Happy Anniversary!

January 28, 2009

Little White Wedding Chapel

Little White Wedding Chapel

On this day four years ago Bryan and I became husband and wife. I thought I would share with all of you the story behind our wedding. Although Bryan and I had gotten engaged in October of 2004 we had not set a wedding date. We weren’t sure where we would live or even where Bryan would work. At the time Bryan was a recent college grad, living at home and working in a temporary position at a mortgage company. I was still a student at Cal Poly Pomona and living at home as well. Bryan had been interviewing for jobs. A couple of weeks before we got married he finally got a job that he interviewed for, his start date was January 31st, the Monday after we got married. The weekend before we got married we still had not set a wedding date. That Sunday we arrived at the conclusion that we should get married soon. How soon? Well the following Friday of course. We came up with a plan; we would get married and live with my parents until we could find a place of our own. We would use Bryan’s new income to help them pay rent. In order for my parents to go along with this without telling them we were planning on getting married I said that

Little White Wedding Chapel

Little White Wedding Chapel

Bryan wanted to move in with us because his new job was very close by and he didn’t want to commute from Orange County where his parents lived. This was a completely true statement. My parents happened to live about 10 minutes away from Bryan’s new job. They agreed. So during that week we secretly planned our wedding. We didn’t want to invite anybody, no friends, no family. The reason for this was two-fold. For one it is much easier to plan a wedding in less than 5 days when family is not involved and two, I am extremely shy about being in the spotlight. The thought of all my family and his family watching me cry my eyes out and say my vows terrified me. I’m not a public speaker and my wedding was no exception. While other girls dreamed about a big wedding, I dreamed about a private ceremony, just me and my husband. I know it sounds weird but it’s what I always wanted.

Little White Wedding Chapel

Little White Wedding Chapel

Planning a wedding in less than 5 days proved to be very easy. Bryan decided to wear a suit instead of a tux to our wedding so his work was done. I found a place close by my parents house that sold wedding dresses. I found the perfect one and it was only $125, it had to be tailored slightly though and they manged to get that done by the day before the wedding. I also had the same luck when ordering my bouquet and the boutonniere. They had it done the day we left to get married. Now it was time to figure out where we would get married. Hmm where could we get married at the last minute? You guessed it…Las Vegas baby! We found a great rate at the Fitzgerald in downtown Vegas, conveniently located next to the court house in fact. I looked on the Internet and found a chapel to get married in; The Little White Wedding Chapel. I know what your thinking: didn’t Britney Spears and her first husband get married there? Why yes they did. To get married in their chapel cost only $55, we could have chosen to be married in their drive-thru chapel but that just seemed a little too tacky for our taste.

Photo by Tara Bell

Photo by Tara Bell

On that Friday the 28th we left early in the morning, having told our parents we were just going to spend the weekend in Vegas. We picked up my dress and the flowers and headed over. When we got there, we walked across the street from our hotel to the court house and applied for our marriage license. The last thing I had to do was my hair and that turned out to be more troublesome than expected. After driving for miles and stopping at three different hair places I finally found one that would do my hair. By the time I was done it was getting late and we were scheduled to get married at 6pm. We rushed back to the hotel to get ready. When we left for the chapel it was pouring rain outside but my hairstylist said that rain on your wedding day is good luck. I don’t really believe in luck but maybe she was right. When we got there we were asked what kind of ceremony we would like. We chose a Christian one even though we were offered to be married by Elvis…umm no thanks. We had no  witnesses with us so the lady at the front desk signed off as our witness. We were offered a picture package, a single roll

Photo by Tara Bell

Photo by Tara Bell

of 12 pictures for $75, I know that seems like a lot but I was willing to do it. After all you only get married once. When we went into the chapel we were greeted by a little old lady who played the organ. She asked what kind of music we wanted her to play as we walked down the aisle. I was tempted to say Metallica “Nothing Else Matters” but I resisted and told her the traditional stuff would be fine. I was so nervous when I got to the end of the aisle where Bryan was waiting for me. When it was time to exchange the vows that we had written for each other I cried, I knew I would, and just as soon as the ceremony started it was over. Then the photographer came in and had us do a few pictures in the chapel. then he took us to his studio and we did a few more shots. After, he gave us the roll of film so we could go develop it ourselves. When got back to the hotel I was starving so I asked Bryan to pick me up a 20 piece chicken McNugget meal from the McDonald’s downstairs. Yep you heard that right, my wedding dinner was at McDonald’s. I surprise myself with how high class I am sometimes.

