Something Always Goes Wrong

Ok, so I’m not going to lie to you all… something always goes wrong on your Wedding Day. It just happens. So before I get into the recaps, I’m going to tell you how the world ganged up on our little wedding and how Mr. AZ and I fought back in “Scott Pilgrim vs.The World” fashion.

Ok so there weren’t SEVEN things that went wrong… but by the end of the fight it felt like it! It all started at 8am…. not even kidding. I went to get the girls started on hair and makeup… and we found out the Makeup Artist had quit… yup quit.

She quit for a good reason, her ailing mother was not doing so well and she went to take care of her in California. But I think my face was even a little more expressive than that… but I put on my best Tim Gunn and declared “We’ll make it work.” And we did, we called up local salons and someone was able to get the 3 of us in no problem. FABUOUS! So the first Evil Would-be-Wedding-Disaster was defeated!

But only an hour after my hair was done the curls had all fallen out…. seriously I was back to stick straight hair, which hadn’t happened in the trial. So in Tim Gunn fashion yet again, we made it work. We grabbed his curling iron and thankfully Mr. AZ’s Aunt was a former hair dresser. She shellacked my hair in product and you better believe it curled. So the second Evil Would-be-Wedding-Disaster was defeated!
I was feeling amazing by this point, the first two Evil Would-be-Wedding-Disasters had not thrown me off my game, I was calm, cool and collected and ready to take on the world. UNTIL the flowers arrived. I had ordered a mixture of pink and apricot roses and beautiful red dahlias…. imagine my shock when I walked into the room to see a big pack of these….

Yup, orange, and what’s more is that when my maid of honor called the florist assuming she had simply dropped off the wrong order she argued that’s what our contract stated. Ladies keep records. My email transcripts came in handy. I printed off every communication with every vendor to Cover My Ass, and boy was I happy I did. Lucky they fixed the centerpieces and my Sisters in Law both had worked at a Florist in high school, so they fixed our personal flowers to the best of their abilities. I will admit I cried a little at the orange flowers. But mostly I felt like the deranged Red Queen…

I mean they were supposed to be Red! Anyway, it all has a happy ending. Bliss Floral did check the next day and found out the updated contract with the red was never placed in our wedding file. They were happy to offer us a full refund. Amazing, I really applaud them for double checking and admitting their mistake and guess what- I’d still recommend them… take a peek at our FIXED centerpieces…

Stay tuned for how the day really turned out, and some funny faces/dances by yours truly. What was your major fiasco? Were you lucky and got through the Wedding Day unscathed? What helped you “make it work”?

Roman Honeymoon 5

Well since our honeymoon lasted 11 days, and I don’t feel like boring you with loads blog posts dedicated to our honeymoon, I’m going to share with you my favorites today. So enjoy! And tomorrow comes the real wedding p0rn!

The Vittoriano was referred to by American Soldiers as “The Wedding Cake” for this reason Mr. AZ cannot remember the proper name. I mean, doesn’t it scream wedding cake? It makes me hungry just looking at it! Inside is a beautiful Italian museum, which is NOT AIRCONDITIONED. This isn’t a problem if you’re there in fall or winter, but summer WOOO…

This monument was in the middle of just a regular old plaza. It’s beautiful with intricate carvings all the way to the top. It’s insane to think these things are just everywhere. As a side note: I love the way the sun is centered behind it in this photo.

And what trip to Rome would be complete without the Pantheon, it’s beautiful and it’s free admission. So that’s a win-win!

 

The beautiful Spanish steps, by the way the first McDonald’s to open in Italy is just a block from these Steps, and it’s actually very pretty inside. Useless trivia I know!

 

Inside of St. Peter’s Basilica. Fun fact: below that arbor is the tomb of St. Peter himself. Which you can also tour. Many Popes have also been buried at the Vatican. The River Tiber the setting for Romulus and Remus and the birthplace of Rome itself. 

 

That’s me in the coral top in front of the Trevi Fountain. It’s pretty by day but beautiful by night. Also way more crowded at night!

I hope you enjoyed our mini-tour of Rome. Tomorrow: Wedding p0rn!

Roman Honeymoon 4

If you like/appreciate/adore art like we do, it will seriously take you two days to do the Vatican properly. They say you only need a day, but the ominous “they” lie. Let me preface this by saying I am Roman Catholic and Mr. AZ is Lutheran. So it’s not necessarily that we really loooove the “Casa de Pope” as I have dubbed it, it just speaks to so many generations of stored artwork. I think you really need to take it all in. Here are a few of our shots from the Vatican itself. Our shots of the artwork inside the Vatican came out quite dark as flash photography isn’t allowed. But what you’ve seen in books cannot compare to seeing all of the tapestries, paintings, sculptures in real life.
       
The above photo is just a hallway in the Vatican Museum. It’s just a hallway with beautiful artwork in the ceilings and on the walls and on the floor. The mosaics were mind-blowing. Truly. Honeymooner Tip: the last Sunday of the Month=FREE ADMISSION to the Museum, we saved €28! But be aware if it’s a Holy Day, it’s closed regardless. And if you’re at the Vatican you MUST got to the top of St. Peter’s Basilica, the prices are €5 for stairs the whole way or €7 for a lift to the mid-point then stairs to the top. The extra €2 are totally worth it. The stairs are a bit frightening… I say that being barely 5 feet tall and petite and having no claustrophobic tendencies whatsoever. Keep that in mind.
  

