our beach wedding so I wanted it in the ceremony. I had actually completely cut out the idea and had it out of my system until I met with my Pastor a couple of weeks ago when he was asking me what I do and don't want in the ceremony. When I explained how I did but then cut it to save time he said I was rediculous. And he's right.

Listen ladies, if there's something you want in your ceremony / wedding... DO IT. We only get married once. He had a good point... it would save my ceremony what, a minute?! Not worth it. So now my ceremony will be 21 minutes instead of just 20 minutes. Oh well, I think we can handle it. So the sand ceremony is back in session. In my next "Ceremony Extras" post I will explain how and when the sand ceremony will be happening.

S0 now it was onto choosing how we wanted to do the sand ceremony. First of all, I knew I didn't want something like this...

Some random cheesy vase with sand colors that look like Mr. Mojito's alumni colors at Pepperdine University. No offense to anyone who is doing the bright colored sand. I just wanted this to be something that could be in our home forever... something that some people would see as just a nice piece of decor, but to Mr. Mojito and I it could mean so much more.

So my goal was to get some sand in colors like this...

So as soon as I saw that Michael's was doing 50% off coupons last week I printed out about 10 of them and headed on over. I've learned you want to go to Michael's as late as possible. That's when the high schooler's are working and they don't follow rules... so I don't get Grumpy Gerta who says "Sorry, one per customer"... I hate when they pull that shit, don't make me get back in line. Whatever. This kid let me use 5 of them, I love him.

Here was everything I purchased:

Apothocary Vase - $15, $7.50 with 50% off coupon
Vases - $4 each, on sale for 2 for $5
Decor Sand in Tan & White - 4 @ $3 each ($12 total), $1.50 with 50% off coupon ($6 total)

TOTAL BEFORE SAVINGS: $35.00 + tax = $38.06

TOTAL AFTER SAVINGS: $18.50 + tax = $20.11

SAVINGS: $17.95

...man I love getting a good deal! My whole sand ceremony cost me $20, I can't complain about that! Plus I will have a great piece of decor and two nice vases (that I might just sell after the wedding).

Are you doing any type of unity ceremony? I've heard of sand, wine, candle, and now even a cross ceremony... any other ideas to share with my readers?

Ceremony Extras: Readings [Part 1 of 3]

2010-03-08T15:28:00.000-08:00

There were a lot of things I wanted in my ceremony. I also tried to not pick too much based on time limiations on the yacht and I want to make sure I have plenty of time to shake my groove thang. Isn't it sad that I want to make sure the most IMPORTANT part is short and sweet? Honestly, I know it's going to be amazing so 20-25 minutes is what I wanted!

There are a few things we are going to be adding into all the traditional stuff like the vows, ring exchange, etc. First one I'm going to talk about is the Readings.

We are going to be having two of them, the first one is going to be by Mr. Mojito's BM-Zach. We looked and we looked for a good scripture. We knew we wanted one of our readings to be a scripture, and the other would be a poem or story. We wanted to try to stray away from the EXTREMELY common 1 Corinthians...

You know the scene in Wedding Crashers when they make a bet on what the verse will be...

Father: And now for our next reading, I'd like to ask the bride's sister Gloria up to the lectern.
John: 20 bucks, 1st Corinthians.
Jeremy: Double or nothing, Colossians 3:12.
Gloria: And now a reading from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.

Gosh I love that movie, LOL. So here we are, with our 1st Corinthians reading, we will be doing these parts of 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13:

1 Corinthians 13:1-8a and 13 - If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails....And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

For our second reading it will be done by my old roommate and friend, Ashley. She was going to be one of my bridesmaids but her and Mr. Mojito had a, uhm, "tiff" the same time Mr. Mojito and I got engaged so out of respect to him I chose not to ask her. Since then things have been mended and we are all friends again... I then found this a perfect opportunity to still have her be a part of my wedding and asked if she would do a reading at the wedding.

For this reading we are going with the newly popular, "I Like You" by Sandol Stoddard Warburg. I think the first person I saw using this may have been Ms. Candy Corn and put that into my inspiration folder instantly. It was so Mr. Mojito and I. So I got ahold of the entire poem and read through it, I then took out some parts just to shorten it up a bit... here is the version we will be reading...

I like you because you are a good person to like.
When I say something funny, you laugh.
I think I’m funny and you think I’m funny too.

I like you because you know where I’m ticklish.
And you don’t tickle me there,
except just a little tiny bit sometimes.
But if you do, then I know where to tickle you too.

You know how to be silly, That’s why I like you.
Boy are you ever silly.
I never met anybody sillier than me till I met you.
I like you because you know when it’s time to stop being silly.
Maybe day after tomorrow.
Maybe never.
Too late, it’s a quarter past silly.

If I am a goofus on the roofus hollering my head off, You are one too.
If I pretend I am drowning, you pretend you are saving me.
If I am getting ready to pop a paper bag, then you are getting ready to jump.
That’s because you really like me.
You really like me, don’t you?
And I really like you back.
And you like me back and I like you back.
And that’s the way we keep on going every day.

And I like you because when I am feeling sad
You don’t always cheer me up right away.
Sometimes it is better to be sad.
You can’t stand others being so googly and gaggly every single minute.
You want to think about things.
It takes time.

I like you because if I am mad at you, Then you are mad at me too.
It’s awful when the other person isn’t.
They are so nice and hoo-hoo, you could just about punch them in the nose.

If you find two four-leaf clovers,you give me one.
If I find four, I give you two.
If we only find three, we keep on looking.
Sometimes we have good luck, and sometimes we don’t.

I like you because I don’t know why
but Everything that happens is nicer with you.
I can’t remember when I didn’t like you.
It must have been lonesome then.
I like you because because because
I forget why I like you, but I do.
So many reasons.

On the 4th of July I like you because it’s the 4th of July.
On the fifth of July, I like you too.
If you and I had some drums and some horns and some horses,
If we had some hats and some flags and some fire engines,
We could be a HOLIDAY.
We could be a CELEBRATION.
We could be a WHOLE PARADE.
See what I mean?
Even if it was the 999th of July,
Even if it was August,
Even if it was way down at the bottom of November,
Even if it was no place particular in January,
I would go on choosing you.
And you would go on choosing me.
Over and over again.
That’s how it would happen every time.

I don’t know why.
I guess I don’t know why I really like you.
Why do I like you.
I guess I just like you.
I guess I just like you because I like you.
I like you and I know why.

My pastor will be dividing up the two readings during the ceremony rather then having them both together.

Are you having any special readings in your wedding? Share!

Final Fling Before the Ring: The Party [6 of 6]

2010-03-08T10:20:00.000-08:00

Gosh, going out to the local beach bars was such a fun way to celebrate going out with my girls... before I met Mr. Mojito I was a frequenter to many local bars in Orange County and spent most of my weekends with girlfriends so it had been a while since a bunch of us had just gone and let loose. It was a BLAST. I just can't say it enough... I seriously was so overwhelmed the whole night just because I feel so lucky to have so many bitchin' women in my life.

First stop of the night was Sharkeez in Newport Beach... after some serious pre-partying back at our hotel room we were already in full party mode when we go there.

Here is Liset... this girl KNOWS HOW TO PARTY... and we did. Many nights a week. I am such an old lady now, I don't know how I used to go out during the week being a full time student and working. I can't make it past 10 anymore...

Here is me again with Liset and also my friend Amanda who I met through Liset... she is the sweetest girl ever, I love her.... she's my reality star friend which I always seem to talk about (I'm sure she loves that) haha... she was on the show "More to Love" which was on Fox late last year.

There was also an 80s birthday party going on... dear readers... meet Tom Seleck...

This is probably one of my oldest friends that was there that weekend... we pretty much grew up together as neighbors and met playing softball when we were 10. We've been good friends ever since. She's actually the girl I got ordained for and married back in 2007. She still calls me "Rev."

Here I am again with Bre, Holly, Jen, and my cousin Lauren. I guess my cousin Lauren is actually my oldest friend seeing that I've known her my whole life. We've always been close and I'm so excited we are getting married together and have been able to do the whole planning process together... she's getting marred in October.

The fishbowls. Ohhhh man the fishbowls. For some reason we decided to forget the shots and drinks and ordered a few fish bowls instead. Good decision.

Bad decision? Pouring our mini bottles of Vodka that we had in our pockets in it as well. We had a couple that were just in all the girls favor bags so everyone brought them along... well when we left the bar the bouncers saw the little bottles and completely black balled us. He was being an ass to all of my friends and even said "Next time you girls want to go out for a bachelorette party and are that broke to buy liquor tell us, we'll buy you a beer." -- it made me mad because we spent a LOT of money there... the girls were drinking the whole night we just spiked our drinks with a little extra punch not thinking anything of it. This bouncer was so pissed he called all of the other bars and told them about us... so when we left we got turned away. Yeah, it sucks that the bars are all owned by the same people.

So luckily the bouncer at another bar was cool enough that said if we turn our shirts inside out or take them off (lammmme) then he will let us in and if someone says something he will say he had no idea it was us. Whatever cool. But then the girl at the front wanted to charge us $10 each. By this time it's already 12:30 so last call is in a freakin' hour and you want us to give you $150 for a bachelorette party to come in? I don't think so. Bouncer was now mad that he was cool with us and then we ended up boning out. Whatever. We ended up at a local pub dive that we have been to before... had a brewski, and then catched a cab back to the hotel.

After all those drinks, I do NOT remember this pic with my MOH-KC... apparently we be gettin' low.

Of course we had to have a group shot, I think we had almost everyone in this pic... the guy in the white tight tshirt in the bottom right would NOT leave our group alone the whole night. He's in like every freakin' picture of mine. Have no idea of his name... we just called him "Nips" the whole night because the full was cuttin' glass like nobody's business.

The next morning most of us woke up feeling decently hangover free. I wasn't feeling too hot, but after a nice hot shower, some coffee and an English muffin I was ready to pack up and head out!

Seriously I can't continue to say enough how grateful I am for everything that was done for me that weekend. I love my girls so so much and I'm so blessed to have each of them in my life.

If any of you girls are reading this I love you tons and thanks for the time of my life!

Final Fling Before the Ring: Cocktail Shower Happy Hour [5 of 6]

2010-03-05T16:50:00.000-08:00

My Cocktail Shower before we went out on Saturday night was one of my favorite parts of the weekend. Have I not said that for every post I've done so far? Whatever, it was a blast... it was just fun hanging out with all the girls, pounding Mojitos, and LAUGHING... a lot!

They all brought me some "Naughty or Nice" gifts... some of them were HILARIOUS and gave us some great laughs..

I got some things like edible body paint, lots of sex books, and we can't forget the candy-cuffs haha... One of the moments that all had us dying laughing is when we were going through the sex books. Seeing about 98% of the positions that would be impossible for anyone pretty much... well except my friend and MOH-KC...

