Limoneira J&K

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Remember last week when I told you guys that I coordinated a dear friends wedding. Well the photographer, Nick Charrow, was on top of his game a released a sneak peak on his website. The photo's are awesome!!! I still feel blessed and honored to help be a part of this special and magical day! Check out the photo's and give Nick some love!

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The one who is a wedding coordinator

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Woowza! What a whirlwind weekend it was. I am still recovering and it's Wednesday! This weekend was my first official duty as being a day of wedding coordinator. What does this entail? Running the rehearsal, set up day of decor, coordinating vendors, dealing with any issues and making sure the wedding stays on schedule. If you recall on Friday I was off to run the rehearsal dinner. I thought this would be a little harried, but thankfully all but two people had been in weddings previously! Whew! Everyone pretty much knew what to do and how to stand. Easy for me, especially because I needed to gather my scattered thoughts to align with the task at hand, as opposed to the task on Sunday. Details were spinning through my head. After an hour everyone was good as rehearsed. The bridal party, friends, family and myself (yay) went to a local Chinese restaurant and gorged on orange chicken and toasted to the couple. I got to hang out with my dear friends Mr. and Mrs. A and their cutie pie daughter. It was wonderful to be included in this whole event and be treated like family with them. I feel like they are an extension of my own family and am so happy for the couple!

Sunday was the big day. I got up bright and early to make sure I looked decent for the whole day. Er....well my hair had fallen flat by the time the sun went down, but really that's not any big surprise. I didn't need to look pretty, right! Once on site I got straight to work pulling out all the decor, making sure everything was there. I spent the next couple of hours staging and getting everything set for the bride and groom. I neglected to take finished photos because it was ceremony time, guests were arriving and I needed to head out to the ceremony site to make sure everything started on time.....which it did! Shocker!!! Even my own wedding didn't start on time! Hopefully I can link you to the photographers site when the photos are up with detail shots. I'm excited to see everything.

Everything went according to plan, except for a couple of seating snafus, some broken glass on the dance floor, and some last minute time adjustments. When does any wedding go exactly to plan?! The thing that was the coolest was the sparkler send off (which we did early to get a good crowd and great photos) The gifts were picking citrus in the orchard (the venue was a huge lemon orchard and it was gorgeous!) The bride and groom danced until the very last song and were just so grateful that their family and friends came out to celebrate them. I am so glad I was able to help give them their fairytale wedding and to make sure that their day ran as smoothly and stress free as possible.

Congratulations to the new Mr. and Mrs. G!!!!

Stay tuned for update photo's when I can get access to them!

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Coordinating and Coordination

Hi my lovelies! I just wanted to drop a quick line and apologize for my absence the last couple of days. This weekend is going to be a little hectic! I am helping a friend with her wedding. I will be assisting with the rehearsal tonight, and doing all of the set up on Sunday at a beautiful location in Ventura County.

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I am excited, yet a little nervous! I have planned many parties before so it should be cake, but this is someones wedding! I just can't wait to see them all dolled up, and the flower girl, you may remember her from this post, is going to be just dahling! Hopefully I can get on and plow out some posts tomorrow while the hubby is at work....in between cleaning and working out. I will let you all know how it goes! Happy Friday!

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Flower Balls and Gunslinging Frenzy

So it seems like I never have any free time anymore! We are always off and running on new projects or new sights to see and whatnot. This weekend was no exception. Saturday, even though the hubbs had the weekend off, I had made plans to go out to Simi and help my mom's dear friend prepare for her daughter's wedding next month. We went over layouts, and then went into tying ribbons, stamping thank yous and helped her with her flower balls....all while out of the corner's of our eyes watching the 3 boxer pups out back playing it a hilarious manner. Back flips, in and out of the pool, and loud grunting noises kept our eyes and ears thoroughly entertained. D had an eventful afternoon as well. On the 4th, because of the fireworks that spooked our beloved pup we had to fix some unsightly damage to our door frame (she was desperately trying to get into our apartment.) His mom came over and they patched and painted. When he went to rinse off the patio, our hose exploded unexpectedly. So they made their 3rd trip to the home improvement store then settled in for a cold beer. When I got home I admired their work and set to make dinner. We watched 21 Jump Street after finally getting our cable box working properly and called it an early night.

