Our Honeymoon: Day 5 in Jamaica

Every night when someone would come in to turn down our beds {by the way, I find that too weird..}, they would leave us a brochure with all of the activities for the next day, specials at the store or the spa, and musical performances that would be at the resort, as well as useful information such as the times for sunrise and sunset.

On our last day, I made SURE I was up to watch the sunrise. Matt didn't want me to wake him up, although, once he was finally awake, I kept saying things like, "oh you just neeeed to come look at the sunrise." haha.

We already knew it was going to be a quick and short morning for us at the resort, as we had to catch our ride back to the airport for our flight.  So, we scheduled in some early time at the beach, and had the beach to ourselves!

Our Honeymoon: Day 4 in Jamaica

Our 4th day in Jamaica started like just about every morning there:

I was the first one to really get up, I'd look out the window at the water, the sun, and what parts of the beach I could see....and I'd wait until Matt woke up & our breakfast had arrived!

I also remember it being bittersweet because it was the last day we'd wake up and actually get to enjoy the entire day there. 

While that was a sad, true statement, we still had such a great day! Very relaxing!

Our Honeymoon: Day 3 in Jamaica

There was never any hope for either of us really sleeping in on this trip. 

While we may have been exhausted, our internal clocks woke us up bright and early anyway.  However, even waking up at 6:00am was really sleeping in for Matt! haha

On Tuesday night, we did remember to put out our breakfast order on the door so we could have what we wanted and know exactly when it was coming. 

After breakfast, we spent time out on the water, relaxing on the beach, and well, just relaxing in general!

Enjoy these pictures from Day 3 :)

Our Honeymoon: Day 2 in Jamaica

On our first morning in Jamaica, I woke up in a panic....over something stupid.  Matt was kind of already up, so I said, "oh no! We forgot to put out our breakfast order!!"  So, Matt being the brighter of the two of us pulls out the binder with the menu and orders us breakfast. Sure, we had to wait a bit, but at least he found a solution.  Otherwise, I probably would've sat there stressing out about when we'd ever get to eat, haha. 

Now that I think about it, I find it hilarious how freaked out I was thinking we weren't going to eat breakfast.  What can I say?  I love food! hahaha

So, a little bit later on, a butler came to our room, set the table nicely for us, and it was time to enjoy breakfast!  Matt ordered waffles, I ordered pancakes, we got an assortment of toast and jellies and fresh Blue Mountain Coffee. So. Good.

And let me just say, that is NOT enough syrup for pancakes and waffles! haha.

Our Honeymoon: Day 1 in Jamaica

Once we first got to the resort, our bags were taken out of the van and we waited in the lobby, which was an outdoor lobby, admiring the beautiful scenery around us! It was so beachy, tropical, and relaxing! Even though we were still outside, the lobby was part of the resort--and by that, I mean there was still a ceiling, walls, a lounge area to wait....and little did we know, but right down the hall to the right was our room! It was really neat!

After getting checked in and putting our bags in our room, we met one of our two butlers, Sheldon!  He was so nice to us throughout the entire week!  He took us on a tour of the resort, gave us some tips to know for our stay, and then made our dinner reservations.  That was a really nice perk of having a butler for the week...we never had to make reservations for dinner.  We just decided on a restaurant and showed up at the correct time!

So, here are the pictures I know MANY people are the most excited about!

Our Honeymoon: Getting There

So, the wedding posts might be over, but BOY am I excited to finally post these pictures!  Many many people have asked when they'll finally get to see wedding pictures, and I just assured them they'd be on my blog soon, once the wedding posts were done! haha.

It wasn't really difficult to decide where we wanted to go on our honeymoon.  From the beginning, Matt and said we wanted to go to Jamaica, and I'm glad that's where we ended up!

The Monday after our wedding, we headed to the airport bright and early! This was both of our first time flying and I was a bit nervous.....okay, maybe more than "a bit" haha.  Mom took this picture of us just before we went to catch our first flight.

