Can't believe our wedding anniversary is this month! Remembering with wedding ABC's

I saw the "Wedding ABC's" over on Joyful Rambling's Blog and thought it was super cute and a fun way to remember my wedding day which I can't believe was almost a year ago already! This time last year I thought our wedding day would never get here, now almost a year has passed. Craziness!

Attendance
~We invited over 150 and ended up having about 110 guests. It was so amazing to look around and see all of our loved ones in one room.

Bridesmaids

Champagne with strawberries before getting dressed

My younger cousins were my Flower Girl and Jr. Bridesmaid. My maid of honor was my best friend from college who introduced me to my H and my other 5 bridesmaids were friends I've made over the years spanning from middle school, high school, college to the present including my sister in law. 

Catering

Catering was included at our venue and we chose to do stations instead of a sit down dinner. H and I are always hungry after we attend weddings with a sit down dinner so we wanted our guests to have more variety and the ability to go back for more. We had 4 stations.. a carving station with prime rib, ham, and turkey, a summer grille station, a tuscan station, and a pasta station. It was displayed beautifully and was delicious!

Our cake was also included with the reception package. It came out beautifully, but wasn't what we had requested. It was supposed to be 4 tiers and have gold ribbon at the base of each layer to add some color. I was disappointed, but what can you do at that point?

Dress


I wore Maggie Sottero's Adelaide gown. I loved the beading details on it and the lace up back and how it hugged me in all the right places. I didn't want to get "lost" in my dress from it being too big and I didn't want an overly trendy gown which would outdate our photos in a few years.

Coming down the aisle with my dad

Engagement

We got engaged on February 13th, 2009 and had a 16 month engagement. If we could go back and do it again, we would have had a shorter engagement. It felt way too long, but it was a necessary evil since the outdoor venue we wanted on the water is in high demand in CT since it's only nice out enough for outdoor weddings for a few months a year.

This picture is from our engagement party on April 4th, 2009

Flowers

Our flowers were done by Jane at Just for You and she did an amazing job of bringing my visions to life. I wanted a lot of roses in our wedding colors which were gold, light pink, and cream mixed with candlelight for a romantic glow. There aren't any gold flowers, but she did a great job of finding roses that looked champagne. 

I asked for all roses, but since the wedding I have fallen in love with peonies! If I could go back and do it again, I would have asked for a lot of peonies.

Roses and dahlias decorated the garden gazebo we got married in

Groomsmen

H had his younger cousin as our Ring Bearer, 6 of our closest friends including my brother (2 were my close friends that H became close too as well) and his cousin as his Best Man.

Honeymoon

We flew out the day after the wedding to Las Vegas and stayed at The Mirage for 2 nights, then we rented a car and drove to LA and flew out to Fiji for another week. It was the best of both worlds.. we got to celebrate in Vegas and then relax at an intimate resort in paradise.

Infinity Pool at Bare in Vegas

Our Honeymoon Bure in Fiji

Dinner on the beach in Fiji

Invitations

I looked everywhere for invitations and couldn't find anything remotely close to what I was envisioning unless I was willing to spend an obscene amount of money (which wasn't happening!). So after seeing a lot of the girls on my local knot chat board make their own using supplies from Cards and Pockets. I ordered a few samples and worked with Bonnie in their customer service department (who is awesome BTW..) and ended up with my perfect vision which was a pocketfold in our wedding colors with tiny butterflies and our monogram square closing the invite. I designed everything and sent up my designs and had them do my printing and then I assembled everything with double sided tape.

Justice of the Peace

An old friend of the family who is also an elder at the church that H and I were attending before moving to FL officiated for us. He also led the marriage study we participated in leading up to the wedding.

Keepsakes

Instead of a traditional guest book, we did a guest book frame that had one of our engagement pictures in the center that we now hang up on the wall in our home.

and for the guest's favors we had a candy buffet which was a huge hit!

Ladies Night

For my bachelorette we had a joint party bus up to Mohegan Sun and once we arrived we split from the guys and went to Margaritaville and Ultra 88 while H went with his guys to some other bars and to hit the tables.

Music

I would have loved to have had a string quartet for the ceremony, but it was much more cost effective to have our dj also do the music for the ceremony and cocktail hour as well as the reception.

Our DJ did an amazing job and kept the dance floor packed the whole night, and there was even a surprise performance by H and one of his GM's.

Newlyweds

Can't believe we're only newlyweds for another few weeks!

Old, New, Borrowed, Blue...

