The Dress! (The Hitching Post and Mom)

One of the first things brides are supposed to do is find their dress.  I had a four month engagement.  That's not very long to find a modest dress in Southern California.  I tried David's Bridal, but every dress I tried on would have had to be altered to cover my temple garments.  And most of them, they couldn't get in time.  I started searching for modest wedding gowns and I found 2 nearby.  One was about an hour away and, while the dresses were perfect for temple weddings, I didn't like the selling style or the way the fitting went.  I felt pushed into buying a dress.  So, nope.  Not shopping there.  

Then I went to a place called The Hitching Post.  The Hitching Post is a business run by the wife of one of the stake counselor's wives out of her historical home.  In their front yard, they actually have an old, original hitching post where people would hitch up their horses.  So the name worked out really, really well for the wedding dress business.

See their Facebook page:

 http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Hitching-Post/109962535708726

And their website:
www.thehitchingpostdresses.com

Anywho, here is a nice one of my dress on the wedding day:

I love the skirt.  That's my favorite part. 

My mother told me early on that she wanted to pay for my dress.  She has a side business on ebay where she makes and sells doll dresses.  In one month's time, she sold over $500 worth of doll dresses to pay for my wedding dress.  Many little dresses for one big dress.  I love my mother and I am forever greatful for what she did for me for my wedding.

The picture with my hand on my hip is actually me just standing there waiting as my train got safety pinned to my rear to create the bustle.  The hook broke when I took it to the cleaners the week before.  I didn't find that out until I took the dress out of the bag to put it on in the temple after the sealing.  Ah, well.  It all worked out.  There were about 7 safety pins near my rear by the end of the night, but they held beautifully. 

My dress was around $500 due to being a closeout.  I love a good deal!  Alterations were around $300, so not too bad for a wedding dress. :)

  

 My veil and headband were from Hobby Lobby, both on sale 50% off, about $7 each.  I got the little jewels in my hair at Claires Accessories, along with my necklace and earrings.  Add my $5 turquioise flats from a swap meet, my hair for $55, and my nails for $25, I came together for a grand total of about $950.  My mother-in-law did my make-up for free. 

The ring?  I didn't pay for that, but if you want to know where he got it - He went to Jared. 

All photos by Allichellephotography.com.

Sweet Alex's Cakes!

We knew from the beginning that we were pretty lucky regarding a lot of wedding, because of our family relations.  One of those examples is my new sister-in-law, Alex.  She's graduated from the pastry part of culinary school and has worked in bakeries, making all kinds of yummy goodies - and she also makes and decorates cakes.  We knew we wanted her to make our cake.  Nate insisted on it since her cakes are always so tasty.  But we were very surprised when she offered to do it for free.  

Again, I felt that warming feeling in my heart as another person offered to help us because of the love they have for us.  No words can adequately express how grateful we feel to everyone.  

As one of my bridesmaids, here is Alex:  

She's cute, yea?

A few months before the wedding, Alex was home from school for a weekend and the family had a session of looking through bridal magazines.  I thought it was fun... maybe not for Nate or his dad, Doug...  Anywho, I was noting different cake designs and Alex was doing the same, looking for a cake to make for an upcoming bridal show she had in Utah.  She came across one that I absolutely loved, except the coloring.  It had 4 tiers and the edge of each tier was covered in little tiny fondant flowers.  I thought is was lovely.  It was clean looking, sophisticated, and I loved the use of one color of various shades.  It had dark peach flowers on the bottom layer and then they gradually got light towards the top.  Alex took that design back to Utah, but was having trouble with the peach coloring.  Mom-in-law, Tammy, suggested she try doing it in teal-turquoise, knowing those were my colors and knowing I loved that design.  Alex tried it and it worked.  

See her show cake on her website:

www.sweetalexscakes.com

Alex created the same cake for us for our wedding.  We had (from bottom to top) chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate in the tiers.  She makes each tier with 4 layers separated by Bavarian cream.  The outside was butter cream, which she smoothed so well to look like fondant.  We wanted our cake to look beautiful, but we also wanted it to taste yummy.  And fondant is not yummy.  

A note on the pictures above:  the only thing I did to make this table pretty was tie the ribbons on the cake cutting utensils and rent the tablecloth...

Nate didn't have many opinions about the wedding.  There were really only 2 things he cared about:  the bride and chocolate cake.  He got both.  :)

I had wanted some kind of cheesecake element (my favorite dessert), but she just couldn't work it into the cake itself, so she made little cheesecake bites, especially for me.  It was a good thing, too!  The only piece of cake that I got was the bite.  You know, the bite I shared with my husband in the pictures below.  Alex said that she'd never seen a cake go so fast.  It was gone as soon as it was cut.  But she saved the cheesecake bites for a little later, so we got some of those.  :)  

Alex made each of these little flowers by hand.  She is so incredibly talented.  

Amongst all that she had to do with the wedding cake and the cheesecake bites, she also made Nathan a grooms cake.  His favorite show in the world is Lost.  She created a hatch and added the wedding topper.  This particular topper has never been my favorite since it implies that the groom doesn't want to get married.  This was never the case with Nate.  But topped on the Lost cake, I feel like I'm dragging him from the hatch after we've been blown up or shot or something...  It made me giggle.  I loved it.  :)

I would love to see her business grow.  I recommend her to anyone needing a wedding cake.  Alex is a professional in every sense of the word and your cake will be fabulous, beautiful, and tasty.  Hire her!

Her website:  www.sweetalexscakes.com

All photos in this post are by allichellephotography.com.

Rembrandt - The Ultimate Party Band!

