Thursday, May 27, 2010

Pro photos - sneak peek

I am literally in awe of these images and will let them speak for themselves!
Detroit Photographer:
Dionne & Joe at The Shooting Gallery


(side steps at Fort Street Presbyterian in Detroit)


(side steps at Fort Street Presbyterian in Detroit)




(Hart Plaza, Detroit)


Tuesday, May 18, 2010

unBELIZEable part 2

OK…I’m just picking this up again, thank goodness when I initially started trying to write I made a quick outline of the remaining days! Old age is a B.

Day five: After trying to sleep in a little we sunscreened ourselves up and rented a golf cart for a few hours to do some souvenir shopping. See, on the island transportation is a bit different. There are minivan taxis, a few cars/motorcycles/trucks, bikes and golf carts! Of course, tourists like us think, “neat a golf cart!” and shell out big bucks to rent them even when a free bike beckons. But you get less sweaty and let’s be honest it’s going to be fun zipping around in a golf cart. Except for the gigantic pedestrian bumps (two foot tall speed bumps) every 25 yards, those hurt like a mother in a golf cart. I was over it before it started. LOL. We seriously did so much touristy shopping I thought I would pass out but we ended up with a Belikin beer shirt for Mark, a tee & jewelry for Taylor and a new dress for me. It was almost worth the incessant walking around a different store with essentially the same stuff.


We finally had lunch on the beach at the restaurant Mark wanted to try, Wild Mango’s. It was good, we saw the owner heading to a water taxi with kids and wine, and the margaritas improved my mood and almost got rid of the bump induced headache. On our way back we explored the areas just south of our hotel by golf cart and saw an area where the molestation of crocodiles was prohibited. Mark was intrigued.


That afternoon we spent the rest of the day at the pool and Mark got the crocodile molestation scoop from a waiter. Apparently, a local teen had been feeding the giant crocs chicken and they became a bit tame. So tame, in fact, the kid would do tricks like place his hat/sunglasses in the mouth of the crocodile. Tourists would come watch and the kid collected some cash but then the government decided that this was too dangerous and shut him down. Then the waiter insisted we would see a crocodile if we went a dusk, telling this to Mark would be the equivalent of telling the hyper-hypo kid from SNL the ice cream truck swings through the playground at dusk. So along comes dusk and off we go on our trusty bicycles. I watched for them from the road, a good 30 yards away from water’s edge. Mark not only went to the water’s edge he went out onto a peninsula to investigate. Sure enough, he found one and then proceeded to THROW A STICK AT IT. I pretty much passed/flipped out yelling all my crocodile knowledge to him, “run in a zig zag! They rely on the element of surprise! Make eye contact! Get the Sam Hill away from there right now!!” I had to fake a seizure to get him out of there. Who throws sticks at crocodiles?!?! My husband…great.



No clue what we did for dinner, probably because I was still too freaked out from the crocodile incident. Assuming we went into town again with our favorite cabbie.


Day six: Adventure day! We had signed up to do a tour of some Mayan Ruins and go cave tubing. The ruins, Xunantunich, were so cool. I also can not only prononuce that word but spelled it right without looking it up.  I think I should clap it out....Anyway they are the second highest ruins in Belize and it only took us a few hours to get there by boat and then van. We used a tour company that our hotel set up for us, Searious Adventures. Excellent language pun and excellent guides! I felt like we learned a lot that day and we got to eat lunch off the beaten path. Then we went cave tubing which sounds awesome! Except you have to get down this river with zero current, and you must form a human chain with the other strangers on your tour. Add to that nerdy life vests and helmets (there were no rapids or any possible way to tip over) and it’s not quite all you think it’s going to be. Overall we enjoyed the trip but think the full day at a larger ruins location would’ve been better.


Since our day was so long and, of course, hot we wanted to do an earlier dinner close to the hotel. Enter the Hidden Treasure. We’d heard others say how great the food was and were eager to check it out. Everyone knows the US economy has tanked but it was particularly interesting to see how that plays out in an area that relies so heavily on tourism, specifically US tourists. On a beach walk one afternoon we saw what we thought was people building a palapa bar (beach hut style bar). Instead they were taking it down, no business. The owner was there supervising and she instructed us to fix the economy and return so she could reopen. We all laughed but it was an awful feeling! OK, so back to dinner, there was one other couple in this huge open air restaurant. Our waiter was young and super friendly. Seeing as how it was our one week anniversary we had an appetizer, bottle of wine and a fantastic dinner but it wasn’t cheap. Hidden Treasure was by far our favorite restaurant, the food was phenomenal and the location quaint—plus they pick you up and drop you off at Victoria House free of charge. After dinner the head chef even stopped out to give me instructions on how to make the coconut rice! Eventually a few more parties wandered in but they have to be hurting just as much as anyone else on the island.