Our first destination: JFK in New York.  It was, of course, a quick flight, and not too bad of a layover there-about an hour and a half.  I loved seeing that airport, though, because it was so different than RIC.  The

Our Wedding: The Day After

When I woke up on June 9th, it was so hard to believe that everything we had been planning and organizing for almost two years was over.  Just like that, after that one day and night, it was all done and over with.  While that's a bittersweet thought, it was still surreal to me that we were now married! FINALLY! :)

We didn't waste any time getting something to eat, because we were still starving, so we had breakfast downstairs at The Berkeley Hotel.  I could've sworn one of us had taken a picture of our food, but neither of us can find it :(  You know that makes me sad, because I totally would've posted it! haha. 

After breakfast, our families had come back to The Berkeley to help clean up the parlor, because, needless to say, it was a gigantic mess.  You couldn't even tell the day before how messy it was, because there

Our Wedding: Wrap Up

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but today ends this six and a half week marathon of daily blogs about wedding details & wedding pictures.  However, that doesn't mean there won't be any more posts about the wedding in the future!

I certainly do have more wedding related things to blog about, but, I also have completely filled in the calendar through September and part of October with other fun things I want to blog about and share.  For instance, no one has even seen any of our pictures from Jamaica yet, other than the few on my phone!  Those will DEFINITELY be coming soon :)

So, today's post is just to wrap up all of the wedding posts and thank everyone again!

Here is a list of all of our big vendors:

Our Wedding: Picture Slideshow

If you haven't already picked up on it, I love that most of our wedding details were so personalized and really "us."  They were really only things that could've been at our wedding, like pictures of us at all the different locations, etc.

Something else that I loved that really made our reception more "us" was a pictures slideshow we had playing throughout dinner.  Inside the Science Museum, they have groups of TV screens together that are hooked up to a computer.  There were two sets of TVs on one side of the room, and one more set on the opposite side of the room. All I had to do was make the slideshow with all the pictures we wanted to use, and they hooked it right up!

I was most excited about the fact that all of the TVs didn't have to be in sync!  So, while all of the TVs played the same exact slideshow, they

Our Wedding: Wedding Central

I mentioned on Friday that while we were planning for the wedding and as we started getting more and more things, the bonus room became "wedding central."  Not even joking.  If you've planned a wedding before, you know how much stuff accumulates that is needed for the wedding!

I had packages coming to the house so often with gifts, our cake topper, our cake knife and server, toasting glasses....the list just goes on!  And, we needed somewhere to keep all of it!  Thankfully, we had a huge upstairs den we could use, where we stored everything, and could also work on everything all in the same room.

While the bonus room stayed messy, it was nice having everything all in one room.  And while it may have seemed like everything was just thrown in there, I would probably call it "organized chaos," because even if there were random boxes of stuff in the floor, I could locate something because I knew exactly which shoe box it was in, and what it was under, haha.

Not only was the bonus room wedding central, but I also always joke with Matt about how he always looked like he was in a "wedding office."  He'd set his computer up somewhere and then handle all the fun details that I couldn't wrap my head around without making a mess, haha.

I remember the day before the wedding, when we were making sure we had everything:  Mom and I were figuring out the best way to box everything up, I was

Our Wedding: Reception Tables Layout

Now that you know all the details about our centerpieces and table names, I wanted to share how we finalized the set-up for the reception and organized everything at home. 

I'm not even gonna lie..we started putting tables together before we even received RSVPs.  Heck, probably before we even sent out the invitations.  If we needed something wedding related to work on, we started planning out tables.  We knew that they would most likely get rearranged later on once people started to RSVP, but we would figure that out later on.  And, to be honest, working on this so far in advance really did help!

We started with family and figured out the best way to group all of them together.  We grouped families together, family friends together, church friends, college friends, etc., etc. 

Our Wedding: Table Names

When it came to all of our tables for the reception, I didn't
want just numbered tables.  I know, it's the traditional thing to do, and probably the easiest thing to do, but, I learned throughout this wedding planning process that I didn't do things "the easy way."  haha. Instead, we used an idea for the tables that took MUCH longer to put together than I thought.  However, I did start them way in advance, so that definitely helped.