That right there folks is an interpretation of the position "Cannonball" hahaha... could you and your man accomplish that? If so, so guys are freakin' rock stars. LOL

They made a ton of appetizers, jello shots, other shots, and mojitos... everything was so delish! I didn't get pictures of all of the hot apps, those were sooo yummy! I also loved the homemade bruschetta, not exactly the best for a night on the town -- garlic central!

After hanging out for a while and getting the cocktail party started, it was time to start some games... the first one was AWESOME. I love my MOH's... they planned a night with Mr. Mojito and did an interview with him. It was funny and he left me the SWEETEST message at the end. They asked him questions and I had to guess what he would say... I got 12 out of 20. Some where just impossible!

After my trivia it was time to do the "Smooth the Groom" that I told you about in a previous post... let's just say it is really hard after a few mojitos... especially after MOH-KC gave you a good spin!

Looks like my friend HC and MOH-KC had a little trouble... somehow HC won though, we all think she cheated. :)

Around 7:45 we got a call that our transportation was downstairs and ready to take us to the first destination of the night... but my friend BO the Bartender had to make us some great shots before we could head out.

Up next the final post... my last fling before the ring! :)

GIVEAWAY: Pyrex Bake & Prep hosted by CSN Stores

2010-03-05T16:12:00.000-08:00

Have any of you guys heard of CSN Stores yet? If not I definiately suggest you check them out. I first ran across them when I was looking for kids bedding (SUCH cute stuff!) and later realized they have EVERYTHING and you can get some awesome deals! With over 200 websites they have websites dedicated to modern furniture, shoes, bedding, and of course... COOKWARE!

That's why today I'm offering you something that EVERY kitchen needs... some Pyrex Prepware. I know one of my first things in my cupboard when I moved out of my parents house was a Pyrex measuring cup, it was my moms for years and you can tell it's just a great sturdy measuring cup. Well guess what, here is something for you to take off your registries ladies...

CSN Stores if offering one of my readers a Pyrex Bake & Prep Four Piece Set!

Here is what you will get:

2 Cup measuring cup
1.5 Quart mixing bowl
2.5 Quart mixing bowl
4 Quart mixing bowl

Here are some of it's awesome features...

Made of nonporous glass that won't warp, stain, or absorb odors
Oven, microwave, refrigerator, freezer, and dishwasher safe (MY FAVE PART!)
Durable

Okay, now for the deets...

This giveaway will be open until Thursday, February 11 where I will choose a winner at random... here is how you enter:

(1 entry) Comment below with one of your favorite online recipes... basically I'm using you all to get some great new recipes. :) This one is mandatory to enter!

Here are some additional entries...

(1 entry) Become a follower on the right hand tool bar or inform me that you are already a follower.

(1 entry) Follow me on Twitter -- @MeSooLaLa

(1 entry) Tweet the following on Twitter -- "Win a Pyrex Bake & Prep Set from @MeSooLaLa { http://ow.ly/1eRIa } #giveaway *Please RT*"

(1 entry) Post about this giveaway on Facebook and link me to it in a comment.

(2 entries) Post about this giveaway on your blog and link me to it in a comment.

So there are seven possible entries ladies! Good luck!

This giveaway is open to continental US participants only. I apologize, but this item cannot ship to Alaska, Hawaii, or Puerto Rico.

*I did not receive anything from CSN Stores or Pyrex for hosting this giveaway.

Final Fling Before the Ring: Brunch & Shopping [4 of 6]

2010-03-04T08:15:00.000-08:00

When I heard on Friday that reservations for brunch were at 9:30 I thought that was the joke of the day. Nobody fully went to sleep until 4 am for the most part...

I wake up at 9:05 with BM-Cuz, nobody is awake. 9:06? Everyone is awake. Somehow 8 of us girls got put together and out the door making it to our reservations by 9:50. How awesome are we? I didn't have to do much with my hair because they had my wear my Minnie wedding ears which are so cute... yet I looked like a friggin' cone head. All is good in the hood though.

Can I just say a side note? Boys are dumb. I had NUMEROUS guys come up to me all day Saturday wishing me happy birthday or "What's the occasion?"... was the veil, sash, and button talking about me being a "bride-to-be" not a giveaway?? Wow. Catch up boys or we're gonna start makin you wear sashes and tiaras.

So anyways... we got to Las Brisas in Laguna Beach and it was DELICIOUS. I've been there for dinner many times... they have GREAT seafood and an amazing view. But their brunch was yum-o!

It started to rain a bit while we were at brunch but that didn't stop us from making our way to the gazebo on the cliff (I hear of a lot of girls getting engaged here) and getting a few pix in...

Here is all of my BMs that could make it... missed you BM-LC & BM-FSIL!

And here are all of my "OC" girls... our high school was Ontario Christian, and well we always used to do that in pictures. MOH-KC thought we needed to bring it back...

And here is one more shot of all of us... I hate that you can't see the ocean in the back ground of these pix!!

After brunch and our mini-photo shoot we headed into the downtown area of Laguna to check out the shops. After that we headed over to Fashion Island in Newport Beach to do some more shopping...

We were all starting to get pretty pooped and wanted to get a little rest before our big night on the town. This was also about the time that we started getting calls and texts from family and friends asking us if we were okay because of the tsunami warnings at our local beaches (Thanks Kjpugsssss LOL)...

Of course we couldn't go back to the hotel without one quick stop for a cupcake! So we stopped at Sprinkles to pick up a few cupcakes for the road...

Once we got back to the hotel it wasn't long before the cocktails were being blended again. Up next was one of my favorite parts of the weekend... a cocktail shower hour in our hotel room and some more friends come join the party!

Final Fling Before the Ring: A Make-up Trial [3 of 6]

2010-03-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

Ok so first of all, I love you all... and that's why you will get to see my "before" shot. But my dear BMs don't love you as much, and I'm sure they would crucify me if I posted their "before" shots. Can I just say theirs were HILARIOUS and they were being extra dramatic just like they are in infomercials for weight loss commercials... you know what I'm talking about. When people look sad and uncomfortable then fabulous in their "after" pix? Well here we go... I smiled and wanted to look somewhat normal for ya'll...

BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

So here we go. I love just about everything about it. I had two things that I want changed for the wedding day. I don't like the light shadow the goes around the inside edge and below my eye. And I also think the black liner is too thick... I just usually only wear liner inside and so it just seemed a little too "not me" for me to get used to. Because my make-up artist is a personal friend, I will be going over to her house one day just to do it again to perfect what I want. All in all, I'm happy with her work and will be enjoying this free friendor for my wedding day.

This was also my first time being airbrushed for my foundation, blush, etc. -- I loved it! My face felt light and smooth, it was great!

Next I will show you just two of my BMs that I happened to get pix of.

BM-LA: Unfortunately there was an awkward glare on her eyes that I didn't notice on the camera, but you get somewhat of an idea...

BM-Ash: I loved her make-up, I thought the colors Dev used on her were great and it turned out great, honestly it looked 10 xs better in person even. We really liked it!

So that was how my first make-up trial went. Anything you like / don't like or would suggest? Please ladies don't be shy... hit me with your HONEST opinions on my make-up so I can bring it to Dev next time she does my trial!

Up next from the bachelorette party... Brunch & Bonding with my ladies!

Final Fling Before the Ring: A Slumber Party [2 of 6]

2010-03-02T16:10:00.000-08:00

When they finally gave BM-Ash and I the call that we could come up I walked into a fun and cheerful room decorated all over the place... They made "emergency bags" for all of the girls that were attending that night and would be including all sorts of goodies as well as their t*shirt for our outing Saturday night. Mine was the box that was filled with all of the same stuff and more... including things for me to wear throughout the weekend like my bachelorette sash, bride-to-be flashing button, and Minnie Mouse Wedding Ears that said Mrs. Mojito on the back.

I was laughing so hard when I saw this game of "Smooch the Stud", it was a nice way to get my look at Mr. Mojito all weekend! :)

They even made cute candy jars that were all over and bags so that girls could hit up the candy buffet and take home candy. They even got me some cute flowers to take home. :)

While we waited for some of the girls to get there we didn't hesitate to get the party started. Kristen started making some fresh mango margaritas while we chatted it up and started mowing through some 7 layer dip! Yummm...

Around 7:00 some of the other girls started showing up and they made Chicken Fajitas, beans, and rice to accompany those margaritas. There was nine of us there and we just were chatting it up like we always do.

In my box there was also my cute little party cup for the slumber party my friend Kristen made, she's just so creative! :) Another thing they made was a slideshow to play while we ate that just had a ton of pictures of me and all of the girls over the years. It was so sweet!

After we were done eating my friend Devon (who started make-up a little over a year ago) started doing some make-up trials on us all. That will be in my next post... while we were all taking turns doing that we watched "My Best Friends Wedding" and "Bride Wars".

People started fading fast around 1:00 am and a couple passed out... some others decided to relive a little bit of our high school days...

Anyone ever have their bras or chonies frozen? Yah, well that happened rather often with my group of girls in high school so I guess this slumber party at the age of 25 was no acception. I wish I could share some more pix from later on when we made my friend put them on when she discovered them but I will have to resist for sake of privacy! :)

Up next you get to look at my make-up trial! It was fun to be able to get one of my trials done during my bachelorette party with all my girls there. Let's just say when you have been drinking a lot Dev did not have fun trying to not make me look so red and I was laughing... a lot. Sorry Dev! I promise to be better on the wedding day.

Final Fling Before the Ring: BM Bonding [1 of 6]

2010-03-02T10:23:00.000-08:00

Well my morning started off with wedding stuff because I had my first alterations appointment. It went really well and I'm really happy with the woman we found. She really knows what she's doing! I go in for my next alterations appointment in mid-March and will get some pix then.

Now it's time to start off the bachelorette bash! After my alterations appointment MOH-KC, MOH-Lu, and BM-Ash picked me up from my parents house and hit the road! It was time to get this party started! Before us four ever went anywhere we had to do a typical house pic like we would always do in high school / college before heading out...

Here is one from right after high school...

We hopped in the car and all I knew was we were headed down to Newport...

They wanted to check into the hotel first since there was a bunch of food / drinks in the car so they wanted to get it in the fridge. They made me wait in the car... are you sure we were staying there for only a weekend!?

First stop was The Beachcomber in Crystal Cove right by our hotel... it was gloomy but in the low 70s. They seriously had the BEST TOMATO SOUP EVER... it had a blue cheese in it and this pastry cap and just oh my gaw, amazing.

They wanted to start me off right away so they ordered me a fish bowl and a "Laura's Lemonade" which was soooo yummy and definately started off the weekend of booze.

At first it started like this...

And after the fish bowl I somehow ended up with an umbrella in my hair...