Something Old: My earrings

Something New: My dress, bracelet, necklace, garter, etc..

Something Borrowed: My mom let me borrow my nana's pin that we pinned to the stem to my bouquet.

Something Blue: My new married initials on the bottom of my shoes

Question Popping

H was so sweet.. he met with my dad over breakfast and asked for my parent's blessing before popping the question to me. He originally wanted to wait and pop the question on the beach in Cape Cod, then he moved it up to our weekend trip to MGM Grand at Foxwoods and then once he had the ring in his possession he ended up popping the question that night in my room before going to dinner where we had our first date. 

Reception

We had our reception at the same venue we had our ceremony and cocktail hour at Waters Edge. 

Shoes

I wore gold heels from Online Bridal

Trash the Dress

No, I didn't trash the dress.. actually I haven't even gotten it cleaned yet.. yipes!

Unique

We had a lot of unique things at our wedding. We didn't have table numbers and did table names instead of places we've been together. The guest's escort cards were post cards of the destination their table was named after. If you picked up a post card from Aruba, you were sitting at Table Aruba and there was a picture of us in Aruba at the table. 

Table Yankee Stadium

Our sweetheart table was "Table Fiji" in honor of our honeymoon destination

Our candy buffet, flip flop basket, out of town guests welcome boxes were all things our guests had never seen before.

Vows

We did traditional vows, but we also wrote our own vows that caused me to cry halfway through saying mine. 

Wedding Woes

I apparently didn't eat or drink enough fluids because I felt really sick while we were taking pictures before the ceremony. I ran off thinking I would be sick (thankfully I didn't) and my mom had to unlace my dress a bit (which was laced up too tight) and put a cool washcloth on my neck and back and my amazing wedding coordinator got me crackers with peanut butter and gingerale. My mom and MOH said as soon as I started eating the color rushed back into my face. So ladies, remember to eat on your wedding day amidst all the excitement! 

X-rated

I'm not sure I know how to answer this... haha

Young Kids

Our flower girl was 10 and our ring bearer was 8 and they were the youngest kids at our wedding.

Zzz's

Our venue was also a resort so we had complimentary accommodations which was really nice to just retreat upstairs after the reception. Our servers even brought up 2 fresh pieces of our cake and had our toasting flutes out with a fresh bottle of champagne. Perfect. 

Wow.. this was long, but it was great to share our amazing wedding day and I can't wait to celebrate our anniversary in a few weeks!

Wedding

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4 Weeks Baby! 4 WEEKS!

Anyone who loves the tv show Friends will understand the title to this blog post.. except Monica was referring to her upcoming wedding with Chandler, I'm referring to our close date on our house! H has called me Monica on a number of occasions, so I take pride in channeling my inner Monica Gellar hyphen Bing!

I can't believe we are on track to close on our new home this month, and my ticker on TN shows 4 weeks today. Incredible! We've been taking a lot of progress pictures that I've uploaded to Facebook, but have neglected to post on here or in my link for our house at the top of my blog. I've been majorly slackin' and I promise to update that link soon.

It's starting to look like a house! Just a week and a half ago, all we had were the bricks for the 1st floor. Man alive they're moving fast!

The 2 story living room. One of the biggest reasons we fell in love with this floor plan. We love the 2 story grand entrance with the open staircase that leads upstairs.

Master Suite

Part of master bathroom leading into my other favorite feature of the house... the master closet!

Back of the house.. our property line goes much farther back and we've already requested that they remove more of the brush and trees to expand our yard.



H stopped by the house today and said the windows are in, the pre-wiring for the electrical work and the AC is all set, and they're set to finish the roof and start the drywall inside early next week! So exciting! We are so ready to move in and are completely over apartment living! It's amazing how the little annoyances of apartment life became magnified as soon as we realized we would be moving into our own home. 

House

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A Belated Post

Happy Memorial Day weekend! I'm so thankful for all our hardworking troops and for everything they've done for our country. I also can't believe my brother's graduation from the marines is only a few weeks away!

I've been having the worst time trying to post this blog post.. I started it on Monday night and tried to upload my own photos of my purchases this weekend, and it would just continuously say "Uploading". I tried again last night (Tuesday) and it did the same thing. So please excuse the very tardy "Happy Memorial Day" opening line. Is anyone else having this problem? For some reason, it's now working here at work, but now I have to use google images/stock photos since I don't have my camera with me.

