A 7 day cruise to Mexico.

After much deliberation, threads on Facebook with many good words of wisdom, back and forths about All-inclusive resorts in Costa Rica, doing it on our own in Belize, even a 45 minute call with a booking agent today trying to sort out a trip to Hawaii…we finally made up our collective minds, and booked a cruise to Mexico.

The reasons are the following:

a) I love cruises, and Mick has never been on one

b) I love the idea of already having most of the trip payed for…with the exception of excursions and booze.

c) The cost was the deciding factor. With the debt that will no doubt follow the wedding…the last thing I want to do is drop a bunch of money we dont have on a trip that wasn’t our first choice. I believe I mentioned it before, but our original plan, Thailand, was thwarted by civil unrest in the country. Now we can save for THAT trip…maybe for our 1 year anniversary.

d) C’mon…it’s Mexico!!

We will be porting in Cabo, Mazatlan and Puerta Vallarta, and I can’t wait!

As Mick said…we have our whole life to vacation, and hit up the other locations that we had considered…this choice just makes sense now.

Soooo..Hooray for honeymoon cruises!!

(added bonus, we will also be on the cruise for my birthday. Thats twice the celebration!)

Wedding transportation has been on my mind, seeing as though I’m 1.5 months away from needing to figure out how to get from one place to another.

Let me break it down for you and maybe you can help.

1)We are getting married at Venue.

2)We are getting ready at, and staying at Hotel.

3) Hotel and Venue are 0.7 miles away from each other. Its a 4 minute drive.

Soooo…how do we get from Hotel to Venue? How do we transport the bridal party and the dudes? Do we let the guests fend for themselves? It is a hotel after all, I’m guessing that cabs are a plenty.

This is what I’m thinking, and I want an opinion as to what you see being the best option.

I can likely find a limo rental to take us from the Hotel to Venue. They can pick up the dudes or ladies (depending on who needs more time taking photos AT the Venue), drop them off, and go back to the hotel to do round 2.

But…a limo is fun, we can drink champagne, etc…but for 4 minutes? Then the 2nd round has a dirty limo? Is it even worth it? Do we just get a friend or family member to caravan us over and save the money? I’m afraid that I wont find a limo company that will rent for 1 hour, and we will likely end up paying the 2-3 hour minimum.

Do I go limo? Old-timey car that only fits a few of us? Shuttle bus that can take all the people from the hotel?

I also need to think ahead to the way back from Venue to Hotel. I think that a cab pick up is the best idea there, though i lose that cool photo of us getting into a vehicle, and waving goodbye. These are the things I’m thinking about. What would YOU do?

No real pedicabs in downtown Oakland

Maybe we hot-air balloon up out of there? (image via bridezilla)

Big red truck anyone? (image via ruffled blog)

We are getting married in Lake Merritt. Maybe we kayak it? (image by Aubin Ahrens Photography)

Too bad Oakland doesn't have a subway system (image via green-weddings.net)

Or we could just take a van...

At least I felt like I was there only a minute. Last week I went on my first “business” trip. I use the word business lightly, because while it was for work, and for a client, I got to fly to New York to hang out with a Bridal Blogger, and do a media tour discussing how to do a wedding on a budget.

We went on behalf of  RetailMeNot.com, and she got to speak with 27 different stations talking about her tips for saving money on your wedding day, one of them of course being to look for online coupons. And after talking about everything that I’ve been obsessing about anyway (my wedding planning), I got to meet a good friend for lunch.  I did all of this in 2 days. I flew out of SFO Wednesday morning, and flew back Thursday night. I was exhausted, but it was super fun, and if my office ever needs to fly me out for work again…I’m game.

You should definitely check out The Budget Savvy Bride. Jessica knows her stuff, and she is super sweet and cute to boot. You can check out one of the newscasts she got to do on her blog here. You can also check out the live in-person one she got to do as well in Nashville here.

well, not really. If you consider choosing where we go for our honeymoon a tough decision. Its a fun one, but important none the less…especially considering you only get one (hopefully).

Our original plan was as follows. Get away for a little weekend after the honeymoon, maybe head to Sea Ranch or somewhere cute. Then save money and head to Thailand, when its not the rainy season, around February or March. However, we are currently re-thinking this plan, especially with all of the drama going on in Thailand. Sure we could just stay on the beaches…but I want to go where the culture is. I want to head to Chang Mai, and Bangkok, and see all I can. Especially if I’m paying for a trip out there. So…plans are changing.

I have asked many friends for advice as to where THEY went and think we should go..and the responses have been great. Aruba, Barbados, Jamaica, Tahiti, Bora Bora, the options seem limitless. We are getting married in August, and now it looks like we aren’t going to wait till next year to go. We might actually just head out the week of my birthday in September. Sooner than later sounds good to me!! But, the Caribbean is rainy season during that time. Apparently Barbados and Aruba are slightly off the hurricane belt, so those are considerations.  There is also the Mexican Riviera, but those locations are in the Gulf, and with the current state of oil in the Gulf, not sure that’s an ideal location either.

