Inspire Me

For the first several months of our wedding planning, I started collecting images of items or ideas that I would like to emulate for our wedding, or at least give me an idea of how I envision the big day. I had heard of this so-called "Inspiration Board" and thought it would be fun to have one of my own. So, I sat down with my computer, opened the Adobe Photoshop, and started creating a collage of wedding-inspiring images.

The end result?

(Photo sources: here, here, here, here, and here)

In my mind, I envision our wedding as a vibrant day full of festive colors, flowers, energy, authentic cuisine, a hint of candlelit romance, and nonstop mariachi music! Mr. Tortolito and I are big on injecting as much of our culture and tradition into this day as it would make it a true reflection of us and our families. I want the day to be fun, ju kno? I want it to be puro pari! I think this collage kinda starts to get that point across...a little bit. (Well, except maybe for the Catholic church picture that I threw in there to represent our Catholic ceremony).

So what's the real purpose behind an Inspiration Board? Beats me. But it was fun to make. And it has lots of pretty pictures. Or maybe if I had a wedding planner, I could hand this off to them and demand that they "throw me this party!" But alas, these Tortolitos are acting as our own wedding-planning extraordinaires. I must admit that these pictures have helped me to form a stronger image of what I'd like to see or incorporate on our wedding day. In fact, I started to find some of the inspiration board items while out randomly shopping. More on that in the future...

Do you find inspiration boards helpful? Do they serve any other purposes besides a daily dose of eye candy?

And Now, A Moment of Clarity

I was recently reviewing our excel worksheet where we keep track of our wedding planning progress. We've been engaged for almost a year and we have come a pretty long way in terms of getting things done. Yet, we still have a ginormous checklist in front of us and that clock be a-tickin'. At moments, I'm overcome with this inexplicable excitement as it hits me that I'm getting closer to becoming a Señora. Others, I want to slap myself across the forehead as I realize how much money we've spent...and how much money there is to be spent in the coming months. Alls I gots to say is dayuuum Gina, this wedding shiz is expeeeensive!!

And it ain't no help that anything remotely related to weddings is marked up like 100%. For example, I'm looking for child care services during the reception, right? How come I get a flyer at a bridal show from this lady dressed up in a Princess Fiona costume offering her services at like $300 an hour (for up to 5 kids; an additional $50 for extra kids). You're kidding me right? I bet you I can find an undergrad friend in college and pay them a decent amount to play with 10 kids for a few hours on a Saturday night. En serio! Makes me wanna join this club:


In all seriousness, though, the wedding industry can really get a girl down. How can it not when you're practically punched in the face with images like these when you google "wedding"?

{Sources here and here}

These weddings look truly beautiful, but waaaay out of my league (as I'm sure many of you can relate). That's not to say that one can't have a beautiful wedding with limited funds. I'm an optimist so I think anything is possible with some effort, creativity, and determination. So, as I move forward with Mr. Tortolito in planning our wedding and sharing our experiences with you all, I'm going to focus on the fact that it's possible to plan this all without getting ripped-off. Mr. Tortolito and I work hard for our monies, dang it! Princess Fiona isn't going to steal it from us!

And Mr. Tortolito, as we approach our 1-year "engagaversery" I want to tell you how proud of you, hell, US, I am! I'm so glad we made this our thing...our "project wedding" if you will. Our families and friends deserve to have a blast at our wedding, and we are gonna rock their socks. This past year has been uh-maz-ing and it's only getting better. You are my fortitude, my heart (and many times my voice of reason). I've only got one thing left to say to you: Go team!!

Ya huurd?

Fiesta, Fiesta

After getting engaged Mr. Tortolito and I pondered over how to best announce our engagement and introduce our families to each other. Except for some of Mr. Tortolito's family in Mexico, most of our close relatives are local to the Los Angeles area so having a get-together wasn't too tough of a feat. Both sets of parents have met many times, but we had never introduced our extended families to each other. We wanted to bring our families together at least once before the wedding. So, we decided to throw a party; an engagement party!

