October 23, 2008 |
| Pro Photos! |
Hello... sorry for the lapse in blog entries. As you may have guessed, the wedding pace has slowed almost to a halt, so it's been a little tough to tie up all of the loose ends. Torrey and I are plugging away, happy to be newlyweds. We are still caught off guard when we refer to each other as husband and wife (whoa- see? It just happened again), and I'm currently in between names, waiting for the paperwork to go through. But enough of that, let's get to the fun stuff! Tiffany Atlas of Atlas Wedding Photography took our photos, and we love love love them! She and her assistant did such a great job capturing the day, keeping so many pictures natural and relaxed. The photos can currently be found online by going to: www.pictage.com/557961I believe you will need to sign the guest book to view the event. Hope you enjoy!!! As we are now living "in wedded bliss," I think it's time to wrap up the Lauren & Torrey blogging. I hope you all enjoyed the journey leading up to the wedding, as well as the fantastic day. Love you all!
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September 26, 2008 |
| We Did It!!!! |
Hi everyone! Torrey and I are back from our honeymoon, and just getting settled back into our routine. The last couple of weeks just feels like a haze- we have had such an amazing, overwhelming, and happy time! It just flew by. We want to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts for coming to the wedding and helping make it such a wonderful day. I hope you had as much fun as we did! We had some minor technical difficulties in the day (ahem, first raindrop at 5pm on the dot? How does that happen??) , but everything was still fantastic! The honeymoon was also sooo incredible. Saint Lucia is a beautiful place, and we packed in as much fun and relaxation as we could in 8 days! I'll be happy to tell everyone about all of the details... perhaps in a future blog entry. In the meantime, it's time to get down to business. Hopefully, you were able to pick up a favor box at the end of the night for the candy buffet. If not, I can fill you in. The favor box had a card with instructions on how to share your digital photos from the wedding. Some have already uploaded some fun pictures. If you have some pictures you would like to share, here is the upload information: * Log into http://www.photobucket.com/login* Username: laurenandtorrey * Password: tarallilove If you are just interested in looking at the photos that others have shared, our lovely friend Abbie just let us know that you don't need to log in to view the photos. Just go directly to the website http://s295.photobucket.com/albums/mm143/LaurenandTorrey/ and view the wedding pics. I will add some photos that our fantastic photographer friend Erin Gleeson took to the website today... they are just gorgeous! Next order of business- honeymoon photos! They are ready to go, and uploaded into a Kodak gallery. To view, go to http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=c4xh5ep8.cqqa0ak4&Uy=j27bi4&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=49604996849_588812640308&localeid=en_US. Enjoy! Finally, wanted to let you know that the pro pics (taken by the fabulous Tiffany Atlas and her assistant) will be ready within the next few weeks. I will write another post with instructions to view or order the professional photos when they are ready. Phew, I think that's about it for now! Again, thank you all for your love and support. We had such a beautiful day thanks to all of you!!!
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September 9, 2008 |
| Hello, Anxiety. Pleasure to meet you. I'm Lauren. |
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My hair if it rains on Saturday :)
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As you might guess from the post's title, Anxiety hit this morning at about 9:45. Strange how sudden it came! I think the combination of a few things led me to have this involuntary foot-tap that hasn't gone away since that unwelcome guest Anxiety came knocking on my door. The first thing is that I'm at work. Being 4 days away from the Big (gigantic, important, long-planned) Day and being stuck in a cubicle could make anyone bounce off the walls. Another problem is the stupid weather report. At the moment, Saturday's weather is a toss-up. If you've ever, um, glanced at me before, you know that my hair won't react well in the rain :) Plus I had such a beautiful picture in my head of a rooftop ceremony. It could still happen, but the thought of it not happening has been making me crazy. Finally, NYC is plagued with a huge thunderstorm today. We have people finally starting to fly in today, but that's not gonna happen if the weather won't take it easy. Aack! Although I'm freaking out a little bit, don't worry people, the wedding's still on. If our guests need to rent a car to get here, if we need to have the ceremony inside with my puffball hair, if I'm even stuck at work extra this week, we're still gettin' hitched in 4 days. And it will be a great time. So hold your horses, Anxiety... you are not invited to the upcoming festivities!
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September 3, 2008 |
| Once again... |
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Hoping for this weather on the 13th!
