We have been constantly learning from each other. Learning what to do (and NOT to do), what each other likes/dislikes, and how to live our lives together. Together as husband and wife.
Of course we're always going to be learning.
I am learning how to be a better wife. How to communicate with my husband about everything (a trait of mine that has never been that great. I usually hold in my thoughts/feelings, but my husband is the complete opposite. He's so good for me).
It has been an awesome journey so far.
We took our honeymoon in Kaua'i, Hawai'i. You'll get that whole story later.
We moved from one side of the state to the other in pursuit of new jobs and Nick's music.
We've lived with relatives and on our own.
We had our little disputes this past year, but what couple hasn't?
I can't believe that we're here celebrating our one year anniversary!
This year has gone by so incredibly fast.
And you know what?
I wouldn't change a thing!
I can't wait to see what the future has in store for us!
I love you Nick and I can't wait to start another year with you.
Cake
The plan for our cake was to have Nick's grandmother bake it for us. She did Nick's parents' wedding cake and when I mentioned that it would be really cool to have her make ours, she joyfully accepted!
She lives in the Portland area and unfortunately she wasn't able to come up sooner to make the cake here and there was no way a cake would make the drive from Portland to Yakima (about a 3 1/2 hour drive). So instead she found an awesome bakery in town (Essencia Bakery) and ordered our dream cake! The bottom layer was dark chocolate cake with raspberry filling and the top layer was vanilla/coconut cake with strawberries as the filling. The bottom layer was awesome and we will be eating the top layer in just one week!
The Band
The band was amazing. We hired a band that our friends put together in college. They're called Afro Panda and they are an electronic band with extremely talented musicians.
Matt on keyboard/keytar, Nathan on drums, and Isaac on bass. My husband even got out his sax and played a tune with them!
I would highly recommend checking out their website and listening to some tunes. They are awesome!
Dancing
Our first dance was to a beautiful Count Basie tune - Li'l Darlin. Click the link to hear it on youtube.
After those two we had the band do their own original tunes.
We had so much fun dancing at our reception. We even had a dancing line at one point, a can-can, and just an overall fun time! I'll just sum it up by posting a few pictures of the dancing.
The Garter and the Bouquet
Of course we had the typical garter and bouquet toss. I don't really have to explain this, but I'll just show you in pictures!
The Getaway
We wanted something fun to do for our getaway. I've seen sparklers done, but it's also kind of scary. It was evening time as well and bubbles wouldn't really be seen. We ended up thinking of a great idea for having everyone through those pop-its on the ground as we walk to our car.
So Nick and I got a little more comfortable (I changed) and we went out to our car. It was so much fun! We actually ended up kind of running because it was actually a little scary having all those pops at your feet (someone lined the walkway with a bunch of those pop-its for us to step on!)
Nick's groomsmen decorated our car (and bikes) for us and we drove off to our hotel for the night!
We actually ended up forgetting our stuff in my mom's car so we drove back about 20 min. later to pick it up. Oops!
Welcome back to our wedding series! Please read part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 if you haven't yet.
<---- Part 5: The Reception [1] ---->
Click to enlarge any picture
It's now time for the best part! The reception was so much fun. It was all DIY (even the food) and oh so wonderful!
Decor Tables.
The tables were decorated with white tablecloths and a lavender table runner. Then we had some small candles (with brown and lavender ribbons glued on to them), a little explanation of our "guestbook project", the buckets of flowers, and pens and paper for the guestbook.
My mom and I found, out of nowhere, a huge collection of silver buckets at Goodwill. It was total luck finding them! They were in all sorts of sizes.
We spray painted them brown and added some lavender colored ribbon around them. Then we went a bought out all the cute purple flowers we could and planted flowers in all of them. After the reception I told our close family members to each take a bucket with them. It was nice giving something away to our family and friends!
I don't have any good shots of the tables (sorry!), but you can kind of get an idea from these photos.
"Guestbook".
Instead of a guestbook I decided to have everyone take a piece of paper and write/draw anything they wanted to for us.
We collected them in a cute vase and I put them in a cute little booklet.
We got some really fun pages. Some cute kid drawings, some funny wishes, cute drawings and some beautiful wishes.
Photo line.
I found this fun idea online when I was wedding idea hunting and fell in love with it. I printed about 200 pictures (thanks to an awesome deal at Snapfish) and got some clothespins from the dollar store and hung them on a piece of string.
I liked having a bunch of photos of us from our relationship for everyone to enjoy and look at.
Favors.
As a favor for everyone, I designed a bookmark to give out. We still have a million of these.
Introduction
Introducing... the new Mr. and Mrs.!
The entrance was lined with some white Christmas lights wrapped around the railings.
We walked down to the song Ode to a Butterfly by Nickel Creek
Food
All of the food was homemade by friends and family.
We had potato salad (grandma's recipe), baked beans, wraps (turkey, greek, and chicken salad), and a nice fruit salad.
While it sounds super difficult and stressful, it was actually not too bad. We had a LOT of help from family and friends (cutting up fruit and potatoes, making wraps, etc.). We also chose recipes that we knew we could make mass quantities of and still be sane afterwards. There was a picnic-y theme behind the food.
As far as the drinks go, we had lemonade, sweet tea, and water. Fit the picnic theme pretty well.
My step-dad refilling the sweet tea
Speeches
A few people gave speeches and they were beautiful speeches. Thank you!
Best man, D
Maid of Honor, C
Father-in-law
My mother
My best friend, T
We didn't have any alcohol at our wedding, but we did have sparkling cider (my favorite!).
