Lesson 111- Year One, Part One

I thought it would be fun to do a look back on our first year together as husband and wife.  So here goes…

September:  After our Brunch Reception we drove an hour and a half up to a tiny village town in the mountains.  We had spent so much socializing and enjoying the party that we hadn’t eaten anything all day and shared our first meal as a couple with a hamburger and fries from Wendy’s.

We stayed the night at The Lodge in their honeymoon suite.  We had reserved our room as part of the “Romance Package” which included a 5-Star dinner in the hotel’s restaurant, breakfast the next morning and chocolate covered strawberries and champagne in our room.  It was a wonderful way to spend our first night together.

The next morning we drove back down the mountain then had my dad drive us to the airport to catch our flight to Phoenix.  The next few weeks were spent opening presents, unpacking boxes, and beginning the process of changing the Bachelor Pad.

October:  About three weeks after our wedding we finally left on our honeymoon.  We had a super time.  Halloween marked our first venture in to entertaining as a couple.  We invited some friends over along with the in-laws for chili, salad, spiderweb cake.  After dinner we played board games.  I’d say it was a success, cause those same people have since been back for dinner.

November:  We hosted our first Thanksgiving with my parents, the in-laws and Husband’s Grandma, my BFF, K from San Diego, and Husband’s friend C (whose wife had to work that day :-()  It was a bit hectic at times and we learned that our kitchen is only a three-bum kitchen, but thankfully the meal was successful!

December:  Husband and I joined my parents, my brother SIL and nephew, my aunt and uncle, and Husband parents in LA for a weekend at Disneyland.  If you’ve never been at Christmas time…you should!  It’s beautiful!  And nothing beats going with a 3 year old!  We spent Christmas in Arizona with Husband’s parents and grandma. The day after Christmas our puppy was born!

January:   Just as the New Year rolled in we were rolling into my home-town for a visit with my parents.  We both celebrated birthdays this month and I started my new job.

February:  At the start of the month we hosted Brady's annual Superbowl party.  Later, we took another road trip to NM to pick up our little puppy and bring him home.  That sure was exciting!

Whew…that wore me out!  And we’re only half way through the year.  Come back tomorrow for the second half of our first year together.

Lesson 110- The One Perfect Day

  

Lesson 109-The 'Moon

It took us quite a while to decide on our destination for our honeymoon, but I knew that after all the wedding-planning shenanigans a cruise would be ‘planning-free’ so I could relax and enjoy our time together.  We eventually settled on a New England/Canada cruise in mid-October.  We flew from Phoenix to New York and stayed at The Alex Hotel (a wedding gift from one of my bridesmaids) and had dinner with Husband’s cousin, his GF, and my dear friend/bridesmaid all who live in NYC.  The next morning we spent walking through Times Square and through Central Park before boarding our ship.

That night we hit a storm of Titanic proportions (pun intended, bad as it is).  The waves and wind woke me up throughout the night and early that morning we were awoken with the captain’s announcement that Rhode Island, our first port for docking, would have to be skipped because of the storm.  All outside decks were blocked off and the fancy-shmancy folk with outside decks were advised to stay inside.  And we were stuck inside at sea all day.

Sunday night was our first dress-up dinner.  And we looked good.  But I had to eat dinner all by myself cause Husband got sick.  Now he’ll tell you it was just because he was overheated with his sports jacket and tie.  And I’ll let him believe that…but just between you and me, I made him take two doses of Dramamine and he was all better the next morning.  With that, I’ll let you decide what the cause of his sickness was.

Monday we were able to dock in Boston.  Husband and I did our own walking tour with the help of my Lonely Planet guidebook.  It was very cool seeing all those historic sites.  I’ve learned that travelling really makes me like and appreciate history so much more. We left Boston a couple of hours late due to repairs that were required to ship from the storm the days before.

Tuesday we were in Maine.  The leaves were gorgeous.  And it was such a picturesque Maine harbor town.  And they had blueberry soda.  We don’t have that in the desert.  It was yummy.  The entire time we were there I kept thinking about a movie I loved as a kid, “Andre”.  I recommend it if you’ve never seen it.

Wednesday was spent in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada.  Although we found a market where I was able to find some English yummies and an interesting salesman who made it own clay maple leaf ornaments, this town was wasted on us.  It was mostly just an industrial city with no true tourist attractions.  We spent most of the day playing cards on the ship.

