Our Wedding: Our DJ

About two weeks ago, I did posts sharing all of the music we used for our ceremony and reception. {If you missed them, you can find those posts here, here and here :) }  But, none of our music would've been possible without one person...our DJ of course!

There was never any question about who would be our DJ; it was kind of just a known fact of who we wanted and hoped would do our wedding.  And, just to be on the safe side, we asked him in November 2011 if he would! haha.

Our families have basically known Barry Martin forever.  His son, Caleb, and I played on the same t-ball team when we were younger, Barry and my dad played in the same Bluegrass/Gospel band, Barry DJ'd mine and Matt's after prom parties, and so much more.  But, some of my favorite times that Barry was involved in our childhoods, was when

Our Wedding: The Guestbook

When it came to our guestbook, I didn't really want the traditional
"sign-your-name" guestbook.  That just doesn't seem like as personalized of a guestbook as we wanted.  And, sometimes the line to sign the guestbook can get long, some people might just get out of line, etc.

In one of the many wedding magazines I had, I came across this awesome scrapbook you could order, and have each person fill out a page.  Well, after doing the math and realizing we'd have to get TWO of those books in order to hold all of the entries from our guests, on to Plan B.  We were DIYing most of our wedding decor and everything, anyway, so why not DIY the guestbook too?

Matt and I took the inspiration we found from that original idea, tweaked the prompts, changed the design, and made it more our own, and to be honest, I love it even more!

Our Wedding: The End of the Evening

After the cake had been cut, we danced our final dance that I was so excited about, walked through a tunnel of glow sticks and I threw glow sticks back at our guests as we drove off, we ended up back at The Berkeley Hotel.  What almost no one knew until we got our pictures back, is that Steven and Lily went back to the hotel with us for more pictures! We had been planning to do more pictures after the reception, back at the hotel.

However, Matt and I got there and waited for Steven and Lily in the lobby, and we made the mistake of each plopping down on a chair right in front of the desk.  I sat down, looked at Matt and said, "oh...my...gosh....I am sooo tired," to which, if Matt also wasn't as worn out as me, his sarcastic response would've been, "Hi [sooo tired].....I'm Matt." But, his response was that he was just as tired.  We did make it through pictures, but we did not take a couple of the pictures we had in mind, mainly because we were just exhausted!  And, the pictures we

Our Wedding: Special Moments

As we looked through our wedding pictures with each other,
then with our families, and then as I went through them choosing pictures to post on here, I realized there were so many pictures that made you say "aww" or that were just really cool moments from the day that I'm so glad were caught on camera!

These are why I love pictures so much.  Of course, I love the posed pictures, or at least the pictures where you know the event happened, but you still have the memories to look at {i.e. our first dance}.  These moments that Steven and Lily caught are special because I know I, for one, never saw many of them, but they're so neat to look back on!

Years from now, whenever we look back at our wedding pictures, I'm going to love having candid pictures like these, that show real excitement and emotion from the day :)

Our Wedding: Pictures of Us

You may or may not have noticed, but when sharing all of these beautiful pictures from our wedding, I didn't include that many of just Matt & me.  That's because I was saving them all for one post! {Okay, that kind of sounds a bit on the selfish side...haha}

I love love love all of these pictures, mainly because I enjoyed the time when they were taken so much!  Those few minutes we had to take pictures of just the two of us were some of the only minutes we were together that evening! And those minutes flew by! Sure, we ate dinner beside each other, but we were also with our entire bridal party, because we wanted all of them to enjoy dinner with us. Okay, they all probably actually ate dinner, whereas, we did not. haha.

Looking at these pictures just makes me love our photographers, Steven and Lily even more!  The pictures they took are totally what I had imagined having to print out and hang in our house one day!

Our Wedding: Mistress of Ceremonies & Wedding Decorator

Thank you to my awesome cousin and
bridesmaid, Brooke, for letting me use this picture!!

Now that I've gotten through all of the ceremony pictures, and before I go on about any other wedding details, there is still another HUGE Thank You that needs to be given!

Our wonderful day wouldn't have come together if it weren't for two awesome people leading everyone.  My Aunt Sherrie was our Mistress of Ceremonies and her best friend and a wonderful friend of our family, Kelly, made sure everything was set up for us!

Prior to the wedding, Sherrie & Kelly came over to our house several times for dinner and/or dessert to discuss wedding details.  After the first meeting, Kelly knew exactly how everything was going to be set up, and we knew all of our decorations were in good hands!  Our upstairs den had basically become Wedding Central, so we just went through everything, showing them different details, centerpieces, etc., etc.