Okay folks, next is the entertainment.  Rembrandt (the ultimate party band, fo suga...) played at our wedding.  When I met Nathan, he told me what his father did for a living.  His father owned a business where he managed bands that play at weddings.  I thought, cool - a band! - 4 or 5 guys with guitars that play covers of popular songs or maybe even their own music.  

I was so wrong...

Rembrandt is so much more than that.  When I finally met Nate's parents, they explained that they are a 13 piece band with a horn line and multiple singers and that they primarily play high-end weddings.  I was very surprised.  Nate's mom, Tammy (who promotes the band), showed me a demo video of the band and I was blown away.  

They. were. amazing.

Check them out:  http://www.rembrandtband.com/ 

Link to the demo page: http://www.rembrandtband.com/film.ivnu

Being the father of the groom, Doug, manager of the band, booked Rembrandt as their gift to us.  I was delighted and overwhelmed.  They were exactly what I wanted at our reception.  DJs are great, but I wanted our wedding to be an awesome party that people would remember.  And this band truly set our reception apart from other typical Mormon weddings.  Ultimately, that's what I wanted for our reception.  I didn't want a typical Mormon wedding where friends and family show up at a church building, have some cake and punch and then leave.  I wanted to have a big party where people stayed and danced and talked and socialized.  And that's what happened - mostly because of the entertainment. 

I danced my heart out.  Well, at least during one song.  But there were plenty of other people dancing the entire night.  And I loved it that people were having fun at our wedding.  The one song I danced to (besides the first dance with Nate) was at the very end of the night.  It was Pink's "Raise Your Glass."  It was one of the songs I specifically requested and Doug pulled me onto the dance floor so I could dance to that one song.  It was one of the most fun moments of the night.  I was out there dancing with Doug and my little 6-year-old niece, Emma, got down on the dance floor with us.  The floor was packed, and Vanessa, the lead singer during that song, came out onto the dance floor and danced with us, microphone and all, singing the song.  I gave her the hugest hug at the end.  I just had so much fun.  It was such a wonderful memory. 

Here is Vanessa:

Here are some dancing folks:  

And during the anniversary dance:  

(More on that later...)

The dance floor was packed nearly all night.  

This was a huge gift to us.  Normally, the band costs in the neighborhood of $8000 to hire.  We felt very lucky to have this high-end wedding band at our very non-high-end wedding.  Both Nathan and I felt very blessed to have wonderful people around us that were willing to give so much.  A huge thanks to Doug Waitman and his band Rembrandt, but that thanks can never adequately portray how amazing the band made our wedding and how perfect it made our day.     

All photos in this post are by allichellephotography.com.

Allichelle Photography

Here's what I want to accomplish with this blog.  I basically want to catalog how we put together our wedding for around $5000.  There is no way in heaven that we could have had the help we did without generous gifts from family and friends.  I will explain in each subsequent post.  I will be linking to all the people who helped us because they are all amazing at their jobs!  Their businesses deserve your business, so if I can help them in any way I can, I will. 

First, I will start with our photographer.  Her name is Allison Taylor and her business is www.allichellephotography.com.  Please visit her site and hire her!  She is amazing.  I start with her because I wouldn't be able to show you any of my wedding without her beautiful and stunning photography. 

This is Allison, a cute shot taken by my 9-year-old nephew.  He took 3 pictures at our wedding.  Two were of us and the 3rd was of "this other girl who had a really big camera."  This is the only picture of Allison I can find from our wedding day. 

We were her first wedding that she photographed entirely by herself, so we got her for a bargain price.  She has since raised her prices (as she should!) and let me tell you, she is worth every penny.  Since the wedding, she's told me that she learned a lot from our wedding, so imagine that your pictures would be even better than ours!  Here is a sampling of her photos.  As I continue to add things to this blog about different aspects of the wedding, keep in mind that all of the pictures were taken by Allison unless noted. 

Allison took many shots of little details here and there.  This name plaque was on our gift table. 

These two shots showcased the bouquet (I have many more bouquet shots to come when I post about my amazing bridesmaids...).  This is my cutie husband and what we call my "sassy bride" photo.

This is a super cute one of our rings and chins.  While I wouldn't have thought my chin could ever look skinny, I feel like it looks quite good in this shot.  The rings look fab, too!

  

And I thought this is just a lovely shot of my new mother-in-law, Tamera.  She looks so graceful and gorgeous in this picture.  Yay for Allison for capturing that moment because I think she was quite stressed on the day of the big event.  

Allison did a fantastic job at capturing the great moments on this day.  Check her out:

http://www.allichellephotography.com/

Some of our wedding photos are featured on her website.

Greetings!

Hello!  Welcome to the Olsen-Waitman Wedding Page.  My name is Jana and my husband is Nathan.  We married on May 5, 2012 at the Newport Beach LDS Temple.  The day was amazing!  And this blog will allow me to share the day with anyone who wants to see it.  Here are just some teaser photos of our wedding day.  There are many more to come. 

I love this one of us with me looking back at him.  Both shots are just amazing photos. 

This is the Newport Beach Temple on the day of our wedding.  Isn't Allison (our photographer) amazing??  It could seriously be a postcard.  The day was so beautiful! 

Frankly, I just wanted to have a place on the web where I could pull up all my wedding photos on a whim.  It was the most wonderful day of my life and I want to be able to review it often.  Also, I want my wedding to be able to be pinned on Pinterest.  Our photographer was so amazing.  Her pictures were so beautiful that I had several people comment that our wedding should be on Pinterest.  So that is what I am trying to do.  Get my wedding pics on the web so they can be pinned.  :)  If you love them, that is wonderful--pin away!  It was the best day of my life and I am so excited to share it with anyone who is interested.