Jenn and Danny's Smog Shoppe Wedding

How FUN are these pictures by Steep Street Photography?! Looks like there was quite a bit of silliness involved, and if you ask me, your wedding day is a great day for silliness. Plus those bridesmaid dresses are adoooorable.

Oh, and Miguel and Sherry (owners/operators of Marvimon and Smog Shoppe) seriously know how to rock a succulent wall. We got a woolly pocket as a wedding gift... now we just need, oh, 100 more. And a giant outdoor wall. And soil. And a whole lotta plants. Hmmm, maybe I'll just leave that one to the experts...

Our invitations!

We sent these out a couple weeks ago... sorry it took me so long to get the pics up here! We decided to keep it really simple with our invitations. Our Save-the-Dates were a true labor of love, and we had fun designing and creating them, but this time we wanted something a little more streamlined. No RSVP cards, ergo, no inner envelopes, no double postage = huge savings. And so far, no one has made a fuss about using our website to RSVP (except our grandparents, who don't own computers, and that's ok, we still love them!) Curt used Photoshop to design these, and his dad was kind enough to take them to work with him and print them for us. The whole project- including postage- cost us less than $100 (for 80 invitations). No joke.



One of my favorite bloggers, Erin of Erin Ever After, has this great little Etsy shop called Haute Off the Press... our invitation design was inspired in part by her "I Heart You" invitation suite. We love the clean, modern aesthetic!


I'm no calligrapher, but I actually had a lot of fun addressing all the envelopes, and they turned out great! Seriously, you could have the worst penmanship in the world and it wouldn't matter. Writing with a shimmery silver paint pen makes everything pretty.



A7 Solid Dark Purple Envelopes from paperandmore.com
Silver Shimmer A6 note cards from Paper Source
DecoColor Silver Paint Pen: Paper Source

Also, if anyone cares, we used these stamps. Nothing spectacular, but they fit the fun, contemporary style of the invites and looked great against the purple envelopes.

It felt SO GOOD to put the last batch of these in the mail... the RSVP's have been trickling in but we still have no clue how our final guest count will look!

Thank you, Mr. Bovitz.

Lucky us! Curt's boss has season tickets to Dodger Stadium, but was in Oregon yesterday for a business meeting and offered us his seats. Hooray for one of our first rites of passage as responsible Angelenos! So we got to watch the Dodgers lose to the Colorado Rockies 3-0. Sure, it's a bit of a bummer that they lost, but the seats were great! And everyone knows that baseball is all about the food anyway...



World Famous Dodger Dog! (Not the most attractive picture, sorry about that...)

The coolest part was that they let everyone on the field after the game and put on a great fireworks show. Complete with Patriotic songs. You know that Ray Charles version of "America the Beautiful"? It ALWAYS reminds me of The Sandlot.


Brand new shiny shoes ($30 at Marshalls, yo!) on the most beautifully maintained grass in Los Angeles... Seriously, that stuff is so strong, you'd think it was fake.

excited for fireworks!

Are y'all doing anything exciting for the 4th? I'm SO looking forward to having a Saturday off!

Our new place

My apologies for the lack of posts recently.... as soon as Curt and I got back from Denver, we went into serious apartment-hunting mode. His lease is up on July first and we really wanted to find a bigger place before the wedding.

But my Craigslist sniping skills paid off and we're moving into this AMAZING apartment in 10 days!! It's in a restored 1950s building on a small, quiet, tree-lined cul-de-sac. It's a two-bedroom with huge windows and it feels so open and airy! The building is only 6 units and the rest of the buildings on the street are small ranch homes so it's not a very crowded area. We're so excited to move and start setting up our new place! I won't officially move in until after the wedding but it's nice because we'll have so much time to get things settled before the wedding chaos hits.

Ok, on to the pictures... they're from Craigslist so they're not the best... we'll be posting plenty of good ones once we've moved in...





These guys are also moving on the 15th. Happy moving day!

In My Mailbox

There was a lovely little present waiting for me when I got home from work today. Sweet swag from The Flashdance!
Beautiful letterpressed envelope by Milkfed Press...

Nestled inside this pretty little package were two CDs: One of Michael's monthly mixes, and his "Gangsta Pop" compilation...
Photos (complete with cartoon speech bubbles!!) from Max Wanger and Our Labor of Love...
Y'all. We have the coolest DJ ever.


photos by Curt, taken with his Nikon D50.

I want to go to there.

So originally, we were thinking something along the lines of a cozy little Mexican food place for the rehearsal dinner. I mean, no one passes up melty cheese and pre-game Margaritas.

But this place is making me at least pause to reconsider. Food and art?? And inspired by the maid-cafes in Tokyo? I like.

I wonder what it would cost to reserve their VIP lounge (that's the one with the huge screen and those comfy-looking chairs).

See more on Green Wedding Shoes!

Happy Birthday to Me...

So, it's my last birthday as a single woman. (Yay!) Here's my plan for today:

Work. But we're having a really great trunk show for Modern Trousseau so the day should go pretty fast.

See Iron and Wine at the Troubadour with Kathryn.

Come home and eat the rest of my birthday cheesecake, if there's any left :)


Enjoy your weekend!


*image from here

Interview with THE HUMAN JUKEBOX

Happy weekend everyone!