Taking a quick breather and trying to remain composed as I whimper “Are we there yet?! Seriously”Another point to make about the Vatican Museum and St. Peter’s, you must have respectful dress on. No shoulders, no knees. So by the time you reach the top of the Basilica in August in Rome, you too will look this sweaty. It wasn’t just me. Many of us were “shiny”.   Although Mr. AZ hides it well, I do not.

But isn’t the view worth it, look at that. And as my Cousin Kate told me, the design mimics two arms embracing  the Vatican. It’s a lovely thought. 
Oh and if you thought the worst was over, here’s a look at some of the stairs down. They are teeny tiny. 

Was anything hard but totally worth it on your honeymoon? We wouldn’t have traded walking up the Basilica in the 90 degree heat for anything.

Roman Honeymoon 3

So in our last installment we had just arrived in Rome, had a lot of Espresso and jumped on a double decker tour bus. The next day we decided to hoof it to the Colosseum and the Forum. Insert beautiful pictures here…

My best advice to Roman Honeymooners is this: get to the Colosseum early, but not American early, Italian early, say 9am. The lines were super short. If you love to sleep in, but your tickets at the Forum where the lines are pretty well non-existent and you can buy a pass for both the Forum and the Colessum. Plus if you’re there early you’ll get the beautiful light we got, not counting my poor shot below.

Most of those beautiful and priceless pictures were taken by Mr. AZ. I cannot stress to you all enough to invest in a DSLR before your honeymoon. You will not regret it! I cannot wait to print off all these pictures, I may make a honeymoon photo album as well as a Wedding one.
Oh and P.S. there are only 2 more of these type posts before I get to the meat and potatoes of the wedding blog world… that’s right the wedding recaps ladies. They’re coming, I’m finally getting off my lazy butt. See you next time!

Winner Winner!

I’ve had a bit of an unanticipated hiatus due to starting my new job. I apologize ladies, but I’m back with some fabulous news. The winner of the Blush Design Studio giveaway!

  Blush Design Studio

The beautiful stationery goes to #11…..

LabRat101 of Delightful Little Mess who also just became a Mrs. this weekend!

Double Congratulations to you LabRat 101, on your marriage and your win, please contact me at AZinAugust@gmail.com with your contact information so I can pass it on to Liz!

Blush Design Studio Giveaway

A week before our wedding, a good friend and my own personal Invitation Goddess friend Liz at Blush Design Studio offered to sponsor a GIVEAWAY on the blog.


Below are some of my favorite pieces she's worked on. Blush Design Studio will do wedding invitations, save the dates, programs, baby showers, bridal showers, thank you cards, business cards and just about anything that you wanted lovely and letterpressed. Take a peak...

Blush Design Studio

Why yes that is my invitation in the bottom left-hand corner, thanks for asking! I began work with Liz in January of this year and I couldn’t be more pleased with my invitations. Absolutely every person to receive them ADORED her work. But enough gushing, onto the good stuff….

♥♥GIVEAWAY♥♥

One winner will receive a set of 8 Letterpress Flat Cards & Envelopes

• THE Details: Eight (8) one color (of your choice) letterpress flat cards and envelopes. In the design shown below “4Bar Vintage Florals”

 Blush Design Studio

♥♥ENTER♥♥

1. (Mandatory entry) Head over to Blush Design Studio or Blush Design Studio's Etsy Shop and leave a comment on this post with an answer to this question: What is your favorite piece? 

2. (1 extra entry) Twitter about this giveaway and leave a separate comment with the link to your tweet or your twitter name. If you Twitter, please use @AZinAugust in your tweet so I can track them. And to make things extra easy, feel free to use this tweet:

I just entered @AZinAugust’s #GIVEAWAY for floral letterpress flat cards made by Blush Design Studio. http://su.pr/2wYsNb

3. (1 extra entry) Blog about this giveaway and leave a separate comment with a link to your blog post.


Please remember to leave a way of contacting you in one of your entry comments. Giveaway ends on Friday, September 17th, 2010 at 11:59PM MST. The winner will be chosen by random.org and will be announced on this blog on Monday, September 20th, 2010. Winner must respond to email or blog post within 48 hours or another winner will be randomly drawn. Good Luck!

Roman Honeymoon II

Ok, so if you read the previous entry you will have learned that we had 3 and half hours to kill and were seriously jetlagged. For those of you not so good with time zones (like me) it’s a 9 hour time difference from Phoenix to Rome. WOW. We seriously underestimated this puppy. So beleaguered and tired we stopped for a quick cafe. P.S. “cafe” generally means espresso, which is fabulous when you’re fighting for energy.

Source

After our little energy boost we decided to be incredibly touristy and jump on a “Panoramic Bus Tour” of Rome. I know it’s super cheesey but it’s a quick, fairly cheap (about €12/person) way of familiarizing yourselves with the lay of the land. Or in our case familiarizing Mr. AZ with the lay of the land. We manage to get some beautiful shots from the bus though…

 
The bus tour was great because we got to really see the lay of the land and where each of the big “sights” were in relation to on another. It also gave us a starting point when comparing to maps we had. I would also love to say that it “inspired us to work through our jet lag” but that would be a lie. We got to the hotel after the tour at Noon and promptly headed up to our room.
Up next, our room with a view. What’s your big tip for honeymooners dealing with jetlag? Do you battle the beast with loads of caffeine or try our more subtle approach?