I just love my girls so much! It was nice spending a little bit of bonding time with some of my bridesmaids before the weekend got crazy and all of my other friends got down there. When we got back to the hotel they wouldn't let me go up there yet because they "had stuff to do"... I took my hint and headed with BM-Ash to the happy hour going on in the lobby... fine with me! :)

Next up... the Slumber Party!

A week of updates...

2010-03-01T20:25:00.001-08:00

So I uploaded all of my Bachelorette Party pix on my computer this evening and there were about 235. There were tons. And there are some hilarious ones, and none that are going into the vault for life for fear of future black mail... but do to the careers of my friends and our futures there will be some ya'll just won't get to see.

But there is also a TON you get to, that's why you are getting about a week of updates. There are far too many pix from my fabulous weekend with my best girls that I'm going to be breaking it up into probably at least five posts... starting tomorrow.

In the meantime... here is a pic of all of us girls out at Sharkees on Saturday night...

Can't wait to share this AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING weekend with all of you, I feel so blessed and love all of these girls so much!

I'm Outta Here!

2010-02-25T14:27:00.001-08:00

Class was cancelled so I'm outta here... have soooo much to-do so it's nice knowing I'm getting to leave two hours early!

Agenda for the rest of the day:
-Pick up stuff for my ladies at Nordstrom
-Stop at the MAC counter to pic up some shadows that I'm out of
-Make Cake Balls
-Pack
-Pick up BM-Ash at the airport

Agenda for tomorrow:
-First dress alteration
-Get picked up by my girls.
-Head to Newport Beach

Agenda for the weekend:
-PARTY!

There will be lots of this...

And unfortunately lots of this...

Okay, maybe not that dramatic but we are supposed to get a big storm in this weekend. I'm not going to let it bring me down though, even if I can't hang out at our hotels awesome poool...

See ya'll on Monday and I'll try to post recaps ASAP!

Venue Pitstop

2010-02-25T14:10:00.000-08:00

I never took a lot of pictures of my venue. I might have posted one or two when I first started this blog, but I probably had two followers so many of you haven't seen this. Well a couple of weeks ago I visited my venue for the first time with my wedding coordinator so she could have more of a vision for planning. Let me take you on a tour of our yacht... well our yacht for about 5 hours anyway. :)

This is the first floor...

The window that you see in the back is actually the sliding glass doors that open up to enter/exit the yacht. Very fancy. To the left is one of the bars (you can't see it) and then there is a piano when you enter that you can (a) have playing automatically, (b) bring in a pianist, or (c) just look pretty. We are going with C. There are speakers throughout and will be playing music during dinner that we choose. Although most people don't see the reception decor this will be the first thing our guests see... that's why it has to look the bomb. Now do you know why we are going with our bright color palate? All that white and silver and then BAM check out our bright ass wedding, It's gonna be the shizz and I can't wait to see what Jean from LaVonne's does with our reception space.

Now from that one picture if I turn around you then see this...

The buffet area and there will actually be more tables in this blank black carpet area. I think there is 18 tables set up and we need probably 20-22. To the left in this picture is the elevator and stairs to the other floors.

When you walk up the stairs this is the first thing you see...

This is the second floor. I call it the "Nightclub Lounge" because it has a great big dancefloor and this is where the DJ will be set up along with the cake table (what you see) and our photobooth.

Here are the couches, bar, a little area that will be offering coffee, hot tea, and hot cocoa... where you see my mom standing (the one by the elevator) is where the photobooth will be... there's more space then it looks like and it needs about 8x8 for space my photographer said. The workers on the yacht will be moving our short centerpieces up to all of the coffee tables once dinner is over and everyones heading upstairs... yay for duel uses of the centerpieces!

We are about half way to the top now! :) If you go up to the third level you are where the ceremony will be held...

Talk about a view right?! This is where I will become Mrs. Mojito!! There will be a bit of draping in the windows with clusters of flowers up top, two large floor pillar arrangements at the aisle on each side of Mr Mojito and I, a gorgeous aisle runner that Papa Mojito painted with our logo and there will be pedals lining the aisle, this is also where the tissue poms will be hung on every other row going down the aisle.

Now let's head up to the last and final floor... the roof!

GORGEOUS!!!! This is where I will be at 7:24 pm when the sunset is scheduled. There is cocktail tables all over the roof so guests can come up here to chat and get some fresh air with a cocktail or grab a smoke... although now that I think about it I don't really have any smokers really.

It was crazy, there was a HUGE storm that week in Cali when we were there and it was pouring the whole way to the yacht. It was like the second we stepped foot on the yacht the clouds cleared and we had this, then about 30 minutes later the storm dropped another round of rain. Love the shot I got though from the roof, stunning!

So that's my venue in a nutshell! I'm so excited to be able to do this unique ceremony/reception venue... I always knew I would have a beach wedding but never thought I would actually be on the water!

What makes your ceremony or reception venue unique?

Shower #1: Middle-Aged Mahem

2010-02-24T16:10:00.000-08:00

The closer I get to the wedding, I realize more and more how blessed I truly am. I had my first of three showers this weekend and I knew this was going to be the "smallest" of the three and it was nothing short of fantastic.

Side Note: Please be warned there is a LOT of pictures ahead! Also don't judget me too much, I had errands to run before and was going to get ready at my parents but when I got there the electricity had been out all morning. Isn't easy to do your hair/make-up without it. :)

When I arrived I was greeted with some adult punch... it was freakin good... It was Lemonade/Limeade, 7-up, Vodka, and Beer. Yes beer, couldn't tell and it was damnnnn good.

I actually sat alone for the first 15 minutes, kinda odd when it's your shower, but that's because the ladies were at work in the other room.

They all took a picture when they came in and then made a scrapbook page that all went into a book and was given to me. So sweet and cute, loved it!

After we all socialized for a while and all of us were there (about 14 of us), we sat around for some yummy food. My mom's friend (who threw me my shower) had her son make an enchilada casserole. I've had a couple in my life and I know my Mexican and this was the BEST THING EVER. Can't believe I didn't take any pix of the food.

The food I did get a pic of was these homemade red velvet cupcakes that were so moist and delicious, and I'm not going to lie... I had two.

Once we all ate it was time for presents, everyone always says it and it's true. I'm not one to be shy in the spotlight... but it's awkward when you are the ONLY one opening presents.

Lesson learned: Don't let one of the "non-gadget-friendly" ladies take pix of you opening presents, because well... I didn't get any really. They all turned out like this:

Both of my MOHs were busy, writing down my gifts and making my bouquet so I had to leave it to my mom's friend...

MOH-Lu is trying to get MOH-Kc to see how awesome her work was, she was so proud. MOH-Kc was more interested to see all of the cute things in my "Wedding Day Emergency Kit" that my mom put together for me.

Here is another picture of the start of my ribbon bouquet because MOH-Lu was so proud of the handle she was developing out of the ribbons. She insisted we get pix of all angles, I will only bore you with one. I love you MOH-Lu! :) LOL

I have learned that most people just put things in bags now, because I had hardly ANY ribbon. They used a huge plate though so we are just going to add onto it over the next two showers as well.

One great gift was of course from my mom... some earrings she knew I had my eye on at Nordstrom for the wedding day. My dress is so detailed I wanted some simple but blingy earrings and Mama Mojito came through... sorry the picture quality is poor, but I also found a pic of them off of the Nordstrom website.

I got a lot of kitchen items I wanted from Macy's, as well as a ton of items we were hoping for at Crate and Barrel... was SO excited to see I got this apothecary jar... when I lived with my parents my mom had some randomly throughout the house that we would decorate differently for seasons and I just love them so much!

Probably one of the funnest moments of the day though was finally finding out some information about this weekends festivities. Up until this point my girls have kept my bachelorette party pretty hush-hush. I just knew it was in Newport Beach and that was about it. I kept telling them they had to at LEAST tell me something so I knew what to pack. But my MOHs are awesome and of course had to go above and beyond just for this task...

They got a really cute black tote bag, but some cute ribbon detail, and an iron-on that said "Laura's Bachelorette Party - Newport Beach, CA - February 26-28, 2010" Inside was a few things that you can see in this picture below (kinda)... first there were some hot pink flip flops, then that cute heart beach towel you see in the bottom right corner. What you see in the bottom left corner is a bag that had a makeup bag filled with different toiletries. There was also the cutest clipboard with high heels on it that I loved. I need some important task so I can use it haha. Clipped to the clipboard was a very broad weekend itinerary as well as my "packing list". Of course we can't forget this cute tee they got me to wear out to the bars on Saturday night.

And just because I love her, here is my friends daughter. She was so cute and after I opened EVERY present she would say "Miss Mojito, can I please pass it around?" and she would walk around showing it to everyone.

I had to take my moms car home because I couldn't find all my goods in my car, now the problem is trying to not use ANYTHING until after the wedding. I want it all fresh and new once we come back from the Honeymoon!

Back to the Brunette Basics

2010-02-23T13:18:00.000-08:00

I'm a Brunette. How dark? I have no idea. I started dying my hair in 7th grade and never looked back. I've had my hair so many different colors I can't even keep up. Here is a few pictures of me over the past few years with some of my different shades...

So there was a few times were I went blonde...

And then I've done jet black a few times which I always love but it's SO hard to get rid of...

Then there is always my multiple shades of brown...

And of course the few times I do some drastic reds...

So as you can see I'm never afraid to try new things with my hair... I'm always cutting it, and growing it, and dying it, and then dying it something else. That's why it was really hard on deciding for my wedding. After many polls with friends and family I decided I would try to start going blonde again after I got engaged. Before then I had black hair and it was a process that took some time. I was loving it until I saw some of my epix from Angels stadium and the Claremont Colleges...

Do you see that!? I love me some fun color editing in pictures like this one to make that blue door really pop. But you know what else then pops? My brassy looking blonde hair. I decided I did not want to see my hair looking like that 30 years from now in some of my pictures so I decided to go a "natural" route that I feel I like on myself as not something I will regret looking back at pix. Because let's face it, some people be really regretting their wedding pix now...

You know what I'm saying?? So I went back to my brunette roots. I'm not sure exactly what color my hair would be these days but my hair always was brown with some reddish tones to it so I went with this color.

...and I love it.

Are you doing anything different with your hair or are you going the safe way? Do you think I made a good decision?

Menu Decision

2010-02-23T11:10:00.000-08:00

A month or two ago Leslie from Slieberry Designs who designed my invitation suite said she would make a menu for me as well. She made me a few versions that I enjoyed and only had minimal changes. I had her do them so I could fit 4 to a page to minimize printing and they would be long to slide into a napkin.

We are having a buffett at our wedding so this was actually totally not necessary. It was just something else I wanted ot have because I could. Knowing there are plenty of items already on the table I decided to forgo that idea because it would also save time and money.

Instead I had leslie design me one large menu and then I purchased a big frame for $5 at Wal-Mart and it will be placed at the front of the buffett table line. Will add a little pizazz to go along with everything else and inform guests of what we have to offer.