I took advantage of the Kate Spade outlet sale and picked up two new bangles for only $25 total! They were already marked down to $18 and $22 and then I got the extra 40% discount from the sale.

So Far So Good bangle

A Blue Streak bangle

Kate Spade

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Another Kate Spade Outlet Sale!

Kate Spade is having another 40% off sale at their Outlet locations celebrating Memorial Day Weekend. The sale runs Thursday, May 26th-Monday, May 30th. At their last 40% off sale, I picked up a new handbag that I had been needing for a long time. I'm happy to see that this sale even includes clearance items unlike the last sale I went to.

Happy Shopping!

Kate Spade

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Ya snooze.. ya lose! :-P

I was so excited when I got the email last week for the Kate Spade sample sale. I was eying a few of the lovely bangles marked down from $78-$98 to $25-$39. I looked through all of the sale items and then narrowed down my realistic wants to a wallet and a bangle or two, and decided to call H and "warn him" that I'd be making a few purchases for myself from the sale. He usually thinks my love for designer brands is ridiculous, but he agrees that certain items should be purchased at a higher price tag to ensure good quality and longevity. I was pleasantly surprised when he didn't seem put off at all by my impending purchases and he told me to definitely get the wallet since I needed a new one. I hung up the phone with him and went back to the site and the bangles I liked were gone! In just a matter of a few minutes! I've sure learned my lesson that if I see something online for a great price to just jump on it or else it'll be gone!

I did however purchase a new wallet from the sample sale. I got the Larabee Dot Stacy which is usually $95 for only $45.

I ordered the wallet on Tuesday, and it arrived on Friday! I was very excited to receive my new purchase as a kick off to the fun weekend that lay ahead.

Our friends flew in Friday night to stay with us for the weekend. Saturday, we got up early and I made french toast for us and then we got ready and went to Aquatica for the day which is the water park at Sea World. AMAZING! H and I caught some serious air one of the slides when he lifted our tube just a bit on the last drop.. so much fun! We also had a ton of fun in what we called the "Not so lazy river" which is a fast moving river where you don't use tubes.. there was a section that split off to two rows so every time we came up on it me and my friend B would try to race the boys who we both felt were always cheating! We only beat them a few times, but it was a workout in disguise and so much fun! We also loved the "Dolphin Plunge" which was a water slide that goes under the water into the aquarium and you can look out as you slide down at the black and white dolphins swimming around. They were so stinkin' cute! After a long day at the water park, we went home and showered and went out for dinner and drinks. 

Me and H before dinner

All of us after a fun day at Aquatica

Highlight of the night was H trying the firecracker salmon rolls

More pics to come of our day at Aquatica once our friends develop the waterproof camera we trotted around with all day. Hope everyone had a great weekend, and at least Monday is now overwith too, and we're that much closer to the long holiday weekend. 

Aquatica Kate Spade

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Kate Spade Sample Sale!

I was so excited when I got the email this morning for the Kate Spade sample sale.

http://www.katespade.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Kate-Site/default/Sample-ShopHome 

Happy Shopping!

I may have to indulge since I've been needing a new wallet and it will go with my new purse from their outlet sale a few weeks ago. And I'm also eyeing a bangle or two ;0)

Kate Spade

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Getting to Know You

Found these questions on another blog and thought it would be fun. Hope everyone had a great weekend! 

Getting to Know You Sunday with mannland5. Be sure to link up if you want to participate! :)

1. have you ever gone to see a movie by yourself?

No, I haven't

2. would you rather go through a tornado or a hurricane?

Definitely a hurricane... and I live in Florida which means they're inevitable. I've experienced both hurricanes and tornadoes, but tornadoes are definitely much scarier. If that funnel comes anywhere near where you are or your home.. everything is gone. 

3. have you made summer vacation plans?

Yes.. lots! Friends are coming down to visit next week and they've requested to go to Aquatica at Sea World and to go to the beach. 

Next month one of my best friends from high school (one of the ones who's preggers!!!) is coming down to visit since she's going to a wedding down here. I'm not sure what will be planned yet, but I'm so excited to see her!

End of next month, is our 1st wedding anniversary, our closing on our house, and my parents coming down to visit so we can go to my brother's graduation from the marines.

End of July, one of my best friends from college is coming down and he's looking forward to us showing him "everything" haha. He wants to go to Disney, bars in downtown Orlando, the beach, and the day cruise to the Bahamas out of Ft. Lauderdale.. big week but it'll be so much fun. 