We attempted a bar crawl by walking back down toward some other hotels but didn’t see anyone out and ended up back at the Victoria House bar for a nightcap.


Day seven: Sad, our last full day. We decided another long bike ride was in order, this time we ventured way beyond our initial ride up the island. In fact we went insanely far—probably about 10 miles up the island. And it was great! I did have to commandeer a resort beach hammock to cool off but we had a blast. We hit up the bar over the water (Palapa's) that was closed the last time we did a big bike ride and left our graffiti behind. Mark even took me to the now open Legends for a burger where veggie burgers make the cut. Just not that day.



We cooled off back at the pool and got ready for dinner which, again, I can’t remember the name of.


Day eight: Home again. Boo! Good thing Mark took the next day off too and got our vacation laundry finished.

unBELIZEable part 1

When I travel I’m a huge nerd and keep a journal. In all the chaos leading up to our honeymoon I didn’t even get a new one nor did I even think of it until the trip was almost over. I’m bummed so I’m going to try and remember it all now:


Day one: e-a-r-l-y flight. But we made it to Belize and waited about 40 minutes for our puddle jumper to San Pedro. There were a handful of other newlywed couples waiting for flights but no one was staying at our hotel. There was an older couple who was going to Victoria House—this made me nervous since we both had anticipated going out and doing something with at least one other couple one night…or more! The little plane was hilarious and hot. We flew over the like bay and pulled in on a concrete runway to a dilapidated shack and dirt baggage claim area. We jumped in a taxi with the other couple and giddily scoped the landscape until we got to Victoria House.




Once we got to the hotel we were given a delicious fruit drink and shown to our room. Gorgeous! Small but exceptional and we had a private balcony overlooking the grounds. We stripped down and put on bathing suits (dirty minded people!) and toured the hotel property. AWESOME! Then we napped by the pool.




Mark made a reservation for Sunset Grill, we were still on our wedding high and had a great dinner though the food was less than stellar. I had shrimp for the first time in ages and it was good. I think the bottle of wine was a help in eating that.






Day two: Pool day. All day, we ate breakfast at the hotel and we took a bike ride up over the bridge. It was so early that none of the restaurants/bars were open on that side of the bridge. The bridge was about 2 miles from our hotel and it was 86% humidity on top of being in the 80s. but it was actually pretty cool to just tool around like that. After the long ride we cooled off then got hot again and laid out while mapping out the rest of our vacation. Dinner was at The Tackle Box. Local joint by the water taxi station that was actually pretty good. Not sure if we were still tired from the wedding or not but we went back to the hotel, played some Rummikub (score! We saw this at lunch and were so pumped!) and went to bed. It was like 8:30.




Crap I’m on day two and not remembering—boo! Wait, I’m remembering (I went back and filled it in!)


Day three: Snorkel trip to the Hol Chan Marine Reserve. Absolutely amazing trip, we saw so many different fish and in pretty deep water. For some reason I was FREEZING while we snorkeled, maybe it’s because my back was slowly frying into a gorgeous shade of crimson. While in Shark Ray Alley we definitely saw lots of nurse sharks and when I jumped off the boat I managed to land on a Sting Ray that had been chilling UNDER the boat until the moment I decided to plop in. Mark got a big kick out of that. I should have reminded him that Steve Irwin was probably laughing about sting rays too!


The other couple on our tour, Kristin and Hamilton, was a super fun couple from Chattanooga. Hamilton’s parents were originally going to take the trip but couldn’t make it at the last minute so they left their four(!) kids with the neighbors and came down instead. They were very fun loving and so nice—so nice in fact we were pumped to find out they were going fishing the next day too and booked the same trip. Once back on dry land we decided some adult beverages would be nice. So we had a few and split a delicious blackened grouper sandwich. Then we met another newlywed couple who we decided were pretty fun. We made plans to go out that night after dinner with Wade and Betsy.



Tackle Box was the meeting point and also where somehow we decided to forgo dinner. Next stop was some bar, with no people at it. We took a drunken golf cart ride to hotel (thanks Betsy) while searching for food since we skipped dinner. Stopped at Karaoke bar near hotel hoping for food, again no clue on the name, and there was no food. Betsy sang that song by Four Non Blondes. I couldn’t tell you how it goes at the moment. But Mark was singing it in the shower the next morning and didn’t know why. HA!