It wasn't easy finding the perfect venue in Los Angeles to fit our needs for the party. We wanted a restaurant with an open area where we could sit about 60 people (yep, we have big families.); it needed to be fairly cheap, i.e. an inexpensive/not-getting-ripped-off type of meal (doi!); the food had to be good (I heart me a good meal); we didn't want our guests to have to pay for alcohol so we needed a way to order liquor in bulk (like pitcher style) yet still be able to control the amount that gets ordered (so that it didn't break our bank). Simple enough, no? NO

We spent a good 2 months on the lookout for a party spot. I'll spare you all the details of our search, but we finally found the perfect one: a cute, family-run Ecuadorian restaurant in Silverlake. When Mr. Tortolito and I met with the owner, William, we were relieved to have finally found a restaurant flexible and easy-going enough to fit our budget and party needs. We worked out a buffet-type dinner that included mixed greens salad, arroz marinero (seafood rice), seco de chivo (goat meat - similar to Mexican birria), rigatoni a la vodka con pollo (rigatoni with chicken), white rice, fresh vegetables, and my all-time favorite food: platanos fritos (fried plantains). I'm kicking myself that I never got pictures of the food, but it looked and tasted as good as it sounds - trust. We also made sure to keep our guests' thirsts quenched with pitchers of margaritas, sangria, and mojitos.

For the actual party space, William gave us complete access to their outdoor patio from the hour that we requested it to as long as our party lasted. He told us we could add our own decorations if we liked although we didn't really need to because it was already so charming by itself with its little fountain and yellow walls. But you already know how we do. Mr. Tortolito and I made fresh floral arrangements the morning of. Here we are slaving away after an early morning trip to the LA flower market:


A couple night before the party, I made some chocolate lollipops to hand out as favors. They went from this:

To this...

We arrived at El Caserio about an hour before the party to set up our decorations.



My wonderful mom is super talented in cake decorating. She made us a cake for our engagement party and it turned out beautifully. We decorated our cake table with one of our engagement pictures and some of our flower arrangements.


My dad and uncle are musicians and were kind enough to offer to be the entertainment for the night. When they get together, they love to sing Mexican boleros and rancheras.


Even Mr. Tortolito's dad joined in!


The party was a success, and I think our families enjoyed themselves.


Although this party was pretty small in comparison to our planned wedding reception, I think it was good experience to plan this from start to finish. It prepared us for future planning issues such as guest lists, sticking to budgets, and learning how to shop around until you find exactly what you're looking for. I'm also making sure to keep in mind some of those regrets I have from this party to make sure they don't happen for the wedding. For example, I need to make sure to take pictures of ALL the details (Again, I can't believe I didn't get one picture of the food!! DOH!)

The most important part, though, was that our guests, Mr. Tortolito, and I had fun. We were glad to have been able to do something to bring our closest family members together for the first time. Now I can't wait to do it again come November!

Did you have any pre-wedding day events that have helped you to better prepare for the big day?

Engagement Fotos: Part Dos

I already gave you a teaser of the Tortolito's engagement pictures in Mexico. I thought I'd dedicate Part Dos to my favorite pictures of the bunch. Thought they didn't get any cheesier? WRONG. I hope you're ready for another round of vomit-inducing cuteness. If looking at pictures of people in love ain't yo thang then, uhm, don't read ahead...

One of the many things that I love about Mexico are all the COLORS! I am all about vibrant, loud, festive colors and I hope to achieve this mood for our wedding. I'm sure you got a feel for all the colors from the previous set of pictures that I posted. They give so much character to the little towns in Mexico, and I wanted it to show in all of our fotos.

Take, for example, this wall with a hot pink stripe. We found it and were like "You know, Michael. This whole frolicking around the streets of San Miguel de Allende is fun and all, but Los Tortolitos are ready for their closeup. K? Thx."


Sike! These shots were totally Michael's idea. For whatever reason, I am looovin' that pink stripe.

Well, Mr. Amici was having none of our froufrou close up pictures. Shortly after, he lined us up at the end of an open hall and told us to chase after him and his fancy camera.

"Mr. Tortolito, is he really asking us to run? En serio?"
Mr. Tortolito: mmmmmmm...NOT gonna happen

"Phew, good cuz my hair...Wait, he's serious? Mr. Tortolito waaaaait"

"I guess this isn't all that bad. Good thing I ditched those heels."

After our work out, we were able to take a quick breather.



We ended our engagement session strolling hand-in-hand through a cobblestone-lined path. These are defo some of my faves.


