personal

i got married!

Paper flower bouquet and boutonniere by Floral Loft in San Francisco

On April 2nd, I married the love of my life! We purposefully kept things quiet. We married on a Tuesday, but only told our parents the Saturday before. They were all incredibly excited (and secretly wondering when we’d be getting married anyway!), but my dad was so excited he booked a last minute flight to San Francisco to spend the day with us. Neither of us wanted a big wedding, so we went to the beautiful San Francisco City Hall to make it legal. It was just my dad and two of our friends in attendance. Our friends, Maggie and Josh, were kind enough to spend the day as our paparazzi. They ended up taking 1,700 photos for us and video of the ceremony itself, which our parents will certainly appreciate.

San Francisco City Hall Wedding

San Francisco City Hall Wedding

Ice Cream Bar, San Francisco

After the ceremony at City Hall, we shared champagne and lunch at Cafe Zuni, which was followed by old timey sugar-filled goodness at The Ice Cream Bar. Dinner was devoured at a neighborhood favorite, Nopa. Cory and I then spent the night at Chateau Tivoli, a wonderfully creepy Victorian mansion converted into a bed & breakfast. We stayed in the Luisa Tetrazzini suite, named after the 19th century opera singer who frequented the mansion. The bed we slept on once belonged to Charles de Gaulle. Weird, but cool! We had an absolute blast, and were very thankful that our friends and my dad could share our special day with us.

Chateau Tivoli, Luisa Tetrazzini Suite

I’ve managed to dwindle down the 1,700 photos to 286. That’s still a lot, but feel free to take a look at the album on Flickr. Although our wedding was a very small affair, we still did a fair amount of planning. Here’s a breakdown of many of the details that went into our wedding day. I highly recommend everything, especially the paper flower boutonniere and paper flower bouquet from the Floral Loft and Susie Chhuour’s make up and hair wizardry.

Attire:
Paper flower bouquet – The Floral Loft
Paper boutonniere – The Floral Loft
Suit – Banana Republic
Wedding dress – Dolly Couture
Dinner dress – Anthropologie
Mustard kitten heels – ModCoth
Pearl necklace – Ruche
Gold leaf bobby pins – Etsy
Hair and makeup – Susie Chhuour

Eat:
Zuni Cafe – I love snobby pizzas.
The Ice Cream Bar – everything is good. Bring a camera for excellent photo ops.
Nopa – book reservations at least a week in advance.
Sweet Maple – morning after breakfast. Get the deep fried french toast and millionaire’s bacon.

Sleep:
Chateau Tivoli

lucky

I was going through old photos recently and stumbled across this:

 

I hastily snapped this photo after a job interview in February 2010. At the time, I had been living in San Francisco for nearly a year without any success of employment. Whenever I visited the Financial District area, I would always crane my neck to look at the surrounding buildings, enveloped in a feeling of wonder and amazement. I desperately wanted to join the glamorous world of gainful employment. I now work in this building. When I leave the office in the evenings, I still always look up at the buildings in the neon-lit night with the same sense of dizzying amazement and wonder how I ended up here.

izzy goo

There were three things I really wanted to accomplish in 2012:

1) Move to a new apartment
2) Travel to Turkey
3) Get a dog

Cory and I decided to stay put in our current place back in June. Long story short, rent control is pretty nice. We’re also going to Turkey in three weeks, which is realllllly exciting. I’ve been to Egypt three times, but it was to study. I’ve never been on an actual vacation before.

And then we tried to get a dog. Our landlord shot us down and said, “you can get a cat.” A cat? I like cats, but I am a dog person. Then I met Izzy.

We adopted her four weeks ago from a local shelter. She’s been through a lot. She lost an eye to a bb gun and we’re the third people to adopt her since mid-2011. She’s the sweetest and most trusting cat I’ve ever known. It’s hard to believe there was ever a time in Cory and I’s lives when we weren’t completely covered in cat hair. I look forward to many, many years with her. She’s even amassed something of an internet following already. Who knew the internet liked cats?

a birthday surprise

I’m a notoriously bad surprise spoiler and secret keeper. That being said, I have no idea how I managed to scheme behind Cory’s back for months, all for the biggest birthday surprise of his life.

It all started with a fanciful daydream back in February, “what if I flew out Cory’s parents and brothers to San Francisco for his birthday?”. I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind, so I asked Cory’s brother Casey what he thought. Casey loved the idea and got his parents on board, too. Before I knew it, plane tickets had been purchased, hotel rooms were being booked, and I had already planned out a daily itinerary.

On the eve of Cory’s birthday, we left work together as usual. When we arrived home, his parents and brother were hiding in our kitchen. Cory was absolutely stunned when he saw his family. After Cory’s initial shock came the questions, “how long are you all here? We have to think of plans of what we’re going to do!” (don’t worry, check out my itinerary), “what about my work? I have to tell my boss!” (don’t worry, I already told him you’re taking days off a month ago), and “how the hell did my parents get into our apartment?” (don’t worry, they didn’t break in! I had copies of our keys made and sent them to your mom). When I tried to tell Cory the hints I’d been dropping him for months about the visit, he hadn’t picked up on any of them. Shiii-et, I could get away with murder.

His family was here for about five or so days, and I think it’s safe to say that it was the best birthday Cory has ever had. The trip was filled with fun and food, and if you’re into looking at other family’s vacation photos, lucky you! There’s a Flickr album waiting for you.

Also, if you’re in San Francisco and you have family visiting OR if you’re visiting San Francisco, I highly recommend buying CityPasses if you intend on doing anything touristy. It’s $69 bucks – which includes admission to the California Academy of Sciences (my favorite place to take visitors!), SF MoMA, Aquarium of the Bay, a 1 hour boat tour that takes you under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz, and unlimited use of public transportation (this includes Cable Cars. Cable Car fare is $6 a pop if you’re a tourist, so don’t be a sucker).

june photo post

So many things to blog about, not enough hours in the day. As I work on the next post, here are some photos of my life in the last couple months. They’re mainly of my dad’s trip to San Francisco in April and of course, some of the things I’ve been eating.

(if you’re viewing this post via RSS, be sure to visit the site to see the photo gallery)

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About

Why, hello there. My name is Rose. Originally from Flint, Michigan, I now call San Francisco home.

I enjoy corgis, cooking, vidya, and the internets. Cory is my favorite person.

deal w/ it

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