Our First Anniversary

Why it takes me so long to catch up on blog posts I will never know. I guess I'm just enjoying living life that sometimes I just forget to take time to document it in one of my favorite ways!

Sunday, of course, was our first anniversary. <3 p="">
We didn't have a whole lot planned, but we did stay busy, yet relaxed at the same time!

I started the day with coffee in the only mug that seemed appropriate...these fantastic favors from our rehearsal dinner!!

We went back to one of the main locations of our wedding weekend: The Berkeley Hotel (and happened to quickly and randomly see one of Matt's groomsmen, Jesse, as he was leaving the hotel with another of his and Matt's fraternity brothers!).  We had breakfast at The Berkeley, just like we did the morning after our wedding. Just in case you haven't read any of my wedding posts, Matt's parents hosted the rehearsal dinner at The Berkeley, the entire wedding party got ready there, and Matt and I stayed the night there after the wedding.

As we ate, of course I kept bringing up, "...I can't believe it's been a year. It just really doesn't feel like it!" Our whole meal was delicious, and, since you get to choose your seat, you know we sat at the same table right by the window.

After breakfast, we headed down to Williamsburg to Yankee Candle (didn't buy anything), the outlets (again, didn't buy anything), and to The Pottery (spent about $3 on us, and also bought a gift). haha. Didn't end up being as successful of a trip to Williamsburg as we planned, but it was still enjoyable. Oh, and we also saw Santa shopping at Yankee Candle. No, really, it was the Santa that sits in Santa's Workshop all day :)

Once we got back, we were trying to figure out what to do for dinner. Only one thing seemed appropriate: Roma's. Since we didn't get to each much of Roma's at our wedding reception, we made up for it this year, even though we got something completely different! haha.

After dinner, we did one of my new favorite things we do, which is going for an evening walk. For exercise and recovery reasons, I love doing this on my days off from running.  We usually walk about 2-2.5 miles when we go, and it's just very enjoyable!

Of course, to end the night, we cut into the top layer of our cake and had the pink champagne flavor I've been waiting almost two years to eat now!! (We chose our flavors in July 2012, and I knew I wanted the top layer to be pink champagne--my favorite of the three flavors we had--to be sure we had it on our anniversary, in case we didn't get it at the wedding!)

(you really can't have cake without ice cream...just saying!)

All through the day, I would randomly say, "At this time, exactly a year ago, we were in the middle of our ceremony!!" or whatever it might have been at the time!

So, now that we've been married a year, what are we going to do??

WE'RE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!

That's right! In two weeks, we'll be in Florida hanging out with Mickey and Minnie, Elsa and Anna (if we're lucky), Woody and Buzz, and whoever else we can find! We've anxiously been saving and waiting to decide on where we'd go, and we can't wait to celebrate our first anniversary in the place where everyone's a kid again!

June 8th, 2014

A year ago today, I put on my most favorite pair of sparkly shoes in the world! (In my book, they top Dorothy's ruby red slippers any day! ;) )

I walked down the cobblestone streets of Downtown Richmond with some of the best friends, cousins and sister anyone could ask for.

I walked down the aisle with my dad (and stepped on my dress a couple times) past all of our friends and family.

And I walked back down the aisle with my new husband!

I may have only spent a few hours in those shoes (because we all know I was waiting and waiting to put on flip flops!!--and my mom had bought me a fantastic pair of cushioned black Reefs with silver glitter straps---you don't think she knows I love glitter and sparkles, do you?!), but those few hours were some of the best hours of my life!

This past year has gone by so quickly, but I wouldn't change a thing about it! It has been a fantastic year and I look forward to many more!!

Last year on June 8th, I posted a quick little note to Matt about how our wedding day was finally here, so it only seemed fitting to write him another note, this year.

Matt Matt,

The day we planned and planned and planned for came and went so fast, and here we are a year later--me being all sentimental looking back on all of the fun and special moments.

Although the past year has gone by so quickly, it has definitely been one to remember! You've pushed me to reach my goals, you never leave me behind when we're running, and together, we've caught our fair share of mice in the house! haha. But hey, that will always be a fun 4:00 am story to tell.

Thanks for always being by my side, making most of the decisions, and knowing when I'm too stressed out to do anything. On a different note, thank you for always being comforting and taking care of me during the days/hours when I can't get rid of my headaches and I'm no fun to be around.

You are the absolute best friend I could ever ask for and I really am lucky to be in love with my best friend. You for sure make things easier when life gets hard. In the mornings, every time we say good bye (when you wake me up before you leave for work), I wish we had one more kiss.

You make me smile whenever I'm sad. We've grown another year older together and I can't wait to continue growing old with you.

That's our love story. I'll forever be glad I said "yes."

Happy 1st Anniversary!!

I love you!

June 7th

A year ago today, we finally saw the floor of the bonus room (upstairs den) in the house I grew up in. Why? Because for about a year, it housed boxes of vases and anything and everything wedding related! Mom and I scanned the room for any more boxes, and saw that we had labeled everything, and I mean really labeled everything, and carried everything down and out already.

A year ago today, our parents were generously all meeting at the Science Museum unloading boxes and boxes of decorations to store in the back room overnight.

A year ago today, Matt and I were upstairs in our newly purchased house, gifts for our wedding attendants surrounding us, finalizing things, and making sure everyone's cards were signed and in the proper bag.

Matt and I drove to meet everyone at the Science Museum for our rehearsal, me stressing out, of course, because we were coming from The Berkeley and didn't take into account the VCU graduation traffic that would be around us! When we got there and I saw everyone standing inside (waiting out the rain) and waiting to get started, I couldn't believe it was finally our wedding weekend!

We finally had to head downstairs and outside to our ceremony site rehearse, obviously, only to find out that because of the rain that week, we had to change a lot about the set up. (Tropical Storm Andrea came through the week before our wedding, so you can imagine why everyone thought we were nuts when we decided NOT to set up a tent outside.) The grass area where the aisle and chairs would be set up was holding SO much water. To everyone who didn't get to see us walk down a center aisle: Sorry, but we wouldn't probably all sunk into a mud hole.

A year ago today, I wore these shoes for the first time. I loved them because they're shimmery and comfortable to walk in--perfect.

However, due to the fact that we did our rehearsal IN THE RAIN, my shoes started falling apart.....literally.  Part of the back of one shoe came unglued, and it remains unglued to this day. I thought about fixing it so I could wear the shoes some time, but I kinda like leaving the shoes all messed up, for sentimental reasons, haha.  Also, when these shoes got wet, they started rubbing my feet...a lot, which made them not as comfortable to walk in anymore, but I did for the rest of the night! (Until after the rehearsal dinner and I changed into flipflops.)

Huge thanks to Matt's mom for all of the pictures from our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, including the picture above :) 

Our Wedding: Candy Bar

If you asked every guest to our wedding if they received their favor, my guess would be that at least 75% of our guests DID NOT. The only reason I'm making this assumption is because of the huge amount of candy we're STILL eating from the wedding!!

We had a candy bar set up, displayed with a variety of candies --yes, all within our color scheme, with the exception of the yellow Starbursts..haha-- for our guests to fill up a treat bag to take home.  However, I'm guessing not many people walked over to that area of the room, or didn't stop by to take a look, because like I said, we have so much candy leftover!!

Mom and I searched for various size jars and glasses to display the candy on the table.  We also bought plastic bags and silver twist ties for guests to fill and take with them at the end of the night.  And, because we like deals so much, we found tons of sheets of letter stickers at Dollar Tree, marked down to 25 cents a sheet, so we bought ALL of the Ns, because we figured we'd probably find a use for them for wedding

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! :)