Wedding Wednesday: Before the Walk

The night before the wedding (after the amazing rehearsal and some casual drinks with  friends) I did not sleep a wink. I was so overwhelmed with anxiety, excitement, and any other emotion you can think of. Then as the morning rolled around I was so worried I would be exhausted all day. But after a nice long shower and some prayers, I was overcome with the most wonderful emotion! From the morning on, I was the least stressed I'd been in months; I have no idea how that happened.

Getting ready with my mama and bridesmaids, with visits into our hotel room from sweet friends and family was one of my highlights of our day. Then we hopped on the trolley and headed to the venue for our last "getting ready" moments before the walk!

Thanks to our wonderful photographer Eric Boneske, we have all these moments captured in photo:

Signs on the trolleys made by one of my beautiful best friend/bridesmaids!

One of my favorite photos! 

Looking Forward.

"the year of our wedding" has come & gone.

As we close the books on 2014, the best year to date, I love looking back at the above photo from our honeymoon. It captures the endless beauty and serenity of Exuma, and reminds me of how relaxed A and I were as we kicked back after celebrating our wedding with our closest friends and dearest family. While there were definitely some overwhelming moments of the past year as we planned our wedding from circa 2,600 miles away, I have nothing but positive thoughts reflecting on the best day of our lives, followed by the most amazing trip-which is surely what I'll remember about "2014" years down the road.

It is definitely a weird transition coming off the highest of highs [wedding & honeymoon] and getting back into reality, nothing's changed much around you, you're just a wife now! As we venture into 2015 as mr. & mrs., we still have plenty to be excited about.

Hope everyone has a wonderful first "real" work week of 2015...lots and lots of coffee for this gal!

Five on Friday

1/ Hair. I did it. I chopped my hair off! A whole 10 inches. It was scary at first seeing all that hair on the ground, but now I love it. It's way easier to do than my long hair.

2/Good Book? Has anyone read "Delivering Happiness" by the Zappos CEO? I came across it this week and it looks really good! I love Zappos as a company, they have THE BEST customer service so I think it'd be a great read.

3/New Car! Yes, lots of changes around these parts this week. I turned in my Jetta for a Ford Escape, I LOVE it so far.

4/To Birch or Not to Birch? Anyone who has done it? Like it? I am working on a Christmas list and thought this might be a good thing to ask for, since I love new products, but just can't decide if it's worth it!

5/Friendsgiving. We've started a tradition (all of 2 years, ha!) to get together with our LA/Boulder friends for an annual feast. I'm going with my trusty go-to Skinny Taste and bringing a Garlic Sweet Potato Mash. How yummy does it look?!

Happy Friday All!

Wedding Wednesday: Bridesmaid Gifts

I knew I wanted to make an extra special "package" for my bridesmaids. But, I also knew I had to figure out a way to do that and transport it via plane back to Wilmington. I ended up getting all the goodies out here in CA, then assembling them in our hotel room back there.

Of course in the midst of the last few days before wedding chaos, I failed to snap many pics of the gifts, but I did get a few! I purchased a few things from Etsy, and sourced the rest from Hobby Lobby and DIYing :) I surprised myself with the hand lettering on the bags, and was very pleased with how they came out!

Etsy Shops <3:

tanks from BaileyWicks

linen clutch from Lucse 

earring from For The Maids

Five on Friday

[1] Fall Wear. This week the "Indian Summer" finally broke (hopefully for good) which means I can finally wear Fall clothes! Today I threw on my new fave purchase from Old Navy :)

[2] New Hair, PLEASE! It is time. I have officially decided to chop my hair off. I grew it out very long for our wedding, and I'm just about sick of dealing with it now. Next week I am chopping it all off and I can't wait. Hoping I can do something like this...

[3]Wedding Pics. It feels like FOREVER that we've been waiting for our pics. But I got an email from our amazing photog yesterday that they'll be ready in 2 weeks. Just enough time to pop one into a card and send off for Christmas! I'm loving the foil pressed cards this year. How cute is this one? 

via

[4] Plans  This is the first weekend since before our wedding that we do not have one single commitment on the books and it feels so amazing. 

[5] Baking. Hoping in between doing nothing I can find some time for baking this weekend :) Been wanting to make some yummy treats, and lately have such a craving for all things s'mores...don't ask me why! Do you have any yummy things you've baked lately? If so please share recipe!

How yummy does this look? via

happy happy Friday.

Wedding Wednesday: Out of Town Bags

Being that our wedding was a "destination" for many of our guests, we wanted to make sure to let them know how much we appreciate the sacrifices they made to travel (some thousands of miles) away to be with us on our big day. One of the things we did to show this appreciation was the out of town bags.

I created all the stationary tags and stickers here in CA, then shipped them to NC. Once we got there, my mama and I made a mad dash around town to get all the fillings. We included:

Handmade map of downtown Wilmington showing our favorite spots

Waters

"Late Night Munchies" =selection of snacks (granola bars, trail mix, candy and pretzels)

Advil

 

Although they ended up being a ton of work on top of the last few days of being overwhelmed, I would say it was well worth it, and appreciated by all our guests!

a sprinkle & a shower: babies oh my!

There is much to celebrate around these parts lately. Soon after we got home from our honeymoon, Alex's sister brought a beautiful baby girl into our world. Making our total two nieces and one nephew! Although she is 3000 miles away and we haven't got to "officially" meet the newest addition, the weekly photos prove that she is just too cute for words! On top of that, any day now we will meet another one of our nieces, and next month yet another one! I can't express how excited I am for these 3 little wee ones to come into our growing family.

The past few weeks have been ever so busy (as you might imagine) celebrating these soon to be babes.

First, we celebrated my SIL and her little one:

And last week, we had a little sprinkle brunch for my sister and her lil chica to be!