This is how it turned out...

I'm very happy with the results and am glad I decided not to go with individual menus for each person at their rable.

And just because I like pictures with posts, I will throw in our Valentine Dinner...

The Stinking Rose is such a fun and yummy (and smelly!) restaurant but of course you can't see that from this picture because we have a big 'ol seperate curtain right there. Probably should have tried another angle. Oh well. And yes, those are empty mojitos. :) After My delicious Garlic and Capers Halibut at the Stinking Rose we hit up a favorite dessert spot, Milk, in Hollywood. Sooo yummy!

Please, go head on over to their website and tell me you aren't wanting something sweet and yummy now!

Are you having menus at your wedding? How are you going about doing them?

Miss Mojito Here...

2010-02-23T08:48:00.000-08:00

...remember me? This year I've been amazing at bringing you something on a daily basis. It was always about my wedding, someone elses wedding, or at least a giveaway. Well I've sucked lately and I haven't been around in over a week. So I have some posts in the works that I'm getting ready to bring your way starting today. Not sure how exciting they are, but at least I'll be getting back into the blogging swing of things. Basically I need to get some more stuff to you now that we are less then two months away from the big day and I know once we hit the one month mark it will be even harder to get you regular blog posts. So I'm back on the blogging train.

So yeah... since the last time I wrote I did end up starting Nutrisystem. Yesterday was my first day, and let's just say this morning I would have taken a life of another for a freakin' Lumberjack Slam.

Let's just say doing that Google search right now was the worst thing I could do. Haha... anyways, the food is pretty lame. It's tolerable for the most part but it's definiately not something I plan on doing past 1-2 months. Today is Mr. Mojito's first day so we will see how that pans out for him. Thank heaven you can add fruit, veggies, dairy and some other protein in there so I can actually get some FRESH food into my system or it would be way harder. Hey, I'm going to do what I gotta do now!

I decided to take a day off of work on Friday because Thursday night I was pretty sick with some fluish crap goin on. Feeling better by around noon I decided to just get some wedding things done around the house so mom and I started getting boxes organized that will be for the wedding for my coordinator to be able to get things done in what we feel will be the quickest way possible because she will only have a little over an hour to set up. Talk about cutting it close! But yeah, nothing I can do about it since there is a wedding at my venue that morning/afternoon... I probably should have contacted that bride to see if she wanted to go havsies on decor. :)

Saturday morning I met with my Pastor at a coffee shop and he wanted me to explain to him my "vision" for the ceremony. He took good notes and we got the entire ceremony in order. I've been wanting to get that out of the way so that my last big project would be able to get started -- the programs. I actually have had some free postcards from Uprinting sitting in my inbox without a clue on what to do with them, so I've been designing something so that it can be just a simple glossy double sided postcard -- perfect, it's free. So I actually spent last night designing that with just the fonts and graphics from our invites and I just want to check all of the wording with Mr. Mojito tonight and then I will send it off to the printers.

I've once again felt really productive lately so that's why I haven't been around in the blogging world. This past Saturday was my first shower and this coming weekend is my bachelorette party... do you think Kamakaze shots are part of Nutrisystem? Yeah. Didn't think so.

Weight Loss Struggles

2010-02-16T14:14:00.001-08:00

Okay, I'm just throwing this on the table. Weight loss has been the biggest enemy in my life. I have fluctuated my entire life and I was always great (especially in high school) at going on a diet and sticking with it... for a while. I would drop 20 pounds like it was nobodys business and then it would just as easily come back. The past two years have been the hardest yet. Nothing motivates me.

There was one thing that I thought would be the biggest motivation of all. I told Mr. Mojito when we got engaged that this was the biggest motivator of all and I would want to drop a ton of weight. Well guess what, I'm two months out and in the past seven months I've gone down maybe 10-15 lbs... fluctuating constantly. I hate getting so down on myself but it's been extremely depressing. I've tried just watching what I eat, working out, pills, Weight Watchers, I've tried it all. Honestly, Weight Watchers is an INCREDIBLE program that I love and always have been successful on... when I stick with it.

This time I needed something different, something that didn't give me options. I'm going with something I'm dreading... NutriSystem. Mr. Mojito and I were at Costco this past weekend and they had 35 days worth of food (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, & Snack/Dessrt)... it was $235 for the month... that put it at less then $2 a day, so we both ordered it and put in our orders last night. We should receive our food in the next couple of days.

I'm petrified, I'm picky and think this food is going to be disgusting. But with two months until my wedding and honeymoon I'm desperate. So since I haven't shared much of my weight loss struggles with you before this I wanted to start sharing with you my experience as I begin this new journey... I know there are some other girls out there struggling with this same thing that read my blog so I want to be able to share it with some of you.

So bring it Marie Osmond, you and your giant Texas hair commercials.

Have you had a struggle that you just haven't been able to get through? What was your breaking point and how did you get through it? Of course you don't have to share, I just like to hear encouraging stories to get me motivated. :)

Google Doc Love

2010-02-16T13:57:00.001-08:00

I know I've explained my love for Google Docs so many times, it comes in sooo handy in the wedding world and honestly... if you aren't using it yet, get on it. Now that I'm down to the 60 day mark (yes, 60 days - wtf?!) some of these spreadsheets aren't as handy for me. But there are some that are SOOO awesome and I wish I had them.

Visit this link and see a ton of awesome spreadsheets that can help you with ALL of your planning, budgets, photographers, music, etc. I love the wedding planner one but it's not really useful for me anymore. If you are just starting out though, this is a way to get organized!

Best thing about Google Docs in my opinion? Is sharing features. It allows you to have the document shared with anyone (like Mam or FH) and then anytime you update it, rather then emailing the "latest" and hoping it doesn't get confused later, it just automatically updates theirs. You can also choose whether you want them to not be able to edit it, or they can make changes if they want.

I have used it for my guest list, music, readings, etc. and it's been awesome! I can't speak highly enough on how helpful it's been. So check out the awesome Google Wedding Docs and make your life a whole lot easier!

*Big thanks to Style Me Pretty for being awesome and having all of these templates ready for us brides who need a jumpstart to get organized!

Better late then never...

2010-02-16T08:41:00.000-08:00

Sorry for making you ladies all wait this weekend but it was Valentine's day and I never got to count up all the entries from my MyWeddingFavors giveaway that ended on Friday.

The winner was...

Alvina from "The Adventures of Alvina and Tim's Wedding"!

Please email me at withthisringitheeblog {at} gmail {dot} com Alvina so I can get your gift certificate to you soon!

Thanks for all who participated in my week of giveaways! Can't wait to have another giveaway soon! :)

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

...From the Mojitos!

Hope you and your fiance / boyfriend / husband / significant other have a fabulous day together filled with love!

NWR: To my American Idol Fans

2010-02-11T09:08:00.000-08:00

Okay, as probably most of you out there who watch American Idol... this local guy, Andrew Garcia is pretty much my favvvvorite. When he sang this song on Tuesday night I got serious chills... Paul be proud!

(Sorry that the video I found was someone recording their TV haha)

Can we get this on freakin' iTunes please?!

Here were a couple of my other favorites:

Lilly Scott

Crystal Bowersox

Go to 38 seconds for beginning of singing

Michael Lynche

Go to 3:55 mark for beginning of his singing

Who are your faves so far this season??

Where in the World Wednesdays: 2/10/10

2010-02-10T16:42:00.000-08:00

This Wednesday, I'm taking you to one of my FAVORITE places that I've been to dozens and dozens of times -- Vegas baby! I'm a frequenter and I crave it if I haven't been in too long (like right now). But this trip was different, this one was in mid-November 2008. We were 23 years old and Mr. Mojito and had NEVER been to Vegas...

WAH?! Who's never been to Vegas when you are 23 and live only about a 3 hour drive away?? So a trip was in order! Okay, actually he went once when he was 11, stayed at Circus, Circus and was there for his sister's cheer competition. Not exactly your dream Vegas trip eh?

So I planned an all-out trip. We stayed at Caesar's Palace and went during the annual Comedy Festival... the main headliner of the weekend was Jerry Seinfeld -- Mr. Mojito's FAVORITE and we saw a couple of other comediens as well. It was a great trip that I will never forget... we had great food, great laughs, and we won a lot of moo-lah! Mr. Mojito doesn't even remember the first night and he was passed out by 8:00 pm, yup 8:00 pm... we missed reservations for our delish steak dinner and never made it to his trip to the nightclub. We started making one of my faves - "Cactus Coolers" and while we waited for maintenence to come fix a light in the bathroom we already had downed the bottle of Citrus Vodka. He then decided to start drinking Jack & Cokes in the casino and before you knew it he was visiting the porcelein gods.

It was a crappy first night gambling alone after I tucked Mr. Mojito in bed.. what?! You didn't think I was gonna stay in did you?? Haha... but it was one of the greatest Vegas trips I will never forget... besides the mock bachelorette party of course! :)

Vista Print Giveaway Winner

2010-02-10T10:22:00.000-08:00

The winner of 100 Save the Date or Thank You Cards from Vista Print is...

::drumroll::

KMattso2 from "Happily Ever After"

She will be using this for Thank You cards for her wedding!

Congrats!!

Please email me at withthisringitheeblog@gmail.com ASAP so I can get the details to retreive your prize ASAP!

And if you haven't already, Friday is the last day for you to win a $25 gift certificate from MyWeddingFavors -- visit my blog here to enter!

Another DIY Bites the Dust

2010-02-09T14:56:00.000-08:00

Okay, so my DIY list seems to keep growing and growing, so today when my mom and I were talking we decided to take a look at some of our to-do's and see how we could either take them off the list completely or figure out a way to get it done or get it easier.

One of the things I've always loved is the "Thank You" Parasols that have become EXTREMELY popular. My dad has been a sign painter his ENTIRE life, so painting up this badboy would be easy for him yet take a lot of time. My dad is a busy guy, and I've already thrown some big projects his way.

I bet I'm one of the few, if not only, who's dad made their table numbers. Hahaha, not a typical dad-duty.

And this is COMPLETELY not related to the post, but is this not a gorgeous thing done with parasols?

So yeah, realizing this was a project that would take a good chunk of an afternoon on my dad's weekend and knowing he does have better things to do then stuff for my wedding I thought I would take this one off of his hands. Into mine? No way, I don't think I have the patience anymore and I don't want to spend the money to buy one that somebody else made.

So I'm going with something that I still think is cute in pix and will work perfect for our Thank You postcards that I plan on making after the wedding... Thank You Posters.

I will probably do two seperate posters for "Thank" & "You" and my dad could whip this project out for me in 20 minutes with some vinyl and a board. I might border it with some ribbon or something or depending on how it looks I might just leave it in the fuschia swirly fun font he uses for me. I'll be sure to show them to you when they're done, but there won't be a tutorial. Because honestly my dad just prints out the vinyl and lays them on poster for me. That's how Mr. Mojito had such a sweet little poster for me at my graduation, courtesy of Papa Mojito.

