San Francisco Guide, Highlights And Recommendations

Happy Sunday folks!

I hope you're enjoying your weekend. Mine's been a happy one filled with fireworks, family and friends.

Two months since returning to London, I think it's about time I share some of the highlights from our six month adventure in sunny (and foggy) San Francisco.

I'm always a little shy / nervous about sharing personal posts on here as my main goal for Bridal Musings has always been to inspire you guys and give you ideas for your weddings. So I hope you don't mind me using these pretty pages to share a little bit about my life.

I've had quite a lot of tweets from brides and wedding industry folk saying that they were honeymooning in / visiting San Francisco so hopefully some of you might find this post useful. Zee and I had big plans to go on a road trip around California but sadly our stay in SF was cut short unexpectedly so we only really got to explore the city (oh and we had a fun weekend in New York too!)

My San Francisco Highlights:

– Sharing a takeaway on our first night in our unfurnished apartment, 19 floors up, overlooking the bright lights of the city.

– Enjoying my first ever walk in closet plus a gym and a pool in our apartment building. Everyday I had to pinch myself!

– A delightful dinner with some seriously inspiring ladies from Lover.ly; founder Kellee Khalil, Cathleya Schroeckenstein (also of Wedding Bee) and Kathryn from stylish wedding blog Snippet & Ink. (Yep, I was more than a little starstruck!)

– Visiting Blu Bungalow, for celebration planner and floral designer, Jacin of Lovely Little Details‘ re-branding party. (And, in case you were wondering, the details were very lovely indeed as was Jacin.)

– Being reunited with Rufus at the airport. He joined us a couple of months after we arrived in SF and we missed him so much!

– Skype chats with my gorgeous family back home during Sunday dinner. (I missed those the most!)

– A sweet and serene afternoon tea with new friend, Mayu, at Samovar Tea Lounge and regular walks along the bay with our pooches.

– An eerie sunset boat trip to Alcatraz. Well worth a visit ~ the audio tour is exceptionally good, spoken by former inmates with dramatic sound effects.

– Experiencing my first clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl while visiting the brash, tacky, touristy but fun Fisherman's Wharf. Oh and watching the sealions sunbathing at Pier 39.

– A trip to the Cartoon Art Museum and being sketched by a graphic novelist who happened to be there that day.

– Getting together with some of San Francisco's most talented (and lovely) wedding vendors to create a bunch of chic and unique DIY projects for our Roses & Ribbons series.

– Attending a wedding fair at the Stumble Upon offices and meeting a bunch of wonderful California wedding folk. Stumble Upon is one of my favourite forms of procrastination so it felt rather weird/cool being where all the magic happens.

– A fancy dinner at Le Colonel ~ delicious French Vietnamese cuisine and salsa dancing in the bar. We saw the most dapper and nibble footed old man in his 70s dancing alongside a glamourous 30 something lady. It reminded us a little of that scene from the Scent of A Woman.

– Experiencing mason jar mania. So cute but seriously they were everywhere.

– Celebrating the Fourth Of July with the wonderfully welcoming tech folks behind Boomerang for Gmail in Mountain View then watching the fireworks on the roof of our apartment building.

– A birthday bicycle ride along the bay and across the Golden Gate Bridge to the charming ye olde town of Sausalito where we had the most heavenly butter pecan ice cream from Lapperts.

– A wine tasting trip to the beautiful vineyards of Sonoma with the most chattiest driver ever. Seriously, he didn't pause for breath. We proceeded to get quite tipsy, then we just got very sleepy. We're such lightweights.

We'll be here all day if I don't wrap it up soon…so here's the condensed version:

Almost daily trips to The Grove (which was just two doors down from our apartment building) for their amazing sandwiches, watching the flamboyant gay pride parade, admiring the colourful graffiti in The Mission, riding the retro trams, walking Rufus along the bay to Chrissy Fields beach, tackling the crazy hilly neighbourhoods, trips to the farmer's market at The Ferry Building, delicious weekend brunches (our favourite spot was Town's End by the Embarcadero – they bring you freshly cooked mini muffins and tiny pots of jam), drinks in hipster haven, Chesnut Street, and I personally spent far too much time in Sephora. (We don't have Sephora in the UK!)