In August, another couple that H and I are close to from back home are coming down so we can all go on a cruise together to Mexico and Central America. 

Last but certainly not least, we'll be wrapping up our summer with a long weekend in Miami and Key West. We're on the quest right now to recruit friends to join us. 

Love the summer time! And I love that we moved to FL... we don't need plane tickets for any of our summer fun this year! 

4. what's your favorite accessory? 

My H :0)

Material things.. probably my new Kate Spade purse and definitely my engagement and wedding rings! 

5. have you ever been thrown a surprise party?

Ha.. my parents tried throwing me a surprise Sweet Sixteen... but I found out about it from my big mouth high school boyfriend. I still had the party, it just wasn't a surprise anymore :-P

6. are you friends with your neighbors?

Right now, no because we're in an apartment complex and counting the days until we move into our house. We've already met a few of our neighbors in the neighborhood we're moving to and they seemed really nice so we'll see... 

7. what's the last movie you saw in the theater?

It was either Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part I or Little Fockers.

8 what's your favorite food network show?

I don't watch the Food Network but I love HGTV. I used to watch $40 a Day with Rachael Ray, but I'm not sure if that's even on anymore. 

Aquatica Cruise Harry Potter

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TGIF

Nothing's better than some Skinny Girl Margaritas on a Friday evening. Happy Friday! :0)

Skinny Girl Margarita

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Backyard Beauty

This spring I became aware of yet another beautiful landscape here in Florida. Aside from all the beautiful palm trees that remind me and H every day of how beautiful the area is that we live in now (especially during all those winter months that our original home which was Connecticut was dreary, cold, and everything was dead) my new love is for Magnolia trees which are only found here in the south. About a month ago, I started noticing these beautiful trees that looked almost perfect with shiny leaves and big beautiful white flowers blossoming from it's branches. I asked around, and was told they are Magnolia trees.

Magnolia Blossom

Magnolia tree without the flower blossoms

When H and I met with the builder last week for our home, we also went over landscaping. We told him we'd like a mix of tall and short palm trees and a few magnolias. I'd like a few in the backyard so they can cross pollenate and they'll be gorgeous to look at in the spring when they're in full bloom from our back patio and pool.

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Pretty Things

I had been holding onto a $50 gift card for Coach to use towards the purchase of a new handbag, but I took advantage of the big sale at the Kate Spade outlets a few weeks ago and got a nice new bag there. So I decided to use my gift card to get a new wristlet. I have a great Coach wristlet that's gold, but I've been wanting a silver or black one as well. So I picked up this one and only had to pay an extra $1.37 because of taxes after using my gift card.

And I'm not the only one who got something new! Roxy got a nice new collar this weekend since her old one was getting worn out and dirty. She's pretty in pink! (and sleeping of course)

Coach

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I Love Surprises!

First of all, Happy Mothers Day out there to all the beautiful mothers and mommys-to-be. I recently found out that two of my best friends that I've loved since high school are expecting and are both due in December. So exciting!

Unfortunately, my mom was without both of her children for the first time this Mothers Day since I'm down in FL and my brother is in SC for basic training for the Marines. When I talked to her earlier, she said she still hadn't received a phone call from him yet today but was hoping he'd be able to call today. We're all so proud of him and it's been hard not being able to just pick up the phone and call him or go back and forth with him on BBM (blackberry messenger for all you iphone and droid users). I got my first letter from him this week, and it was so great to hear from him and both H and I can already see how much he's changed. I can't wait to receive his next letter and hear his thoughts on the events that took place last week in Pakistan.

Me and my brother at my wedding last year

H and I were so happy to finally hear the news that all the permits had FINALLY been approved by the city and the county for our house and scheduled our pre-build meeting for Friday afternoon. We were under the impression that they wouldn't begin until after our pre-build meeting, so we received a big pleasant surprise when we showed up at the meeting and they said they had already started, were ready to install the plumbing on Monday, and we're still looking at a close date for the end of June! Which is great news since that's when my parents are flying down to visit before we all drive up to Parris Island for my brother's graduation from the Marines.

H and I on our lot

House

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Historical Weekend Indeed

I'm just amazed at everything that happened this weekend not just for our country, but for the entire world. The only thing I'm sad about is that the Endeavor shuttle launch was postponed from Friday, and was supposed to be rescheduled for today, but now they're saying it won't even happen this week. I'm so happy to be living in FL so I can now witness the shuttle launch and watch it go up from outside. When the Discovery launched back in February, it was such an amazing moment to be able to witness it with my own eyes. I'm so sad that the space program is shutting down here in the U.S. and I hope it will be reopened in the near future. *Fingers crossed*.