By now you're probably aware of The Flashdance, the virtual lovechild of Max Wanger, Our Labor of Love, and DJ Michael Antonia.

A few weeks ago, Curt and I had the chance to meet up with Michael at MILK in West Hollywood and chat about wedding stuff. Mostly we talked about how the blogosphere and the internet in general is changing the landscape of the wedding industry... how there are soooo many more options than there were 10, or even 5, years ago, and how weddings are becoming way more individualized and personal.

Michael is just a really rad guy and I think y'all will appreciate his fresh take on wedding music. Curt and I are beyond thrilled to have him as our DJ, and if you're looking for someone who won't play the same old crappy disco, he might be a good fit for you, too! Just check out the Flashdance website for his contact info.

image from here.

As promised, here's my interview with Michael...



Mason Jar Bride: How did you first discover your talent?

Michael Antonia: trial by fire really... in 98/99 whitney (our labor of love) and i were producing around 100 concerts and club nights a year. some people don't know this but most djs are notoriously late, perpetually stoned, bums...and our opening djs were no exception! since i was doing so many shows i was receiving promo vinyl from a lot of record labels which i would have on hand just in case, many nights i would be the default opening dj. eventually the other djs got what they had coming to them and i stole their job!

MJB: Favorite group or artist you’ve opened for?

MA: it was a big thrill for me to open for Grandmaster Flash. i was honored just to meet him! he started it all! a true pioneer who is still a perfectionist, still buying and playing new music, and still pushing the boundaries of what is conventionally considered hip-hop. i was supposed to do a show with jam master jay but fate fucked that all up... that would have been awesome though.

MJB: How was The Flashdance born?

MA: whitney and i always talked about taking our experience in event production and marketing/advertising and applying it to the wedding industry. we had very unconventional weddings and people were always talking about how much fun they had. we thought that we could bring some of that style to the industry. we dabbled in it for awhile but always had other things going on. then we both had kids and decided that being on the road for months at a time, and working 100 hours a week wasn't as cool as we had always thought it was (but it was pretty rad sometimes!). then we met max and it just seemed like the right time.

MJB: How many albums do you have on vinyl?

MA: oh jeez, maybe ten thousand? i have been collecting since i was nine.

MJB: Name one album you could listen to on repeat for a full 24 hours.

MA: that's easy. bob dylan - blonde on blonde (i've listened to nothing but that album for days in a row. it is a perfect record in every way)

MJB: What's your best piece of advice for brides in terms of music selection?

MA: be yourself! be timeless! there are a million different people telling you a million different songs that are "must plays" or " THE alt wedding song" etc. don't listen to that crap. the most important music to have at a wedding is music that you and your family will love and remember for the rest of your life. some new cool "alt wedding hit" or whatever isn't going to mean anything to you next year let alone in 2047! play music for the whole fam for two hours, then for you and your friends for two hours (grandma is going home after cake, mom is going to be drunk after two hours, and kids love everything...)

MJB: What's your proudest accomplishment?

MA: my little lady.. elodie swan antonia

MJB: What's the craziest thing you’ve ever seen at a wedding?

MA: maybe not too crazy, but easily the best thing was shana and her bridesmaids doing a choreographed rendition of beyonce's single ladies dance. http://www.theflashdance.com/index.cfm?postID=115 (there is a link to video of them doing the dance highly suggested!)


MJB: Thank you SO MUCH! You're the best!

MA: NO YOU ARE THE BEST! thank you.



"But wait, there's more!"

Michael sent me a little playlist of five very different songs that, at first glance, look like they'd be a disaster if you put them together. But he puts them together flawlessly. Unfortunately I can't post the mp3 on here (booooo, Blogger...) but since almost-husband uses Wordpress, he can. So hop on over to AUCOTI and listen to the excerpt. It's from a show where Michael opened for N.E.R.D. about 3 years ago. Here are the tracks in the mix:

Fly Like an Eagle - Steve Miller Band

Nobody Beats the Biz - Biz Markie

Fame - David Bowie

Shake Ya Ass - Mystikal

Hypnotize - Notorious B.I.G.


Michael, thanks again for stopping by MJB!

so excited.

La Citta Vita's flickr

We blocked out some rooms for our guests at The Standard Hotel downtown. They actually gave us a really good deal, so I'm hoping we'll get enough friends and family members interested in staying there. If we book 10 rooms, Curt and I get an upgrade to the Wow! room. nice.

Here are some more pretty pictures...

source

Karla Jean Davis's flickr. She has a whole set on The Standard, check it out here... it's AMAZING.

Atwater Village Newbie's photostream

Dan_DC's photostream

Never Cool in School's photostream. Wedding day photo op? You betcha.

rick's photostream. pool table. in the lobby. sweet.

I hear they have a pretty strict no-photo policy in certain areas, but I'm not worried. Sarah "Sniper" Chen got some shots at the rooftop bar for Regina and Richard's wedding last year.


Anyone have experience with sneaking pictures in a no-picture zone? I'd love to hear your tips!

If you can smell the chlorine in your tap water...

Go buy this.

It. Is. A. Life. Saver.

(Or at least a skin and hair saver)

No joke.





Jonathan, I think I love you.