Our Wedding

**This post is comprised of candid photos taken by my guests as well as some professional pictures from a dear family friend. Her pictures will be denoted with her photography business name.**

Well, we did it! The Fiance is officially The Hubby now!! We got married July 18th, in a mid morning ceremony in Cypress California.  When I woke up, bright and early that morning, there was thunder and lighting outside! Holy cow!! Who would have thought we would have to worry about rain in a mid-July wedding in So-Cal?? We had an outdoor ceremony planned,  so this was a bit disconcerting. However, someone up there must like us, because it cleared up BEAUTIFULLY and our ceremony was absolutely GORGEOUS! If I do say so myself!

My AMAZING Aunt did ALL of the beautiful flowers for our wedding.  She even constructed the arch which was the centerpiece of our ceremony. 

I ADORED all of the little aisle details! I mean, grass aisle lining!! And the gorgeous tree stump-bouquet pieces?? GORGEOUS! 

It literally took my breath away! (I did not see the finished product until I walked down the aisle.)

Our ceremony started with The Hubby and our officiant walking in together.  Everyone walked in to a beautiful, instrumental version of Elvis' "Can't help falling in love". My AMAZING brother in law was our DJ and did all of our music to absolute perfection! 

Our officiant is our dear friend! He and his wife introduced The Hubby and I, and they have known The Hubby since he was about 10 years old!  We felt so honored that he was the one who married us! Our parents' followed them down the aisle to their seats in front. Our Bridal party followed, consisting of our best friends and The Hubby's former military buddies. Next, came our ring bearer, son of our officiant and his wife, one of my bridesmaids. (Sorry y'all...I have no candids of the other entrances, you will have to wait for our official wedding photographs to be back from editing.)

Following them came my three adorable nieces, the flower girls! (Special thanks to my mother in law and my sister for the ADORABLE dresses!) They were just so darn cute!

Last, but certainly not least, was yours truly! We had a music change to an instrumental version of the song "The Final Countdown", Yes, that famous 80's song.....It was an incorporation of The Hubby's sense of humor, which I (at first) reluctantly agreed to.  When he found the pretty,instrumental version we used, I gave in, under one condition. (Which we will discuss later.) 

As some of you may know, I get very nervous with all eyes on me. (I know, a perfect fear for a day when literally everyone is watching you...ALL DAY!)  So, drawing inspiration from a wedding my mother in law had told me about, I walked halfway up the aisle and The Hubby met me halfway and we walked the rest of the way up the aisle together!

We thought it was a wonderful tribute to our relationship and symbol of our journey together!

My Maternal Grandfather offered a lovely prayer to open the ceremony.

The ceremony was perfect and beautiful! Our officiant made it so personal and amazing! 

We exchanged rings and "I do's" and then had our first married kiss and were introduced as husband and wife!

We walked back down the aisle to the Throne room song from the Star Wars a new hope soundtrack! Yup, you guessed it, my condition to our walk up the aisle song. I'd say that's fair, wouldn't you?

Our wedding reception was held at the same venue, inside their ballroom. It started pouring rain approximately 30 minutes into the reception! Whew!! Talk about perfect timing! Here is a quick tour of our reception decor.

*photos by Thru Andi's Lens*

*other candids*

We started the reception with introductions of the wedding party and then went into our first dance to Elvis's "Can't Help Falling in Love".

*photo by Thru Andi's Lens*

After that came the toasts. We toasted with handcrafted Honeyblonde beer made by The Hubby!

*photo by Thru Andi's Lens*

My sister, and MOH, went first, followed by the Best Man.  Then, my best friend, and second MOH, gave her toast.  My Father in law went next. He had a very special toast to make!  The Hubby's maternal Grandfather had gifted him with a bottle of cognac,when he was born 30 years ago, with instructions to open it at his wedding for a special toast.  His Grandfather was very well loved by the family and tragically passed away when The Hubby was young. The Hubby's Dad gave a wonderful toast to him, and the people who are no longer with us.  It was beautiful!

*photos by Thru Andi's Lens*

The Hubby then, in part as further tribute to his late Grandfather, danced with his Mother to his Grandfather's favorite song, "What a Wonderful World". It was a wonderful tribute to an amazing and well loved man, as well as a beautiful moment shared with The Hubby and his Mom!

