By Chris Ellsworth

Luckily, I didn’t have to wear a purple dress like Julia Roberts. It wouldn’t have matched my goatee very well. Anyways, Mike and Amber got married last month and Masha did the photography (with me assisting).

As much as I love my house I have to admit that I was not so excited when I saw all the light fixtures. There not much beauty in the cheapest lights ever ( and I mean like $4 at the Home Depot kind of cheap) that a bank-owned foreclosed house has. I love lighting shops, but the prices there are a bit out of my reach. So I did the next best thing… an Ikea hack! Here is before and after:

This is a closeup of before (so glad this is gone!):

Here is my new beauty. I took a rice paper lamp shade from a table lamp, made it a bit shorter and cut out a diffuser made out of a piece of scrapbooking paper.

Oh, a thing of beauty:

I have more of Ikea hacks up my sleeves so stay tuned!

I thought to myself I have met my “dream couple” when I first met Matt and Maggie and they have told me about their plan to get married on Mount Diablo Ranch in Walnut Creek, CA. That magical place has always been a perfect spot for a perfect sunset time wedding in my mind.

In the day of the wedding I have met Maggie at the Embassy Suites Walnut Creek hotel in Walnut Creek, California just as she was finishing getting her makeup done and getting ready to get into her dress.

Maggie was radiating with joy and so calm – there was a quiet feeling that everything is going just as planned! What a blessing to get on your wedding day!

While Maggie was getting ready Matt and his groomsmen were having a good time of their own at the Diablo Ranch:

Every little corner of this venue had a simple rustic charm of a working cattle ranch:

It was time for the ceremony, the beautiful bride walked down the aisle accompanied by her father and serenaded by a vibrant mariachi band. As heartfelt vows were articulated Matt and Maggie were pronounced man and wife:

The warm August sun was going down I was lucky enough to capture a few private moments of the newlyweds right after the ceremony:

Our cowboys and cowgirls were ready to party into the night:

And our Matt and Maggie were ready to start a new beautiful chapter in their lives together…

For more adventures of Matt and Maggie on their wedding day check out this wedding slideshow.
The whole wedding gallery is available here.

It wasn’t THE day, not quite yet … but very very soon they would be married, joined by their families for the grand celebration and enjoy their “happily ever after.”

Before the commotion of the wedding day would begin Mike and Amy wanted to document the current slice of their lifetime together, the beginning of their new adventures together.

We have arranged to meet on the Oakland LDS Temple grounds an evening leading to their ceremony and have some fun taking pictures without worrying too much about time. You could feel the sense of excitement and enthusiasm about this couple; the air around us was filled with laughter and joy.

The soft evening light was basking my soon-to-be-newlyweds in it’s pleasing orange glow, the golden sunset overlooking the bay was sealed with a sweet kiss.

On their wedding day, Mike and Amy celebrated in a hall filled with beautiful antiques and vintage items. Vintage and antique items always are great at wedding receptions. Antiques show class. They are a throwback to earlier times. They are a reminder of the past.

Ironical, they remind us of when ‘things’ didn’t matter as much. They remind of us of when family was the most important thing. With that spirit Mike and Amy wanted to start theirs.

Beautiful sunset, cowboys, mariachi band and organic cookies – those are only a few highlights of a great party that was Maggie and Matt’s wedding at breathtaking Diablo Ranch at Mt. Diablo, CA.

Getting married is wonderful, exciting, and at times overwhelming. It is such a blessing to be able to capture the tenderness of this BIG moment.

• It is not because I am from Ukraine (blue and yellow are colors of our flag)
• It is not because I went to BYU – “Go Cougars!” (royal blue is their color)
• It is because I like to read IKEA catalogs
• It is because our house if furnished 90% from IKEA
• It is because I eat lingenberry jam with my peanut butter
• It is because having Swedish meatballs and potatoes counts as a date in our family
• It is because I grocery shop at IKEA (next time try their pickled herring)
• It is because we read ikea hacker religiously and bring some hacks to life in our own house
• Also Andrew thinks IKEA MDF dressers are YUMMY!

I think having a baby makes trivial things seem much more exciting. All of a sudden playing in the dirt, opening medicine drawers and even eating toilet paper can be a wonderful adventure.
This past 4th of July was first for by baby son and as a responsible parent I made sure Andrew got the whole all-American experience. To finish the festivities we have decided to take him to see the fireworks hoping that he would find exploding lights in the sky as exciting as the rest of us.
We prepared well – got camping folding chairs, snacks and blankets setup on Emeryville’s boardwalk.

I even remembered to bring my camera and snapped the obligatory pictures of the beautiful boats and the bay.

Is was getting darker and colder;

and right as I was going to ask Chris for his jacket the festivities have begun:

My son turned to me and said: “Hey mom, what’s with that long exposure and this blurry picture of me? I’m no firework!”

Only time will show ( or we might never know) if Andrew really figured out what was going on that night, but we can officially check fireworks off our “firsts list”!

It was June of 2006, I was sitting in the dark movie theater trying to absorbing every pixel on the screen watching “Cars.” The amazing world of cars, the funny characters and a touching story won me over! I only wondered what it took to make a movie like that…

Little did I know that five years later I would be sitting in another movie theater watching “Cars 2″, but this time as a member of the crew. How grateful I am for the experience of last few years, for all the series of small events that fell into place to make my dream come true. It feels like winning a lottery sometimes and I don’t know what I did to deserve it!

Jaime Hyneman wears a black beret, a white shirt and gray jeans. Steve Jobs wears a black turtle neck and blue jeans (although the one time I nearly bumped into him the hall the fashion police should have been called on his tuxedo – it was that bad). Although I don’t wear the same thing everyday, I definitely have a signature look: blue jeans and a comic t-shirt.

Like most people I have a couple funny shirts that I’m proud of. Then the other week I looked in my closet and realized that a couple was nearly 20. It’s almost like I have a t-shirt for every occasion whether its going to court (link to I demand justice), camping (link to the bears telling camp stories), or the airport (link to TSA shirt).

PS: This post has been written by my other half Chris, he also write a funny blog:

http://chriscomplains.blogspot.com/