Tag: Wedding

At the end of the day our wedding was perfect. For us. There were a handful of hiccups along the way though…

Leading up to our big day I scoured pinterest & all the wedding blogs, looking for inspiration. Happily pinning my little heart out; I found bits of pieces here & there that I wanted to incorporate into the wedding. For example, I made these cute little bunting flags that I wanted placed over the napkins at each guests place setting. But when we arrived at dinner, they were nowhere to be found. It turned out that it was too windy & they would’ve all blown away. I had a guestbook with blanks pages, my instax mini, patterned washi tape & colorful pens for everyone to take cheesy pictures, decorate a page & leave a note for us. But… our guestbook table wasn’t set up when all of our guests starting arriving. Since it wasn’t out in time (it eventually arrived late) no one knew it was there. We also had a “Bride” & “Groom” sign that I wanted placed on our chairs but I didn’t see them at our table either & later found them at the guestbook table in a box! (insert a mild panic attack right here)

All of these little details that had a place & a time just didn’t work out how I had envisioned them. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bummed out.

Luckily I had some of the most amazing bridesmaids you could ever ask for! Gina, Kaitlin, Abby & Heather picked up the bride & grooms signs & started going around to all of the guests & snapping their pictures with the instax mini! They even had everyone hold up the bride & groom signs in their photos. This was seriously one of the coolest moments of the day! These ladies were are out of this world amazing! They made sure that everything got done. They were one step ahead of everything. They seriously put me at so much ease. Just seeing Gina run around with the camera getting everyone to make a silly face & take a fun picture – wow it was awesome. Now I have the world’s best guestbook – thanks to those awesome bridesmaids of mine. (Some of the bunting flags that were supposed to go on everyons napkins ended up decorating some of the pages in the guestbook, too!)

Now this part of the whole day was hands down the best! We reserved the resort nightclub and it came with our own DJ and open bar! Let’s just say that when they offered us the open bar, they definitely didn’t know what they were getting into with this crowd. We’ve got some seasoned veterans in our group, if ya know what I mean. Oddly, Luke and I really didn’t drink that much – at any other wedding we’d take full advantage of an open bar – but at ours we only had a small handful of drinks. I was much more content drinking water and taking everything in. If you know me, this is rare, ha. I knew though, that at the end of the day I wanted to try and retain as may details of the day as possible.

Photos by Linnea Paulina Photography

The details of this day were my favorite. I loved my dress, I loved my shoes (they are Kate Spade 🙂 I loved how the bridesmaid dresses all complimented each other. The bouquets were all perfectly miss-matched just like the bridesmaid dresses. (something fun about the bouquets – my girls and I had a bouquet making party the morning of the wedding and did them all ourselves. I love how they’re all different).

Photos by Linnea Paulina Photography

Luke and I are definitely not a traditional couple; it wasn’t really important for us to see each other for the first time when I was walking down the aisle. So we did a first look before the ceremony. I’m so glad we did the first look, too, because we spent a good hour and taking photos before the ceremony… which meant we had all that time to spend with our guests after the ceremony instead of doing our photos then! Looking through all these photos (over and over again…) just puts a huge smile on my face. These photos were taken just a month ago now. Even though it’s only been a month, I’d give anything to go back and re-live that day – it was really and truly the best.

Here are some of my favorite photos of just Luke and I from the wedding. It was hard to choose just a few to share, let me tell ya! Hope you like them as much as I do.

Photos by Linnea Paulina Photography

So we’re going with gray dresses for the bridesmaids! There I said it. I finally made a decision. I’d been going back and forth with different blush tones and putting too much thought into it. I wasn’t completely sold on pinks or purples mainly because we’re not sure on the colors of our flowers until we actually get down to Mexico and see what they have. If we went with pink dresses and only had purple flowers available – then it would clash. I decided my best bet was to pick a neutral, but pretty color that any bouquet of flowers would compliment. Is that a totally weird way of picking my bridesmaid dress colors? It made sense to me… so gray dresses it is!

I am also one of those girls that jumped on the trend of miss-matched bridesmaid dresses. When I say jumped on that trend, I mean that I am absolutely in love with the idea. I love the idea that each girl will get to wear a dress that she feels the most comfortable and beautiful in. I’ve never been a fan of symmetry, or a perfectly matched assortment so miss-matched dresses seems like a great fit for our wedding. The last three photos below are some of favorites that I’ve seen floating around on the internet.

Since we’re having a destination wedding, it’s only appropriate that we give out welcome bags to our guests when they check into the resort. Don’t you think?

I’ve been to a few weddings that have handed out welcome bags to their guests and I thought it was awesome. It was nice to have a few snacks and bottles of water in your hotel room while you’re getting ready – or winding down in the evening. Especially since everyone will be traveling for our wedding – I think it’s a must to hand out snacks and water for everyone.

In doing some internet sleuthing, I found that a lot of people are anti-welcome bags and think they’re a waste of money. My take on that is… It all depends on what kind of wedding you have. A few local weddings that I’ve attended didn’t have welcome bags – and that’s okay. But it you’re having a wedding where a lot of people have to travel in – I think it’s a fantastic idea.

A rule that I think I’m going to stick to – which should also help me stick to budget so I’m just not throwing just anything and everything into these welcome bags… is to include something edible, something useful and something fun.

Some things that we’re thinking of using in our welcome bags:

Something edible: bottles of water, granola bars, fruit snacks, chewing gum
Something useful: a weekend itinerary, map of Cabo, packets of sunscreen
Something fun: a mini-size bottle of tequila – we’re going to be in Mexico, so that only seems appropriate 

This week I’m talking about engagement rings. I picked out my own engagement ring.

There was a time a little while back when one of our friend’s got engaged & we saw her ring. Luke said, “oh that looks nice, he did a good job picking that out for her”. I sat there quietly and didn’t say anything. A little panic might have settled inside me. I made a mental note though. That mental note was that if Luke liked that engagement ring, Luke wouldn’t be picking out mine! Does that sound a little harsh? I certainly don’t mean for it to – it’s just the truth. And it’s the start about how we both set about to find the perfect engagement ring.

When we started talking a little more seriously about our future, we went looking for engagement rings, together. I thought I was certain in what I wanted and I went into the ring search knowing that I wanted a square diamond with a halo. When I tried a few of those styles on it just didn’t feel like “me”.  I was kind of surprised. After a few shops, trying on lots of styles, I fell in love with an emerald cut ring. A cut I never thought I would ever want. But it turned out to be THE ONE ring that I kept coming back to, the one ring that I couldn’t get out of my head. It’s the ring that Luke ended up buying.

Now, when I tell people that I picked out my ring I get one of two responses…

I get the… “omg I did too!”
or I get the… ” ohhhh really? why’d you do that?”

People have asked me if it’s any less special, or does it not mean as much that you already knew. The answer is NO. It was such a great experience going all around town with Luke, trying on rings. We spent two different days searching and those were two very special days to me. I remember feeling very excited and giddy. I remember thinking that we were taking the next step in our relationship & that I couldn’t be more excited.

When I knew that Luke had the ring, I began to wonder when exactly he was going to propose. I knew he had the ring, but was I going to be able to figure out when he was going to ask me? He definitely kept me in suspense and ended up completely surprising me when he *finally* did propose. It was the best surprise; it couldn’t have been more perfect. It was us.

Truth be told, Luke felt a lot better about both of us picking out which ring I wanted, because he didn’t want to mess it up. He wanted me to have the ring I wanted. I am the one that is going to wear it forever, after all.

Now every time I look at my ring, I think of how we picked it out together and it actually means more to me than him guessing on something I might like.