4 Years

Yesterday was our 4-year anniversary. I meant to post, but I had it in my head that I needed a picture of us together and that never happened and completely forgot that I had originally intended to post pictures from our wedding. I've tried several times to load my pictures from Sharyn onto my computer (they are on a CD and I've never put them on this computer. They were on our other computer but that doesn't turn on anymore...) but it keeps giving me an error message after about half of them load. I'll have to try again some other day. Anyways, I was able to load the candids that I have, not sure who took these.

I remember feeling super relaxed on my wedding day. A few jitters before walking down the aisle, probably more worried that I would cry over anything else. When we were taking pictures before the wedding (Jeff and I saw each other before to get a lot of the pictures out of the way before the ceremony) I was scarfing down ham rolls because I was so hungry. ;) I remember someone laughing about that. Anyways, we had been dating for 4 years before that so it's not like I didn't know what I was getting myself into. In fact, 4 years felt like way too long and I was definitely ready to be married. I guess that's what happens when you start dating before your 16th birthday.

A few details about our day:

• The entire family (siblings and their kiddos) was able to make it to the wedding. I'm not sure if I ever expressed how happy that made me. That's kind of a big deal when two of the families had to travel over 800 miles to get there! And in case you don't know my family, see the picture below.
• I designed my dress based on a dress I had seen in a magazine. My cousin, Mary-Jane, made it. 
•  My sister Amanda (who was my maid-of-honor) got married 3 weeks before me. We heard a lot of "Your poor mom!" But I think she actually said it was easier because she was able to buy everything at once rather than planning the weddings completely separate. I know I had a lot of fun comparing details with Amanda. There are pictures of us at home with our dresses on somewhere. 
• Jeff has lost a ton of weight since our wedding! 
• We got engaged in September and chose this day to get married because Jeff was in school and he had this week off so we could go on our honeymoon.
• And apparently that's all the interesting facts I have about our day.

The only thing that I remember going "wrong" was forgetting our marriage license at the church. We headed off to our hotel and then about halfway there, realized we didn't have it. We were going on a cruise and since I wasn't 21 yet, we might need it to get on the ship. Turn the phones back on, call my mom and dad. An hour later we were finally on our way again. (Our church is half an hour from my parent's home, the opposite way as the airport.) Of course, as it turned out, no one questioned my getting on the ship and we never needed it.

Happy Anniversary, dear!

What Happy Memories

I almost forgot about these pictures until I saw them again on that other camera I'm using. As you may recall, our weddings were a mere three weeks apart. It was so fun to be planning a wedding at the same time as my big sister; we got to call each other up and ask the other clueless person how or what you were supposed to do for this and that. I never realized that no one really knows what they are doing until after they plan their wedding. Funny how that works.

BTW: Amanda Kay, if you're pictures turned out better than this could you email them to me sometime?! And one more thing, were you wearing heels? Because there is no way that you are this much taller than me!!

THANK-YOU!

Thank-you to everyone who had a part and helped out in our wedding!
Thank-you Mom and Dad for all your help. For buying and preparing all the food, everyone said it was so good! For making Kirsten's dress, you worked up until the last minute on that one since I chose to have a flower girl from out of town. For making my capelet! I love it, I'm so glad I had something handmade by you on my wedding day!

Thank-you to my bridesmaids (Amanda, Kayla, Cindy) for all that you did for me! There's so much work that you did without me knowing it. Thanks for a fun bachelorette party and everything that goes with that! Thanks for decorating our car, I'm still cleaning that confetti out! ;)

Thank-you for the groomsmen (Dave, Ryan, Trevor) for suffering up there in the heat. And thank-you for everything you did for Jeff!

Thank-you ushers (Brett and Scott) for standing for so long and letting everyone stare at you!

Thank-you to Blake for being brave enough to walk down the aisle! And staying up there! (I hadn't planned on that.) And of course thank-you to Dan and Katherine for coming down and letting him do that!

Thank-you to Kirsten for being such a lovely princess flower girl! You did such a great job standing up there and talking to me! :) Have fun with that pretty dress!

Thank-you to my personal attendants (Annette and Ashley) for all your work on the big day. I found some interesting pictures on my camera! :)

Thank-you Sharyn for being our awesome photographer! I hope I'm still calling you awesome when I see those pictures! ;) I'm sure I will!

Thank-you Marijane for making me such a beautiful dress! It was so fun to be able to tell people I designed it!

Thank-you everyone else involved who probably won't read this but please know that you are greatly appreciated!

My Happily Ever After...

Is just beginning!
I haven't heard back from our fabulous photographer so I'm sorry to say that I can't post photos from her! Can't wait to see them!
We went on a cruise in the Caribbean for anyone who hasn't yet heard. The weather was fabulous, high 70's the whole week with wind. I could swear it was warmer than that! It was perfect, warm enough to go swimming but it wasn't too hot because of the wind. I didn't realize how nice the wind was until the last two days. We watched two ice carvers on the top deck, I don't know how they shaped that ice, it was melting so fast!
Our ports of call were St. Maarten, St. Thomas, and Princess Cay (we were on Princess cruise lines, that was their private island). St. Maarten had tons of shopping but...we weren't shopping. We docked on the Dutch side of the island and took a taxi to a beach on the French side. And of course with French there comes nudity. That was weird.
I heard the St. Thomas was nice but we didn't see much of it. We had a couples massage in the morning, it was fabulous, and then took a smaller boat to St. John. Trunk Bay was gorgeous! We went snorkeling, Jeff liked it but I was a scaredy cat, I thought the fish and the coral were going to get me! Anyhow, on with the pictures already:




Er...so sorry, I don't have all the pictures on this computer so that's all I've got for you. Well besides that, we don't have very many pictures of us together considering our arms aren't that long and if we take them ourselves they all look the same.
We went to dinner every night which was really cool because they had "fancy" food and you can eat as much as you want. I had two entrees and two desserts just about every night. I tried chicken liver, veal, duck, lamb, pheasant, and quail!

Inspiration

Amanda's got me so inspired about her making her cake that I'm thinking I might just get my fabric from Marijane and make my dress myself! I mean how hard can it be?
;)

Beautious Colors

After finally finding the fabric for my dress Marijane told Cindy and me to start looking for fabric for the bridesmaids. It took all of thirty seconds to find the perfect one, the fabric even matched with mine! Of course...there was only enough there for two dresses, so alas, I had to find something else. The women working there tried to help us find a similar fabric to order so meanwhile Marijane and I looked around for alternatives. I almost went with orangey-red! Cindy said it was pink. It was SO not pink. Rather pretty actually but not quite what I had invisioned for my wedding, I literally had to put my head down, close my eyes, and picture my wedding in a totally different color that I had planned! Marijane happened to point to a bronzey colored fabric to which I immediatly replied, "That would be Amanda's wedding, not mine! She likes neutrals, I need bright bold colors!" So my friends the color that I chose was....dun dun dun...wait for it...TEAL! (Or did you know all along?)