It's our Engagement Anniversary!

At first I was annoyed when all my clients cancelled on me today, but then I realized it was our engagement anniversary and Matthew and I would have time to reminisce before he went to work!

One year ago today, Matthew insisted we went on a picnic, even though I had an article due that night ( I was doing some freelance writing at the time). I accidentally saw the ring in his pocket before he got around to proposing, but I was still so shocked when he asked me. Apparently, all I kept saying was "Really?!" over and over.

It was so sweet to be able to take the time to recreate our engagement picnic today! That day was so exciting and kind of a blur so it was nice to revisit the whole thing. That day Matthew made me the luckiest girl in the whole world, and in four and a half months I will be a married woman, yikes! I was also psyched to get a picture since Matthew was too embarrassed to last year!

Half Moon Bay and Mother's Day

So we had a feeling that Mikey and Amanda's Wild Wild West Wedding was gonna be a blast, so we were smart enough to get a hotel room for the night. The next morning we checked out and explored the lovely Half Moon Bay since I had actually never been there before.

It was also the day before Mother's Day and I was hoping to find a farmer's market to find some great flowers for the mommy's in my life. We lucked out and found one right across the street from the hotel!!

Not sure if a lot of people know this, but Matthew and I love giving each other nick names. Some of the less embarrassing ones include Kellycopter and Mattie-Cake. I usually refer to him as Cake, and for some reason he always calls me Bear. So I always have to pose with any fellow bears I come across. This one was almost as tall as Matthew. 

After picking out the perfect flowers at the farmer's market we headed out to the beach. 

Here are some pics of the all the gorgeous flowers I found. 

I picked out some pretty pink ranunculus and white poppies for my sis, and a similar yellow bouquet for my grandma. I also got a huge bunch of greens and fillers to make the arrangements myself. Doing the flowers for our wedding is gonna be fun!

I found this amazing assortment for my mom. I don't know what those purple flowers were called, but the insides of them looked like cheetah print! Amazing!!

Along with all the other flowers my sister and Dad got everyone, my parent's house looked like a floral shop!! It's fun to spoil those you love!

Mikey and Amanda's Wild Wild West Wedding

So this is another post I have been too busy with school to do! Matthew and I were honored to be invited to the wedding of our friends Mikey and Amanda at the amazing Long Branch Saloon and Farms in Half Moon Bay last month. Amanda and I started planning our weddings around the same time and were both pining for cute barn weddings. Luckily, our wedding went in a different direction once we fell in love with Walden West, because there is no way I could have found a better venue for burlap and mason jars than this!!

So we called for a cab from our hotel and this arrived to pick us up. Sweet!

The adorable burlap card sign Amanda made!

The best part about this venue were all the quirky activities for the guests to do. There was so many fun things that we unfortunately forgot to sign the guest book. Oops!

A guest panning for gold! Not sure if he found anything though . . . 

The happy couple posted pictures of them throughout the years with clothespins. 

The chapel where the ceremony took place. Not sure if you can read the banner, but it says "Forever Starts Today." So cute!!

The flower girl is Lucy, Mikey and Amanda's adorable daughter. She really is the cutest thing!

The new Fenton Family!! 

Here are some other awesome things I found all over the venue:

This picture is for my Dad. He is a civil war nut and forced me to pose in front of countless cannons throughout my childhood, so I always feel obligated to take pictures in front of any I come across. 

During the cocktail hour, I took some carrots from the veggie plates and climbed a fence to go feed some horses! In my heels too, totally worth it!

Yes, I did ring the bell!

Mr. and Mrs. Mikey Fenton making their grand entrance! 

I absolutely love this picture! I know it seems a little blurry, but that's part fog and partly because we were sitting near the fire pits. After that we went inside and played some blackjack and poker in the saloon's gaming area. I didn't get any pics of the actual saloon, boo! It was such an amazing wedding and we had a blast. We send our best wishes to the new Mr. and Mrs. Fenton and hope they have a lifetime of happiness!!!

Save the Date Bookmarks!

I have been looking forward to writing this post for a while, but first I had to finish a painful research report for school and then wait until the majority of guests had received these so I wouldn't ruin the surprise! Our Save the Date bookmarks went out last week, and it sounds like everyone loves them as much as we do!

Like I've said before, I can't imagine planning a wedding without Etsy, which is kind of like Ebay but everything on there is hand made by some pretty talented people! There are so many creative graphic designers that sell stationary and invitations on there, so I knew this is where I would get most of our wedding correspondence. It took us weeks looking at all the options and we about to settle on a postcard until we saw these dreamy bookmarks from Cardcandydotcom. I really fell in love with the font at first and we had really wanted to use one of the fun jumping shots we took during our amazing engagement photo session with Ryon:Lockhart Photography, so these were perfect! Cardcandydotcom was a pleasure to work with! Less than 12 hours after I ordered a sample, I had our proof emailed to me and the final shipment of the bookmarks was fast and efficient! He even threw in an extra 30 bookmarks, which is great because we will certainly treasure them and use them throughout our lives!

