Rancho Cañada-Carmel Valley 8/25 Pt1

[missjen8252007]

PART 1

After all the planning, interfering in-laws and stress, my wedding went off without a hitch and my day was absolutely perfect. Here's all the details:


August 24, 2007
Make-up trial at 9am, nail appointment at 10:30 last minute errands between 11:30 and 1:00.

Wedding Rehearsal and Rehearsal Dinner
Rehearsal at Rancho Cañada Golf Club, Carmel Valley CA 4:30pm
Rehearsal Dinner followed at El Torito on Cannery Row, Monterey CA

Hotel Occomodations
Portola Plaza Hotel & Spa, Monterey CA. Friday 8/24 and Saturday /25
Platinum Guest Room. Top floor of the hotel overlooking Bonifacio Plaza, Fisherman's Warf and the Pacific Ocean. Checked in with BIL's fiance and SIL/MOH. $489 a night.

August 25, 2007
The big day is finally here! Wake up at 8:00am. Pick up mom at her hotel and get Starbucks coffee.


Hair and Makeup
Artisan's Salon, Monterey CA. Hair styled by Desiree. I wanted my hair pinned up & curled but I have too much hair so I had a small side part, the top half pinned up and then braided into some sort of design that hid all the pins. Bottom half was curled and I had my tiara pinned on. Make up done by Nona. I asked for a soft, natural look that brought out my eyes and thats exactly what I got! $260 for hair & make trial plus wedding day hair & make-up.

11:00 Back to the hotel, BIL's fiance & I finish up some last minute details, order room service and she gets ready while we wait for my mom & the bridesmaids to arrive. 12:30 everyone is at the hotel, they finish getting ready, SIL & I do my moms make-up. I put on my dress, diamond bracelet and grandmother's pearls.

Transportation
Main Event Transportation, black Lincoln Town Car Limo. 1:05pm we walk down to the limo. We head to Carmel Valley and enjoy the complimentary champaigne. 1:35pm we arrive at Rancho Canada and are taken to the Bride's Dressing Room where we wait for Photographer to finish with groom & groomsmen. Not sure what this cost since my husband booked it.



Photographer
Ed Avila Photography. He did my senior pictures in 1998 and was my first choice for wedding photographer. He was amazing and so was his assistant. Since we didn't have a coordinator, they were there to direct us and make sure everything happened on time. We did bridal party pictures before the ceremony and family pictures after. $3000 for "brides dream" package.


Ceremony
Ceremony was held on the lawn directly behind the clubhouse at 3:00pm. We walked down the stairs on the side of the building, hidden by bushes and then proceeded across the lawn and down the aisle. Officiant was Matt Flemming, ordained minister and police chaplain. He became our police department chaplain this year and has been very active in the department and that is how DH & I met him. He did an amazing job and we recieved many compliments on our ceremony-it was religious enough for those who are religious and non-religious enough for those who are not religious. Several guests have now asked him to perform their ceremonies since he did such a great job! Rancho Canada is absolutely beautiful, inside and out. The property is beautiful and well manicured, immaculate. Ceremony fee $500 but was waived because the police dept. has their christmas party there every year and they spend quite a bit of money on alcohol.


After the Ceremony
Bridal party & family assembled on the stairs and waited for guests to go up to the reception. Waiter's came down and passed hors' de' horves around to bridal party & family members. Finished bridal party pictures and then did family pictures. Husband & I stayed behind while everyone else went up to reception, to finish pictures. We did the standard wedding shots and then
"warm fuzzies"-romantic shots, choreographed by the photographer. Last photo was the "funny" picture. When you drive into Rancho Canada, you drive straight in and the road dead-ends. To the left is the golf course, to the right a church and there is a sign that says play with an arrow pointing toward the golf course, and pray with an arroy pointing to the church and since husband is an avid golfer, we grabbed a set of golf clubs and got a shot of him trying to run to the golf course and me yanking his golf bag toward the church.

[missjen8252007]

Reception
Reception was from 3:30 until 4:30 in the "Fiesta" Room. We had hand passed hors de' horves-Chicken Satays and Mini Quiches. We hosted the wine and beer for the entire evening. The fiesta room provided more than enough space for 200 guests. Geoff was their coordinator and he was great, if we asked for something, we got it. The room was exactly how I wanted it. $1500 to rent the room for 7 hours.


DJ
We used Sam from Spotlight Entertainment, Monterey, Ca. Once things got rolling, he passed everything off to his assistant, I forget his name but he was awesome. Great with the guests, on top of everything. Played exactly what we asked for, coordinated everything with the photographer and kept us happy & smiling. I think we paid $1200 for the DJ.

Dinner
Held in the Fiest Room. Catored by Country Club Caterors at Rancho Canada. After we did the wedding party introductions, we sat down at the head table for about 5 minutes and then they were ready for dinner to begin. We had a buffet that way there was something for everyone and we didn't have to deal with a plated dinner where everyone picks their entree when they RSVP. We had Prime Rib with Au Ju and Horseradish, Roasted Chicken Breast and Salmon, Saffron Orzo Pilaf, Roasted Red Potatoes, Grilled Veggies, Ceasear Salad, Carmel Valley Baby Greens with choice of dressing, Fresh Fruit (Kiwi, Strawberry, Cantelope, Mango and Melon), Tomatoe, Mozzerella, Basil & EVVO Salad and Rolls. After dinner, we greeted our guests, did the first dances, the honeymoon dance, bridal & bouquet toss and sat back & enjoyed ourself. Total cost: $11,000. $10,000 for dinner, $1000 for the beer. The cost per person was about $60 and it included dinner, wine, champaigne toast, cake cutting, tax and gratuity.


