Weddingbee bios

We actually met on eHarmony!  I got a subscription as a Christmas present from my Mama.  She thought I would be offended by the gift, but I was actually stoked!  I was in the middle of finishing my last year of grad school and wanted to start exploring the dating pool.  That night, my Mom, my little sister, and I worked on putting together my profile.  The next morning I was happy to see that I already had gotten a couple matches.  I was pleasantly surprised by the first one that I looked at, which was Mr.Luetz.  I loved his whole profile and thought it was cute that he just happened to be wearing his medical school white coat in his profile picture.  I started to go through the other matches and just wasn't as impressed as I was with Mr.Luetz's.  So we started the process of "communication" through eHarmony and later that week set up a time to meet for coffee.  It happened to be New Years Eve and so we met in the early afternoon and had a great time.  We talked for about 2 hours straight and when I first saw him I immediately heard this voice in my head that said, "That's the one."  I kind of had anticipated that there would be fireworks and loud crashing music when I discovered that I had found "my one," but it was rather very calming and relaxing.  We kept up our communication after I returned to school and over President's Day Weekend, we decided to make it official!

Mr. Luetz and I drove from Denver to Laramie, Wyoming for my cousin's wedding.  After the wedding, we were relaxing in our hotel room and then he sat me on the bed and said he had a surprise for me.  He pulled out the most beutiful ring and proposed to me.  It was a beautiful intimate moment, with just the two of us.  Afterwards, we celebrated with Sonic's ice cream!

We had our engagement picture shoot by Lindsey Cahill Photography in a couple locations in Golden Gate Park in late January 2010.  We were primarily at the Dutch Windmill and Ocean Beach.  Here's a few of our favorites!

I had four bridesmaids, who I all adore.  Two of them I met at college, one I met while working on a ranch in Colorado, and the last one I've known since I was in 6th grade.  They were the perfect calm surrounding that I needed to get through the day.  Right before I got into my dress they did the most adorable "ceremony" where each BM gave me something to represent one line from the saying "Something old, something new . . ."  One even wrote me a poem!  I was so touched that I started balling, and the day hadn't even really been in full swing.  I love my lovely ladies!

(All pictures provided by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

Most of Mr.Luetz's groomsmen are all from the Bay Area, with the exception of one who is from New Mexico.  Mr. Luetz's also had four on his side of the bridal party, with two friends from college and two friends he has known since Kindergarten.  Mr.Luetz's best man, has two sons, and one of them was the ring bearer for our wedding.  He was only three years old, but he did a fabulous job (his younger two-year-old brother was a little more shy and couldn't participate as much).  Good crew of fellas!

(All pictures provided by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

I originally wanted a very simple and plain dress.  When I slipped this number on, I was surprised how much I loved it.  It was exactly the classy, yet modern look I was going for.  I was hesitant at first because it was originally not what I had envisioned.  I asked Mr.Luetz about it, "What dress do you think I should pick?  The simple or the more "glam" one?"  He said immediately, "Go Glam!!"  I surpised by his choice and then went home to think about it.  That night I had a dream about the dress and after that decided it must be the right one for me!  I'm so glad I picked it!  I felt incredibly beautiful on my wedding day.

(All pictures provided by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

While I was at one of my fittings for my wedding dress, one of my bridesmaids decided to look through some of their sample dresses.  And that's where we found this lil' beauty:

http://www.houseofwu.com/22325.php#

And they had it in Navy!  Modern, yet classy and cute.  Here's a picture of what the girls look like in their dresses:

(All pictures provided by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

I knew I wanted my hair to be curly, but I didn't want my hair to be in face either.  I got the perfect combo, of a half-up do, but it was pulled to the side by a clip, so it provided more of a sweeping look.  I loved how it turned out!

(Picture provided by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

 

My good friend did my wedding day make up.  We had one trial before the big day and I showed her a couple pictures of my girl crush, Scarlett Johansson.  I wanted a golden look with a bright pop to my lips and it turned out great.  I felt at the time that I had a ton on, but my friend did a great job!  Plus I decided to wear false eyelashes for the first time and it went great!  Highly recommend them!!

(All pictures by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

Found these babies online for a great deal!  I wasn't too happy by the comfort of them by the end of the night, but I liked the way they looked!  As they say, "Beauty is pain." :)

(All pictures by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

I knew I wanted bright pink roses, but didn't want the pink to be too overwhelming.  SO luckily our florist was able to offset the bright pink roses with some white roses, light pink spray roses, various pieces of greenery, and orchids.  Also, I added a couple things to my boquet including a pin my Mom, a locket from my bridesmaids with a pic of me and Mr.Luetz, and strip of blue cloth from a satin robe I wore while in the hospital recovering from surgery.  Very sentimental to me and I was happy to have those items close to me during the whole day.