I was hoping it would have said "Marry Me Miss Mojito!" but whatever... that actually came a few days after graduation! :)

Do you plan on doing one of the "Thank You" trends? What are you going to use?

Productive Mondays

2010-02-09T08:56:00.000-08:00

I seriously had the most productive night last night and it felt good! I popped on yesterday's Ellen, two episodes of Pawn Stars (my new fave), and the Bachelor and got soo much done!

First I did our entire flip flop basket...

I purchased the white basket on clearance at Home Goods for $6. I bought 15 pairs of flip flops at Michael's a year ago and I think they were $.75 each. I purchased tags and ribbon and some stamps. I took apart the flip flop packaging and tied each together with some pink or green ribbon I had lying around and stamped some designs with the sizes on each flip flop. I'm then going to make a sign that will be sticking out that says "Meet Your 'Sole' Mates" and then something about using these for your dancing shoes.

I got that whole project done in about an hour and a half. Couldn't believe it. I had a rhythm going and I couldn't be stopped. I can even honestly say that I was able to somewhat even pay attention to Jersey Shore on Ellen as well as a bunch of hilarious clips that Ellen played for her 1100th episode!

Now it was onto the "Tears of Joy" tissue pax...

I made labels with just some basic avery address labels while at work one day and then cut ribbon into 6.5 strips. I wrapped them in the ribbon and stuck the ribbon under the labels. I used three different types of ribbon as well. The basket was given to me from my friend who used them in her pink/green wedding two years ago. The tissues had already been stuffed, I just had to do the ribbons and labels for each which took about an hour or so. I made 60 for my guests knowing that no men would use them (most likely) and not every person would grab one.

Once the tissue packs were complete it was back to the tissue poms...

I had showed you all my trial of my tissue poms and I realized it wasn't hard at all and something that I wanted to have on my chairs during the ceremony. I'm playing them down the aisle every other row so I will need about 12-14 based on how many guests we end up having. I decided I will make 5 of each color. I put together all of the tangerine ones last night in the remainder of the Bachelor and also cut and tied all of the ribbon for all of them. They will just need to be "poofed" out on the day of the wedding and will be ready to hang on the chairs.

I will say, during the past couple of weeks it's been nice the nights Brad's been working late (yes he's REALLY working late ladies haha) because I've been able to get so much work done on the wedding. The second the wedding is over I know I'm not going to be loving him working the late shift that's for sure! Tonight I plan on doing maybe another set of the tissue poms and a pen project I have to go with my guest book that I will share more about after I do it.

Doesn't it feel good when you get a good chunk of projects out of the way?

And the winner is...

2010-02-08T14:47:00.000-08:00

I took some time briefly before a meeting this morning to organize all of the entries for two of the giveaways that ended yesterday. It was weird, both giveaways had exactly 90 entries! Here are the winners...

Wine Night Pack

Ali (AKA Mrs. French Bulldog on Weddingbee) from HisBirdie

Her favorite wine is a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc by Kim Crawford and she also mentioned that she was dying to have these napkins... so guess what Ali? They're all yours!

Housewife Kit

Nicole-Lynn from Seaside Smitten

Nicole-Lynn said "This giveaway speaks to me :) I always clean up after every meal, no dishes in the sink and every week I like to have fresh flowers in the kitchen or on the dining room table. I think it adds such a special touch :) That's how I stay organized, keep my sanity in the kitchen :)"

I need to get fresh flowers in my kitchen more often, I love that!

Anyways ladies, congrats! Be sure to email me ASAP at withthisringitheeblog@gmail.com and I will get these out to you hopefully sometime this week. Email me your full name and mailing address. Congrats ladies!

And don't forget, I still have two giveaways from last weeks giveaways that haven't closed yet:

CLOSES TOMORROW - 100 Save the Dates or Thank You Cards from Vista Print

CLOSES FRIDAY - $25 Gift Certificate from MyWeddingFavor

Recipe with a Kick That's a Hit!

2010-02-08T10:50:00.000-08:00

Seriously! The BEST thing I had on my super bowl Sunday was a dip my cousin shared with us yesterday. It was from the fabulous Hungry Girl and I just had to share it with ya'll. Seriously, it was a hit and it's somethign SO different, and for what it is... not too bad calorie wise either! Here is the recipe straight from the Hungry Girl's website:

Buff Chick Hot Wing Dip

PER SERVING (1/15th of recipe, about 1/4 cup): 68 calories, 1.5g fat, 616mg sodium, 2g carbs, 0g fiber, 1g sugars, 10g protein -- POINTS® value 1*

After receiving tons of emails about a famous (and fatty) Frank's RedHot dip, we HG-ized it for your (and our!) chewing pleasure. This stuff tastes JUST like Buffalo wings...

Ingredients:
Two 9.75-oz. (or 10-oz.) cans 98% fat-free chunk white chicken breast in water, drained
One 8-oz. tub fat-free cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup Frank's RedHot Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce
1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup fat-free ranch dressing
1/4 cup fat-free Greek yogurt (Fage 0% is the best!)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place cream cheese in a medium bowl and stir until smooth. Mix in Frank's RedHot, mozzarella cheese, ranch dressing, and yogurt. Stir in chicken until thoroughly combined. Spoon mixture evenly into a deep 8-inch by 8-inch baking dish.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until mixture is heated through. Stir well and enjoy!

P.S. We love dipping carrot sticks and red bell pepper chunks into this dip, but we've also dunked baked tortilla chips into it and used it as a sandwich spread!

MAKES 15 SERVINGS

HG Alternative! To make this dish FAST, skip the oven altogether. Prepare dip according to the directions, but in a microwave-safe dish. Then microwave uncovered on high for 5 minutes (stopping and stirring halfway)

Love Coupon Winner

2010-02-05T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hey ya'll, the Day 1 giveway sponsored by Scraps of Life has closed and I recieved 79 entries!

It closed a few hours ago and I finally got a few minutes to organize all of the entries and head on over to http://www.random.org/ to pick my lucky winner!

Today's winner was #49 -- which happened to be my softball number for 13 years!

Congrats Thelma!

Here is what Thelma said her least favorite coupon would be...

"My least fav coupon is the dinner one because I don't know how to cook! lol"

I sent you an email Thelma so please email me back ASAP in order to receive your prize from Scraps of Life. If I don't hear from you by Monday, February 8 I will have to pick another winner. Thanks for all the entries ladies!

And they're off!

2010-02-05T10:32:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday these babies left my hot little hands...

And I started getting responses yesterday that people were receiving them. Yay finally, people are starting to realize my vision and get a taste of what they will be gettin' on April 17 (and by taste I don't mean the invites smelled like chicken).

I had a lot of GREAT feedback about the invites, everyone said how cute they were, so bright and fun, and soooo me (which is true!). I was a little bummed because when I ask how they looked when they received them everyone has told me the vellum was completely envelopes were pretty much trashed. I had a feeling, but oh well. The guests clearly know I didn't wad up their envelopes before I mailed it to them, so I will get over it.

It felt SO good to get these out and I can't wait to start receiving the RSVP's tomorrow (because I know there will be a couple).

What was the project that you felt the most joy when completing?

GIVEAWAY DAY 5: Do Me a Favor

2010-02-05T10:03:00.000-08:00

Alright ladies, this is it. The last of the giveaways this week... but since I love to give I'm sure there will be more to come! Today's giveaway is being brought to ya'll courtesy of MyWeddingFavors.com!

MyWeddingFavors.com is offering one of my readers a $25 e-gift certificate to use on their website! Although MYF has tons of great items they offer why not use this opportunity to start getting something for your Bridesmaids?

Like how about these cute high-heeled cake servers?

Maybe some Koozy's for the bachelorette party?

I have one of these I keep in my makeup bag, but not this cute!

They seriously have so many cute things on that website!

Contest will be open until Friday, February 12 at 8:00 am PST. Here's how to enter:

(1 entry) - Go to MyWeddingFavors and comment telling me what item you would purchase with your gift certificate.
(1 entry) - Follow my blog and comment telling me you are a follower.
(1 entry) - Follow me on Twitter (@MeSooLaLa) and tell me your Twitter name.
(2 entries) - Tweet about this giveaway - include @MeSooLaLa and a link to the giveaway!
(2 entries) - Post about this giveaway on Facebook and send me a link.
(5 entries) - Blog about this giveaway and send me a link.

12 possible entries on this giveaway today! Good luck!

Bachelorette Liars

2010-02-04T11:09:00.001-08:00

This post is going to be a little confession, not related to my wedding planning at all but it's funny to me whenever I think about it. Here we go...

Two summers ago a group of us girls had a Bachelorette party in Vegas... and I'm talking we went ALL out. That's not the confession. The confession is, NONE of us were getting married.

Haha... we had this big idea after we started planning the trip that if we acted like we were at a Bachelorette Party we would get special treatment... and that was the case. I remember free drinks, free chips (money not food haha), no waiting in lines, it was awesome.

When I say we went all out we did... we had a girl wearing the ring, the "bachelorette veils", decorated the door to our hotel room, decorated our car, and we even made shirts! We had one friend be the bride one night, and another friend was the bride the other. The problem was when you ran into some guys from the night before and they were like sooo confused... we just blamed it on the aa-aaa-aaa-aalcohol! (Reallllly hard to type out that song FYI.) My favorite part was when we uploaded the pix to MySpace when we got home so many people were like "Oh my God, I didn't know so-and-so was getting married!!"

Let me show you some pix of our mock bachelorette party in action...

Please note, braless woman on the left was not part of our party.
Our shirts said "Game On" except the brides who said "Game Over"
We bought black tanks from Old Navy and Iron-on letters and rhinestones from Michaels

In the process of pimpin' our car out!

We even switched the bride in the same night at two different clubs... quick shirt and veil swith-er-oo! Haha...

We were next to the cougars!

View from the VIP Rooftop at the Palms

Going to Vegas and it's not your Bachelorette party?
Make it one... you won't regret it!

[CLOSED] GIVEAWAY DAY 4: STDs & TYs

2010-02-04T09:27:00.000-08:00

[CLOSED]
______________________

Alright everyone, it's Day 4 of my giveaways this week and today VistaPrint is bringing you a great giveaway...

100 Save the Dates

100 Thank You Cards

any combo of the two equaling 100!

I used Vista Print to do my Save the Date's which I was extremely happy with the results...

And I actually just received in the mail this week some other items from Vista Print that I had ordered last week. I ordered invitations for our rehearsal dinner with custom envelopes and RSVP cards, as well as menus for the table settings. I was SOO happy with the results.