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...woo hoo! Only 10 days to go, and I'm getting more excited every day! I'm telling you, at this rate, I will be skipping instead of walking everywhere I go by next week! We have been working super hard to get everything together, and we are wrapping things up all over the place. We finished the ceremony programs, purchased the candy for the candy buffet, painted more grass (it never ends), and finalized some small details with our vendors. Things are looking pretty good! We will be in Colorado over the weekend for my 10 year high school reunion, and I'm thinking that lots of these little things are completed, so we won't need to obsess about them, and we can just enjoy the weekend. Phew! I will say, there is one thing that I'm already starting to obsess over. As of tomorrow, September 13th will be in the 10 day weather forecast. The remnants of Hurricane Hanna will be hitting NYC this weekend, which hopefully means that the 13th will be spectacular and sunny. I can promise that I will be compulsively checking the weather until then! Plus, to top it off, we are going to the Caribbean for our honeymoon. On the 14th. The technical hurricane season peak is September 10th. Yeaaaahhhh, that scares me. But there's really nothing we can do about it at this point, so I keep reminding myself that I need to try to push those worries out of my head. The keyword here is "try" :) I will do my best to write one or two more blog entries before the Big Day, so keep checking back. I hope you are ready for a fun time! The countdown is really official now... 10...
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August 26, 2008 |
| I can't believe it, but... |
Everything is coming together! We might actually pull this thing off. I'm sure you were all confident in this, but I wasn't . However, the last of our do-it-yourself wedding projects are scheduled to be completed this week, and we are just in the mode of wrapping things up with organization and getting in touch with our vendors. My dress and accessories are all complete and in my hands, and we are picking up Torrey's fabulous tux from alterations this week. It's all working out, and I'm in disbelief! I've heard that many brides have a complete breakdown about three weeks before the wedding. The perfect breakdown story is in the blog I read all the time, from a bride in San Fransisco (you can read it here: http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/07/14/a-puffy-eyed-meltdown/ ). This bride loses it in a shoe repair shop. It's funny, endearing, and sad all at once. So... I've been anticipating my big breakdown. As those of you who have met me probably know, I'm a little on the high-strung, type-A, unnecessarily-worrying side. As a result, I've been bracing for the meltdown. Getting all this stuff together has been very stressful, but I've handled it so far. It's kind of strange, really... me? Keeping it all calm, cool, and collected? Weird. So anyway, I'm braced for the meltdown. I'll send an update if it does happen, and if it doesn't, that deserves a post even more. Ha. 18 days and counting!!!!!
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August 13, 2008 |
| Maawwwaaage |
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Wuv, Twue Wuv...
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This entry (titled with a reference to the fantastic movie The Princess Bride) is about the big difference between a wedding and marriage. Our wedding is only a month away from today, and Torrey and I have spent a ton of time and energy planning to have a wonderful wedding day. But even with all of the thought put into the wedding, the other day I was thinking, and I just got floored with the thought that in a few weeks, we will be married!!! Whoa. While the point of a wedding is to end up married, it is easy to get lost in wedding details and forget about the marriage, which happens every single day for the rest of one's life. I know a lot of people think that if couples spent half as much time working on their wedding as they did their marriage, there would be a lot more successful marriages. I can certainly understand this point of view- I saw a wedding show the other day where the bride was so lost in wedding details that she actually yelled at her husband during the recessional (!), telling him to slow down. I can't imagine this couple living a long and happy life married if she is already criticizing him within 30 seconds of being pronounced man and wife!! With Torrey and I, it's a little hard to explain, but our relationship has never felt like work. This quality of our relationship has made the marriage part of the wedding the least of my wedding worries! I may question my choice of dress, colors, or location, but I never question my choice of groom. I think we both feel the need to be worried about wedding details because we don't feel the need to be worried about becoming married to each other. When I think about the fact that I will be married in a month, I'm shocked at first, but that is quickly followed by so much excitement... I can't wait to be Mrs. Lauren Taralli!
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August 4, 2008 |
| It's getting closer! |
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Wouldn't it be nice to be a Zen Bride?