That day, Mr. Tortolito and I toasted to completing our very first wedding task. Like I mentioned before, engagement pictures are def not necessary. BUT, I'm really glad we went for it. Now we have these sweet photos that capture some of those blissful days following our engagement and the excitement we were feeling. We weren't exactly sure what to do with them at first, but I think we have a few wedding projects lined up where we are thinking about incorporating them.

Did you take engagement pictures? What did you use them for?

Proposal Final Thoughts

Ms. Tortolita previously posted about our proposal and I think she did a great job depicting the story... straight out of your favorite novela, huh? I think her conclusion was: It was perfect! Sure, proposing seems like an easy thing to do.... if you're sure about your decision than all you have to do is go out there and do it, right? FALSE! You think you know but you have no idea.. this is the life of a... ummm... haha what label should I give it?

I would like to share what I learned about this whole process... because unless you're planning for a second wifey, the doode is a complete novice to the proposal business and totally oblivious about what needs to be done. Actually, from the proposal onwards oblivion just worsens... I was prepared to know about laplace transforms and fourier too, but damasks, pomanders, and cala lilies are a compeltely different story.

• Tip #1: Don't ask your father and guys friends for advice (unless you want reasons to not marry the girl). Haha, when I told my dad about my intentions he broke out with some foreign dialect, "No jo no ma no chi!" In Spanish these are all acronyms for a slew of bad words.... LOL..... he reminded me that I had just graduated and I had a whole life ahead of me, that I finally had a great job, had time to play, had the means to do whatever I'd like. In this position he would be big pimpin' spending g's! Haha, I told the guy friends as well, all of which are not married, and they said alleluyah to my father's sermon. Funny...
  
• Tip #2: Tiffany will shatter your dreams! If you're a guy on a budget, they offer their economical $15,000 option. Weah! I know the rule, according to all girls in the world, is three month's worth of your paycheck.... haha, lemme tell you that she is not marrying a big time lawyer or doctor.... Get to know your four C's: clarity, cut, carat, and color and learn to optimize! I got my fiancee a small bright, pretty shiny piece of rock.... without her having to pick it. The proposal had to be a surprise, plus I got mad style and taste (j/k). So what did I get in return? Read along....
• Tip #3: Nothing!... If a fiancee gets a ring, then the fiance should get something too. I would like a tangible proof of love.... let's say a big screen hdtv.... screen size must be proportional to her paycheck.... toma! So how did this idea work out for me? A big FALSE! I had to buy my own t.v., and now we watch The Hills on it. Ugh! Football season will be here tho... very soon..... saturday college games, sunday pro-games, and monday night football. I shall prevail!
• Tip #4: I think the way you propose should be meaningful to both. Many doodes like to take their girl on a vacation or do something else they've never done before to then propose. Cute, but does it really mean anything. Up to that point, that place did not mean anything.... the proposal will make it special. My take on it was to remind her of our origins, how we got started, how we grew up, and how it all evolves into something bigger... rather idealistic, but that's how I roll.
• Tip #5: Get the parentals involved (both sets). When I told my parents about the proposal, I asked my father to help me do what he did with my mom.... and accompany me to ask Ms. Tortolita's hand in marriage. Actually, I wanted all my family to be there... so my mom, dad, and kid sister came along (my kid bro goes to berkeley so he was unavailable, el nino cesar was still there in spirit). So, we decided to invite her mom and dad to a fancy restaurant for a casual dinner.... they get a good meal I get their daughter, pretty fair exchange if you ask me. So, I wanted Ms. Tortolita to not know about this. I called her mom up and told her I had to talk to her, and that she wasn't allowed to tell her daughter about it... or else. Haha, I later found out that for the days leading up to the dinner, her parentals were under the impression that I had impregnated her and I was going to break out the news to them. LOL! Umm, before you bite that juicy steak, umm... we're gonna have little tortolitos.... haha, little do they know that I'm a God sent angel here to do nothing but good things..... Anyways! So, we were having dinner, and my dad broke the ice, telling them that we had brought them to that place for a reason. Her parents whew'ed and were ready for the bad news....::drum roll:: "My son wants to marry your daughter!" (in a sad and nonexciting way). Haha, of course her dad takes a sip of the water and undoes his tie, her mom is shocked, my parents are enjoying making them suffer. The most excited person there is my little sister.... cuz she got a pizza in the shape of Mickey Mouse's head. I was nervous, by the way. So, to make a long story short.... I got their approval and yea... went on and did it. Her parents appreciated the fact that I considered their opinion.... FALSE, I was going to steal her anyways. Haha, I was going to get my way regardless. I win!

