06.08.2019. Wedding Recap

June 8, 2019 will forever be the best day of my life 💜 Everything about our wedding was perfect. Did everything go perfect? Nope, but it was a blast and I wouldn't change a single thing about it. It was a bit too warm, but it was sunny and there was a nice breeze that helped cool it down a lot. Everything from decorating, to getting ready, to the ceremony, to the reception was a blast. I wish I could go back and relive that day a zillion times over because it really was so much fun and beyond a doubt the best day of our lives 💜 

I've gotten a lot of questions about what vendors I used, where I got decorations, and all that good stuff so I'm going to attempt to answer them all. From the time we got engaged to the time of our wedding I had about 7.5 months to plan everything. We didn't have a wedding planner, I did all of it myself and frankly I had a blast doing it. If anyone wants me to plan their wedding let me know 😊(I'm not even kidding about that)

Brent and I knew we were going to get married after our first day. We started looking at venues after 1.5 months of dating. We were called crazy and everything in between but we're married now so that's all that matters 😊 

We looked at dozens of venues and couldn't find one we liked that could accommodate an outside ceremony and inside reception. When we toured the Ashland Golf Club we fell in love. We loved the lakeside ceremony site and there was so much natural light in the reception hall that we couldn't say yes fast enough. The staff was AMAZING, but I'll get into that later.

After booking our venue we booked our incredible photographer and videographer. Katie Hammond was our incredible photographer and we cannot recommend her enough. Our videographer Brian Fimbres was equally amazing and a blast to work with.

For our invites we used Minted. We worked with the designer to customize them a bit and we ended up getting our invites and RSVP cards through her. Also, they're printed in America which I'm a big proponent of.

My sister-in-law gifted me the hanger for my dress but I'm pretty sure she got it off Etsy. My dress is a Martina Liana which I had some customizations done on it. I went WAY over budget on it, but we still came in way under budget for our wedding so it was fine. I LOVED my dress and it was worth every dang penny. 

I had two pairs of shoes for the wedding. Heels for the ceremony and first dances, then flats for the reception so I could dance in total comfort. I splurged on the Badgely Mischka shoes and my ceremony shoes which were heels from Nina were super comfortable. Both pairs are ivory to compliment my dress which was also ivory. Since the ceremony was by the lake I got heel protectors so my shoes wouldn't sink into the ground and be ruined.

My sister and mother in law decorated the arch for our ceremony. I bought a bolt of sheer ivory fabric from Hobby Lobby and they did the rest. I am not crafty so thank goodness they are! The unity candle and unity candle stand are both from Hobby Lobby. Every other week Hobby Lobby has their wedding stuff half off so wait until it's all on sale and you'll save a ton of money. 

All of our flowers were done by Oak Creek Plants and Flowers in Lincoln. I knew very clearly what I wanted for everything except the bridesmaids bouquets, which I just let them design. I did ask for a pink flower bouquet for my matron of honor so she would stand out from everyone else (pink also happens to be her favorite color). I worked with Crystal who was super nice and did a great job executing what I wanted. We paid extra to have her come set everything up and it was hands down the best money we spent. For us to not have to worry about getting everything there was such a relief. I'd highly recommend paying the florist to set up the day of the wedding because it's one less thing to worry about.

I had three charms in my bouquet, one for each of my grandparents that's no longer alive. Not having your grandparents at your wedding is HARD. I would have given anything for them to be alive and have been there, but having the charms was a way to have them with me even when they're no longer here.

After our wedding we donated all our flowers to a local nursing home. It was by far the best thing we could have done, you should have seen the look on the staffs faces. My heart grew a zillion times that day 💜 We were so glad someone else could enjoy them for awhile because otherwise they would have sat in our apartment and died while we were in Maui.

The table numbers I ordered off Amazon. I had ordered a few different ones that were returned because they didn't stand up or weren't big enough or came broken. But this set was great and you can't beat the price. I bought gold spray paint and gold glitter spray paint from Hobby Lobby and did all the painting myself. 

Neither of us are big cake fans, in fact neither of us really like sweets, so we wanted to do more than just have cake. We worked with Cupcakes & More in Lincoln as we found them to be the most reasonable than other vendors and everything was pretty dang tasty. Each tier of our cake was a different flavor. We did classic white wedding cake, chocolate chip cookie dough with cookie dough frosting (that was a MASSIVE hit with everyone), and dark chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting. We also had chocolate covered strawberries, which were my favorite, and chocolate brownie shots. 

Our cake topper was custom ordered from AtWoodvilleLNDesigns on Etsy. They were a dream to work with! They accommodated all our requests and we loved the final product, we couldn't recommend them enough!