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I can't believe the Big Day is only 40 days away! Excitement is winning right now, with Stress following as a close second, followed by Frustration, Happiness, then maybe Stress's fraternal twin, Nerves. If you haven't done so yet, please don't forget to mail us the RSVP cards. Not only will this help us a great deal in our planning of seating arrangements, etc., but it's also so fun to get a new one in the mail! As far as progress is concerned, we knocked stuff off of our to-do list like crazy last weekend, completing a bunch of DIY projects and picking up a few needed wedding day items. This week, we are working on our ceremony wording, and beginning to schedule all of our big vendor meetings. If you want to get a better feel for how it's been going, here's a short description of why I go through such mixed feelings these days. Positive: we are getting a fabulous deal on a gorgeous Hugo Boss tux for Torrey. Yay! Negative: I am SO close to my goal weight, but I just can't seem to get there, as all I want to do is eat, eat, eat. Boo! Positive: we finished our cupcake stand, and it's Martha-Stewart-Eat-Your-Heart-Out. Yay! Negative: we couldn't find the matching ribbon we needed this weekend, and if we have to go ribbon shopping again, I might just strangle someone with the stupid ribbon. Boo! Anyway, you probably get the point. It has its ups and downs, but I'm sure that all of this work will pay off in the end. I always remind myself about what the day is truly about: Torrey and I sharing our joy with our family and friends. That always makes me breathe a sigh of relief.
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July 22, 2008 |
| It's time for... |
... another news story that I hope won't happen to us! Enjoy. Bare-bottom bride sues dress designerCHIAVARI, Italy, July 7 (UPI) -- A woman said she is suing her Italian wedding dress designer after the nearly $4,000 garment fell apart at the altar, exposing her bottom to her guests.
The bride, 30, said her wedding day in Chiavari, Italy, went down the tubes because of faulty sewing on her dress, The Telegraph reported Monday.
The woman's lawyer, Alberto Figone, said his client's wedding was ruined and it "turned out to be the worst" day of her life.
"She was left extremely embarrassed because the stitching of her dress came apart at the altar, slid down and revealed her bottom to the whole congregation," he said.
The woman is seeking about $40,000 from the designer for "moral damages as well as financial damages," the newspaper said.
Since the woman's 2006 wedding took place, she and her husband have separated, The Telegraph said.
(Source: upi.com)
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July 15, 2008 |
| Hope you got your invitation! |
Hello again... I'm hoping you have received your invite, and it came in one piece! It was nervewracking to drop those things off at USPS. All of that work with the hand-painting, gluing ribbons, and sending to a calligrapher had to be trusted in the hands of a disgruntled postal worker. Yikes. But they are out, and let me tell you, I had no idea how exciting it would be to open the mailbox each day and see those green RSVP envelopes. It's actually really fun, and it's not just my dorky self- Torrey thinks it's fun too! Hmmm, so what have we been doing lately? Well, still plugging away at all of the planning. We figured out the tux rental situation this weekend, and we built a big ol' three-tiered stand for our cupcake tower (yes, there will be cupcakes, and no, we are not letting the beauty of a wedding cake sway us from the deliciousness of the cupcakes we selected). Then, I took a break while Torrey waited in line for **four and a half hours** for an IPhone. As you might have guessed, he really wanted one! I'm going to try to keep posting as often as possible. In the meantime, feel free to contact us if you have any questions about your travel plans. 60 days- woo hoo!
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July 7, 2008 |
| It's getting closer! |
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The path of the Water Taxi to Ikea
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... and it's getting more and more nerve-wracking/exciting! We are fast approaching the Big Day, and I can't wait, although the wedding anxiety dreams are kicking in. Usually the dreams have to do with the wedding going well, but then all of these components (first dance, cake cutting) are forgotten due to lack of planning, and on the honeymoon, we get really upset that we missed stuff that was important to us. Doh. Thankfully these are dreams, and we still have 68 solid days to work out any kinks! Last weekend was extremely productive. We are ready to send out invitations, which is very exciting! You all should be getting them soon. We also picked up a bunch of materials to continue work on all of our little projects, most of which are going well. We went to the new Ikea in Brooklyn yesterday, which was actually really fun, since we took the Water Taxi to get there. We got some great views of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Governor's Island (including those weird man-made waterfalls) while we rode the boat to the store. Very cool. Hope you are looking forward to September! Please let us know if you have any trouble booking travel. I hope that your booking process goes smoothly (don't forget about the loads of help posted in the Travelers link, including hotel room codes for the group rates), and I am excited to see you all soon!
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2008
Pro Photos!
September (3)