Our Rehearsal Dinner

As of today, I've been a happily married woman for three months.  Can't believe how quickly that happened!

I figured it's time to go ahead and show some fun wedding details.  I'll start with our Rehearsal Dinner which was hosted at The Wayfare Tavern, one of our favorite SF restaurants.  Celebrity chef, Tyler Florence does his thing there and the food always amazes!  Additionally, it has a distinctly NYC feel which is very special to us as NYC is the city we met and fell in love in.

The only photo of us from our Rehearsal Dinner.  

Really wish we had hired our photographer for this night too :(  

I had met Taylor's sister for an awesome blow-out at Dry Bar earlier that day to ease a little stress and to catch-up with my soon-to-be sister over mimosas!  Taylor bought me the dress when we were out running errands one day from Betabrand, an SF start-up.  

And my Alice and Olivia shoes have tiny red hearts on them for our Valentines Day celebration. 

We reserved the Bartlett Room upstairs which is long and skinny.  It features a view into their wine collection on one side and lush velvet curtained windows on the other side.  There's a bar at one end and a screen at the other end where you can play your own videos or watch enchanting black and white scenes of old San Francisco, we did both!  The long dinner table was perfect for our family style meal.  

We first hosted a private dinner for our family and then opened up the rest of the evening to all guests.  This worked perfectly for us as we wanted to give special time to our family but also wanted to see all of our friends who had flown in to be with us. 

 Since it happened to fall on Valentines Day, I made up a little sweets table in the front of the room with vintage Valentine candies and my mother's heart shaped rice krispie treats.

I bought vintage Valentines off of Etsy and hand wrote all of our 

dinner guests names in gold for place cards.  

We now have our "Bride" and "Groom" place cards framed 

with the personalized menu below in our kitchen.

The dinner was delicious and we had the sweetest toasts from family members.  At the end of the meal, we played a slideshow that my mother made for us of pictures of Taylor and I growing up and then as a couple too.  It was emotional and beautiful and later when our friends started to arrive, we couldn't believe how many people were there to celebrate us.  It's truly one of the most overwhelmingly awesome things you realize when you host your own wedding.  More from the big day later...off to make my husband a little three monthiversary surprise!

Zara Home for your Event!

This morning I stumbled upon Zara Home's site.  I'm sure I'm late to the game (typical,) but am newly obsessed!  I think a lot of their pieces would make great statement pieces for weddings/parties.  For our wedding this February (photos soon!), I brought in a lot of pieces from our own home to make it even more special to us as a couple.  Now when I see them in our home, I am instantly transported back to the day we said "I Do" among all of our favorite people.

The items below from Zara would be so cool as party decor then used again in your home!  Also, I'm experimenting with Photoshop now, please be patient with me as I teach myself :)

Tablecloth, Rug, Gold Candles : Zara Home

Dress : Zara

Menu : Leveret Paperie on Etsy

Centerpiece: Wild Folk Studio for SMP

Wedges : Kate Spade

A Dream Fulfilled

It may seem minor, but today, I filled a dream of mine, working from bed!

When I started working for myself a few weeks back, I kept thinking, one of these days, I'm going to get up, make coffee, and get right back in bed with my laptop.  Meetings/site visits/etc. have prohibited that from happening until today.  And I have to say, man, this is a nice, comfy way to work!

It's the little things...

Here We Go Again!

I started this little ole blog a few years ago and had so much fun with it.  However, solely writing about my favorite things while enjoyable, seemed to lack a bit of direction.  Inevitably, I lost steam about two years in and my blogging faded as my work/social life bloomed.

Now that I've jumped ship on a full-time job and wandered into the scary world of working for myself, I think I've finally found a direction again for the blog.  I'll be sharing some of what I've worked on over the past couple of years and also where I hope to go!  I hope my remaining readers will enjoy all that Ryder Sloan Events has to offer!

Here are some gorgeous images from our clients Sera and Sean's NYC wedding at Public from November 2012, oh yeah, we're takin' it way back to get started!  All photos by the talented PhotoJJ.

More images featured on Jenny J's blog HERE and Style Me Pretty.  

Thanks guys and Happy Hump Day!

Ryder Sloan Events

After years of dreaming, I have finally started my own event planning company!  Ryder Sloan Events is now open for business!  Well, officially, as of November I was open but now I've applied for the LLC, created a website, had a custom logo designed, helped two lovely brides to plan their nuptials and even have one more on the books.  So far, so good.

With the creation of the new website, seen HERE, I was encouraged to include a link to my little ole blog here.  I agreed, however, I'm incredibly embarrassed as I haven't actually blogged since last May.  So here we go!  Back in the blogger game.  Hoping to keep it up although no promises.  My RSE Facebook page HERE is definitely the best way to keep up with the new company.

For my first post back though, I thought I'd share an image per month for the last ten months I've been away.  Hope I still have some readers out there, if not, this will just be a fun exercise for me at least to remember a great year :)

June: Purchased a new camera for my trip with KTW to Tokyo!  Trip was amazing, will try to share photos soon, unfortunately they're on another computer so my new camera will have to do, it's pretty right?