Brent and I didn't see each other before the wedding, it's the longest we had been apart for over a year. I wanted a genuine reaction from him when he saw me walk down the aisle, so instead of a first look we wrote letters to one another and exchanged gifts. We our cards for one another off Zazzle. Our letters and gifts to one another made each other cry which both our photographer and videographer captured on camera 📸 I also wrote out cards to each of my bridesmaids, my mother-in-law and father-in-law, as well as one for my mom and dad.

We wanted to do something special for our wedding party so we got everyone gifts. For the guys we ordered them custom cuff links with their initials on them and for the girls I ordered robes in their favorite color that said bridesmaid/matron of honor. 

My longtime hairstylist Marissa Winters did both my hair and makeup for the wedding as well as the bridesmaids hair and makeup. She's the nicest person on the planet and she could not have done a better job. Nebraska is HOT and HUMID in the summer but my makeup didn't budge all day or night. She used airbrush makeup and did my hair in loose curls with a few strands pulled back because I didn't want some fancy updo.

If you or anyone you know is getting married get your bridesmaid dresses from Azazie! I found them to be the most affordable, have the most options, and their customer service is the bomb. I picked the color and then let the girls pick the style of dress- I told them to pick one they'd be comfortable in. I loved the variety of dresses and our experience with Azazie was fantastic and totally stress free! I had one bridesman, my best friend/news photographer, and we had him in the same suits as the groomsmen. The grooms got their suits from TipTopTux. We custom ordered the ties to have the color match the bridesmaid dresses.

Finding a garter is hard and finding one that's comfortable was even harder. I looked at all the stores and finally turned to Etsy which did not disappoint. I LOVED all the intricate details on my garter, it also arrived in the cutest package with a hand written note from the business owner which I thought was super sweet. 

When I found my dress there was a veil I loved that was just simple with crystals around the edge, but the bridal shop was asking $200 for it. Having gone WAY over budget on my dress I decided to hunt down the same veil for a lot less. Amazon had the exact same veil for almost $170 less, so needless to say I ordered that one and you couldn't even tell the difference between the two when I tried it on with my dress at the bridal salon. 

There is a million ways to spend way too much money decorating but 99.9% of people are not going to remember what your decorations looked like. We kept ours simple and we still got a ton of compliments on them. Our Mr and Mrs sign for the head table was from Amazon, it's currently up in our apartment and I love it! We had a letter B sign for our last name that lite up, it's so cheesy but I love it! We got that from Amazon, the paint can the sparklers were in was from Home Depot for $4, and the sparklers were from Superior Celebrations- their shipping was crazy fast! 

In the entry way of our venue we had two of our engagement photos displayed along with a wooden sign with our favorite bible verse on it. 1 Corinthians 13 is what our first dance song is based off of too! The sign we got from Hobby Lobby and now hangs in our guest bedroom. 

The head table had garland with loose orchids and garden roses in it. We also sat every other (boy, girl, boy girl, etc.) and had vases in front of the girls to put their flowers in. It added a beautiful touch to our head table. 

We had two guest books. We had a heart drop one from Hobby Lobby with hearts I spray painted red and we had a book from Shutterfly I made with our engagement photos. People loved looking at our engagement photos and we have tons of beautifully written notes from family and friends in there.

From the time I bought my dress up until our wedding day I refused to let my dad see my dress. I wanted to do a first look with him and get his reaction on camera. Let me just say his reaction did not disappoint and seeing him for the first time was one of the highlights of our wedding day. We both started crying because it was such a special moment. 

Brent and I didn't do a first look, but we wanted to pray together before our ceremony. We held hands around a wall and prayed for the step we were about to take. We didn't plan on having it caught on camera as it was an intimate moment for us, but we are glad it was caught on camera. I highly recommend taking those few moments to pray together because it was a moment of calm and quiet for us in an otherwise chaotic day.

We had two absolutely adorable flower girls. At one and seven months they hadn't quite figured out what was going on, but everyone was fawning over them. Each flower girl had a basket with purple and white petals in them. 

The lake was about a quarter mile from the club house so we had to drive out to the ceremony on golf carts, which was a big hit with the wedding party. Our pastor came up with the idea to blindfold Brent so he couldn't see my dad and I approach the ceremony site until I was out of the golf cart and my dress had been fluffed. His reaction to seeing me for the first time was everything I dreamed of. He started crying and I was trying not to cry so it looks like I have resting bitch face walking down the aisle 😂We wrote our own vows to each other and we did traditional vows as well. Katie, our photographer, did an amazing job of capturing such special moments during our ceremony.