We had already all been to the Science Museum for our last walk through to actually see where everything would be set up, how tables would be arranged, etc., but our rehearsal was so great to confirm everything!  Plus, it would be fresh in our minds :)

On wedding day, Aunt Sherrie made sure everyone was lined up correctly, whichever groomsman was escorting a grandparent was ready, reminded the flower girls not to run down the aisle, and our ceremony went so great!  But, she did all of those tasks after also helping out to decorate! We had so many helping

Our Wedding: Reception - Send Off

For when the time came for Matt and I to leave our reception,  I wanted to do something different.  I didn't want to do rice...just so not us.  I didn't want to do bubbles...it would be dark, after all, and they wouldn't show up too well at night.  I didn't want to do sparklers {even though I love fireworks!}...because so many other people do it.  One day, an idea just came to me.  I literally have no idea where I pulled this idea from, but once I had it, I was going with it!

Our send off would include Glow Sticks! I was so excited about this idea, and wanted to keep it a surprise, since it was something I'd never seen before.  Only a couple people knew this is what we'd be doing :)

After searching online to find a site where you could get the best deal for ordering a bulk of glow sticks in three particular colors, we had about 250 pink, orange and green glow sticks!  I printed off tags that my mom and sister helped to cut out, hole punch and tie them onto the

Our Wedding: Reception - Random Pictures

While I'm definitely the type of person who enjoys structure and having a very detailed timeline to get through the day, I also enjoy those rare moments during our reception where we didn't have to be standing over at the cake table or we didn't have to be posing for a picture.  Like I said, those moments were rare, but we enjoyed them!

I loved looking back through our pictures and seeing all of our friends and family who joined us in dancing, who had the best photobombed picture, and who really looks like they had a great time! I love this time when so many people we love from different points in our lives or different sides of the families all came together to just have fun! :)

And, as you look through these pictures, try to see if you can figure out who didn't make as many appearances on the dance floor ;)

Our Wedding: Reception - Food, Game, Toasts, Cake, Tosses and Last Dance

For our dinner at the wedding, we chose a caterer, who I personally think is the best!  We thought, "who better to cater our wedding than our favorite restaurant?"  So, we had Roma Italian Restaurant for dinner {and the appetizers during cocktail hour!}.  For dinner, we had Caesar Salad, Chicken Parmigiana, Baked Ziti, Mixed Vegetables and, my favorite, rolls!! Their rolls are my favorite!  {At cocktail hour, we had Mozzarella sticks and Bruschetta!}  For drink choices, we had water, tea, and pink lemonade!  I didn't get to eat that much, but what I had was delicious! 

The buffet line wrapped around and went in front of the head table, which at first, I wasn't excited about.  I didn't really want people constantly in front of me while I'm trying to eat, but by the time the reception was over, we were SO glad that's how it ended up working out!  We got to see EVERYONE come through the dinner line!  This helped a lot because we weren't able to make it around to all of the

Our Wedding: Reception - Entrances and Dances

 Just as a heads up, this is another topic that's going to take more than one blog post to talk about!

When cocktail hour was coming to a close, the wedding party was finishing up pictures as the rest of our guests headed inside to find their seats for dinner.  All of the wedding party and our parents sat out front of The Science Museum for a few minutes because there wasn't really anything we had to be doing at the moment.  It was a fun quick time hanging out with everyone.  Then, it was time to line up to be called in to the reception!  As we got closer and closer to the door, I loved looking through all the glass doors and looking around at everyone! haha. 

Our wonderful DJ finally introduced us as Mr. & Mrs. Matt D. Nolte and I remember walking through some of the tables to get to the front for our first dance.  I was very excited, but also kind of anxious because I

Our Wedding: Ceremony Music

The music for our wedding is something I looked forward to since it was decided!! I had a Wedding
Songs playlist on iTunes, and when I would be working on my computer, I'd have the playlist going!! Even when I was subbing--I always took my computer with me, especially to Elko, because I almost always had a planning period.  And what did I do during that time {or during lunch}? Yep, listen to our wedding songs!

Even though we were having a traditional wedding ceremony, I didn't want traditional music.  I wanted music that was more us and, I hate to say it, a little more fun!  Now, we didn't go full-out crazy, but, there definitely were some songs that one may not expect to hear at a wedding....like, a One Direction song?  Yep, you totally read that right.

As our guests arrived to the wedding, there were three songs that we had chosen to play: Just The Way You Are by Bruno Mars, I'm Yours by

Our Wedding: Sand Ceremony & Cocktail Hour

I'll go ahead and apologize that there aren't nearly as many pictures for today's post as there have been in the past {and will be in the future}.  But, there are still two important parts from the day I wanted to talk about and show more detailed pictures!