So, I guess I can give more hints and tips, but I think it's way fun to do this on the fly. When else do you get the chance to control a situation that involves you two completely all by yourself? Anyone else want to offer some advice or share their proposal thoughts?

First Things First: Engagement Fotos

Mr. Tortolito's proposal was timed perfectly; we were ten days away from a trip to Mexico and the excitement from being newly-engaged would make our summer vacation double as an engagement celebration. Prior to the engagement, anything related to wedding planning was foreign to me. So, I spent the next couple of days stuffing my brain with all things wedding. During this time I learned about "Engagement Pictures" and their popularity. While it's one of those things that is absolutely not necessary, I thought it would be a fun experience for Mr. Tortolito and I. We had never taken professional pictures together and we were on our way to one of our favorite places: Mexico. Why not have an "on location" photo session?!

Luckily, Mr. Tortolito agreed with the idea. Our vacation consisted of a trip to the state of Guanajuato. One of the towns we would be visiting was San Miguel de Allende. Mr. Tortolito and I had heard so many good things about this town and how picturesque it was. It's a popular destination wedding location for those searching for an old Mexican pueblo feel for their wedding. Thanks to this, the concept of finding a good and reliable photographer was pretty realistic. Except we had less than 10 days to secure one! I'm sure you can imagine my haste as I emailed any San Miguel de Allende photographers I could get contact info for telling them "Hey, we're gonna be in your town in 7 days. Care to take our picture?"

Well, that same day I received a response from a photographer named Michael Amici. He was originally from Texas living in San Miguel de Allende doing his photography thang, and he seemed more than willing to take our engagement pictures. Yeeah-uh! The rest was easy-peasy: we agreed on a date, got his digits just in case, and were told where exactly we should meet.

The day came and we finally met our destination-engagement-foto-photographer! We started out the session in a public patio area.

Um. Hi. We've never taken cool, posed, all-professionalish pictures together. What do we do?

"Just kiss n' stuff"

"And look at each other all cute. Yea, things like that. Be natural."

Alright, alright. I think we got this down. Let's take it to the pole.

What, more action? Psssshhhh!

We moved the party to a spot in front of a cool brick wall...


Then we borrowed some local residents' front porches....



...and worked the camera with some Tortolitos formal shots.


I'll end this photo recap here, but there are plenty more where these came from. Stay tuned for the second installment of the Engagement Fotos: "we're ready for our closeup, Michael;" Mr. Amici gives us a work out; and a handful of our favorites!

Did you know what engagement pictures were before planning a wedding, or am I just weird like that?

{{All photos by Michael Amici photography}}

A Proposal! My Side of the Story

It was the fourth of May 2008 in the City of Angels. I had awaited this day with anticipation. It was marked on my Google Calendar as:

What: Quality boyfriend/girlfriend time! Woop Woop!
Where: Everywhere all day!

Mr. Tortolito and I were about a week away from our 4.5 year anniversary (yep, we celebrate half years). Unfortch, our anniversary fell on a weekday and we really wanted to have a free day all to ourselves. May 4th happened to be ideal to have our "quality boyfriend/girlfriend time" anniversary celebration.

The day started off with Sunday mass with Mr. Tortolito's family. During the Eucharist, Mr. Tortolito likes to pray by the Virgin Mary statue and I usually join him. On this particular day, after a quick prayer Mr. Tortolito drew me close and gave me a strong hug. I thought to myself "wow, he must really like me today. That hug came out of nowhere!" We returned to our seats, mass finished, we had breakfast with the family, and returned to Mr. Tortolito's home.

We didn't have much planned for that day except a nice dinner later that evening. We pondered for a few minutes over where to go to spend some quality time before dinner. Then Mr. Tortolito suggested we go for a walk in our old stomping grounds: the USC campus. I agreed. Where else better to celebrate an anniversary than the place where we met? Plus, it was a nice day out!

We strolled through campus, hand in hand.

Mr. Tortolito: ::points:: Remember we used to have lunch there all the time?
Miss Tortolita: Oh yea! Aww I miss our lunch dates. (real thought: I'm hungry again. I wonder where we're going for dinner.)