It was windy on our wedding day so hair wasn't at it's best but I could have cared less, besides it made for some funny photos at times 😊 I was/still am obsessed with my dress. I loved all the lace, the train, and the see through sides. I could go on forever about my dress 👰  

FOOD! We cut our cake right when we entered the reception so it could be cut up while we had dinner so people could have dessert right after dinner (we highly recommend doing this). For dinner we did half normal dinner food and half breakfast. We are big breakfast lovers so we had a massive buffet with a made to order omelette station, all the breakfast fixing (plenty of bacon) and a waffle bar. The normal dinner was delicious too with stuff pork chops (hands down the best I've ever had), Hawaiian chicken, delicious mashed potatoes, loads of green beans and other veggies, and a MASSIVE salad. Everyone loved the breakfast buffet, which we were sort of surprised about, but were thrilled everyone loved it as much as we did!

My matron of honor and Brent's best man were dreading having to give a speech as neither are fans of public speaking. They both gave such sweet speeches and you would have never known that they didn't like public speaking. My matron of honor had me tearing up with her sweet speech 💜 Brent's best man had us all laughing, but both speeches truly were incredible. 

After speeches and dinner it was time for our first dance. Neither of us are dancers and we totally didn't practice so we just winged it. We were laughing at ourselves the entire time while trying not to make a total fool of ourselves. My dad is not a dancer either and he was trying not to step on my dress during the father-daughter dance. My song with my dad has been Because You Loved Me by Celine Dion since I was in kindergarten. We talked about old memories with the song and about the wedding. It's a long song and at point my dad was like, "Could you have picked a longer song?" 😂 Next up was Brent and his mom. They dance to My Wish from Rascal Flatts. Neither of them like being the center of attention, but their dance was so, so sweet. 

We opened up the dance floor and it didn't take long for our friends and family to get their groove on! In between talking with family and friends we got on the dance floor and had fun too. Everyone always says you're so busy at your wedding and you are, but remember this is YOUR day. It happens once. So carve out time to dance with your new spouse on the dance floor! We had a blast dancing with one another as well as friends and family 💃 

One of the things I really wanted for our wedding was a photo booth. It's a great source of entertainment for guests between the wedding and reception, plus it's just fun to look at all the fun everyone was having afterward! We got an incredible deal on a photo booth by going to a bridal show- it's not a ton of fun going but you can get amazing deals! For less than the full price of a DJ we got a DJ and photo booth simply by going to the show. It was totally worth it as everyone had a blast with it! 

While Brent wasn't a fan of it we did the traditional bouquet and garter toss. Mostly he was embarrassed about having to get the garter in front of our friends and family. One of our friends girlfriends caught the bouquet and my bridesman caught the garter- which he then proceeded to wear around his leg 😂 

Aside from sneaking out for sunset photos, the last thing we did before calling it a night was a sparkler exit. I was worried about my dress catching on fire, which thankfully didn't happen, but it was a blast! We did it early enough so our friends with kids could still participate before the kiddos had to leave and go to bed 😴 All in all I wouldn't change a single thing about our wedding. Was is perfect? Nope, there was stuff that went wrong but honestly we just laughed about it. I wouldn't change a single thing about it. It was small, we were surrounded by the people we love most in this world, we dance, we ate great food, we laughed until our abs ached, and we got married. At the end of the day that's all that matters.

We have the rest of our lives to laugh together, love together, and make memories. To me that's the best part of it- I get to spend forever with my best friend and the love of my life 💜 

Pneumonia and Rainbows: Thinking Out Loud #119

Happy Thursday! Two weeks of TOL is basically a miracle since it hasn't happened in I don't even know how long. With wedding planning, moving two apartments, getting married, the honeymoon, and catching pneumonia right after our honeymoon life has been a little crazy but we're finally settling in and starting to feel better. I'll have a wedding recap post up next week (finally) and I'm pretty excited to share all the details and beautiful photos! Anyway, before I start rambling about all things wedding let's jump into this weeks thinking out loud! 

1. After fighting pneumonia for over a month I'm finally starting to slowly get better. I'm still coughing (no amount of medications will stop that) and I'm still super tired all the time but I finally got back into the gym. My entire body is sore but I know I have to gain a lot of ground back from being sick, plus my body is still heeling. When I don't feel like driving to the gym I hit our apartment gym which is really nice and Ginger comes with me. She just lays there while I lift or hit the treadmill. 

2. All of the boxes from moving are FINALLY starting to be unpacked. The guest bedroom is starting to resemble an actual bedroom too. I wanted to keep it very clean and bright so I went with white. Ginger is banned from the bedroom because I don't want dog hair or paw prints on the bedspread but sometimes she manages to sneak in there. I'd like to think that's her annoyed face because she got caught 🙃Once the bedroom is fully put together I'll put a post together about where I got everything.