I mentioned yesterday, that during our ceremony, we had a sand ceremony in lieu of a unity candle.  I've personally always liked the sand ceremony a lot more, mainly because I've never been a huge fan of candles. {There are some that I do like, and sentimental ones I've received as gifts, etc.}

I didn't want to have just a vase with maybe something engraved on it as what the sand would be poured into.  I wanted something a little more fun, that could definitely be more useful in our house.  After many Google searches, Matt and I finally found a set that we liked!! It's kind of like a shadow box, and engraved on the front is an "N" and

Our Wedding: The Ceremony

When all of us girls arrived at the Science Museum, there was a brief time of hectic-ness, as my
wonderful sister literally TOOK OFF HER SHOES AND RAN around the building and inside to get a couple things needed for the ceremony.  Seriously, how many people who have had their hair done for almost ten hours, have carefully put on their makeup, and are all dressed up ready to go, will just run around in the heat with no hesitation? Not many! lol

We all lined up along the fence so that we wouldn't be seen and all I could think of was, "I'm SO happy it's not raining, but my gosh it's hot!!"  I was peaking through the fence and I could see the tables set up for cocktail hour. These were the first decorations I'd really seen of the day and I was so excited!!

I could hear the music playing, but it didn't hit me that the song playing was the song our grandparents & parents were to be seated to. Then I

Our Wedding: Getting Ready

Even though June 8th FLEW by, I still remember a lot about the day {and I'm
glad...I'd hate to not remember all of the fun details!}.  When people ask how our wedding day was, I try to stay from flat out saying, "It was perfect." even though it really was.  Regardless of anything that happened, the whole day was perfect.

Friday night when I got home from the rehearsal dinner, I had one last wedding detail to finish.  It wasn't a huge task, and really didn't even need to be there at all, but it made me feel better to have something I started, completed and there for the day.  Therefore, I got into bed pretty late....and probably didn't even fall asleep until 1:30 or so.

Based on the information we were first told from the hair salon, as far as how long they would need for each person, we knew we'd have to get there very early in order for everyone to have enough time and not be rushed, etc.  Mom, Abby and I were providing a breakfast for

Our Wedding: Rehearsal & Rehearsal Dinner

On Friday, June 7th, both of our families were in full-force hectic mode, or so it seemed!
I remember
Mom and I up in the bonus room {aka...upstairs den} looking around at ALL of the wedding stuff, and making sure everything was packed in boxes.  Since we weren't going to be the ones setting everything up, I made sure to include notes in all of the boxes, directions, diagrams, labels, etc., etc.  To say I was a bit OCD/anal/very organized, might be an understatement! We carried all of the boxes down and then loaded up Mom's and Matt's vehicles to deliver everything to the Science Museum.

Before going to the Science Museum, Matt and I went to our house to make sure we had everything for our wedding party gifts.  We had kept everything laid out in an upstairs room in our house, because we knew we could keep everything unwrapped and organized, and could just look around and tell if anything was missing!  So, once we finished there, we headed up to the Science Museum.  Our parents had already all met up there to unload their load of boxes and had gone to get ready

Our Wedding: Our Parents

Yesterday, you got to meet our wedding party!  There are also some more faces you'll see throughout
many of the pictures, and some of you may not know who they are!

Today's post is all about 4 people who made the whole wedding weekend happen, our parents.  Many hands went in to helping actually make the wedding happen, but without theirs, we wouldn't have been able to have such a wonderful June weekend to look back on!

Matt's parents started off the weekend by hosting our rehearsal dinner, following the wedding rehearsal, and it was great! I don't want to say too many details now, as those will all come tomorrow! :)

My parents hosted {is that the right word to say? ha} our wedding on June 8th, and we were so happy with their generosity to make the day happen, and have all of our friends and family their with us!

Our Wedding: The Wedding Party

I figured that since the majority of the upcoming posts are going to have pictures of the same people, I
should probably inform everyone of who these people are in all the pictures!! Therefore, this post will be used to first introduce everyone in our wedding party!

Before I start, I will say this.  Matt and I wanted to have friends & family from different times in our lives standing up there with us on our wedding day.  We both had several cousins, college friend(s) and high school friends as our attendants, so it was a good mix of where we've been!

Happy Birthday Matt!

Matt,

Let me start by saying that I'm writing this at 9:20 a.m., but I have absolutely no idea what time today this will be posted, as I am clueless as to when our internet will start working!

At this time, exactly a month ago, I was sitting in the salon chair, having my hair put up perfectly for the day ahead.  Now that I think of it, I have absolutely no idea what you were doing at this time, haha.  The whole day seems like a whirlwind when I look back on it now, but it was one of the greatest days of my life.  Even though we might not remember much of it, we had awesome photographers capturing the moments, along with friends and family documenting the day for us.  That day, a whole new journey began for us!

Now, a month later, I'm quietly typing this in the den, because I'm making as little noise as possible and letting you sleep in because it's YOUR BIRTHDAY!!!  Your first birthday as a married man! Haha.  And, like I say EVERY year, we now get to be the same age for forty days!

As I wrote in your card this morning, {yep, I got up earlier to make sure that was done before you wake up! lol}, it occurred to me that it's the seventh birthday card I've bought for you.  Even though we've been together that long, it seems like the time has just really flown by!

I hope you have a great day today, Matt!  You received lots of fun gifts last night from our families to work on projects you'd like to do for our house & yard, so I hope the weather holds out for you :)

I love you so much!

Love,
Mallory

xox