Marriage Monday: Wedding Day ABC's {Part Two}

Eeek.  Sorry I have been so late on posting for Marriage Monday the past few weeks!  Better late than never??  Here is part two of our Wedding Day ABC's!

{Part One if you missed it!}

Newlyweds

First picture after being announced!

One of my favorite gifts from our gift opening :) Matching pillow cases!

On our way to DISNEY!!!!

 
Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue
My "something old" and "something blue" was the promise ring Tony gave me for Christmas in 2006.  It is a beautiful ring with normal diamonds and a gorgeous blue diamond right in the middle!  I love it so much and was so happy to wear it on our wedding day on my right hand.  My "something new" was my earrings & my bracelet and my "something borrowed" was the bouquet charm from my sister's wedding that was a picture of our dad!

Programs
I made our programs and man... they were such a pain in the BUTT!  I made our programs into fans and at the time I was so set on having fans that the process of putting them together was almost fun... looking back, I shouldn't have wasted my stinkin' time!!!  Here is a picture of the program so you get the general idea.  The stick that turned it into a fan has since fallen off...

Quickie

Stealing a quick moment for just the two of us!

Rings

Bling bling!

Shoes
Tony, the groomsmen (and I believe my father-in-law, too?), & I all wore TOMs for the wedding!  One of the best decisions I could have made!!!  They were covered up most of the time by my dress but even if they had showed the whole time I wouldn't have cared - they were comfortable and adorable!  Not only that, but I adore the aspect of giving back that the company holds and therefore it was really a no-brainer!!!

Too bad so sad for me I ruined these beauties a few days later when we got stuck in a huge downpour at Disney!!!

Tuxes
As I mentioned before, we went through Ducky's for the tuxedos!

The guys wore black vests & had red ties & pocket squares! Tony went with all white underneath.

Bobby (our ring bearer) wore a red vest and black bow tie!

My father-in-law (who you can see in the background) and my Uncle Jeff (who escorted me down the aisle) wore black vests & black ties.

Our handsome ushers (my future brother-in-law & my awesome cousins) matched the groomsmen.

Here is a better picture of Tony's vest - it had a paisley print on it that we both loved!

Unique
Well, one unique thing we did was smash the cake in our younger siblings faces!  When it was time to cut the cake, we told our best men and maid/matron of honor to come to the cake table so that they would be in the pictures.  But really, we were doing it so that instead of smashing it in each others faces, we could surprise them by turning on them!  It was hilarious and definitely got a roar out of the rest of our guests!!!!  HILARIOUS!  We got the idea from my aunt and uncle who did the same thing at their wedding 20+ years ago.  I was shaking the entire time just before we did it and nearly chickened out!!  I told Tony, "I absolutely can't do that to Ashley!"  So we decided to smash cakes in the other siblings face instead of our own.  I'm not gonna lie, I loved getting Sean in the face!  It wouldn't have been nearly as funny if they hadn't been such good sports about it.

We also gave our wedding party sunglasses to wear into the reception and most of us ended up wearing them all night!  Which was awesome.

Vows 
We had pretty traditional vows.  I just had an overwhelming feeling that there really was something amazing about repeating words that people have been vowing to one another for years and years.  You can check out our vows here.

Wedding Woes
Oh man.  There were a few.  For example, our photographer was separated from us somehow on the way from the wedding to the reception so she wasn't able to get any pictures of our entrance!  Bummer!  You guys already know about our cake mishap.  Let's see.  Oh, another fun one is the fact that you may not know yet... the morning of our wedding day the girls and I went to get our nails done at a salon.  It was the most relaxed I had felt in weeks, probably!!!  It was wonderful.  Until I went to the bathroom and realized I was so relaxed that I had STARTED MY PERIOD.  Oh my gee.  Who does this happen to?!  Me, apparently.  So there was that.  Oh, and then there was the fact that Tony got so drunk that he passed out on our bathroom floor and puked in a flowerpot on the way out of the reception.  Our flowers were wrong.  I forgot my toss bouquet for the reception at the ceremony.  Having to set up our reception hall the morning OF the wedding because of a mistake on our wedding hall's part.  Oh and something I feel awful about TO THIS DAY??  Towards the end of the line, apparently, we ran out of food!  In addition, we didn't have enough tables and chairs for everyone who showed up!  {I am thinking there were people who changed their mind without letting us know.}  It's all small stuff in the end... but sheesh.