The weekend kicked off with the highly anticipated Royal Wedding. I'm sure a lot of people are sick of hearing about it by now (I know I was before it even started) but it sure was an event of our lifetime and as overhyped as it was, I'm so glad that we were able to witness it. I admire Kate Middleton and think she's got a great head on her shoulders, is beautiful, and seems very much in love with her prince. They seem like they have what it takes to make it work and shouldn't have the troubles that Charles and Diana had. I also think that since they waited a while and had many more years to get to know each other and were a bit older than Diana was when she married Charles, that they'll stand the test of time.

I have to say I was very surprised by her dress. I was expecting so much more since we all had heard of the $400k+ price tag before the big day. She looked beautiful and radiant, but I honestly thought the dress would have more of a wow factor than it did. But, she did look like a princess and her happiness shone through. Her sister, Pippa looked gorgeous and I absolutely loved her Maid of Honor dress. Is it bad that I liked her dress more than the brides?

I was also a little underwhelmed by her bridal bouquet. I was expecting something more extravagent, but what I did love was that she was carrying "Sweet William" in honor of her prince. It was classic and understated and it fits her personality more than a big extravagent bouquet, I guess I was just surprised.

So sweet, and they are just perfect together. My favorite was the young bridesmaid who was seen covering her ears and sulking in a lot of the pictures of them on the balcony. Apparently, she had had enough of the noise coming from the crowds below which is a lot for a 3 year old. Too cute!

Princess fairytales aside, Friday was also a great day for H and myself since we FINALLY got all the permits approved and we can move forward with the building of our house. To make a long story short, we have been under contract since Superbowl Sunday in early February. We chose a lot, but the building permits were denied due to the size of our house and how it would sit on the lot, and it didn't go within the county's guidelines, and the lot has since been deemed unbuildable. So, we had to choose a new lot. We were upset because we loved the original lot, but we were able to obtain a corner lot on a culdasac which is even better, we're just losing the pond view that we had at the original lot. Well, it's amazing how quickly they denied the permits for the first lot, but that it took over 2 months to get the permits approved on our new lot. We had to resign all our contracts and paperwork, which we did quickly, but the county was taking forever. So, we should be having our pre-build meeting this week and the house should be underway. I can finally start taking pictures of the progress, instead of just going to visit our empty lot which will be very exciting.

Saturday, we went to a housewarming party and again were amazed by how much farther the dollar goes in real estate down here in Florida compared to Connecticut. Another young newlywed couple, with a larger new build home, and they spent a third or a quarter of what the house would cost up north. Incredible! Every day, when I step outside and the warm air hits my face and there's not a cloud in the sky, I'm just so thankful for our new life down here but not just because of the beauty of the area, but that we'll be in our dream home and it'll be our "forever home" since we have plenty of room to grow into it.

Yesterday, we went to the beach since a friend of ours was down visiting so we went to meet up with her and spend the day relaxing at the beach. Everything was great until we realized there were a ton of jellyfish so we couldn't really enjoy riding the waves, and then H found this man-of-war washed up on the beach:

Needless to say we were done playing in the water after this! Yipes!

The rest of our Sunday was relaxing, we came home and I cooked a pot of sauce and I enjoyed the rest of the I Love Lucy marathon playing on the Hallmark channel and then Real Housewives of Orange County at 10:00. I am ashamed to say that the news of Bin Laden's death came to me when Real Housewives was over, and Andy Cohen announced it at the beginning of Watch What Happens Live. My jaw dropped and I didn't believe it, we immediately turned the channel to CNN to watch the live coverage. We were so ecstatic and jumping for joy, until it hit me that yes this is a huge milestone in the war on terror and we finally found the despicable mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, but with the death of him, may come retalliation. I just pray that our country will stay strong after this huge accomplishment, and that our safety is never put into question or jeopardy ever again as it was almost 10 years ago. My brother enlisted in the marines because of this man and his organization. I can't imagine how happy he is and what the celebrations must be like for all the basic training recruits on Parris Island right now. I can't wait to hear from him and hear what he has to say about all this. I'm so proud of him and every other soldier out there fighting for our country and for the innocent lives that were lost due to the evilness behind Bin Laden and his followers.

God Bless America! I hope this is the beginning of the end, and not the beginnning of more unforseen evil.

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