Photo by Tara Bell

Photo by Tara Bell

The next day we called our immediate family to tell them the news, as you probably guessed they were shocked although my family wasn’t surprised I would do something like that, I had hinted at it for years. We also took our roll of film to the one hour processing at Walgreen’s. As you can see by the photos I posted they were pretty good. I didn’t have high expectations but I was pleasantly surprised. I did want more professional wedding photos however, and about three months after our wedding I got the bright idea to go to the LA Arboretum in Arcadia in our wedding attire and take photos. Let’s just say the folks at the Arboretum didn’t like that too much as they charge a hefty fee for wedding parties coming in to take photographs. I asked my best friend Tara to take the photos since at the time she was taking photo classes at Mt. Sac including a wedding photography class. So after telling the staff that it was for Tara’s wedding class (which was absolutely true) they agreed to let us in. As you can see Tara took some amazing shots of us. You wouldn’t believe she had never shot a wedding. She used her Canon Digital Rebel for the color shots and her Canon Rebel film camera to take the black & white shots. Well there you have it! Our crazy wedding and all for the low price of $450 for everything!

Photo by Tara Bell

Photo by Tara Bell

A Day At The Zoo

January 18, 2009

Yesterday I took a trip down to the San Diego Zoo with my friends Sarah and Mark, their daughters and their nephew JD. Unfortunately because Bryan has been sick lately he didn’t join us. The reason why Sarah and I planned this trip was so I would have something to scrapbook at one of her Crop Nights. Yes as I said before in my digital scrapbooking blog, I plan trips just so I can scrapbook them. We were surprised when we arrived at the zoo that there were not that many people there. The first thing we did is ride the tour bus that takes you around the facility. I found that it was very difficult to take photos while in a moving bus because I’m to clumsy to attempt to stand up in a moving vehicle. Sarah didn’t seem to have the same problem, her pictures were coming out fantastic. She also had the luxury of a 300mm zoom lens which allowed her to get really awesome face shots of some of the animals. I used my 70-200mm but I longed for more zoom.
 
After taking the bus tour around the facility we decided to walk to Cat Canyon. There were many different large cats in this area however, the zoo separates the cats from the visitors with a wire enclosure. This is definitely safe for the visitors but horrible to try to photograph through. I wish they could come up with some sort of material that would still be safe for onlookers but also be good to photograph through. After walking around for awhile we sat down and ate and relaxed for a long time. The San Diego weather was perfect that day. Although it was really hot in the sun it was very nice in the shade. We discussed what we wanted to see next and I explicitly opposed going on the Monkey Trails. Call me strange but monkeys are the creepiest creatures in the world, they are my biggest fear so I would rather not walk through a whole trail of them. We decided we wanted to go see the polar bears which were all the way on the other side of the park. We could either walk there or take the Skyfari which is a gondola ride that takes you high above the park. I agreed to take it even though I am scared to death of heights not to mention the fact that the gondola glides on what can only be described as a thin rope of death. Okay I know, it’s a steel cable but that really changes nothing. As the gondola lifted off the ground I closed my eyes out of sheer terror. When I eventually opened them I noticed the view was incredible. I took a great shot of the California Tower at Balboa Park. Also Sarah asked me to take a photo of Mark and JD in the gondola behind us which was hard because I thought if I turned around in my seat the gondola would tip over and I would fall into the gorilla exhibit. Luckily that didn’t happen.
 
We got off and walked over to the polar bear habitat. Both of the polar bears were asleep when we got there but one of them lifted his head a few times giving me a chance to take a good photo of him. We then made our way back but stopped at one last exhibit; the Indian Gharial. This thing was very prehistoric looking and kind of scary. He looked like a big alligator but he had a long, thin snout with lots of huge teeth. He actually swam out into his pond and we got to see how large he was; he was absolutely beautiful. We ended our zoo day at closing time but hopefully I will go back again to see the animals that I missed. Unfortunately I was having an “off day” photographically speaking. I’m not really satisfied with many of my animal shots so I only posted the few that I thought came out the best. I might go back there just so I can do a re-shoot.

Check out more photos in the GALLERY!

Chino Hills State Park: After The Fire

January 3, 2009

I finally got out to go on a mountain bike ride after a long time of not riding. I decided to go to Chino Hills State park with a friend. I have to admit we could have chosen a better day though. The reason is two-fold. One is that it was wet which made it muddy. While this was fun at times; it was annoying at other times with mud sticking to my tires like super glue. The other problem is that it was foggy which is not great for photos. Still the photos I took capture how the park is now post fire. Basically I was surprised at how quickly the grass has come back. The trees on the other hand are not so lucky. Most of the trees in the park grow in small ravines or valleys and it appears that this is where the fire was the hottest. The grass that is growing back looks similar to yard grass. This is nothing like the shoulder high wispy grass that used to be there. The park is green but you can tell that life is only starting to return to normal. Most of the wildlife has no place to hide so the only things we saw were small birds who can quickly return. Jack Rabbits and insects where nowhere to be found. The ground still smells kind of like a wet camp fire. I fully expect the park to bounce back this spring and in a few years the place should look like normal again. The only thing which will take some time is for the trees to come back. That really is the saddest part about the fire ravaging the place. It was nice to see the park again and get some riding in. A small part of me was happy the ride ended with me being coated in mud from head to toe.