RemiX
One of our hilarious best friends/best men decided to turn our reception into a karaoke bar for a song (or two) and it was pretty great.

You May Now Kiss the Bride

First KISS!

Zzz, the End

One of the last photos of the evening!  Some of us definitely look like we're ready to pass out...

Still exhausted at Disney World on our third day.  Exhausted from planning, from the wedding week, from the WEDDING, and from being on the go at Disney!!!  I literally dozed off right in the middle of Epcot!

Hope you enjoyed these posts because I sure as heck did!  Come back here and let me know if you decide to recap your wedding with these fun ABCs!

Marriage Monday: Wedding Day ABC's {Part One}

I'd seen a few of my blogger friends (Caitlin & Patty) take part in this - and I thought it would be a lot of fun to reflect back on such an awesome day!  I will definitely be breaking the wedding day ABC's down into two different posts.


Attending
I honestly don't remember how many people attended after all was said and done - but I do remember that there were quite a bit more people at the reception than there were at the ceremony!  Somewhere along the way, I remember wishing we had kept the guest list down to our most intimate friends & family so that it would be an overall more intimate, smaller, and more personal affair.  I am pretty sure it was between 200-300, but don't quote me because that sounds like a ton of people.  We even had a couple of wedding crashers!!!  Okay, so they were family of one of my bridesmaids (and were most welcomed!)... but that was a big funny thing that evening!

Our wedding crashers on the right

Bridesmaids
I had both a maid and matron of honor and both of them were my sisters, Ashley & Amanda!  I had four additional bridesmaids that consisted of my cousin, Breanne, and three of my best friends - Betsy, Katie, and Becca.  At that time, only ONE of my bridesmaids lived in the same area as me - the rest traveled from Indiana, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and North Carolina to come for the wedding weekend!

Cake
Friends of ours offered to make our cake and to be honest, I don't even remember the different flavors of cake we had!  (I know one of them was red velvet.)  The only bit of cake I tasted all night was the little piece that was shoved more in my face than in my mouth by my new husband!  I wish so badly that I had just relaxed enough to enjoy a piece of cake on our wedding night!!!  We also had a bit of a cake emergency... before the wedding party arrived, the cake fell over!  They did a darn good job at salvaging everything - and thankfully it fell over onto the table rather than the floor!!!  So here is both a before and after picture.  We got so many compliments on how yummy the cake was!

Before the accident the cake had 3 tiers

After the accident it had 2 tiers!  They did a great job of redecorating by placing the flowers all over!  Love it.

Dress
I found my dress at David's Bridal during one of those $99 dress sales!  I got my dress and the slip I needed underneath for under $150 (the dress alone was originally $650!!!)... amazing!  I had already gone to try on dresses with my bridesmaids once before, but the main purpose of that trip was to choose a bridesmaids dress and to have fun trying on different wedding gowns.  We walked away that day without choosing a dress for them or for me!

Some of the dresses we tried on that day!

I went back a couple weeks later with my mom during the dress sale, not feeling particularly hopeful that we'd find "the one" - and of course, we did!  Most of the dresses I tried on were discounted, but very few of them were actually $99.  I let my mom pick a couple for me to try on - she chose one from the rack and it didn't appear to be anything that I wanted, so I almost sent it back.  I tried it on anyway and couldn't believe how much I loved it!  So cliche, but I even cried!!!  The woman helping us kept asking if I could visualize myself walking down the aisle to my future husband in each dress and when I looked at myself in the mirror, I could literally picture just that!

