He put a ring on it

After having my old blog on Xanga for almost eleven years, I have decided to retire there and start a fresh beginning here. It's a new time in my life for my best friend (turned fiancee) and I! So, I suppose I'll have to start right from the beginning, eh? Daniel and I were engaged two weeks ago (July 27, 12' to be exact) on the sandy shores of Makena Surf in Maui. Hopefully, this new blog will cover all our basis from the big parts of our wedding planning down to the details. 

First things first. This, here, is Daniel and I. (Of course, if you've followed me either on my last blog or know us personally....this isn't news to you!) 

Isn't he handsome? :)

Onto the next. SO, we realized (after talking to a few of our other engaged friends) that finding a venue would be the biggest decision and the first thing to do before planning out any of the finer details. I LOVE PARTY PLANNING. (In fact, if I could've had it any other way in my life---I would've already owned a wedding site by now and been in charge of coordinating every single wedding as well!) Since we were on vacation and had plenty of time to sit/lay around and be complete wastes of space, we decided to start looking up venues in the LA/SD county areas and put our excellent planning skills to use. If you know Daniel or me, you'll know that we're both weird eclectic. We're both free spirited/anything goes-goes type of people. We try not to make big deals out of most things---which is probably why we get along fairly well. Naturally, finding a few venues to start with was a piece o' cake. We found four venues to see---which at this point, we were pretty sure one would do the trick. 

The first weekend back from Maui, we were in the LA area for a friend's birthday party, so to kill two birds with one stone---we were able to scope out three of the venues which were located in Camarillo, CA, beforehand. The day was beautiful, the weather was great, and out of the three venues we saw, we narrowed down our choice to a beautiful garden. (Maravilla Gardens) We were pretty sure we were going to settle on this venue, but had one last venue to see a few days later. Later that evening at the birthday party, a friend told us that Camarillo smells like cow manure 300 days out of the year due to the large number of farms surrounding the city. Nothing screams holy matrimony like the smell of methane gas! 

Yesterday, we visited the last venue that we had decided on. A two hour drive east into the 100 degree mountains, we stumbled into our appointment....and instantly fell in love. For the details of the site, well, you'll just have to sit tight and wait. I promise you, though, it is to die for! We were so excited to secure our spot and date (they were already making bookings into 2014, because 2013 was almost booked) that I drove up to the owner who resides in Huntington Beach to put down our security deposit for the venue. And like that, mis amigos, it was done. 

Without further ado, here's a super top secret photo of just a mini portion of the wedding venue. I can't help myself. We're absolutely elated and feel so blessed that we get to tie the knot at this special location!!!!!