All You Need is Love: DIY stuff

[This is the first of my wedding recaps. Stay tuned in the next several weeks for the rest!]

There were several things we decided to do-it-ourselves, some of which were more labor intensive than others.

Though we didn't exactly /make/ our invites, we had to put the set together and print the addresses. Ask my mom-- that was quite an ordeal! See the invites here: click me!

We also did the same thing for the Save-the-Dates, though much less stuffing was involved.

A week before the wedding, I went to a good friend's wedding and they had these great little cards for a Shutterfly website they created where the guests can easily upload the pictures from the wedding onto the website. Then the guests as well as the newlyweds can get a larger variety of pictures. We thought this was a really good idea so we created our on website (IT'S FREE!) thru shutterfly, made it password protected, and then printed out little business cards with the URL and password. [And sorry-- I can't find a picture of them right now... :(]

We also DIY'ed our wedding programs!! This was quite easy- we found some decently heavy card stock from a local office store, found a free and easy template online, and boom- we were done. Sorry for the blurriness in the picture-- protection and all.

Come on in!

[Agh-- what did blogger do? Why are my font selections gone???]

Before starting on the wedding recaps, I'm showing all of you our new apartment, complete with furniture and wall decorations! [For a look at it when we signed the lease, click here] We moved on last Sunday and we're just about done-- I think I need to find one brightly colored pillow to put on the living room sofa and then I'll call it complete. For unloading a U-Haul truck, moving things upstairs, buying and assembling an apartment full of IKEA furniture, and then organizing things all in a week-- I'm pretty proud of it!

Please, ignore the bad quality of the pictures and the miscellaneous junk you see :)

Kitchen...

Kitchen and dining room (and our laundry room with doors that cannot close because the washer/dryer are a bit too big)

Living room-- any good pillow ideas?

Bedroom... just got a bedskirt but I have to wait for my husband to get home to help me put it on

The bathroom... not too much exciting there.
And other side of living room/study

So there you have it! It's home and comfy and I can't believe that it's our place... so weird! I will say Matt & I have already found things we don't like (no digital thermostat, for one) and will definitely be looking for in our next dwelling place, but that won't be for several years down the road. Thankfully this place is quite comfy, indeed!

PS-- anyone know what the heck happened to blogger? Or is this what happens when I don't post for a few weeks?? Why did it loses its ability to properly format text?

It's almost over!

All the unpacking, that is. All of the boxes are gone and we just have two chairs to finish building (yay for Ikea furniture!), pictures to hang on the walls, and then we're done! I can't believe how much we have gotten done in this past week and it is so cool to see our apartment coming together and slowly looking like a home. I will definitely be posting pictures for you this coming week.

Matt starts work on Monday, so this weekend will be spent doing a few last minute things, visiting our first church (I'm so excited to find a new church home!), and relaxing before real life really begins. I have missed blogging so much-- both writing and reading-- so I'm ready to get in a routine.

For those married-- did it take a while for you to finally realize that you are actually married? After all the planning and waiting and dreaming and then more waiting, the wedding flies by, your honeymoon has come and gone, and now you are setting up house. Nothing huge has really changed in your relationship, but then again it seems like something monumental occurred, you just can't grasp it.

But anyway, enough random ponderings. My advice to you for the day:

-Please do not move the day after you get back from your honeymoon where you then have to put together a whole apartment's worth of furniture, unpack tons of boxes, and get your name changed. It hasn't always been the most fun. In our case we couldn't avoid it, but I am NOT looking forward to moving again. Hopefully that won't be next year...

I have the AMAZING wedding pics back, so I will start the recaps this week as well as show you pictures of the apartment. Since Matt will be starting work, I will be playing the role of the housewife for 2 and a half months before grad school starts in late August. I'm kind of looking forward to it and really decorating our apartment, not to mention finally catch up on blogging.

So I hope all of you have been doing well and my 2-week absence from blogging is almost over, promise!

WE'RE MARRIED!!!

Hello everyone! This will be a short and sweet post as we just got back from our amazing Disney honeymoon tonight and we're moving tomorrow, but---

The wedding day was amazing. Exhausting but perfect :)

The honeymoon was great, too. Can't wait to share the details from the wedding day and some Disney World stuff with y'all! 

As I said, we're moving tomorrow and won't have internet for a couple of days. Then epic packing and organizing will commence, so it may be a few more days before y'all get more details. But-- I will leave you with this amazing picture!

Source

 

Bridal Portraits, for real

[Again, this is another scheduled post. Don't worry, I do not have computer access on our honeymoon!]

You can read my first post about my bridal portrait experience here.

Here are just a few of the amazing pictures. I love so many and it was hard narrowing it down to just a few to post here. All these pictures, unless otherwise noted, were taken by Kasey Lynn Photography.

Probably my favorite

Kasey: "Walk down the street, acting like your best friends are making you laugh." Me: "So much dress!"

Gotta love squatting in your wedding dress :)

These may have made an appearance at the reception. And will be prominently featured in Disney World.

  So, which one is your favorite? I'll be excited to read your thoughts when we get back!! :) 

And I also have one more to share with you... this was when my parents fit me in the back of my mom's Camry on the way to the bridal portraits.

Taken by my dad; I know my head's cut off, but I still love this picture.

Gifts for the Girls!

[We're still on our honeymoon, so here is another scheduled post]

Now that it's after the wedding, I can tell you what I got my amazing bridesmaids! Basically- I got them some of the same things but also got them something unique that I felt fit their personality or I knew they wanted.

First- it all came in a tote bag. Traditional, yes, but I liked that I could personalize them initially and then each of the girls could continue to make it their own. 

Next were the goodies inside the bag! 

I got them jewelry that matched the BM dresses

This is some of the stuff they got; they each got the tissues, hand sanitizer, and socks. Then the other gifts went to a specific girl. [Not pictured- Brittany's gift because I didn't want to take it out of the packaging]

Something else all the girls got were these gorgeous sun catchers my parents got from their recent trip to Kauai

All of the gifts wrapped up, before going into the tote bags

As I am writing this post before giving it to them, I really hope they like their gifts! I love all of them dearly and I'm so glad they decided to be a part of our wedding. I hope when I get to posting my recaps of the rehearsal dinner and such I can write how much they liked them! Now remember to come back this week- I have other scheduled posts!

THE dress, with pictures

[Hello! Matt & I are currently in Disney World on our honeymoon, so I wrote this post a few weeks before the wedding and scheduled it to post this week. No, I am nowhere near a computer right now. Don't worry.]

I figured now that the wedding is over, you should be able to see the pictures from my wedding dress shopping experience. Later on this week I'll share the pictures from the bridal shower.

You can read about the dress experience here, sans pictures: click me!

So one of the reasons I went to the Princess Bridal was because they had this dress:   

Source

 I really liked the sleeves and how spring-like it looked. And here it is on me:

It was pretty, but I just wasn't feeling it. So I had previously grabbed other gowns, and here are some of those...

Ah, the infamous tissue dress

As I had explained in the first post, when we walked into our little suite, there was a dress on the manikin in the back corner. I walked in and immediately knew I had to try it on. And here, my friends, is that dress:

LOVE how soft it looks

Completed outfit

So long story short, yes, that's my dress. I love the way it flatters my body and I feel like I'm wearing the dress, it's not wearing me. Here is one of my bridal portraits, so you can see it post-alterations:

Photo Credit: Kasey Lynn Photography

I am so glad my dress search was relatively easy. I absolutely love it! So, what am I going to do with it now that the wedding's over? I'm looking into donating it actually. I'm sure you'll hear more about that later.