Day four: Deep sea fishing day. I started with a hearty breakfast of Huevos Rancheros. My stomach wasn’t 100% since we were out late and drinking the night before. I wasn’t too sure how this boat ride was going to settle that at all. So I pulled the trigger. But after emptying out the Huevos Rancheros I knew there was more and it was only a matter of time before that wanted to come out too. I was seriously debating skipping the tour but I so, so, so wanted to go. So I did.


That “matter of time” turned out to be about 7 minutes. At that point I heaved so violently over the edge of the boat I couldn’t breathe. Awesome. Mark tried to give me some water, Kristin suggested Coke so the bubbles would settle my stomach and she kept saying, Sara I’m so sorry. I had to let her know it was 100% my fault as I can’t recall EVER being sea sick. Neat. I took a nap and laid down in the shade for about 94% of the trip. When I did try to fish I wasn’t quite ready and gave my seat to someone else. Hamilton then proceeded to catch four fish in a row. I then felt better and fished some more with no luck. Now my sweet groom fished for an hour while I napped and chatted with whomever was sitting out. Then he heaved for quite some time as he claimed to suffer from seasickness. Oh well, we had a blast anyway!!



I felt perfectly fine on our way back in and once we were on land, so did Mark. Light lunch and then some relaxing on our private balcony. The cool thing about catching fish on the trip is that the hotel chef would prepare it for dinner. So we ate in the restaurant which was quite good and it was fun to eat our catch of the day. Sort of “ours” anyway! We took the Rummy game up to our room and had the delicious molten chocolate volcano dessert sent up. SO delicious.

Monday, April 26, 2010

time to write

I want to write about Belize and all the rad stuff we did.  But I can see over there in the corner a box of thank you notes.  I literally just started pouting out loud.  You know the wheezy, huffy, stamp your foot, "Idon'twanna" thing?  I just did that.  Out loud, all alone in the apartment.  Oy vey.  Maybe I will wait until we finally open our gifts on Sunday and then I can tackle the whole giant list, bit by bit? 

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Bomb-diggity Detroit Wedding Vendors

I'm going to crank out a list, if you want more info just email me (sara.heuvelman@gmail.com) and I will get you the specific contacts we worked with.  Please note I won't think you're a weird stalker because this is the best way to find a good vendor!  If you reach out to anyone PLEASE let them know I sent you--thx!

Dress:  Birmingham Bridal
Everyone here was beyond helpful and the selection was great.  Pricing was in my range and the alterations were decent (though mine weren't major).

Hair/Makeup: Todd's Room
Jan did my hair, it stayed all night and I thought it was the perfect mix of modern and elegant.  Loved how it turned out, we only did a minor tweak from the test run.  Marisa does my eyebrows and did my wedding makeup, again we just switched to black eyeliner and added lipstick under the gloss.  My face stayed on the whole day and I was amazed at how gorgeous I could look with the right makeup!!  Hand's down go see either or both of them.

Accessories: Nordstrom, Todd's Room, One in a Million & Simple Beauty
My cute Cole-Haan metallic gray shoes were from my old standby Nordy.  The flashy, dangly earrings were from Todd's Room:  stunning clear crystals and some smaller gray crystals--beautiful and less than $40.  Brooch was from One in a Million, the owners are absolutely lovely and BEYOND helpful.  My piece was actually a hair comb that they took to a jeweler and converted for me.  I had about 10 people ask me if my veil was passed down from a family member, I loved the simple lace detail at the bottom and it had a wonderful vintage look.  But nope, I got it for less than $60 from Simple Beauty on Etsy.

Flower Girl Dresses:  My Angelic Kids
There is such a creepy pagaent world out there!  But if you dig enough you can find very reasonably priced gowns for your little ladies.  This site had lots of options and we jazzed them up with poufy slips and yellow fabric rosettes.  Plus, Mark's mom made the pomanders they all carried by using these directions.

Bridesmaid Dresses: Miss Kate's Maids
Kate has an amazing collection of dresses.  Specifically the collections of Melissa Sweet, Vineyard & Priscilla of Boston--which is what I chose.  She has unusual hours and I would wager she works another job but she was super helpful and had great selections.  We had a mix up and she fixed it immediately and humbly.

Tuxedo:  Men's Warehouse, various locations
Everyone's worked out just fine. Enough said.

Stationary:  Various
Invites were ordered through Lasting Impressions, huge selection and they are very helpful.  We did our programs ourselves on Vistaprint.  Word to the wise: have your entire bridal party proof and then take it to 12 other people because it's not easy to proof online.  Place cards were from Papeterie, which is pricey but I found a great online deal.

Flowers: Westborn Market, Berkley
Nicole is a delight to work with and I thought my flowers were stunning.  Plus they were exactly what I wanted!  Westborn put together my amazing bouquet and all the girls.  The men's bouts came from there as well.  We ordered the stems and Mark's mom put the arrangements together for the reception.  There was a nasty snafu with that and Westborn graciously stepped in to assist.