*photo by Thru Andi's Lens*

After that, my Father in Law gave a toast just from him, followed by a toast from my Dad!

My Dad then gave a blessing on the food and dinner was served! We had Chicken Piccatta and Tri-tip with mashed potatoes and steamed veggies.  After dinner, and a round of "hellos" around the room, it was time for the bouquet and garter toss! My Mom made my beautiful garters, but unfortunately I don't have pictures yet, Stay tuned! My 3 year old cousin, and flower girl, caught the bouquet. My other cousin (I think he is 25, Shane correct me if I am wrong) caught the garter.

After a little dancing, it was time for the cake cutting! The Hubby's cousin, handmade our GORGEOUS cake! I absolutely loved it!!

*photos by Thru Andi's Lens*

She made a small "top layer" carrot cake for us to cut. My favorite!!! She also made chocolate, strawberry and vanilla cupcakes, each with a different style of frosting and sprinkles! They were just gorgeous AND delicious!! We got compliments on them all night!

After the festivities, The Hubby and I headed outside with our "principal photographer" (and amazing, long time friend) for our couples pictures. You all will have to wait for a special post for some of those! It was raining a bit again at this point, but we didn't care. We just got married!!!! We can't wait to have our finished official pictures to share, and are SOOOO grateful to everyone who helped us have a glimpse into our special day in the meantime! We treasure ALL of the memories we have from the day! In the meantime, I hope you all have enjoyed a little glimpse of the details of our wedding.

 Our wedding was an absolutely beautiful day filled with so much love!  We can't thank our family and friends enough for all they did to help us pull off such a fantastic day! It was certainly a day to remember and we will treasure not only the memory of our wedding, but the endless love that surrounded us as we entered our journey as husband and wife!

Disney Inspired

A few months back, a co-worker put in a special request for some bags for her Mom,sister and friend. She wanted bags for these girls to carry on the Disney cruise they will be going on in a couple of months.  She asked if I could design each of the three girls a tote bag inspired by their favorite Disney characters.  I LEAPED at the opportunity! Design bags that were both outside of my norm AND based on Disney inspiration??? I could not WAIT to get started!!

I started by getting the characters that she wanted: Ariel, Mary Poppins and Maleficent.  I began sketching out a few ideas to present to her. I wanted to keep the basic design of my bags the same and not add a ton of embellishment.  I wanted to keep all of the cotton panels and pockets in the same spots and let the colors and patterns speak for themselves and give the impressions of the characters.

After a couple rounds of drafts, I got an official OK and got to work.  I started with Ariel.  I had purchased some green scales fabric for a little mermaid costume I was going to make for a friend but never finished. (Sorry Jennie! I still have it all cut out if you ever still want me to make it!) I some more of the scales fabric, some purple, red and green cotton as well. I made the top strip of the bag out of the red fabric.  The pocket strip, I layered with the purple and the green scales.

This color scheme gave a pretty good Ariel vibe, but I felt like it needed just a little something extra.

I took a plain seashell and painted it with Martha Stewart multi-surface paint in Pearl finish-color "Purple Martin". If I haven't mentioned it before, I LOVE the Martha Stewart paints!! They have fantastic coverage and I have used them on a variety of surfaces and have been quite pleased with the results. I used E6000 industrial glue to attach 2 pins to the back of the seashell and pinned that onto the bag.  With that, the Ariel bag was complete!

Up next was the Mary Poppins bag! I was seriously excited about this one.  My friend wanted a bag inspired by Mary Poppins' white "Jolly Holiday" dress.  I grabbed a bunch of white eyelet lace, some red fabric and white and red satin ribbon.  The top panel was made using the white eyelet lace.  I added a ruffle to the center as well as a red bow.  For the pocket panel, I sewed strips of white ribbon to the red fabric equal distance away.  I then attached this strip of red to the center of the white pocket to mirror the corset portion of her dress.



When all put together, I think it turned out pretty awesome!!

Last, but certainly NOT the least challenging, was the Maleficent bag.  I'm definitely no stranger to Sleeping Beauty, but figuring out an inspirational design to portray this Disney villain took some thinking.  I googled some pictures of the animated version and up with a design that worked.  I found this cool marble looking black color along with some purple and neon green.  I purchased some purple satin ribbon and got to work.