On Vista Print you can upload your own designs or use one of their MANY templates. The ones I used for the rehearsal dinner was a template they already had and I loved how everything turned out.

They also have a whole section on their website dedicated to just weddings. They have tons of pre made packages and templates for Wedding invites, save the dates, bridal showers, bachelorette parties, menus, programs, and more! Go here to check out parts of their wedding shop.

This giveaway will be open until Tuesday, February 9. Here's some of the ways you can win:

(1 entry) - Comment what you would use this for if you won.
(1 entry) - Follow my blog and let me know (or tell me if you are already a follower!)
(1 entry) - Follow me on Twitter and tell me your Twitter name (@MeSooLaLa)
(1 entry) - Follow Vista Print on Twitter and let me know (@vistaprint)
(2 entries) - Tweet this: @MeSooLaLa is hosting a giveaway from @VistaPrint for 100 free Save the Dates or Thank You cards! http://ow.ly/13TX4 Please RT!
(2 entries) - Post about this giveaway on Facebook and send me the link.
(5 entries) - Post about this giveaway on your blog and send me the link.

That's 13 possible entries ladies, good luck!

P.S. Don't forget to enter for my other three giveaways!

Have You Tried Your Shot?

2010-02-04T05:00:00.000-08:00

I'm currently hosting three giveaways...
make sure you don't miss out!

Ending Friday...
GIVEAWAY #1: Love Coupons

Ending Sunday...
GIVEAWAY #2: Wine Night
GIVEAWAY #3: Housewife Kit

More giveaways to come!! Good luck ladies! :)

P.S. Happy Birthday Dad!!

[CLOSED] GIVEAWAY DAY 3: Housewife Kit

2010-02-03T08:33:00.000-08:00

[CLOSED]

I don't know about you, but I love being organized. I saw different themes of stuff for the kitchen and this was one I thought was so cute... great for the new housewives in all of use that have just come into the housewife world or workin your way in there.

In your Housewife Kit you will receive:

Recipe Box
Magnetic Weekly Meal Planner
Coupon Organizer for us money saving divas!
Recipe cards
Magnets
Shopping List

You have until Sunday, February 7 to enter. Here are your ways to enter:

(1 entry): Comment telling me how you like to stay organized in the kitchen.

(1 entry): Become a follower or tell me that you are already a follower.

(1 entry): Follow me on Twitter (@MeSooLaLa) and let me know your Twitter name when you comment.

(2 entries): Tweet this - @MeSooLaLa is hosting day 3 of her #giveaway for the housewives. Enter here: http://ow.ly/13rWa - Please RT!

(2 entries): Post about the giveaway on your Facebook and link it to me in a comment.

(5 entries): Blog about this giveaway and link it to me in a comment.

Good luck!! :)

[CLOSED] GIVEAWAY DAY 2: Wine Night

2010-02-03T08:04:00.001-08:00

[CLOSED]

I saw a bunch of little cocktail wine party type stuff one afternoon and thought some of the items where so fun I would grab a few for my next giveaway.

This is perfect to have a couple or two over for a little wine and cheese party to just chat and have a good time... or maybe even use this for a little girls night in with some of your bridesmaids while you put them to work on another DIY project!

Publish Post

What you will receive:

Cheese Plates
Wine Cork ("Put a Cork In It")
Cocktail Napkins ("swirl it. sniff it. gulp it."
Cocktail Coasters ("Cheers!")
Spreaders ("Wine" & "Cheese")
Wine Journal ("You Had Me at Merlot")

You have until Sunday, February 7 to enter! Here are your ways to enter...

(1 entry): Comment and tell me your favorite wine or cocktail.

(1 entry): Become a follower or tell me that you are already a follower.

(1 entry): Follow me on Twitter (@MeSooLaLa) and let me know your Twitter name in the comment field as well.

(2 entries): Tweet this - @MeSooLaLa is hosting a #giveaway for the vino lovers! Enter here: http://ow.ly/13rjn - Please RT!

(2 entries): Post about the giveaway on your Facebook and link it to me in a comment.

(5 entries): Blog about this giveaway and link it to me in a comment.

That's 12 entries ladies so have at it! Good luck!

Where in the World Wednesdays: 2/3/10

2010-02-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

Happy Hump day ladies. I actually am going to be doing just a short little post every Wednesday and it's NWR. It's called "Where in the World Wednesdays" where I will post a pic of me somewhere in the world...

So I will start this first one off at one of the best places I've EVER been...

AUSTRALIA!

It seriously was a spontaneous (I will explain) and amazing blessed experience that Mr. Mojito and I will NEVER forget.

We won the trip. Yup, Virgin Australia was promoting their new airplane that would be flying from LA to Brisbane, Australia and a local Los Angeles radio station (102.7 KiisFM) was giving away 48 trips in 48 hours for it's inaugural flight. Every hour there was a word you would have to text and just be texter 102. Mr. Mojito hates this radio station but when I told him what they were doing we listened to that radio station ALL day and while sitting in traffic on the way home from the beach that afternoon we were texter 102. Only conditions were we had to be 18, have a current passport, and be able to leave on Monday... it was Thursday.

It was tough because I had to explain to my work what an awesome opportunity this was and I couldn't miss it... even though I had just gotten back from a week vacation for going to Hawaii. But they [kinda] understood and next thing you know I was packing my bags for a 14 hour flight to Brisbane Australia.

The hotel was covered, the flight was covered. And let me tell you... Virgin is the way to go internationally! So much entertainment you can't get board... all the movies and TV shows you could think of.. video games... chat... a walk-up bar... we even had champagne toasts and shirts that said "Fly like a Rock Star" and had the Virgin Logo and on the back it said something about VIP and being on the inaugural flight to Brisbane.

Seriously it's gorgeous there and I can't wait to go back one day! My favorite was probably getting to hold Koalas, play with Kangaroos, and winning $300 at the casino right before we left for our flight back home! :) I hated the food, loved the people. But boy was it EXPENSIVE... we never spent less then like $60 or $70 on a meal probably!

Well that's just a little trip of a place Miss Mojito has gone in this world... where will I travel next Wednesday?

I'm a bad give-away-er.

2010-02-02T13:44:00.000-08:00

Okay, so today was supposed to be day 2 of giveaways... and well, I was taking pictures of the stuff on Sunday night and I keep leaving my camera at home! I can't post the next giveaway without pix of the stuff, so I promise I will just do two tomorrow then!

Bouquet Bling

2010-02-01T12:03:00.000-08:00

It's no secret to those who have followed me for a while that I love. the. bling. I'm not like New Jersey gaudy (sorry Miss Pugs haha) but I'm a girl who loves the diamonds and the bling... so I when I was thinking of my bouquet I honestly thought of doing something like this...

Is that way too much? Probably, but I secretly loved it. I also realized it maybe was a little too much for the look we were going for with our wedding. Our theme is in no way "bling" but a little more of that tropical feel so I started brainstorming.

But who doesn't love having a gorgeous bouquet wrap? Isn't that the one thing that draws you in and makes you swoon over? Of course the flowers are number one but it's the ribbons, fabrics, brooches, and charms that give it that special touch. Here are some examples of some bouquet wraps:

Maybe you can have some type of charm showing your new initial.

Always a great way to honor a lost loved one.

How about your something borrowed being a family heirloom like your grandmother's rosemary?

Ok, sorry but I saw this one and had to share. Would this not be awesome for your toss bouquet? The girls already get crazy enough, this would bring them out on the dance floor!

I could continue because there are SO. MANY. BEAUTIFUL bouquets out there and I could look at pix for days. So in conclusion I decided I'm still going to wrap my bouquet with something like a diamond white silk ribbon and it will be adorned with this bad boy I bought off eBay last week ($9!) and I just got it in the mail.

I get a little bit of bling while sticking with the theme of our wedding with the touches of starfish randomly throughout with this starfish brooch.

Are you planning on adorning your bouquet handle with anything?

'Stach-ing Good Time!

2010-02-01T08:01:00.000-08:00

So I promised you this post, errr... like a month ago when I made these I think. One very popular photobooth and wedding accessory these days is the 'stach on a stick. I personally love them and knew they had to be in my wedding. Unfortunately, the fabulous ones on Etsy come with a hefty price tag... I'm talkin' like $35 for one 'stach. Yes, one.

Honestly, these are fabulous. And nothing I can do will replicate those, but I figure I could do some that will still make a funny point and will still give me these fun props for my photobooth.

Here are the items I used and the price break down:

Chefmate Bamboo Skewers from Target. -- $.99 (I used twelve, came with like 50)
Card stock backing -- FREE (extra paper I had in my scrapbooking inventory)
Pack of 12 Mustaches purchased from Deal Extreme -- $2.61
Cylinder vase to hold them all (optional) -- FREE (had them already from a friend)

TOTAL: $3.60 for 12 mustaches, that's $.30 each.

Okay, clearly these aren't high quality at all but they are gonna do the job and I know people will have fun with them. 99% of the people at my wedding probably haven't even seen the fancy ones that are on Etsy so they won't judge. :)

Here is the simple way I did:

1) Pulled a mustache off of the sticker backing, not easy - those suckuhs were sticky!

2. Leave a bit of sticky on the mustache so the whole thing doesn't stick, but press the mustache on your paper backing. This will leave an edge of the mustache to not stick to the backing so you can accomplish the next step.

3. Grab your bamboo stick and place it between the cardstock and mustache. Then undo that sticky part and seal it around the stick to the cardstock. The mustaches are really THAT sticky that it holds extremely well. Seriously I put one of these mustaches on my face and it was like a free waxing taking them off.

4. Rock out with your 'stach out. I'm going to wrap the cylinder with a ribbon with a little sign on it as well saying "Stach on a Stick" that will be sitting with all of the other props for the photobooth. Here I am testing out one of my finish products...

Here is Dakota and her new 'stach on a stick as well...

[CLOSED] GIVEAWAY DAY 1: Spreading the Valentine Love

2010-02-01T05:00:00.000-08:00

[CLOSED]

I'm so excited to kick off my little week of giveaways... I got a few fun items coming at you this week and I thought I'd start off with a great one for your man for Valentine's Day!

Jackie from ScrapsNCraftsOfLife is offering one of my readers one of my favorite homemade crafts that she is currently selling in her Etsy shop for Valentine's Day!

Love Coupons!

Are these not the cutest? What boyfriend, fiance, or husband doesn't love getting to ask you to do something and you can't complain? These coupons have no expiration date baby.

Here is her description of what you will receive:

Give your loved one a gift that keeps on giving! Each box contains 6 love coupons that can be redeemed for an act of love. Each coupon includes a definition and an explanation of what the recipient can redeem the coupon for. The explanations read as follows:

Movie: Any movie you want to see. You pick the date, the time, and the place.
Dinner: Pick your favorite meal. I’ll cook up everything you want.
Dessert: Pick your favorite treat. I’ll make sure you get it.
Gift: Something you want. I’m buying.
Massage: One hour of relaxation while I rub your stress away.
Anything: One night, ANYTHING you want.