Instead of number the tables 1-20, we instead came up with 20 different places that Matt and I had been to and named each table after a location!  I wrote yesterday how the centerpieces included three vases decorated in ribbon. Around the three vases were three picture frames.  The first picture frame was bigger and had the table name written on it.  The second picture frame had a picture of Matt and I at that particular place, and a description about it.  Finally, the third frame didn't have anything to do with the location, but instead had a brief itinerary of the evening, informing guests of what would come next, as well as the link for our hashtag.

Our Wedding: Centerpieces

I played around with several ideas for our centerpieces at the reception.  The first idea ended up being nearly impossible, the second idea would've just been way to expensive in the end, and then one night, it came to me in a dream.  No, really.  It did.  And when I told Mom the next day, she had been thinking of the same thing, too! So, it was just meant to be and that's what we went with.

I really didn't want many flowers, for several reasons. 

1) The cost of flowers adds up QUICKLY.  The only flowers we had inside at the reception were an arrangement on the buffet table, and the bridesmaids bouquets in vases on our head table.  Other than that, no other flowers, and I don't even think they were missed!

2) I've never been a huge flower person. That being said, I didn't want to "waste" money on something that I wouldn't enjoy, and only get it because it was expected.  I know, weird.

Our Wedding: Wedding Party Gifts

Sidenote:  It literally took me all day to write this post....I went back and forth debating on whether or not I even wanted to do this post, because I didn't want to rub people the wrong way.  I definitely don't mean that literally; I'm not a touchy-feeling person..

I want to start off by saying I hope this doesn't come off as a post where I'm boasting or bragging about the gifts we gave our wedding party/attendants.  I don't mean to do that in any way at all.  I honestly just wanted to do this post to share the gifts we got everyone, because I was so excited about each of them!!

For starters, I ordered these bridesmaids gifts WAY in advance, and when you and your Maid of Honor live in the same house, it's hard to hide stuff well!  We ended up sharing space in the bonus room {upstairs den}.......kind of.  There's a Pacman machine upstairs near a corner, so I got one side of the machine to hide stuff Abby couldn't see,

Our Wedding: Our Preacher

There was never any question about who we wanted to marry us.  Johnathan was my youth pastor since before Matt and I started dating, so he's literally known us since we've been together...since the first few times Matt started coming to church with us and went on our mission trip to West Palm Beach, Florida with us. 

We have always loved Johnathan and his wife Keira, and of course their three awesome kiddos!  We're very lucky to have such awesome people in our lives :)

I had been talking to Keira on Facebook trying to coordinate a day where the four of us could all meet up for dinner, just to chat and catch up, but this was also when Matt and I wanted to ask Johnathan if he would marry us.  Shortly before meeting up with them, we knew Johnathan had a possible job relocation, so I kind of worked that into the conversation....I said something like, "So, now, say you do get this

Our Wedding: #mandmwedding

It's nothing new that social media has really grown in the last couple of years.  I mean, there's a hashtag for everything these days....including our wedding!

Matt and I both use social media a lot.....Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, and the list goes on.  A lot of our friends and family do, as well, on a pretty regular basis.  We just knew that there would be tons of people taking pictures and Instagramming on June 8th, and we wanted to make sure we would be able to look back and see those pictures even after the wedding.  In fact, later that night while we were waiting for [our second] dinner, we went through and looked at most of them, and I'm pretty sure I said, "awww" or "oh my gosh!" a million times! haha.

So, this blog post is to thank all of our friends and family who took pictures, documented our wedding from their perspective, and shared them on Instagram using our hashtag #mandmwedding!  It was so wonderful seeing them and we loved them all!!