Thursday morning we arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.  We found a beautiful garden in the middle of town and had fun walking around taking photos.  We also toured the Titanic exhibit at a museum.  It was fascinating and so educational.  We came across a garden in the middle of the city that was beautiful.  Lots of fun to walk around and talk pictures of all the beautiful fall colors.  A mid-afternoon stop at Tim Horton’s for coffee and donuts was also exciting.  Our departure was again delayed, this time to lobster traps being so tangled in the propellers that the ship was completely unable to move.

Friday was another day at sea.  We hit another storm, but thankfully nowhere near as severe as the first storm.

Early Saturday morning we arrived back in NYC and disembarked.  We climbed into a yellow taxi and headed for LaGuardia Airport.  As we progressed through the city, Husband began to feel sick again with a sore throat, headache, fever and chills.  Giving him my scarf to stay warm and Tylenol to bring down the fever and ease the aches and pains, we sat in the airport for several hours before our flight departed.  The turbulence on the flight to Denver didn’t help Husband any and by the time we arrived in Phoenix, he was starting to feel the tiniest bit better.

But despite, storms, illness and delays we had a great time exploring the East Coast, spending time with each other, and enjoying cooler weather.

Lesson 108- His Anniversary Present

So you may remember I was having a hard time deciding on an anniversary present after I accidentally (on purpose) discovered what Husband got me.  I came up with a couple of good ideas and then really struggled finalizing on one.  But I did.  And the very next day I called to cancel.  Although it was a super idea, it just didn't feel right.  So I bought him something else.  This felt right.

I bought him a football scrapbook.

Ok I know that doesn't sound super fantastic.  I made a couple of scrapbook pages ready to have pictures of us at football games added later.

Still doesn't sound super fantastic?  The first page had an envelope in his team's colors.  And in the envelope...




wait for it...




wait for it...



In the envelope were two tickets for the 49ers playing in Phoenix.

Seventh row right off the 50 yard line on the visiting team's side.  Which is perfect since the visiting team that day is the 49ers, his fave team.  Oh, and did I mention they're for Monday Night Football?  Yeah.  It's a super fantastic gift.

Sorry for the camera phone pics...I was trying to be sly about taking the pics.

Lesson 107- Wedding V

My parents gave me a fairly small budget (compared to the *average* wedding) for our wedding.  And although they did give me some wiggle room, I had to be creative on how the money was spent.  My two biggest expenses were the venue+food and drink and the photographer.  Looking back I have no qualms about the money spent on either.  This week I’m going through some of the projects I competed to stay on budget.

Not wanting to get too tangled in the Bridezilla syndrome, I opted for the Real Simple planner for our wedding plans.  One of the pictures of a ‘real’ wedding featured a cupcake stand built by the bride’s father to resemble a tiered wedding cake to place cupcakes on.  I loved the idea.  We cut out the picture and gave it Husband’s dad along with a paint sample of the paint I had used for this project.  With creative reign, this is what he designed.  So, I can’t take credit for this DIY project, but I just had to share it with you.  Beautiful, don’t you think?

One of the reason—besides my total love/obsession—for choosing cupcakes as opposed to a traditional cake, it I’d heard it was more economical.  One Saturday I my mom and I visited with a baker in town.  Her portfolio was certainly impressive, especially considering we live in such a small town.  And her prices were also astounding, but not in a good way.  At this point I was already well over my budget because of my choice in photographers.  But to spend almost $600 on cupcakes was just a bit much for.

I mentioned this to one of my dear friends who was recently married and eager to help.  She offered to bake all my cupcakes.  What a gift from God she is in my life!  My dear friend made over 100 cupcakes free of charge to me.  And her husband make cupcake toppers with our monogram using Photoshop.  For the top layer of our ‘cake’ we had an oversized cupcake that A even created an oversized cupcake wrapper to go around it.

*****

For favors I opted for a candy buffet.  Originally I thought we would use black, white, and pink candies.  Then I decided it was really more hassle than it was worth.  Plus the color restriction really put a damper on yummy candies.  Plan B: bulk candy shopping at Sam’s.  I think we spent about $125 on candy from Pixie Stix to M & Ms, to Gummy Bears, to Ring Pops, to Reece’s Pieces, LifeSavers to mini chocolate bars.  They were all arranged in vases purchased at IKEA.  And let’s just say the kids (and grown-ups) loved it!  We purchased little favor boxes at Wal-Mart and decorated them with heart stickers and placed those on the table too along with little scoops I found online.  

 

I also made little signs to go on the table saying “A sweet ending to a new beginning”.  A little cheesy, I know.  But if you can’t have some cheese on your wedding day, when can you?  And that was our stress-free candy buffet.

