Left Coast Ambitions: The Castle on the Hill

On Thursday, Mr. Goodlaff and I visited the place that inspired the plan for our entire Mini-Moon:  Hearst Castle.  I have wanted to go there for years, and a while back, Mr. Goodlaff and I found ourselves in the vicinity and popped in the visitor center to see how much it would be and when it was open.  We didn't have time to do a tour that day (they were pretty much sold out anyway), so we put it on our "places to see" list, and moved along. When discussing what we should do on our Mini-Moon, Hearst Castle came up, and we literally built our entire trip around this one thing. 

Who is this Hearst fellow and what was he doing with a castle in California?  Well, it turns out that William Randolph Hearst, of newspaper fame, was one wealthy dude.  He wanted a little ranch house, so he hired architect Julia Morgan to build a little something for him.  Here's what she came up with:

Like I said, he had some money. 

Left Coast Ambitions: Mission Possible

Wednesday morning, Mr. Goodlaff and I awoke feeling refreshed and ready to go.  We checked out of our hotel, grabbed a breakfast smoothie (me) and coffee (him), and headed off to see one of the famous sights of Santa Barbara: the Mission!

Like all good little California school children, Mr. Goodlaff and I each spent a year in elementary school studying the California Missions.  The year of study culminates in a Mission project, which usually involved building the Mission of your choice out of sugar cubes and adobe-colored frosting (mine was Mission San Gabriel Arcangel, and I did a video-tour, not a model, but that's really beside the point. Yes, I am an overachiever--also beside the point).

In any case, we found ourselves here bright and early in the morning:

Left Coast Ambitions: We Mini-Moon!

I know I didn't talk about it much (or at all really), but because our Honeymoon isn't until October, the Goodlaffs decided to mini-moon for a few days after the wedding.  It was a much-needed break, and it was absolutely fantastic.  In fact, it went so well, I like to think of it as our "practice" honeymoon. Because our "real" Honeymoon is in the Fall, we decided to stay local.  And when I say "local," I mean we stayed in California. Your home state counts as local, right?. 

Two days after our wedding, the Goodlaffs hopped on a nearly empty Southwest flight, bound for Burbank, CA.

We rented a car, and for the next five days, we worked our way back up the California coast, stopping at anything that looked interesting, eating as much food as we could, and sleeping in as much as possible.  It was bliss!

From Burbank, we drove a bit out of the way, to Pasadena.  Pasadena is not en route to Santa Barbara (where we were headed), but it has one claim on my affections that Mr. Goodlaff just didn't understand.  The Hat:

Source: The Hat

Well known for its pastrami dip sandwiches, The Hat is one of those must-eat places when I'm in the Los Angeles area, so naturally, I wasn't even thinking about it when we landed.  But I'd sent Mr. Goodlaff taunting pictures of the tastiness during my dress-buying excursion in December, so when we were considering where to go for lunch, he mentioned The Hat.  It wasn't too far out of our way, and not being on any time schedule, we trekked out to Pasadena for some tastiness.

May Day:! Breakin' 2 Electric Blogaloo--Mr. Goodlaff Speaks

Well, my friends, the end's not near; it's here!  I have a few posts about our Mini-Moon, and after that, the Goodlaff Bride will officially transition to the Goodlaff Girl. Changes are afoot!

I think it's easy for us brides and brides-to-be to forget that there are two sides to every wedding planning story, and because you've listened to be babble for nearly a year, I thought it appropriate that Mr. Goodlaff get the very last word on our wedding.

Also, he came up with the title for this post on his own.  I had absolutely nothing to do with that...

Mr. Goodlaff, the floor is yours:

It’s hard putting thoughts and words around our wedding day as it already seems so long ago. The whole day was just a blur. I was at our venue at 9 AM to meet The Enforcer to make sure everything went smoothly.  My dad and stepmom helped me drag all of our wedding stuff from the house to the venue, the decorating at was going great, and for the first time in recent memory, I had nothing to do. I thought about coming home and taking a nap (I had been up until 1:30 AM the night before writing my vows and watching Elliott Smith videos on YouTube – I couldn’t sleep, OK? We all have our ways of calming down…) but I was scared I’d sleep through my alarm. So I did what any normal person would do hours before their wedding, I got a Starbucks coffee and sat on our couch watching episodes of “The Office”.

 About noon the guys started showing up at the house and it was so nice to be able to kick it with four incredible guys. Between my brother, my two friends who I’ve known for 25+ years and my sister’s incredible significant other, I can’t imagine a better group of guys to be with me as I entered that next phase of my life. We chilled on the couch, watched the Giants game and talked about concrete countertops (I nodded my head in understanding despite having almost no idea what they were talking about; I guess construction skills skip a generation).

May Day!: Photos Redux

Let me tell you, getting ready to look like a bride for the second day in a row wasn't as long of a process, but it sure was exhausting (maybe because I was so tired?).  I did my very best to apply my own makeup, amateur that I am, and still make it look good for pictures.  My hair, which was the day before an abundance of curls, had relaxed, and I decided to go with a half-up, messy, tousled curls look.  I carefully instructed Mr. Goodlaff on how to lace up my corset dress (that was fun), and after much ado, we both climbed into his car (me with some difficulty giving the poofiness of my dress), and drove to meet our photographer.

We chose the Empire Mine in Grass Valley as the location of our day-after photo session.  Early on in our engagement.  Mr. Goodlaff and I considered getting married at the mine, but given the uncertainty of the weather at the beginning of May and the cost, we ultimately decided against that location.  The grounds are fantastic: there's a beautiful stone cottage, plenty of greenery and foliage, a gorgeous garden, and many opportunities for posing with industrial structures.  We paid the fee for entrance, and basically ran amok for several hours on the grounds, taking photo opportunities anywhere that looked inspiring.

But enough talking.  Let's get to the pictures.

May Day!: The Morning After

The day after our wedding, Mr. Goodlaff and I got up incredibly early (for newlyweds).  Duty called--we had morning breakfast at Casa Goodlaff to attend.  We rolled out of bed, made ourselves presentable, and headed out to the car. 

Oh, the car.  You remember the streamers, right?  Well, with a highway involved in this journey, we couldn't leave the streamers attached.  It was cleanup time. 

As you can see, the streamers weren't only outside the car, but all over the inside as well...

We decided to leave the "Just Married" sign, because it wasn't going anywhere....

May Day!: The Cows Come Home

Mr. Goodlaff and I didn't do a grand exit. 

Instead, we partied for hours and hours, and slowly the crowd thinned out.  Around 9 PM, people started taking decorations off of tables, we cut off the DJ, and our somewhat inebriated family members got up on ladders and took down the lights and lanterns that had been so carefully hung from the rafters.
Right then seemed like an appropriate time to depart.  We gathered our things and headed out to our getaway vehicle, which was the 1969 Cougar I'd arrived in earlier that afternoon.  It looked a little different than it had before, and that wasn't just because it was dark outside:

Jensen Photobooth