However, I’ve always wanted to head to Costa Rica. Not on the Gulf side, not hurricane season, and we found a lovely all inclusive hotel that includes food, drink, all non-motor water sports, and more!! This site ResortVacationsToGo.com is pretty rad. I think that this is where we are leaning. Its too bad we didn’t think of this a little earlier, as I would have used one of the registry sites like Honeyfund or something similar and registered for a honeymoon. Looks like we are on our own. I am now in love with the idea of going on a honeymoon soon after the wedding…and enjoying the new wedded bliss. Why wait!

So I mentioned that I have talented friends right? Well its a good thing that one of them is my wedding photographer. During our trip to NOLA, we embarked on our photo journey, finding textured walls, cool vines, and letting Eray do what she wanted. I’m so glad we let her have control. We saw the whole set of edited lovelies today…though I can’t post them because they are in a locked album in the tubes of the internet. I can however post this sneak peek that she sent us. This is a small portion of the beauty that she produced for us…but you get the gist. She works magic.

When we got back from NOLA, a friend of mine linked me to a picture on JamBase of Mick and I at Jazz Fest, holding up a Crawfish Monica. I remember the guy taking it, but for it to show up on a music blog…that’s funny.

(more…)

So many photos to share, and so many stories…but I thought I would start off with the first one. Lets start at the very beginning, its a very good place to start.

The adventure started off a little late. We spent most of Wednesday traveling, and then when we were in Dallas for our 3 hour layover, at the end of it they told us that the flight to NOLA was oversold, and asked if anyone was willing to give up their seat for a voucher. So we had 2 choices…we either get in at 8:50 as planned…or wait another 3 hours at the airport and get in at 11:20, and get a $300 voucher for a future flight. Sold. We can now plan our next vacation accordingly.

So we fly in to NOLA at 11:20 and our dear friend ERay (and host for the week) picked us up and immediately took us to a drive-thru daiquiri shop. This is something I am NOT familiar with at all…being from California, we have rules about these things…they are called DUI’s, open-container, whatever…but in Louisiana, you can drive around with a daiquiri you purchase like fast food. They expect you to not drink it…but I wasn’t driving, so after a long day of travel, I dove right in. 32oz of cold, frozen goodness. I think I got a pina colada/crawgator combo…per the lady’s suggestion. (more…)

a few pounds heavier (the food was insane)…a lot more exhausted (the night life ruled)…but more cultured, experienced, and definitely with more room to boogie. There is never enough dancing in New Orleans.

I am going to upload a bunch of photos tonight, and share stories as I go…but I’m still wading through piles of work that were waiting for me to get back.

I’ll let you wait and check out some of my iPhone photos that I already uploaded…Hipstamatic at its finest. Love it. This one is from one of the many awesome cemeteries. The Hipstamatic prints looked awesome from there. Click through to go to the set.

I can’t remember the last time I was so excited for a vacation. Sure, when I visit Southern California, its nice to get away and see family and friends…but I’ve done that before. Even when I go back east to NY. Done that before too.  This time is different. I get to go and visit a city rife with history, a city I’ve never visited before…and a city that will be booming with great music the whole time I’m there.

I’ve never been to New Orleans. Its always been on top of my list. I can’t wait to hang out with friends, and dance my face off. Not doing all things Jazz Fest, but enough to get a taste. Check out the city, drive thru daiquiri’s and fried alligator.

Two days of work this week…and we are on our way on Wednesday. I’m sure there will be a ton of pictures to follow.

Even better…is the fact that I’ve been watching what might be my new favorite show on TV…and its getting me even MORE pumped to get there.

Have you seen Treme? If you haven’t..its the best show on HBO that you aren’t watching. In the first 5 minutes of the first episode, they had one of my favorite horn bands, Rebirth Brass Band, cruising the streets. In the 2 episodes that I’ve watched….too much good music to count. From Kermit Ruffins, to Galactic, and Elvis Costello being in both episodes, the list goes on. And the fact that we can go see these bands live…in NOLA…is huge. Granted, I’ve seen many of them live before…but I want to be totally immersed in it.

Eray, our wedding photographer, and NOLA native, will also be taking our engagement shots while we are out there…so thats pretty sweet too.

After Wednesday, I will be computer-less…we are going SANS computers, which is pretty big for neither of us to take one. I mean…I’ll have my iPhone, but I know I won’t be updating the blog from it. For all my readers…I’ll report back. I promise.

Well, not just yet any way, but I finally made the commitment that I’ve been avoiding for many years in the past. Sure the idea of New Orleans Jazz Fest has always been appealing, but money has always been the issue. This year I said screw it, and 10 minutes ago, I just purchased a ticket to New Orleans. I am soooo excited! I’ve never been before, and I figured my first time, I should make it for something special. 4 days of live music sounds special to me!

It doesn’t hurt that our wedding photographer and good friend Eray (one and the same) lives there, and just started leasing a place with a hot tub. Maybe we will take our engagement shoots in NOLA. What an amazing backdrop that would be!

I can’t wait to have a vacation in a new city surrounded by friends, amazing food, and more music than I know what to do with. I don’t know if I can wait till the end of April!!