Chiavari Chairs:  A Moment Forever
OK, I randomly found this vendor after search FOREVER to find a good price on these designer chairs.  Stacy is a sweetheart and you can tell she loves working with brides.  Plus they have beautiful chairs and a price you cannot beat in Michigan.

DJ: Mike Staff Productions
A wedding staple in Metro Detroit, we worked with Matt Candela and the dance floor was bumping even before Mark and I did the first dance.  It stayed jam packed the entire night.

Cake: Sugar's
Raquel recently left corporate life to run her own cake shop.  Thank goodness she did!  Hands down the most delicious cake ever. And I don't even like cake!  We had a lemon-lime cake with raspberry filling and chocolate raspberry cake with raspberry filling.  Both were topped with cream cheese frosting.  Mmmm. 

Limo: Grosse Pointe Coach
They have one stretch limo that worked perfectly for our small bridal party and Mark and I used a car to transport ourselves from reception to the Book Cadillac. Both drivers were prompt, knew where they were going and were SO NICE!  Plus it was the best deal we found in the area.  We were so pleased we added them to our day.



Reception Venue:  Grosse Pointe War Memorial
Gorgeous ballroom of a historic mansion.  Lots of rules and a few small extra costs but overall a reasonable price for an exquisite setting.  Cheryl is super helpful and the day of captain helps keep everything running smoothly.  It is a bit tricky to get a date if you're not from the GP but it's not impossible!

Church:  Fort Street Presbyterian
Another stunning historic place.  You do not have to become a member to have your ceremony there.  In all honesty the church is so beautiful but the only hiccups of the day were around the ceremony...which is sad because before we began the wedding process there we really enjoyed attending the services...

Rehearsal Dinner:  Vince's Italian Restaurant
Eat here.  It's the best food of all time.  The end.

And now MY TWO FAVORITE VENDORS!!!  Well in fairness to all my other helpful vendors I did spend the most time with these two :)

Coordinator:  Details by Laura
Laura, Laura, Laura...she seamlessly made the entire day perfect!  She was so organized, is an undercover comedienne and made herself available to me prior to the wedding to ensure we had all the i's dotted and t's crossed.  The day had scissors, bobby pins, straws for the drinks, appetizers waiting, stain remover for the dress and anything else you could possibly think of (those are examples of things I never thought of and definitely used!).  Her two assistants were hardworking and the reception venue looked beautiful.  I am so glad that I took the advice to hire a day of coordinator.  And like many brides, I truly wish I had worked with her from day one!

Photographer:  The Shooting Gallery
Yin and Yang. Cole and Haan.  Dionne and Joe.  Peanut Butter and Honey.  Some things just go together so perfectly.  Seriously, these two phenoms gave us minimal direction (well, we are practically models) and just went with the mood of the day.  They had scoped a couple of great locations and put together some very unique backdrops around Detroit.  Plus, it was fun.  Super fun.  I hate having my picture taken but I actually started to forget that was the purpose of the afternoon--I was too busy laughing and cracking jokes and nuzzling my beau while they worked around everyone.  From a few days before I met with Dionne to this day I stalk the blog and Dionne's Facebook on a regular basis.  Her work is breathtaking and so emotive. Actually, I'm a little in awe of her so maybe that's why I feel like a nerdy freshman and she's the cool senior with a bitchin' Sunfire convertible.  

Wedded bliss

I honestly cannot even begin to say how wonderful our wedding day was.  From the little details to the big ones, to all the family and friends who came in, to the dancing, to the laughing, to the tears.  It was perfection.  I grabbed some photos my friends/family had taken and am posting here for your viewing pleasure:

(credit: S.Hartman)


(credit: ??)

(credit: A. Bowles)

(credit: A.Bowles)

(credit: G.Patterson)

(credit: G. Patterson)

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

so much stuff!

Wedding day and everything that went with it was amazing!  I only look back with a huge grin...and I'm so thankful for all the friends and family who came or even just acknowledged with a Facebook note :)  I will add a photo or two soon along with some thoughts on the day and a list of my amazing vendors!

Belize was phenomenal.  We are beyond excited to go back...soon!  Again, photos and stories soon.

Today I found this site, MRS FOREVER, that outlines the enitre process surrounding the big name change.  I struggled with this more than I could have anticipated.  Mostly because I was a concerned that in the professional arena it would be confusing and a little bit because I've been Sara H. for 30 years.  But I'm pledging my life and my future with Mark and I think having a united family name, no matter how awkwardly it's spelled, will honor that.  Or honour.