3. The dog days of summer are no joke. It's so hot in NE right now 🔥 It's been in the upper 90's all week with the heat index well into the 100's. The heat is way too much for me and way too much for Ginger. I braved the heat to get her out of the house since she's been cooped up and we hit the dog park. About .5 seconds after arriving I was already sweating. We stayed for half an hour, she was in the water the entire time, and by the time we got back to the car I was dripping in sweat. The things we do for our dogs 🐶 

4. Sometimes Nebraska doesn't suck. While I hate the heat and the snow sometimes there's some really beautiful rainbows. In the past few weeks there have been several rainbows that we've seen. I caught this one early in the morning after a storm went through. It was beautiful to watch the sunrise and see a rainbow 🌈  

5. We wanted to get Ginger's nail clipped but I was super nervous after a horrible experience with Camp Bow Wow. We took Ginger in for her "interview" and had to leave her there for a few hours to see how she did with the other dogs. We had talked about day camp, but really just wanted her nails clipped but she still had to go through the entire process. She was nervous, but it was a new environment and we weren't with her so that was too be expected. HOWEVER, what we didn't expect was to see the workers forcibly drag her out of the play area to go potty. Ginger was laying on the floor and didn't want to get up when a worker dragged her across the floor, yanked her up, and we could see her being choked by her collar. Camp Bow Wow has webcams so we were each watching at work. I was almost in tears and frantically calling Brent to see if he could pick her up, which thankfully he could. We took her to our local PetSmart to have her nails clipped and they were AMAZING! They were so calm and gentle to Ginger and her nails came out great! After a horrible experience we were so thankful for the way she was treated at PetSmart. Needless to say next time we will be taking her to PetSmart as well. 

Have a terrific Thursday and stay cool this weekend in the heat 🎉 🎊 🎉 🎊 

WE'RE MARRIED! Thinking Out Loud: 118

Happy Thursday! I've been MIA for a few weeks because we got married on June 8th then we spent two weeks in Maui for our honeymoon and life has been a little crazy since we returned. I caught pneumonia on our return trip home, which I am on the third week of fighting (working with pneumonia is horrible), and we're still working on unpacking from our move which happened the week before our wedding. It's just been slightly chaotic but we're managing. I'll do separate posts about the wedding with all our vendors and one for our honeymoon in Maui with what to do, where to eat, things to avoid, etc. Anyway before I ramble anymore here is this week's thinking out loud.

1. We're married! Technically we've been married but I'm finally getting around to sharing it. Aside from our wedding being a tad too warm, but thankfully it was windy so it wasn't terrible, it was perfect! There were hiccups of course but genuinely I was not stressed for a single moment of it and we had so much fun. Many of our friends said they don't even remember most of their wedding which I didn't want to be the case for us, so we were very intentional about being present in the moment. We didn't do a first look so Brent's reaction was so special the first time we saw one another while I was walking down the aisle. I did do a first look with my dad, who I refused to show him my dress until our wedding day. He was crying and got me crying but it was such a special moment and one I'll never forget. I'll share more details and way more photos when I write up a wedding recap post. 

2. Monday marked one month of being married and Brent surprised me with flowers. I told him not to do anything but I've long since accepted that he's going to do what he's going to do. It was so incredibly sweet of him to do and totally unnecessary. I definitely hit the husband jackpot with him 💜 

3. We had several deserts at our wedding include these brownie shots. We had a bunch leftover so we wrapped them up and put them in the freezer. I've slowly been making a dent on them because they're super yummy. I don't like frosting so I scoop it out. Needless to say these were a big hit at our wedding. 

4. Our honeymoon in Maui was a dream. It was genuinely the first vacation I've ever been on that I felt totally relaxed. We spent our days exploring, playing in the ocean, or laying by the pool and reading. In eleven days I plowed through half a dozen books. It was amazing and so, so refreshing. Having been to the island over half a dozen times it was fun showing Brent some off the beaten path places that tourists don't go to. I got to experience a lot of it with new eyes because he had never been, which made it even more fun to take him to places I love. We're already talking about going back soon- especially to escape winter! 

5.  There were so many special things from our wedding I couldn't bear to part with. I wanted to save my bouquet but some of the flowers don't dry out well so I only saved a few of them and made a shadow box with special trinkets from our big day. The purple orchids are all from my bouquet and the roses are some extra flowers that we had and my matron of honor put a bouquet together with. Brent had tucked a special note in with my shoes which I found on our wedding day. My garter, bouquet charms of grandparents who are no longer living, our cake topper, a heart from our guest book, Brent's boutonnière, an invite and a photo strip of us from the photo booth we had were all included. I got this shadow box off Amazon and I've gotten a ton of compliments on it. I also bought some extra push pins to pin things down with. 

6. Finally, Ginger. She's still living her best life with us. She's been spoiled rotten with soft serve ice cream (in small amounts), trips to the dog park, and all the snuggles. She loves our new home and has made friends with nearly everyone she's met in the building. Ginger is a special one and while she drives us crazy we love her like crazy. If only she didn't shed so much...

I'll stop babbling now, but I will do a wedding and a honeymoon post soon. Have a wonderful Thursday and hang in there it's almost the weekend 🎉🎉🎉