Cake
Cake was created by The Buttery, in Santa Cruz, CA. They were on time and set the cake up, there were no damages to the cake during transportation We had Italian Rum with a light lemon & raspberry filling, and Chocolate with Chocolate Ganash filling. The bakery called it a "whimsical-madd hatter style" cake. I took a picture and told them I wanted that shape of cake but different colors and different designs on each layer. We had hand-made flowers on each layer, and handmade shapes and patterns. The top layer was the smallest and we had a hand-made edible gold monogram of our initials and a hand-made butterfly. Everyone LOVED the cake, it tasted awesome and everyone thought it was pretty and most had never seen a cake like that before. I guess our area is slow when it comes to the latest cake designs. The person we dealt with was Jill and she delivered everything she promised. She got us in for a cake tasting with almost no notice and had 6 amazing types of cake for us to taste. My cake was perfect! We paid $1400 for the cake

Dress, Bridal Boutique and Alterations
I did all my dress research online. I found the Pronovias website and found 4 dresses I immidiately fell in love with, with 1 that I thought was "the dress". I found the nearest boutique that carried Pronovias-Trudy's Bridal, Pruneyard Shopping Center, Campbell CA- and scheduled 2 appointments. I was helped both times by Lauren Beth. I told her which dresses I was interested in, she bought out all 4 dresses plus other similar styles in different price ranges. She was extremely professional and gave me her full attention the entire time I was there. I ended up buying the first dress I fell in love with on the Pronovia's website, the "Laguna" dress, a beautiful ivory tulle & sequin gown. I am so in love with this dress.
Alterations were done by Carmen at Campus Bridal. I didn't want to make the hour drive back to Campbell for the alterations and final fittings so I went with someone local. I bought my bridesmaid dresses from Campus so they were willing to do my alterations even though I didn't get my dress from them. Theresa was my contact person and she was great, very friendly, made sure Carmen knew exactly what I wanted. I brought in my dress 2 weeks before the wedding, not realizing what a "complicated" dress it was, with all the tulle layers and sequin applicay's. They spent 5 whole days working on my dress and it was perfect! The price was also very reasonable. Dress with alterations was $2500.

Flowers
The flowers were the one thing that husband & I couldn't agree on. He didn't want flowers at all, other then my bouqet! I got a great price quote from Julia at Seaside Flowers but there was no changing his mind. Our compromise was to order 40% of the flowers I originally wanted, from Costco.com. We ordered one of their wedding packages which included the bridal bouqet, 2 bridesmaid bouqets, tossing bouquet, corsages and buttoneers, and 3 centerpieces. The pictures on the website are not the flowers they send. Most of the flowers were carnations which I really did not want in the first place. They did a beautiful job but since it was a "package" there was no customizing the type of flower or specific colors. I would not recommend them because ALL 3 bouquets were IDENTICAL and they were exactly the same as the centerpieces! I lucked out because I needed 3 bridesmaid bouquets and my husband agreed to me getting my bouquet & a piece for the ceremony arch thingy from Swenson & Silacci's in Salinas. Also, the buttoneers and corsages had HUGE stems, we had to cut them down quite a bit. The centerpieces also came from Costco.com, we had 24 tables and we ordered 2 sets of 6 centerpieces for a total of 12. I ordered the white calla lillies. They were beautiful but another reason I do not reccomend Costco.com is because the flowers do not come with vases and good luck finding a similar vase to ones they have in their pictures. I looked everywhere for something even remotely close to the vases used on the website because of the way the centerpieces are made and I had to use small fish bowl type vases with clear stones on the bottom, to keep the flowers standing up. It looked great in the end though. Also, the flowers are sent from Columbia and mine were shipped out 5 days before the wedding! They arrived on Thurs, looking fresh but if you live somewhere where it gets hot, your flowers will probably not look very good on the 'big day'. I think I lucked out because we were able to keep them in a cool area most of the time and there wasn't much wilting. For the remaining 12 tables, I bought pretty vases and went to Costco the day before the wedding and bought a ton of bouqets and we took them apart and made our own centerpieces.
My bouquet and the ceremony flowers are another story. They were so beautiful. I went to Swenson & Silacci's a week before the wedding, talked to Bridget, told her I wanted my bouquet to be made out of lavender and ivory roses and that is exactly what I got but more beautiful than I could of imagined! The piece for the Arch at the ceremony was the same, I looked at some pictures they had, pointed out a style I liked and said I didn't care what they used as long as it had lavender and ivory roses and some greenery and what I got, oh my gosh, smelled absolutely amazing and looked even better. These guys definately know what they are doing because with what little I gave them to go on, I got exactly what I wanted my flowers to look like when I first started planning the wedding. We spent $1500 on the flowers & vases.

Tux Rentals
Tux's were rented at After Hours Formal Wear. Husband took care of this on his own and his cost was $150. His suit was the right, my dad's pants were way too big and someone else, the ringbearer I think, also had a problem with his.

Honeymoon
We leave Saturday September 1st for a 7 day Cruise through Alaska on Princess Cruise Lines, flying from San Jose to Seattle to board the ship. as of right now, the cruise and excursions we booked are totalling about $4,000.

I think that is just about everything. Despite all the drama & stress, it was a perfect day. Everything and everyone was on time and my expectations were exceeded. I will post pictures as soon as I get them!

[Danielle9608]

Congrats!!! I am so glad that everything went well despite all the stress. I can't wait to see your pictures :D