I started out with the top strip.  I wanted this piece to echo Maleficent's headdress, since her outfit is relatively non-descript.  I sewed lines of purple satin ribbon onto the black fabric.

I didn't really notice, I mean I guess they were always there (its been a while since I have watched Sleeping Beauty) but Maleficent's headdress has purple stripes on it. Seriously, google it!

For the pocket portion, I layered the green, purple and black fabric in different sizes.  At this point, it was definitely giving me a Maleficent vibe, but I wanted it to have just a little something more.  I felt it needed a nod to Maleficent's magical staff to sort of pull it all together.  I took a wooden craft ball and painted in green using Martha Stewart paint in "Scottish Highlands". Then, I sponged on some swirly accents in "Citrine Gold". I used the industrial adhesive to attach pins to the back and pinned it to the bag and.....TAHDAH!!

I'm very happy with how they all turned out and had so much fun designing them! I plan to make more Disney inspired bags in my mini sized tote bag.  I'm pretty excited about the concept of my Disney inspired tote bag designs being carried around on a Disney cruise!! How cool is that???

Star Wars, a bachelorette party far, far away!

If you thought my two maids of honor could not possibly be more creative than they were for my FRIENDS TV show bridal shower, you would be mistaken! My Bachelorette party totally rocked!!! In a completely nerdy kind of way....

To begin with, again, the invitation was just ADORABLE!

For part one of the days' festivities, we met up at The Queen Mary for high tea on board ship!

My sister and I LOVE having tea and it was such a beautiful day! We had a plethora of teas and sweet and savory tea treats!

The tea room is on one of the upper decks, so there was a great view! The tea was superb and we all had a great time!

 For part two of the festivities, we headed to my best friend's house.  When I walked in the door, I about died of excitement when I realized that I was getting a Star Wars bachelorette party!!! OMG!!!

For those of you who don't know me as well, yes, I am a giant Star Wars nerd and have a lifelong crush on Harrison Ford! So, when I walked in and saw a life size cardboard cut out of none other than Han Solo himself, I was giddy with girly excitement! I immediately posed for a picture, which I of course sent to The Fiance telling him to try not to be too jealous-wink wink!

 My best friend's husband had helped her set up the decorations.  There were streamers, Star Wars ships and "planets" hanging from the ceiling.

The bathroom had an awesome Star Wars opening credits tribute to The Fiance and I.

 And, of course, all of the super yummy food had adorable Star Wars themed labels!

Once everyone arrived, we made some beverages and snacked on yummy goodies.

Then, it was time for GAMES! The first game was a "Favorite things from my boudoir" game. Its basically a bachelorette party version of a My favorite things party.  In short, each guest brings their favorite thing that goes along with whatever theme is given. BUT they bring 4 of their item of choice.  When the guest arrive, every guest gets their name put into a bucket 4 times.  Each guest then shares what their favorite item is.  In this party's case, boudoir items-wink wink!! As the Bride, I was given one of every one's favorite thing and I got to draw 3 names from the bucket and the names I drew got the other 3 items. So, basically each guest walks away with 3 new things! :)

 After that, we played "Kiss Han Solo".  Pretty much pin the tail on the donkey, bachelorette party style!  We each put on brightly colored lipstick and were blindfolded to then attempt to get as close to Han Solo's smoocher as we could with our kiss. I was a little sad, at first, when I realized we were going to "mess up" Han with bright, staining lipstick....

But, in the spirit of having fun, I went for it! (I opted for closing my eyes only so as not to ruin my freshly done eyelash extensions. I know, I'm lame! But, they were expensive and I promise, my eyes were closed super tight!)

No big shocker who won....ME of course!!! Thats right! And no, I did NOT peek! :)  After that, we hung out and girl talked for a bit. Then, it was time for cake!!! OMG! The cake made its own grand entrance!

 It was a Han Solo stripper cake!!!! I laughed so hard!!! Complete with sparklers AND a stripper pole!

 My sister had taken her Han Solo Ken doll and stripped him down to his chonies. She then added on a leopard print speedo, (made by hand out of leopard print washi tape)

I even gave him a tip, he was so AWESOME!

 BEST BACHELORETTE PARTY EVER!!!!!