I just wanted to write a personal post to update everyone on some cool things that are going on in my life!

First, as I’ve posted about before - I got engaged on Valentine’s Day! Since then, wedding planning has been moving along (though very slowly). We just recently changed the location from Mosquito Beach Hotel in Playa del Carmen, Mexico to Blue Parrot in Playa del Carmen. We had lots of communication and customer service issue with Mosquito Beach so we’re so excited to have found an even better place in Blue Parrot. Paula, the coordinator there, has so far been great and very helpful, and we’ve gotten lots more checked off of our very long wedding to do list. We’ll be getting married on Saturday January 17th, 2009 on the beautiful beach, and then we’ll have cocktails and appetizers in the palapa on the beach overlooking the ocean, and then we’ll move everyone to the VIP upstairs lounge, also overlooking the sea, for dinner and dancing. We’re so excited!

It’s really hard to plan a wedding when I’m so involved with other people’s weddings all the time. It’s hard to make the time to get it all done. I can see even more now why a wedding planner is invaluable. I’m so lucky in that I’ve got Gina with Clink Weddings to help plan my wedding, and also to officiate! Gina is also a very good friend so I’ll be honored to have her at the wedding. She has lots of great ideas and being a creative person who see’s a lot of weddings, I also have lots of ideas- so it’ll be interested to see how they come together! Our wedding I hope will be very colorful and modern with lots of fun, unique details.

We’re also very happy to have booked our official photographer and videographer. We’re flying Gia with Red Fly Photography down to be the “official” photographer (though I’ll probably have 4 other pro photographer friends in attendance, lucky us!) Gia was primary second shooter for many years and remains a good friend now that she has started her own business. She has a style very similar to my own, so I’m thrilled to have her to capture all of the moments of our day.

Chris with Mason Jar Productions will be doing our video. I’ve worked with Chris many times over the years on various weddings, and I love his work. I can’t to see what he produces - his videos always make me cry when I watch them (I’m a sap!)

We’ve got lots more to do for the wedding but it is definitely coming along…

On the home front - Mike (my fiance) and I recently decided to purchase and remodel a house together! We actually weren’t thinking of moving quite so soon, but we both fell in love with a house that we came across for sale and decided that it just felt right. My current home out in Agave in East Austin is for sale (listing here, check it out) and we’re renovating the home we just closed on in South Austin. We’re very excited because we’re very into architecture and design and the new home is a great example of later midcentury architecture. It’s very brady bunch! We’ll be doing a lot of renovations in the next few months, so it will definitely be a time of transition with the wedding stuff going on at the same time, but we’re so excited! The new house is much larger than our current house and suits our personal and my business needs so much better. And plus it is just groovy We are sad to leave our cool house here in Agave, especially the pool/spa, but it is time to upgrade for us and we’re excited to do this project together! I plan to have a super cool meeting space in the new house and plus I’ve got a super secret project in the works for next year that involves potential retail space for Eclectic Images. I’ll keep everyone updated on that as I get more details. In the meantime, I’ve posted some pics below of the new house! (these pics were taken when the house was staged with the previous owners furnishings)

the kitchen (below) will be a major renovation project!

we love, love, love the floating staircase!