This gift has been hand crafted using products from Stampin' Up!

Now for the rules & all of your possible ways to enter:

(1 entry): Become a follower or tell me that you are already a follower and tell me what coupon will be your least favorite for him to redeem and why.

(1 entry): Follow me on Twitter - (@MeSooLaLa)

(2 entries): Tweet this - @MeSooLaLa is hosting a #giveaway courtesy of Scraps of Life Etsy shop! Enter here: http://ow.ly/11XqK - Please RT!

(2 entries): Become a Facebook Fan of Scraps of Life: http://www.facebook.com/#/pages/Scraps-of-Life/172587063395?ref=ts &/or Jackie's blog: http://www.scrapsoflife.dreamhosters.com/ (she has great craft tips there!)

(2 entries): Post about the giveaway on your Facebook and link it to me in a comment.

(5 entries): Blog about this giveaway and link it to me in a comment.

That's thirteen possible entries! This giveaway will close at 8:00 AM PST on Friday, February 5 and winner will be chosen at random through the website http://www.random.org/.

Good luck ladies!

If I didn't already have a garter...

2010-01-31T10:40:00.000-08:00

I would purchase these! They are so cute, fun, and sexy!

I found the Juliette Garters
just the other day and I fell in love. Of course I'm known to do a little boozing from time to time so this was write up my alley. No Miss Mojito isn't an alcoholic and doesn't need help, I just like a good cocktail (or two) now and then :)

I'm also a crazy stresser and need some serious Valuum or Zanex on my wedding day so I know that I will probably having a little bit of alcohol in my system to loosen me up a little bit on the big day... how cute are these tho?

Here are just a few I pulled off the website...

And here are some pix of some actual brides and her ladies with them. What a fun BM gift too... and great to use at Bachelorette Parties and other girls night outs on the town!

Not For Mr. Mojito's Eyes

2010-01-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

I got my dressss! *hip, skip. jump, hoorah*

So as I mentioned earlier this week, my dress came in last Friday. According to UPS the box was supposed to be shipped on Friday morning and I was going to be meeting with my wedding coordinator so I was a little scared because of the huge storm that we were part of.

Before we left I examined my moms front porch to make sure it was big enough to make sure that box wasn't going to get soaked. All looked good and sure enough when we pulled up to my moms house that afternoon there was a box on the porch. But I was concerned. This box was way too small to have my big poofy dress in there! Sure enough, it was it. How they do it I have no idea but I was picturing a massive box showing up at the house, guess I was wrong...

Like seriously, I had boots that came in a shoebox this size.

Gah! Do you see my dress crammed in that little bag?!

And here she is in all of her [way toooo big] glory...

Tried to get detailing with out taking a full on boob shot.

Okay, seriously I'm 5'10 almost and look how long it is! I never had an issue with the dresses being too long, most of the time they were too short!

It's going to need SO many alterations but I'm just so happy with my dress, it's completely gorgeous and I couldn't be happier.

*For those wondering and haven't followed my blog through my dress journey, this is the Maggie Sottero Victoriana.

Giveaway Fail.

2010-01-29T15:07:00.001-08:00

As you can see, Day 1 of the giveaways was posted. And even though I changed the schedule date to Monday after I realized it posted it it just changed the date but didn't actually take it away... so since I'm not very blog savy and don't know what else to do you guys are getting a couple extra days for the giveaway and will get a taste... next giveaway coming on Tuesday... unless I suck it up again then you might see it as soon as this weekend! LOL Good luck! :)

She's Ready for Her Close Up

2010-01-29T14:35:00.000-08:00

My ring that is! (50 foot Bride AKA Miss Sciz is gonna hate that I called my ring she Hahaha!) Many months ago I read this post here on WeddingbeePRO showing you how you can do some nice ring shots with just a point and shoot camera. I wasn't THRILLED with any of them, but I thought I got a few decent ones. I just realized I have NO lighting in my house, it's hard to fill huge vaulted ceilings with no lighting I guess. I will try again another day but here was my first shot at the task...

Have you done a little photoshoot with your ring? Link me to it so I can check out your creative sides when it comes to some amateur photography with a point & shoot.

____ Days of Giveaways!

2010-01-29T13:24:00.000-08:00

So far it's four... that's right FOUR days of giveaways! I'm still in the talks with some people* that might want to donate something to the giveaway we're doing but we shall see... hopefully they will just keep on coming! :) So be sure to check back Monday for Day 1!!

*If you have an Etsy Shop or some type of other craft/business and have something you'd like to donate to the giveaway let me know! I'd love to include you and possibly help you with a little business!!

GIVEAWAY ALERT: I Love Cake!

2010-01-29T11:06:00.000-08:00

I seriously love it... being in LA we have TONS of trendy cupcakerys but one of my favorites is definiately still Sprinkles! When I saw this giveaway hosted by Sonja at "For the Love of Stilettos" I was allll over this giveaway. Sprinkles Cupcake set!

If you head over there be sure to mention that "Laura K AKA Miss Mojito" sent you!

Pictures from Mr. Mojito's first trip to Sprinkles for his Birthday!

GIVEAWAY: The Verdict is In!

2010-01-29T10:54:00.000-08:00

:::Drumroll:::

And the winner...

Of the 250 Custom Sticker/Labels from Uprinting is...

Kelly, AKA KJPugs, from Miss Pugs Pawfect Wedding!

Kelly said she would be using this prize to seal the

cookie favor bags that they are having at their wedding.

Ok seriously, this was the most response I've had so far for a giveaway and I was thrilled, I'm so excited to start a couple new giveaways starting next week or the following for hitting my 100 follower mark! As you can see on my little listing I was putting together as I read through the comments there was a total of 122 entries and Kelly was the lucky winner with entry #14!

Thank ya'll for participating and keep followin' because I will be having a couple of giveaways starting up VERY soon!

Last call!

2010-01-29T04:00:00.000-08:00

You are cutting it close! If you haven't entered my giveaway for 250 custom stickers/labels you better do it here now... drawing ends today at 12:00 PM (EST)

More E-Pix [2 of 2]

2010-01-28T05:00:00.001-08:00

So some of you had asked why I took more engagement pix. As most of you know we took our original pix with our Wedding Photographer at Angel's Stadium back in September. I love our e-pix there don't get me wrong. But I also wanted some nice pix of us... some where we aren't in jeans, jersey's, and playing around ya know? And that's exactly what I got with these pictures.

Here are the other half of some of my faves that I wanted to share with you.

*All photos done by Doreen Marino. Editing done by her or myself (which I used Picnik and was so happy with the results!)

Don't forget!

2010-01-28T05:00:00.000-08:00

I'm hosting a giveaway sponsored by Uprinting for 250 custom labels/stickers... be sure to enter here before Friday!

100 followers!

2010-01-27T16:46:00.000-08:00

I just hit 100 followers this afternoon and I've promised ya'll that once that happened I would bring you another giveaway. I have my Uprinting giveaway already going on this week so expect a giveaway (or two!) going on in the next week or two! Thanks for all of your love and support, I'm so greatful to have so many fabulous readers!

Love,

The Sand Ceremony Dilemma

2010-01-27T10:41:00.000-08:00

I always wanted to do a sand ceremony. The Unity candles were always nice, and I've really fallen in love with the new wine ceremony even. But the sand ceremony seemed like something that went well with our theme of our wedding and it would be something that we could place in our home for years to come as a rememberence of uniting as one.

As time went on I slowly started getting over the idea -- mainly because I already felt that our ceremony could get lengthy and I want to keep it at around 20-25 minutes. Although I'm sure it would only take a minute or two, I just felt we were adding in so many other things already with the readings, communion, etc. That was until this morning when I saw this picture on a friends Facebook page:

Perfect. We are doing two readings at our wedding (which I'm writing a seperate post about), one is just a verse while the other is a short story/poem. I figure that would be perfect for us to do the ceremony possibly during the longer reading.

I still have the thought in my mind that it could be "too much" and I'm adding too many "events" into our ceremony because I definately don't want to overdue it. What do you think? Should I just kick this idea or should I try and roll with it possibly closer to the wedding when our ceremony is more laid out?

More E-Pix [1 of 2]

2010-01-27T05:00:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I promised you some pix and I just realized yesterday that I never got around to showing them to you. One of my readers saw them on Facebook and commented how they never saw them so I thought I would share them with you right now.

I had mentioned in my teaser post that there was a new photographer in my area who wanted to take some pix for her website/portfolio so we met at the Claremont Colleges in Claremont, CA and took some great shots. I'm so happy with Doreen's work and for the price she's charging if you want some pix done in the area let me know, she is soooo fun to work with! So enough jibber jab, here's the pix. Some where her edits, some others were mine... Get ready for some e-pic overload.

Ok I don't want to over do it on the pix in this post so I'm going to show you more in another post!

MAC-up

2010-01-26T17:00:00.000-08:00

There, I said it. You know my addiction. I have pallets and pallets of eye shadow. I don't wear any face makeup except bronzer and the rest is all about the eyes -- I love eyeshadow and especially mascara. When I go out with the girlfriends a lot of times people want me to do their eye makeup and I always get told I do great with my eye makeup. People are often thinking it's a waste for me to even get my make-up done on my wedding day and think I do great and should just do it myself.

I think two things about that... (1) it's my wedding day and I don't want to do crap, I wanna be pampered yo! and (2) my makeup doesn't tend to show up as well in pictures for some reason unless they are pretty close up.

Sidenote for a secret weapon for those of you who want to do your own make-up for the big day. To get your eye makeup to look smooth, bold, and last all day you need this product. Hell, you need this product for any time... it's awesome.

I bring you Urban Decay's Eyeshadow Primer Potion. Put a little of this bad boy on your lids before your eye make up and it makes the color bold and stay all day. I've woken up after a hard night and still have (semi)flawless lids. Just so you know Urban Decay isn't given me crap for telling you this... but if you little Urban Decay online gods are reading this, feel free to send me some free stuff. Thanks.

On to the rest of my post... so I had considered have a Mac girl do my Makeup as I've known a few who can do a fantastic job. But Mac also has a reputation of making some girls look like this:

Now although there was a time where I rocked the eyeshadow on the right, that's definiately not what I want to rock on my wedding day! So I thought the weekend of my bachelorette party (which is also in Newport) I would go test out some ladies at a Mac counter.

Enter friendor D. D got laid off a little over a year ago from her job and wanted a hobby. She got really into make-up, starting going to conventions (even had lunch with some Dior people or something like that), and started taking classes. She even started making her own organic makeup! She talked to me a couple of weeks ago and it brought up an idea. Why am I not going to let her do it? I know she does great makeup, she just finished a bridal makeup class, and she has her own airbrush to make me look shizam on the big day.