 The bridesmaids dresses ended up being these black Target dresses - $30!

I used the picture of my sister, Ashley, in this dress because she never ended up wearing this dress the day of the wedding!!!!!!! She accidentally left her dress at home in Tennessee and had to go out and buy one nearly just like this one a few days before the ceremony!!! She didn't tell me about this until WAY WAY WAY later and I never noticed her dress was different the day of the wedding!!! So hilarious.

I can't find any pictures that really make it obvious that Ashley's dress was different... this is the best one for comparisons.  You can kinda see that Amanda's dress is more of a "V-Neck" and Ashley's is a scoop neck!  Anyways, makes for a funny story!

Engagement
The day Tony proposed was one of the best days of my life.  To make a LONG story short, Tony surprised me for my birthday and told me to request several days off from work but he didn't give me any more information.  On my actual birthday (November 10, 2009), he told me where we were going:  Anna Maria Island, Florida to visit my grandmother and to see the beach!  I was ABSOLUTELY shocked.  He also told my cousin, Breanne, that he wouldn't be proposing on the trip and that he hoped I wouldn't get my hopes up, just to be disappointed.  (Sneaky sneaky!  He did this because he KNEW she would tell me this!  And she did.  And it worked!)  He told her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me but that he couldn't afford the ring I deserved.  We headed down there and I went into it knowing he wasn't going to propose - so there was honestly no expectations for that on my end!  I had such a WONDERFUL time there with him and my grandmother for those few days!!!  On our last day in Florida, Tony suggested we go to the beach to enjoy the ocean one last time before flying home.  Great idea!  So we went, picked up shells, had an appetizer on the beach, and then headed for the car when Tony asked if we could sit down to soak it all in.  That's when he pulled out a poem he wrote "for your birthday" he said - and started reading.  And at the end of it he asked me to marry him!!!!  Amazing just doesn't even begin to describe it.

Flowers
My favorite flowers are carnations!  I love them because they smell good and they are absolutely beautiful.  We went through a florist at Hyvee for our bouquets and the woman was just shocked I wanted to use carnations.  She tried to discourage me by telling me they were "filler flowers" and were commonly displayed at funerals.  Wonderful.  But I was set on having them, and only them and her opinion didn't really matter to me, anyways.  I wanted them to be simple - no greenery and no additional flowers for both the bridesmaids bouquets and my own.  However, our bouquets had greenery all over them and I wish I had noticed that the day of the wedding so that I could have taken the green stuff out of our bouquets!  But to be honest, flowers were the last thing on my mind on our wedding day!!!  And that's life for ya!

Now when I see their bouquets, all I can think of is CHRISTMAS!  Grrrrr....

Groomsmen
Tony had two best men - his brother, Sean, and his best friend, Damen.  His groomsmen also included his friends Chris, Tyler, Peyton, & Nathan.  The majority of his groomsmen came from Tennessee and others came from Arkansas and Connecticut! 

Honeymoon
For the longest time we had no clue what we were going to do for our honeymoon.  I had suggested Disney World a while back but dismissed it and thought Tony didn't want to do that.  A couple months before the wedding, we still hadn't made our minds up.  Tony suggested WDW and I was ECSTATIC!  I couldn't imagine spending our honeymoon anywhere else - it was the best, most magical trip of our lives!

We were so sad to head home!

Invitations
We got the guys' tuxes through Ducky's Formal Wear - the biggest draw to Ducky's was that they offered free wedding invitations!  One less thing to worry about sounded FANTASTIC to me - so we went with them.  I looked through tons of binders to find the right invitation.  I wanted something aesthetically pleasing and simple and I totally fell in love with the ones we chose!

Clearly not our exact invites as we are not Claire & Lucas, but you get it!

Justice of Peace
The man who married us is also our pastor, Father Levitt.  Before he married us, he baptized Tony and after our wedding he baptized Presley!  Such a wonderful man.