(All pictures provided by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

At our reception, we were having a sit-down dinner reception served "family style."  This meant that each table had large platters of food that would be shared with everyone at the table.  In order to prepare for the "family style" dinner, we need to have small centerpieces.  They were inspired primarily off of the bridesmaid bouquets with lots of pink and white roses and white and green hydrangeas.

(All pictures by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

In order to cut down on costs, I wasn't originally planning on having favors.  My MOH talked me into last minute and I love how they turned out.  We decided to stick to the chocolates with the same colors as our wedding, navy and pink.  Cute little classic San Francisco treats (and no, I don't mean Rice-a-Roni)!  We tied three chocolates with some ribbon and attached a little card with our names and wedding date.  On the back I had instructions on how to upload photos to a flikr account, but unfortunately, the instructions were wrong.  Whoops on my part!  We got pictures from our friends other ways though!

(Picture by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

We started getting ready with a champagne toast and, as I mentioned previsouly, my bridesmaids surprised me with a "Something old, something new . . . " ceremony, where they each gave me something representing each of the lines in the poem.  After that, I jumped into my dress.  We were already a little behind, and then it was on to my first look of Mr.Luetz!

(All pictures by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

We had our ceremony at Sts. Peter and Paul Church in San Francisco.  We decided to have a full Catholic blessing ceremony, rather than a full mass.  Since our wedding guests were about half catholic and half non-catholic, we decided to go with the shorter ceremony.  I was originally planning on walking myself down the aisle, but Mr.Luetz suggested that we walk down together.  I was surprised at first, because he's been fairly traditional through our whole planning process.  I'm so glad we did decide to do this though!  It felt so special to walk down with him, as a symbol of our what our new journey through life will be like together, side by side.

(All pictures by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

We had our reception at the Golden Gate Yacht Club and had a wonderful time.  We immediately fell in love with the venue when we saw the killer view of the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.  We were lucky to have fabulous sunset the same night as our reception and not too much fog!  The yacht club is not the biggest or fanciest club in the city, but it was just right for us!  We had just over 110 guests and the yacht club was a perfect size for our reception.  We started the reception off with a cocktail reception and passed hors d'oeuvres. Next was a sit-down "family style" dinner.  Our caterer originally encouraged us to do family style, in order to stimulate conversation among guests sitting at the same table who might not already know each other.  The food was great and it appeared that everyone loved the "family style."  Plus it allowed everyone to get as much or as little of the food items that they wanted, without having to do buffet.

(All pictures by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

One of our favorite bands is Journey and of course since we were having an un-offical San Francisco themed wedding, we thought "Lights" by Journey would be the perfect first dance song for us.  Some of our guests thought to raiser their "lighters" in support of our first dance.

We danced the rest of the night away to classic 80s and 90s classics.  We had a reappearance of the 80s-style sunglasses from earlier in the day and had a complete blast.

(All pictures by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

Our cake was done by Shannie's Cakes out of Oakland, CA.  The original design was based on art that was on our invitations.  Cake was a big priority for us and we were happy with how it turned out.  The flavors of the cake were Strawberry Shortcake with fresh Strawberries, Mom's Chocolate Cake, and Coconut.  Absolutely scrumptious!

Once it was time to cut the cake, we eager to dig into it!  Before had we had proimsed eachother that we wouldn't smash cake into each other's faces, but for some reason Mr.Luetz still doubted my intentions :)  I behaved myself though and we enjoyed chowen down on some cake!

Whoops!  Looks like the piece I gave him, might have been a weee bit too big.  Oh well!  He didn't complain!

(All pictures provided by Lindsey Cahill Photography)

Before our ceremony, we went around to some of my favorite spots in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco.  I also brought along some cheap 80's-style sunglasses  for us to take some fun shots throughout the day.  The sunglasses were a huge hit and totally brought out our goofy personalities. As we were taking pictures in North Beach, we were running a little behind our planned "schedule," but I'm glad we stuck it out because we got some great random shots!  While in North Beach, we got a picture ona fire truck and with a Chinese Dragon Dance troop.  After the dance troop left, they set off some fire crackers, which nearly gave me a heart attack.  I was irked at first, but was reminded that fire crackers in Chinese culture are for good luck and to scare off "bad spirits."  Once I realized this I felt honored to have seen them on our wedding day and was able to relax and smile again.  As a side note, don't be afraid to tell your photographer to grab a shot if you see something inspiring, I did this a couple times throughout the day and felt a little bossy at first, but now looking back on the pictures I'm so glad that I did stop to point them out!

(All pictures from Lindsey Cahill Photography)