Now, I promised a lot of pictures would be on today's post, and that's exactly what you're going to get.  I gathered all of these Instagram pictures through the website Statigram.  It was very easy to log in to my Instagram account, search for the hashtag we used and pull up all

Our Wedding: Monthly 8th Meetings

Today is kind of funny because if I look back seven months,
six months, five months, four months, and three months from today, I'd be sitting around a dining room table with Matt, all of our parents, and depending on the month and location, either Matt's brother or my sister would be there.  Why?  For a wedding meeting, of course!

Starting in January, on the 8th of every month, we had our monthly family wedding meetings, just to make sure everything was covered.  Our meetings even had agendas....

We'd meet at either of our houses, and on one occasion, at Roma's, and we'd have dinner & dessert before we got to work!

We'd all update on various things, where we were with vendors, sending out invitations, receiving RSVPs, and the list goes on!  At the end of every meeting, all of us would have specific things that we needed to do in order to stay on track for the wedding.  Then, the next

Our Wedding: Our Logo & Theme

I don't remember how this whole idea got started, but I'm
happy with where we went with it!

First off, deciding what day we wanted to get married on was a little bit more challenging than I thought.  Luckily, we decided SO far in advance {and did so many things in advance}, that all of our first choices venues and vendors were available.  We originally thought to get married in May, since that was when we went to our first prom together, and was our anniversary month.  But, after looking at the weekends in May, we just weren't feeling it. Okay, I wasn't feeling it {Matt didn't care which weekend, haha}.  So, I did what I do best. I went straight to Google.

Now, I know this next part is going to sound absolutely ridiculous, but I've always loved the really strange and random holidays.  For instance, did you know that today, August 7th, is National Lighthouse Day? haha. I did a Google search for random holidays in June, just for the heck of it, because I wanted to see if there was anything that could work in our

Our Wedding: Stationary

Today's post isn't only a huge Thank You, but also a post for me to blog about how awesome my husband is! haha.

When it came to all of our stationary for the wedding, from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to at least "assemble" everything....but I didn't know to what extent.  I didn't really want to order anything from Party City, online websites, or catalogs, because nothing matched the theme or feel of the wedding that we were going for, they didn't have our colors {or even the option to customize with our colors...}, and well, call me picky, but I just wasn't a fan of most of the stuff.

So, I set out on this long ambition for us to MAKE any paper related thing needed for our wedding!

It started with Matt making our awesome Save the Dates! He made them on the computer and printed them through Longwood Printing

Our Wedding: Old, New, Borrowed & Blue

When it came to this old wedding tradition of having something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue, I didn't even think about it or fret over what I would have to fit each category.  Actually, they just kind of happened.

Before I share what all of those things were, I've got to be honest.  I didn't even know what the purpose or importance of all these things was, so, what do you do when you don't know something? Google it, of course.  Here is the answer I found on The Knot website: 

Something old represents continuity.
Something new offers optimism for the future.
Something borrowed symbolizes borrowed happiness.
Something blue stands for purity, love and fidelity.

So, what were all mine? Here they are!

Our Wedding: Our Vows

Throughout the whole entire wedding process there were millions of decisions that had to be made and countless things to get stressed over.  Obviously.

But there was one thing I didn't think would be as difficult as it was: writing our vows.  When it came down to it, I almost dreaded it because I wanted the words to be just perfect.  Matt and I worked together to complete our vows.  We took different things we each found online, worked them together, and even reworded some things to make them fit us better.  When I look at them now, I think, "were our vows really that long? It didn't feel like they were when we said them!" haha.

I do remember being up there in front of everyone saying our vows, though.  One, I remember it because I hated being in front of so many people with all of them staring at us. haha.  Two, I remember just

Our Wedding: Miscellaneous Details

So, I feel like I've talked about basically everything so far!  I mean, there's only but so much I can say about our wedding, right? haha.

But, there are still quite a few more wedding posts to come! :)  {And, not to worry, I still have more fun posts lined up for when all the wedding ones are done! :) }

There's no specific "theme" for today's post.  Before I start going into more specific things in next weeks posts, I just wanted to share a few more detail shots from throughout the wedding day!

Plus! There's another huge shout out and thank you included below! :)