Gracie, Lucy and Harley

Pretty flower balls for ceremony

Sunday was our relaxation day. We moseyed out of bed late, took a leisurely walk to get lunch with the pup and then went and sunbathed until it was time to head over to a local park for a friends church picnic. We met up with him early to hear about his 4th of July lake trip. We carpooled over to the park and sat with his parents and members of their church and had a wonderful dinner of Cajun Sausages (SO SPICY but YUMMY!) and I had potato salad, D had coleslaw. It was a perfect summer picnic including a presentation from rope twirler and gunslinger. He was hokey with his jokes, but his skills were pretty impressive. After that we went and played some pool and then headed home to crash out for work the next day.

I guess this is what summer is all about. Enjoying life, packing it full to the brim and enjoying the company that you choose. Looking forward to next weekend. D turns 29! :)

PS - Finished going through the photos from the A.O.P and the Queen Mary. Stayed tuned for that post coming this week!

Garden Party Baby Shower (NKoS)

This is kind of a long post with lots of photos! Its worth it though! What a whirlwind May has turned out to be already and its only the 7th! My mom, cousin B and I have been planning a meet the baby shower for my cousin's baby girl Maggie Rose who was born on Feb 23rd. Thanks to Pinterest we got tons of new craft and food ideas. My mom found a super cute invite which she handmade. We had so many handmade touches and really that's what makes parties special.....the details. After getting all our ideas in order, mom and I set forth to make the thank you gifts....I didn't get shots of the complete finished product (with the cellophane) but I will post the tutorial later.....when I find the dimensions. These things are SEW easy.

So thank you gifts were done, we needed to get them stuffed and put into bags. Then we ordered everything to complete the look. Friends of my mom drank the iced Starbucks coffee drinks so we would have enough jars to complete the look, we ordered paper straws, made paper origami flowers and signs, my mom made "cupcakes" out of onesies, receiving blankets and coffee filters. There was nothing left untouched. Throw in a little wildflowers and we are done with our garden themed baby shower.

Thursday and Friday of last week was a whirlwind of cleaning, prepping and shopping. Saturday morning bright and early we arrived to make the sandwiches and put everything together. We had Chicken Salad on Croissants, Roast Beef and Cucumber sandwiches on Rye and Pumpernickel. We had 2 types of salads; Apple Pear and a spring mix. My grammy made a jello salad and we had a chocolate fountain with strawberries and red velvet cupcakes (made by G. Wendy) with little roses on the top. A drink station with glass jars/paper straws awaited to be filled with Lemonade, Iced Tea or Cucumber water. Guests dined, gamed, and held the baby whilst watching momma open her gifts. At the end of a very long Cinco de Mayo we celebrated a wonderful occasion! The hubbs, my cousin and the rest of the boys took to the locale Chili's for beers, wings and of course chips and salsa. They had a great afternoon as well. All the pups had a good time too (Miss Shelby, despite having a hurt leg again, swam in the pool and played with the kids)

As a group gift we had my grandfather make a closet that said "Maggie's Rags" on the front in fabric lettering. We each put in something either handmade or purchased inside. I made some onesies; my mom made an afghan, little baby shoes, a taggie blanket and some pacifier clips; my grandmother made a couple of quilted receiving blankets, and my aunts and cousins filled the rest of it with clothes. For now it will hold her clothes, but when she gets older she will be able to put her dolls in it or make it a doll house. Whatever she likes.

Sunday, after all the shower madness had ended my mom and I made a trip back out to Simi for another party planning discussion. Her best friend's (from High School!) daughter is getting married in August at the Strathern Ranch. We stopped by to get an idea of what the inside of the barn looks like and the grass area where the gazebo is for the ceremony. They already had lots of ideas of what they want to do. Now to make it all come together and flow nicely for their country inspired wedding.

Inside of the barn

We have been joking that the 3 of us should have a party planning business and I came up with the name NKoS (In Chaos) Party Planning. Cause frankly that's exactly how it is planning a party, everything in chaos and our initials spell that out. Thoughts? Maybe we will one day. Right now we are just going keep doing what we love for those we love. Stay tuned!