When Ben and I decided to start planning the wedding, we only knew one thing – we had to ask our bridal party in an epic way. I mean, these are our BFFs (best friends forever for those of you who didn’t grow up in the 80s or 90s)… it HAD to be unique. Ben was the first one to come up with something just epic (I mean seriously EPIC – look at his post). I knew I could never match it, but nonetheless I came up with something uber-fun and memorable. I wanted to give the girls a lil something to let them know just how much they each meant to me. After hunting and searching I finally found the perfect little trinket to present to my ah-mazing girls – custom bridal party necklaces from Dogeared Jewels & Gifts.
I took two of them and my Mama to Narcisse Lounge for afternoon champagne to ask them if they would stand with me on our wedding day. (Note: Alex I had to ask earlier since she dwells in a little place called Cali-for-nia) It was the BEST. My graphically-inclined lil fiancé even made these awesome lil cards ‘o’ joy for all of the girls’ giftys – isn’t he awesome? Luckily, all of them said yes… whew! I can’t wait for wedding day… Not only to finally marry to the g33kiest and awesomest (yes, that is a word) man I know, but to spend the day with my three ladies – Courtney (Sister and Maid of Honor), Alex (BFF and Bridesmaid), and Victoria (BFF and Bridesmaid).
Lindsay | March 26th, 2011
When it came time to pick my groomsmen it was a really tough decision. I’ve been lucky enough to have so many close friends throughout my life I wanted them all standing up there next to me on our big day. After some serious debating, Lindsay and I decided that we would each have a total of six people in our bridal party – three on each side. Once I knew I could only choose three friends, it was clear who the invites were going out to.
I cannot even begin to describe the amount of hours during high school that JD, Ryan, Mike and myself put into GoldenEye on Nintendo 64. We played enough that we each had our own colored controller (complete with nicknames). It almost became a ritual for all of us to come home from school on Friday and begin playing, only to see the light of day on late Sunday afternoon. I really wanted to put together invites that were not only creative, but had some meaning behind them – so I felt it was more than appropriate to send the fellas all their respective controllers as the official invite to the bridal party.
Ben | March 26th, 2011
I just finished watching a brilliant and inspiring speech Jack Dorsey gave to the assembled staff at his new mobile payments startup, Square. As a lover of all things design related I thought this quote was fantastic:
And that’s really what it comes down to … we want to design the beautiful and build the impossible.
And a lot of people think of design, when they hear the word design as visual, something that looks pretty. Design is not just visual, design is efficiency. Design is making something simple. Design is epic. Design is making it easy for a user to get from point A to point B.
Engineering is design. Every engineer in this room, every operator in this room, every customer service agent in this room, is a designer. Because you’re designing constantly the interaction that you have with your tools or with your users or with your customers, and you’re trying to bring efficiency and take all the thinking out of that process.
So, everything we do here is design. We always want to make the beautiful — to this point — Keith, two minutes before I was supposed to start this Town Square, told me, stop. I’ve got a mistake in my slides, I forgot to capitalize an “S”. I swear. That level of perfection is what we wanna achieve, because if we achieve that level of perfection — it’s gonna take a long time to do that, a lot of hours — but then our users see it immediately, without thinking. And that’s the important part. That’s what design is.
Ben | March 24th, 2011
We couldn’t wait to send out STDs to everyone – and by that we mean our “Save The Dates”. After spending countless hours online looking at different designs, Lindsay and I decided we really wanted to do something different. So we pulled together all our favorite picks and got down and dirty in photoshop.
We took our design down to a local shop that had been highly recommended – PaperCrazy. They were fantastic! After picking out some uber-awesome shimmery paper and wicked envelopes (no really, “wicked green”) we were off and running. Two weeks later we had them in our hands and they looked even better than we imagined.
Ben | March 23rd, 2011
We started planning and thinking of getting married before the day of Ben’s official proposal. He wanted us to design my engagement ring together (yes, he’s amazing). We went to Glenna Gibbons of G.G. Gems located in Scottsdale – and she is incredibly fantastic! We started looking around for designs that we liked and worked with Glenna to come up with something no one else would have – that was still classically simple. From there, we spent an afternoon looking at diamonds deciding which one would be ‘the one’. It started with the CAD drawings and ended with the perfect ring, perfect proposal and best day yet. Everyday I look at my ring I can’t help but smile and think about all of the planning and love that went into it, it’s perfect.
Lindsay | March 22nd, 2011
It’s official… We’re engaged! Ben completely surprised me, I had NO idea. Here’s how it all went down…
Ben came home on Thursday after a long day of work and told me his boss had given him Friday off (what a nice boss). I was surprised and just glad we got to spend the day together. I had planned on spending the day with my mama (who was in on the whole ninja-mission) and called her to ask her if we could reschedule. Of course she said okay. I asked Ben what he wanted to do and he said hike Camelback – rain or shine – he needed some ‘zen time’. It was a little odd since we NEVER hike in the rain, but I thought okay!
The next morning we woke up (early!) and headed out to Camelback – Echo Canyon side. I missed breakfast and Ben stopped to grab some protein bars claiming I had to eat. Again, not something he’s usually SO concerned about, but I didn’t even begin to suspect. We got to the mountain and headed up, stopping along the way and taking our time. Ben brought the camera and the big Camelpack (again not something we ever do) and once we reached the top he asked me to take some pictures. I started snapping shots and looked around to see Ben had snuck away off to a secluded area at the top. I headed over to him, thinking nothing of it and we looked over the side. Ben looked at me and said “one more thing before we start heading down.” That’s when he got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. It was the best moment of my life – by far. I cried, and I rarely cry… and Ben teared up (even though he might not admit to it).
We found some people to snap a shot of us (see below) and headed back down the mountain – don’t worry I took the ring off for the hike down. Ben had the BEST day planned for us. After the hike we went to our favorite breakfast place, Daily Dose. We called our family on the way home, spent the day together, and ended the day at The Herb Box – where we had our first date. I can’t remember a more perfect day… Although I’m sure our wedding day will give it a run for it’s money. It really was the best day of my life… so far.
Lindsay | March 22nd, 2011
Oh… hello there! We’re Ben and Lindsay and this is our first official entry as a couple in the world ‘o’ blogosphere. We thought it would be fun to chronicle our life adventure together and decided there was no better time to start then now – during our wedding planning fiesta!
Aside from getting to know two of the most amazing g33ks over the next few months you will get a sneak peek into the creativity, love, and silliness that is our planning fun. Here we’ll share everything (well, mostly everything) that is going into our celebration – from the save the dates to “we do”… It will all be here in a nugget (okay, technically blog) of goodness just for you!
Lindsay & Ben | March 22nd, 2011