Once the bookmarks were ordered, it was time to obsess over the envelopes! This was my opportunity to finally start playing with all the colors that have been inspiring me as I begin to design the wedding. I am kind of against picking one color and spraying it all over every element of the wedding, so I am working more with a palette of yellow, grey, a blue-green that is more blue than green (I know, I know) sometimes referred to as Peacock, and splashes of fushia. Needless to say, Paper Source has become one of my new favorite sites these days! There I found these fun open ended envelopes in a gorgeous peacock color and these super easy to print yourself oval chartreuse labels.

I even ended up finding an affordable yet cute stamp! I had heard about Zazzle.com, a website where you can order or create special postage stamps. I will admit I found so many wonderful options there, but I could not justify spending more on the postage stamp than the actual save the dates I was sending!! Over a dollar a stamp, that's just crazy!! Luckily, I found these gorgeous William H. Johnson limited edition floral stamps available at our local post office for the same price as ugly, boring stamps. They were perfect!

The only thing left to do at that point was to create an insert. I can be pretty anal sometimes and was worried that some people may think we picked the weirdest shaped, smallest save the dates ever and wouldn't figure out they were bookmarks. So I whipped these babies up, made out of some left over card stock I had laying around the house. Matthew was such a sweetie and actually offered to help me assemble everything. Yes, he offered! He's a keeper, I think I'll marry him : )

Aiden's Angry Birds Birthday!

So even though The Smallcombe Shuffle is technically our current wedding blog, our life isn't just about the wedding. I will not be one of those  people! Although this blog is about Aiden, who is the son of my best friend and bridesmaid Sarah and he will be one of the ringbearers . . . 

So apparently, this Angry Birds thing has finally reached the children. Pretty much most of the kiddos I work with are obsessed with them, but my nephew Aiden is their number one fan! So when I offered to do his cake this year, I knew it had to be Angry Birds and immediately thought about making cupcakes! 

Sarah and I worked pretty late on these babies last night and they came out frickin amazing! Our friend Meredith made the yummiest chocolate frosting I have ever tasted that made the perfect base frosting before we added the birds and pigs. So dark and decadent! 

Here's Meredith and I posing with the birthday boy. Such a great party! I can't believe he is seven years old already! Even though Matthew and I will have a new anniversary to celebrate soon, we will always remember how many years we have been together because Sarah was preggers when we met. Whenever someone asks how long we've been dating, we always look at each other and ask, "How old is Aiden again?" 

So there you have it. You have been introduced to the first member of our wedding party. Matthew and I will be babysitting my other two nephews tomorrow, so perhaps I will introduce them as well. Yes, we are having three ring bearers because I have three adorable nephews under the age of 7 and I can't imagine picking just one! Crap, I guess this is kind of a wedding post after all. Oh well!

Nighty nite!

Kelly McBride (Soon to be Smallcombe!) 

Six months!

So the other nifty gadget I've benn trying to add on here is a wedding countdown thingy, but that's not going so well either. This picture of our calendar will have to suffice! Six months from today I will be dancing with my new husband surrounded by my friends and family. We can't wait!! I'm sure it will be here before we know it! 

Nighty nite! Kelly McBride (soon to be Smallcombe!)

Engagement Photos

This post has been days in the making. I was trying to set up a photo slideshow of the whole set of our engagement photos, but until I finally figure that out this will have to do. 

So Matthew and I are the luckiest people in the world! Two of our close friends just happen to be the most amazing photographers ever, and wouldn't you know that they just happened to get married and move back to the west coast just in time for our own engagement. Ok, well I'm sure there were some other reasons. . . 

I have worked with quite a few wedding photographers throughout the years, but Tim and Sarah of Ryon:Lockhart Photography is the amazing team of photographers who just happen to also be a lovely newlywed couple. They were already great photographers from California living in New York City when they met, fell in love and moved to LA to start their lives together. From my years of being a wedding planner, I've already learned that it helps to really get along with your wedding photographers, which is why our engagement session went so well! Anyone who gets to work with this team won't be sorry and we are so honored to be able to use them before their calendar fills up!

 The pretty flowers I got for the shoot. Definitely what I'm going for on the big day too!

These first few photos were taken at the Sunnyvale Heritage Museum, which was actually our first choice for the wedding location. It's part of the park where Matthew proposed and I used to do plays at the Community Theater there when I was younger! Would have been perfect, except that they broke ground on a new courtyard and weren't available on our date. No worries, Walden West it is!

This is the picture we almost went with for the save the dates, 

but then we thought of something even better!

Whenever I wear this necklace, everyone always asks me "Is that a tiny comb?" I always scoff and say, "No, it's a Smallcombe, gosh!"

We've already been wearing matching promise rings for years. My engagement ring matches the infinity rings we got at the Art and Wine Festival years ago. 

Once again, thank you so much Ryon:Lockhart Photography! We can't wait to see what beautiful photos you take on the big day! Here is a link to the blog post they did on our engagement shoot that features a lot more photos if you just can't wait for the slideshow!

Have a good night!

Kelly McBride (soon to be Smallcombe!)