Yes, another friendor to get the job done. She's actually going to practice on all of the bridesmaids and myself the weekend of my bachelorette party so I'm really excited about that and will be sure to share pix! She wants to do it free of charge and just be able to use pix for her portfolio so I will probably give her a gift certificate to somewhere that she purchases a lot of her makeup from as a little thank you!

Are you planning on doing your own make-up? Having a friend do it? Or are you hiring a makeup artist?

Flower Selection

2010-01-26T10:12:00.000-08:00

I honestly haven't been this excited since I got engaged. Two Friday's ago Mama Mojito and I met with our florist in Newport Beach and it was awesome! We are getting such great deals and so much more then I ever thought we would be able to get with our budget. Fortunately, our florist needed new signs for her shop and my dad does signs... so he did some signs for her in exchange for making sure my wedding is EXTRA fabulous.

I felt like it was going to be better then ever once she asked if she could use my wedding to enter into the annual florist contest that apparently is nationwide and pretty prestigious. I mean, if she plans on submitting my wedding don't you think she's gonna make sure she doesn't miss a thing?

There are so many flowers going to be involved but here are some of my favorites, not necessarily all in these exact colors if I couldn't find them on google images... but just think bright fuchsias, limes, and tangerine colors!

Fuchsia Peonies - Mostly in my bouquet

Fuchsia and Tangerine Dahlias

Green Cymbidium Orchids - Mostly in my bouquet and then in centerpieces. Also part of Mr. Mojito's bout as well as the moms corsages

Tangerine and Fuchsia Ranunculas (Are these not soooo swoony!)

Green Button Mums

Green Spider Mums

Hot Pink Hydrangias - Mostly filler spots for centerpieces

The pink floral hanging like on this centerpiece will hang a little on the moms corsages as well as on the tall centerpieces

Tea Leaves will be swirled in the tall cylinders in the tall centerpieces. Like it is kinda below but no flowers, just the leaves swirled up the cylinder throughout. Couldn't find a pic executing the vision.

Bear grass coming out of the centerpieces...

And the bridesmaid bouquets will have the loopy tea leaves as well, see how it's done around this bouquet?

As a whole I'm sooooo excited about my flowers. I'm getting all of the flowers I want and I basically told her to just make it look amazing. She knew the flowers, she knew the colors, and I trust her to do the rest!

Here is everything we are getting for our wedding from Jean at LaVonne's Florist:
1 bride bouquet
6 BM bouquets
2 mom corsages
1 groom bout
5 GM bouts
2 dad bouts
2 larger floral arrangements for ceremony
3-5 flower clusters for front windows of ceremony on yacht
aisle pedals
22 centerpieces -- 11 tall, 11 short
flower pedals for cake table and sweetheart table
aisle runner
toss bouquet
...and I'm sure there might be more.

I CAN NOT WAIT to go see all of the flowers in all of their glory on a gorgeous April afternoon on a yacht in Newport!

{CLOSED} GIVEAWAY: Gettin' Sticky Wit It!

2010-01-26T08:25:00.000-08:00

UPDATE 1/29/10: This giveaway is now closed, congrats to our winner Kelly from Miss Pugs Pawfect Wedding!

_______________________________

Uprinting how I adore thee. They have brought my readers another great prize. This time we have stickers! So many things you can use stickers for in your wedding... just think:

Personal Water Bottle Labels

Personal Wine Labels

Favor Boxes

Return Address Labels

Envelope Seals

Get creative!

Here's what you will win:

250 Stickers/Labels for One (1) lucky winner
Sizes: 2x3.5, 2x4, or 3x3
Paper: 70lb Label Matte
Specifications: Full color front, blank back; 4 Business Day printing
Shipping: FREE UPS Ground Shipping
Eligibility: Limited to US Residents only

As always, I will give you numerous ways to enter (12 possible entries!)! Please make sure I have a way to contact you...

(1 entry) Comment below how you would use the stickers or labels.

(1 entry) Become a follower or let me know you are already a follower.

(1 entry) Follow me on Twitter. [@MeSooLaLa]

(2 entries) Tweet this on Twitter: @MeSooLaLa is giving away 250 stickers/labels sponsored by @Uprinting - Enter here: http://ow.ly/10Cm4 - Please RT!"

(2 entries) Mention this giveaway on Facebook and send me link.

(5 entries) Blog about this giveaway and send me link.

Contest ends Friday, January 29.

Winners will be chosen on or before February 1.

*Please note that I will be receiving 250 stickers/labels from Uprinting for hosting this giveaway.

April Showers Bring May Blogs

2010-01-25T16:12:00.001-08:00

One of my favorite Blog designers is April Showers.... and if you become a fan of hers on Facebook by this Friday as well as enough people to hit her 400 fan mark (she's past 350 already!) then she will be giving away 2 - $100 gift certificates towards a blog makeover! I've been dying to win one for my blog I already have ready to go for once my wedding blog ends and I move on to my housewife blog :)

Become a fan here!

Rehearsal Dinner Deets

2010-01-25T15:53:00.000-08:00

I'm actually REALLY excited about our rehearsal dinner. Maybe it's because it's Italian and I'm a sucker for Italian food but I just think it's going to be a fun kickoff to the wedding.

One of the things I quickly learned after booking with my venue was they only would host rehearsals on Tuesday and sometimes Wednesday evenings. Well, since about 75% of my bridal party is out of state that didn't seem like that would work. We would either (a) have to expect them to come to town the whole week which we weren't going to do or (b) have only a few people at the rehearsal which made it seem pointless.

We instantly found Villa Nova (one of our faves!) that is in the same harbor in Newport Beach and thought it would be the perfect spot for a rehearsal dinner. Once we realized we weren't sure what we would do for an actual rehearsal though we kind of put this on the backburner.

I posted a blog one day stating my idea about having the rehearsal run through at a different location and I got positive feedback from all of you. After speaking about it with Katy, my coordinator, she thought it would be totally fine. So we decided that myself, Mr. Mojito, probably Mama Mojito, and Katy would go do the rehearsal run through at the venue the previous week. Katy would take notes, pictures, whatever she feels necessary. We will then actually hold the rehearsal at Villa Nova!

In-Law Mojitos put a deposit down on the banquet room that they have at Villa Nova. When we went last week and saw the banquet room it was set up perfectly for us to visualize it. The room was only half filled with tables to seat 32 (we are expecting about 28 so it was perfect) and the other half was available for us to put a dance floor, more tables, whatever. We instantly thought it was the perfect space for us to be able to do a walk through of the ceremony. So that's what we're doing -- it's different, but it will give everyone a basic idea of what we are doing for our ceremony.

So today I decided I was going to design some menus and invitations for the rehearsal dinner but wanted to check out Vistaprint's selection first to see if maybe there were some pre-made templates that I enjoyed that I could use without all the sweat and tears of designing something. I found something that was part of our ocean theme and I really loved it as did Mr. Mojito so we're going with it...

I ordered the custom matching envelopes rather then white ones to go with it for that extra touch. Since I only was ordering 20 of them I thought we could have the extra stuff and have a return address already put on them. I might even purchase a turquoise or orange paper to do liners because I always wanted to and never had the opportunity.

I also designed a menu that we picked out for the day of the dinner and ordered those for everyone's place settings as well...

I should have them in a little over a week so once I receive all of the projects I will be sure to review them and let you know how it all came out here on the blog!

82 Days To Go & I Feel Good!

2010-01-25T15:09:00.000-08:00

I have my morning ritual when I get into work. I open my email and read whatever emails I haven't read on the way to work thus far. Once I reply to the ones that need to be replied to ASAP I sign into three things -- Twitter (actually I use HootSuite which is AWESOME), Facebook, and Blogger. I've now gotten in the habit of going straight to my Facebook profile to see my wedding countdown and I just couldn't believe I was at 82 today! I think last time I gave you my number it was 100 and it's already been 20 days practically since then.

Friday was pretty much awesome, I met my wedding coordinator Katy from Katy Carrier Events and I felt awesome leaving her that afternoon. We met at my venue so she had a feel of what she is working with and then we went to lunch for a couple of hours after to chat about some of the details. Katy is heaven sent let me tell you. I can tell she's awesome at what she does and is on top of it. If you are in the LA, OC, or IE area let me know and I will send you a referrel! She will help you with design, projects, timeline, anything and everything you want help with! I'm so blessed to have found her through Weddingbee because without her it would have been me and my mom trying to handle things the day of the wedding. And we are big stress bombs. So we did NOT need to be dealing with this on the big day. I feel so much at ease already and I know she's going to execute everything x100.

I was excited because I also got Mr. Mojito to make some decisions on Groomsman gifts. So he has that all figured out. He is getting them the cuff links that match the Bridesmaid necklaces that I'm getting them:

The necklaces came in on Saturday and Mr. Mojito will be ordering his cuff links he said next paycheck. He is also going to be giving them real boomerangs that he bought them while we were in Australia last Spring (way to think ahead Mr. M!), and then some cigars as well as a personalized cigar case. He really wants the cigar shots:

For my girls I'm really stuck still on what I want to get them. I have these big tote bags that I got that I want to fill so someone told me I should do beach bags which I think would go good with the theme so I'm going to stay on the lookout for that. Then I will also put the necklace in there and whatever else I can think of. Any other ideas ladies?

We also got all of our rehearsal dinner stuff figured out which I will save for another post.

And the best part of the whole weekend: I GOT MY WEDDING DRESS!

Next on our to-do list: MUSIC PLAYLIST!!

Tear Jerker

2010-01-21T12:18:00.000-08:00

I saw these for the first time at a wedding last summer and thought they were so cute. They were done totally differently and it wasn't until the past month or two I've been seeing people make these a lot. They are the little tissue packs for the ceremony. Once again, a DIY project that is so not necessary but is also such a cute detail, cheap, AND EASY.

The most recent ones I saw were of Bee's here . She did such a great job and am using her same idea for mine. Here is Bee's finished project that was on her blog:

Cute right? Here are the things you need to accomplish this DIY project:

Glassine Envelopes (I purchased 100 on eBay for $6.50 and that was including shipping)
Pocket tissue packs
Ribbon (you don't have to use it, just for some extra color)
Labels to seal envelopes ("For Tears of Joy", etc.)

These are the size of the envelopes I purchased and I put two tissues in each envelope. The tissues are a perfect fit:

It seriously was as easy as 1... 2... 3...

To stuff fifty of them it took me maybe 20 minutes or so. I have all of the ribbon pre-cut at 7 inches to wrap around and stick under the edges of the label. Once I make the label I will follow the rest of the tutorial that was on Bee's blog. Remember, you don't have to make a ton of them because not everyone will take one and it will most likely be women or friends that like "wedding souveniers". What? Am I the only one that takes EVERYTHING possible at a wedding? Haha

What was the easiest DIY project you've encountered so far?