Keepsakes

After talking to a friend of mine, we decided not to do wedding favors for wedding guests.  The friend told me, "Honestly, no one expects you to give them a wedding favor!  Back when my husband and I got married, no one did anything like that.  And I end up throwing away 90% of the wedding favors I get on the way our of the reception anyways!"  She urged me to use the money elsewhere and that no one would miss it.  I am so glad she gave us that advice!!!  Tony & I were paying for our wedding and as many of you know, things add up very quickly.  That is one bit of advice I would absolutely pass on to friends.

One keepsakes I carried on my wedding day was a photo of my dad on my bouquet.

Ladies Night
I was lucky enough to have TWO bachelorette parties - one in Illinois with my work friends and one in Mississippi with the ladies of Tony's family!  I don't have any pictures from my Illinois party - but definitely have a ton from the night out with the in-laws!!!  I cannot wait for the next occasion to cut loose with them... they are one of THE MOST fun and enthusiastic people I am lucky enough to be related to, now!!!  We spent the majority of our night at Tunica Roadhouse Casino.  We drank, laughed, rode a mechanical bull, danced to the live band's music, ran into a bachelor party (who we affectionately referred to as the evening's entertainment), did a bit of gambling (didn't we?), ate in the early AM hours and had such a great time.

Music
We had pretty traditional songs throughout the mass.  Though, I walked into the church to the tune of "Let it Be" by the Beatles and "Love Never Fails" by Brandon Health played when we lit the unity candle.  Our first dance was to "Love Song" by 311.

Stay tuned for part two!

6 Word Saturday {link-up}

just us three: teething, tired & tasty

My hubby made these for us to snack on today - recipe

Why do we even bother taking the stroller into the mall these days?

FIVE years from Now? {Blogging with Purpose link-up}

First of all, let me say that my plans are always so laughable.  Like most everyone else, I start out with specific plans in mind for my life.  Some pan out the way I imagined but most of the time my plans are so vastly different than what actually ends up happening.  Thankfully!  Five years ago it was the summer of 2008 and life was getting ready to drastically change.  Tony and I were moving into our first place and moving 8+ hours away from where we had spent all or most of our lives.

Since then... Tony accepted a new job.  I worked at Family Video (again) and Build-A-Bear in Davenport.  I eventually quit both jobs and worked at the YMCA.  I graduated with my Associates Degree.  My cousin, Breanne, got married.  My sister, Amanda, got married.  My little sister, Ashley, got engaged.  We got married & went to Walt Disney World.  I had Presley.  I graduated with my Bachelors Degree.  Amanda had Anne Marie.  We got a new car.  Breanne had Emory.  Friends got married, divorced, and had kids of their own.  Family members passed away and new ones were born.  Unexpected things happened as well as meticulously planned events.

Me & Presley, Amanda & Anne Marie, Breanne & Emory

This brings me to looking out over the next FIVE years... which will bring us to the summer of 2018.  That just sounds insane.  Tony and I will be celebrating our seventh wedding anniversary.  We will be parents of (at least) a six year old.  A SIX YEAR OLD!  Which only means that I will be... *deep breath*... 30.

So, here are a few items from our "to do list" for the next 5 years:

• Buy a house.  No more moving!  Plant a flower/herb/fruits/veggie garden.  Have a yard and a fence and more than one bathroom!  Have a guest bedroom again and a kitchen table.  Central air, a dishwasher, and plenty of closet space... hey, a girl can dream!  Put down roots.  Become part of the community around us.  Be active in our church.  Hang with more couple friends.
• Upgrade to a king bed.  This one is pretty much self-explanatory!  My husband is over 6 feet tall and loves to stretch out all over the bed.  And I am 5'7'' yet somehow expect more space on the bed than him.  So, upgrading to a king is inevitable.  We've just been waiting until we live somewhere more permanent.  Which, if plan #1 goes well, this will fit in just fine... eventually.
• Baby #2.  I sometimes joke about not having any more kids... especially on tough days.  And really, I would be happy staying a family of 3 as I know Tony & I would feel extremely fulfilled with that life!!!  I don't know what path our life will take, but I hope there is a 2nd child in the cards for us.  Tony and I both have siblings and our parents all have siblings as well, so it really would be hard for me to imagine not expanding our hearts and family.
• Walt Disney World.  Oh yes.  We are absolutely going to Disney World as a family.  Not sure that it will ever top our Animal Kingdom Lodge honeymoon experience, but I don't know that I would ever want to top that trip!  I just hope that Presley will love all things Disney just like we do!
• Baby #3?  This is absolutely pushing some boundaries that my husband has so safely put up... and possibly this is asking for TOO much from him...  but at this point, I am open to it.  I suppose that's easy for me to say considering we are a family of three at the moment and I have an easier time imaging the joys of being a family of five rather than hardships.  I know there are plenty.  But, five is a great number!  Tony's "magic number" is two and I would say mine is 2 or 3, depending on the day.  He comes from a family of four and I come from a family of five... so it seems pretty natural that we would think this way!
• Adopt.  A dog.  Once we decide we are out of the baby stage and completely out of diapers... it will be time to add some fur to the family!  We are such dog people, though, that it will be a miracle if we can hold off on finding a pup until then.  I just don't want to add a fur-baby to the family until we are in a spot where we can give him or her a good deal of attention.
• Sometime in between ALL these things, I'd like to find my passion (outside of my family life) and follow it.  I have a great idea in mind... but who knows where my heart and mind and motivations will lead me in the next five years.  Whether it's a job or volunteering... maybe a hobby to start concentrating on more... I am open to whatever, I just know that there is so much more of myself left to give/share with everyone else.
• Increase savings.  This may be extremely naive of me to hope for... but I just really would love it if in five years our nest egg has been shown more love and attention than it has been lately.  (Obviously, the majority of items on this list would require the opposite of this hope!)  Money is great and everything - but I also don't want to forget what is so much more important than money: LIVING and enjoying each moment.

I also hope I've completed a 5k WITHOUT STOPPING by this point.  And I hope I am more active than I currently am now.  I would love to get back into something like Zumba because it made me so happy and I always felt so great during & after a Zumba class!  I just want to continue to invest in myself over the next five years.  Because if I lose who I am and lose sight of who I want to be, none of these other things will mean as much.  I want to live closer to my in-laws and closer to my sisters.  I want Presley to grow up in a beautiful, safe environment and learn to LOVE school the way I did, even from the youngest of school aged kids.  I want to be closer to God - I want the Lord to be an everyday piece of my everyday life, which would be so vastly different from my life right now.  I would like to cook more than we eat out or processed foods.  I hope that in five years we've already begun so many family traditions - ones that we carry on from our parents and others that we have created ourselves.  I can only hope that Tony & I would continue to put our marriage in the forefront and to never forget that it all started from us two dedicating our lives and souls and hearts to each other.  I have hopes and dreams for myself, my family, my country, and this world for the next five years - mostly I just pray for health and happiness and that the rest of the puzzle pieces fall into place accordingly, whether it's by my plans or bigger plans that I don't understand yet.

Where do you see yourself five years from now?

Marriage Monday: Ryanne's Guest Post - 5 Lessons from 5 Years

My husband and I are very blessed to be celebrating the five year anniversary of our marriage this month. By comparison, five years isn't really all that long. But a lot happens in five years--every year brings new blessings and challenges that grow and change us.

Be conscious of how you treat one another.

You would think this is a given. I mean, you love each other right? Unfortunately, we're human so sometimes we fail. Sometimes we allow outside stresses to get to us, and we take it out on each other. For some reason, we consider our spouse (maybe just subconsciously) to be an easy target for us to unleash our frustrations and disappointments. But guess what--it's not necessarily their fault. Let's be honest--sometimes it really can be your spouse's fault. But is it really their fault all the time? Just make sure that you aren't treating each other badly because your boss was a jerk or something like that. And APOLOGIZE for it when it happens. On that note...

Pick your battles.