Mr. Tortolito: What's your favorite memory of us at USC?
Miss Tortolita: Ooh, probably meeting you randomly throughout the day to steal a kiss (real thought: Why do we keep walking? Tired. Wanna sit down already!)

We continued strolling and chatting about our earlier days. Little did I know that this was all planned. We ended up at the USC Engineering Quad; a grassy area where we used to lounge and dream about our futures together. Later into the conversation, Mr. Tortolito asked if he could remove a promise ring he had given me some years ago. He wanted to "renew his promise." I said "sure." Nothing weird about that, right? Being the oblivious person that I am, the thought of a proposal in the works still had not crossed my mind. Then Mr. Tortolito started reciting the most sweetest and sincere words about love, luck, and forever; none of which I remember much because everything faded as I felt a new ring being slipped onto my left ring finger. I think he ended it with a "will you be my wife?" to which I responded "REALLY?!" followed by a very enthusiastic "YES YES YES!!!"

Needless to say, Mr. Tortolito completely surprised me. I didn't even know he had purchased a ring! But, everything about it was completely perfect and made me one happy Tortolita.

What's your proposal story? Was it a surprise or did you see it coming?

Meeting for the first time...

Romeo met his Juliet while partying it up at a ball.... Paris never met Helen before he knew he would steal her during one of his vacations to then hot-spot Sparta... while crazy Don Quixote had to make up his Dulcinea.... Our story does not involve crossing stars, divine intervention (or does it?) or crazy made-up stories.... our simply begins like many college-sweetheart stories except for the fact that ours is way more awesome... (at least to ours)

After high school, we both were admitted into the school of engineering, a career choice tough enough to merit a two-week summer introductory session before real classes started. In that particular summer of '02 my parents dropped me off by the dorms, in a timely matter, suggesting a somewhat urgency to get rid of me. Ha. So I went inside, tidied up my things, set up in my dorm, and waited for the program to kick-off. I hung out in the lobby watching all the enginerds come in one by one. One of the last ones to come in (we shall learn later that her family is notoriously late to everything) was the now fiancee. Being the observant that I am, I noticed she was wearing sassy white sun-glasses and blue sexy summer shorts (::whistling the "i just saw a hot girl" whistle::). Not that she caught my eye or anything, it's just me being observant in a rather scientific way..... I coulda made similar observations about anyone else, but I just so happen to remember this one. And only this one... don't know why...

Ms. Tortolita and I did not click immediately. Actually our relationship was more like peer-to-peer bond.... until a trip to magic mountain changed it all. The program rewarded our hard work with a visit to roller-coaster haven... Six Flags! All the students started hanging as a ginormous group, going everywhere together and doing everything as a group. The large crowd slowly filtered to 10 people, then to five. In those five, somehow I was coupled with Ms. Tortolita... she was my ride buddy. Having experience with a prior trip to Disney during High School Grad Night, ride buddies are a pretty big deal... especially if she's a cutie. Which she was and still is.. :)

We rode in all the rides together, always sitting side by side. We even rode the same ride more than once just to repeat the fun.... according to her I won her over while waiting for our friends to return from a particular coaster. We sat by a flower-bed decorating the entrance to one of the rides, I butchered a flower and uprooted it from its resting place, and handed over to her with a smile. Don't know how such an act of violence against nature's flora garnered me "sweet points"... but it did.

The rest of the summer we chatted, got to know each other better, and then looked forward to the beginning of the school year. We did not start dating immediately, actually we took our time to get to know each other even more... a whole year to be precise. The next summer we had our first kiss. Romantic story, huh? j/k....

Every story is equally (or even more) romantique but definitely always unique, care to share yours?

Welcome!

Hi blog world! Welcome to our new blog!

As you can tell by the title, we like to call ourselves "Team Claudia y Felipe" because more than just best friends and an engaged couple, we are a team. For this blog, we'll be referring to ourselves as Los Tortolitos (Mr. Tortolito and Miss Tortolita) since we are pretty much inseparable and in loooove like a pair of lovebirds. Our latest endeavor is planning our November 2009 wedding. We made this blog so that we can both share our perspectives on this wedding planning business. It's been an experience unlike any other, but we're learning that with a little bit of patience, creativity, and teamwork we can por seguro pull off our traditional Mexican wedding! We've got a lot to share for this adventure, so we hope you'll join us for the ride!

Saludos!

Los Tortolitos

Hola

Go team!