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: 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: 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: #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: 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: 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! :)

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: 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: 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!