 Not everything needs to be a big deal. I don't think I need to say too much more on this one, but you would be surprised at how many couples I know who get into repeated, vicious arguments over every. little. thing. In my opinion, if you nag your spouse constantly or turn everything into a fight that just totally diminishes things when the big things do come up--because they DO come up. That doesn't mean you shouldn't bring up things that bother you--just don't turn it into a knock-down-drag-out when your hubby doesn't put the toilet paper on right.

Always remember that you're a team.

 No matter what life throws at you, you are a team. Fighting for something--be it to get pregnant, eliminate debt, save for a big vacation, to get healthy--can be incredibly uniting. But the road to what you want is not always smooth and easy. So when trouble comes, don't let it divide you. Especially when it is something that causes an extremely individual reaction to what is happening.

Appreciate your relationship.

Never take what you have for granted. It is so easy to do, but we have got to avoid it because everything we know could be gone in an instant. A few months ago, my husband was in a bad car accident. His injuries were not life threatening, and he was not paralyzed. He has gotten better, and can do everything he used to. But that whole experience rocked our world to the core and made us realize that we really aren't invincible. I'll never, ever forget that moment when he called me and I realized that something was wrong. At that moment, we didn't know that he was going to be okay. We are blessed that he was. Anyway, don't ever forget that it only takes a moment to change everything. So cherish what you have and don't just assume that it will all be there tomorrow.

You might not want to hear this, but marriage is work.

Just like you can't expect to stay healthy and fit without investing time and effort into yourself, you also can't expect your marriage to be great without any work. Sometimes work means setting aside time for each other to stay connected. Sometimes work means a lot more than that. Life is an imperfect adventure and we are flawed human beings. Challenges are a part of any life and relationship, so take them in stride and work through them one day at a time. Lean on each other, build each other up, and hang in there--it gets better.



A year ago, I wouldn't have given you these answers. It's amazing how much a year can change you. This year Chris and I bought a house, went through his accident, approached our doctor about the "next step" with fertility testing, and experienced a miscarriage. It has been a crazy roller coaster of emotions and experiences; and there have been many highs and lows for us. But a year changes a lot, and I'm excited to see what this next year brings us and our marriage. Embrace change, cherish each other, and enjoy the ride.

What do you admire most about your significant other? Oh so many things. I most admire what he does to take care of us and our future as a family. He is a good provider and is solid and steady that way. He is building a plan for his career, so that he can have a job he enjoys that allows him to spend time with our family. It's a pretty awesome thing to be a part of, as he goes out on his own after building so many years of gaining experience and a vision working for other people.

What was your first dance song?  My Best Friend by Tim McGraw. But in retrospect, it was a bad choice because I'm not really even a Tim McGraw fan (even though I love the song!), and Chris definitely isn't! Strangely enough, the last song of the night was the one I have the best memories of --we danced to "Tuesday's Gone" by Lynyrd Synyrd. (long story of how that started. lol.) We actually try to get it played at the end of the night at every wedding we attend now--including the one we were at before Chris' accident! It's kind of become a "thing" for us. :-)

Describe your significant other in 3 words. 3 words...just three? Practical, loyal, quiet

What is the worst thing that happened on your wedding day, if anything? Our photographer was just not what she made herself out to be. Not spending more on our pictures is my biggest regret! I would redo our whole wedding just to have better pictures.

Ryanne's Blog:  A Method in the Madness
As you've gathered, Ryanne is the wife of her husband, Chris.  She's mommy to her heavenly angel as well as her two fur-babies: their kitty, Jaye & pup, Kinley.  Ryanne has impacted me with her grace and perspective through the struggles she's faced through the ups & downs of trying to conceive, her husband's accident, and her recent miscarriage.  Ryanne reminds me that when things get tough, you can be upset or hurt and still manage to hold onto a positive outlook.  Thanks for sharing the powerful things you've learned in the last five years of being a newlywed!  Come back whenever you'd like!!!  And Happy 5th Anniversary!