July: Saw Mates of State at the Independent (officially a groupie now I think after five shows), their opening band was The Stepkids and we loved their white screen, white outfits and crazy graphic light show.  This would be so fun to do at an event, great backdrop! 

August: Did day-of coordination on my own for the first time for an Amy Nichols Special Events wedding who I've been freelancing with for almost two years now.  It was such a magical day and furthered my desire to pursue my own company!  

 September: Went to Berkeley for the Edward Sharpe Show, proclaimed it one of the best experiences at a concert that I'v ever had.

 October: Hosted a Halloween party, glittered some pumpkins and used blue hydrangeas to decorate.

 November: My first wedding under Ryder Sloan Events for sweet Sera and Sean.  We even did all the florals seen here on the floor of their room at the Bowery Hotel. I lived in NYC for five years and never made it to the flower mart, bucket list item checked!

 December: Sorry for the grainy photo...hosted dinner for my Cookbook Club and was able to use those same glittery pumpkins as place cards.

 January: 2nd Ryder Sloan Events wedding for Jenn and Ben, first sword arch at a wedding.  Love this so so so much!

February: Family visited and we spent a day in Napa.  Their trips are always bittersweet, I hate dropping them off at the airport.

March: Perhaps our biggest news, we've bought a condo!  We get the keys Monday and start renovations right away.  Looking forward to sharing some before and afters!

It's good to be back, thanks for reading!

Back...Out of the Saddle?

Blogging takes time, and right now, I don't have it :(

However, I've felt such guilt lately over not posting enough here.  And I've worked really hard on this blog over the past three years to completely stop.  So, I've found an alternative!  I'm going to move over to tumblr for a while...I think it will be a better forum for me to post quickly and still share the inspiration images and ideas that compelled me to start blogging in the first place.  So this is not a goodbye, but more of a see you over here ->  My new tumblr blog!

Back in the Saddle!

Three months ago, I wrote my last post.  This is by far, the longest I've gone without blogging and my, how I've missed it!  Let's get right down to business, where the hell have I been for the past three months??!  Well, I'll tell ya!

- Got a full-time job at Sweet Lauren Cakes.  So no more crazy days of traveling all over SF each day from one job to the next, I get to sit at one desk, go to one office, and get one paycheck.  I am beyond thrilled to finally have some regularity to my schedule, although I will continue to also do freelance events, mainly with Amy Nichols because she's oh so fab and, I still can't get enough of weddings and events!  So now you've been warned, there will be lots more cake pop talk around here, think you can handle it?

Cake Pops at the Winery SF for a recent Today's Bride event.

-Started RCIA classes at my church.  Actually, I started these back in October.  They've been a big time commitment, every Thursday night for an hour and a half, plus all of the readings we're sent home with...but it will all be worth it when this Saturday night at Easter Vigil mass, I will finally have my long-awaited Confirmation in the Catholic faith.  Woo hoo, go Catholicism!  Honestly, I do take this very seriously though, and I'm thrilled to be making the commitment.

- Joined a cookbook club with three girlfriends.  I don't think we've officially chosen a name for ourselves yet but when we do, I'll be sure to share.  We've also started a Tumblr blog to record all of the recipes we try.  I'll occasionally link to that as well!  Tuesday night, we have our first dinner where we get to share the recipes we've tried over the past few weeks from Deborah Madison's "Greens Cookbook."  Greens is a wildly popular vegetarian restaurant here in SF down at Fort Mason.  Everything I've tried from the book has been superb!  At our dinner, we'll choose a new cookbook for next month.  My, our boyfriends are lucky...KTW has gladly tried all of my recipes and offers helpful tips like "mmm" or "this is awesome!"

Maple Mousse ingredients, this was scrumptious with chopped pecans sprinkled on top.

-Speaking of KTW, we've moved in together!  It's been a lot of fun so far and I'm newly obsessed with decorating the space.  Must reign myself in though because...

-I've also started looking for a car.  Although I love our apartment, it is super far from my work.  We're also constantly wishing we had one. So many fun places nearby for day trips, Napa, Tahoe, Santa Cruz, Carmel, the list goes on.  Unlike NYC, in SF, we've decided, a car is a must.  My dream would be one of those new cute little Fiats in mint green.  But my budget says prob not gonna happen...someday...

-Hmmm, what else?  I read the first book from Hunger Games.  THAT took up three days of my life!  On to the second one!

-We're now planning a trip to Tokyo this summer.  KTW has work and I'm tagging along :)  Must renew passport asap.

-I watched Martha Marcy Mae Marlene and became obsessed with Elizabeth Olsen and her haircut, so I copied her and chopped off all my hair, having a lot of fun with my new 'do.

"Oh hay!" 

(I'll be honest, it took me about 76 tries before I got 

that "natural hanging out on the couch looking cute pic.")

So anyway, I hope that explains why I've been a little pre-occupied.  I'm not able to promise I'll won't go MIA again, but for now, I'M BACK!!