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little budget-friendly wedding projects.  I know there was nothing too unique or extraordinary about it, but it worked for us.  And more importantly we loved our wedding and the opportunity to share the day with our family and friends.

Come back the rest of this week for more wedding DIY projects!

Wedding Stationary

Card Box

Guest Book and Centerpieces 
Ring Pillow and Sand Ceremony 

Lesson 106- Wedding Week IV

My parents gave me a fairly small budget (compared to the *average* wedding) for our wedding.  And although they did give me some wiggle room, I had to be creative on how the money was spent.  My two biggest expenses were the venue+food and drink and the photographer.  Looking back I have no qualms about the money spent on either.  This week I’m going through some of the projects I competed to stay on budget.

My (at-the-time) three year old nephew was a our Ringbearer.  And basically he and our Flower girl stole the show, but Husband and I were ok with that.  And while I love my nephew dearly, giving him our ‘real’ wedding bands just was never an option.  He is a non-stop whirlwind of activity.  So I purchased a ‘ready-made’ ring pillow from Michael’s with a 40% coupon so it cost a little over $5.  It was with with pearl embellishments on the top and two silver bands securely tied in the middle.  I love pearls (it has to do with my Audrey Hepburn fascination).  It was beautiful, but about a week before the wedding I decided it just wasn’t beautiful enough.  Using some ribbon that I had left over from this wedding project, I criss-crossed the two colors in between the pearls, now making the pillow match our wedding colors perfectly as well as making it ‘ours’ as opposed to just something purchased at a craft store.  It now sits in our craft room.  I’m not sure what to do with it, but I’m not ready to part with it yet, either.

 

*****

During the ceremony we wanted to do something special, but a little more unique than the traditional unity candle, and considering our ceremony was outside a candle didn’t seem too practical anyways.  Online I found several kits I could purchase starting around $40 plus shipping and handling.  I went the DIY route.  At Hobby Lobby I purchased one large vase, four smaller vases, white sand, pink sand, and black sand.  It cost less than $20.  Take that internet kit!

    

 

White sand was poured in to two of the small vases.  This was to represent that God is our creator and our foundation.  At the beginning of the ceremony our mom’s poured the white sand into the big vase. 

  

After Husband and I said our vows and exchanged rings, we then poured sand together in to the vase.  I poured pink, he poured black to symbolize our individual lives coming together.  After the ceremony we sealed the sand with wax.

  

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little budget-friendly wedding projects.  I know there was nothing too unique or extraordinary about it, but it worked for us.  And more importantly we loved our wedding and the opportunity to share the day with our family and friends.

Come back the rest of this week for more wedding DIY projects!

Wedding Stationary

Card Box

Guest Book and Centerpieces 

Lesson 105- Wedding Week III

My parents gave me a fairly small budget (compared to the *average* wedding) for our wedding.  And although they did give me some wiggle room, I had to be creative on how the money was spent.  My two biggest expenses were the venue+food and drink and the photographer.  Looking back I have no qualms about the money spent on either.  This week I’m going through some of the projects I competed to stay on budget.

I’m not a big fan of the traditional guest books at weddings where you’re given a line to sign your name and maybe a little more to squeeze in “Congrats!”.  I wanted something more personalized and unique, without being super popular of the photo matte. 

We opted to making a hardback photo book using our engagement pictures.  On the pages we included prompts like:

• Ideas for a fun date night
• Advice for a happy marriage
• Favorite memories of us
• and then I put some cool Bible verses in too

This way besides just signing their names they could write a little message just for us.

 

*****

Centerpieces were a tricky element of the wedding planning process.  I didn't want flowers, one cause that's the expected centerpiece.  Two, because it can quickly get expensive.  I like the ideas of candles on a mirror, but for a daytime wedding that just seemed silly.  I just couldn't decide on something I really liked.  In the end I had flower centerpieces.  Here's the secret: they were fake.  The vases were from IKEA ($2.99 I think).  The fillers came from the Dollar Store.  We placed them on a piece of scrapbook paper that I covered in Mod Podge.  My mom's BFF offered to make cookies decorated in our colors.  Our vendor provided the black table cloth and the pink runner.  I really like the way our tablescape turned out, even if I did use flowers.

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little budget-friendly wedding projects.  I know there was nothing too unique or extraordinary about it, but it worked for us.  And more importantly we loved our wedding and the opportunity to share the day with our family and friends.

Come back the rest of this week for more wedding DIY projects!
Wedding Stationary 
Card Box