a backyard wedding

it was my beautiful best friend from college's wedding this past weekend. it was so fun, seeing how her relationship has grown and blossomed into a beautiful thing. and isn't she a beautiful bride! her wedding was beautiful rustic backyard wedding and was so fitting of her.

because i was in the wedding i wasn't able to capture many of the precious moments while katie and brock were on stage, katie walking down the asile. etc. but, it was a beautiful day and i was so blessed to be apart of it all! 

**my handsome husband and i**

\

**fun sparkler send off**

congrats katie and brock, i wish you both a world of happiness!

three months oh my!

yesterday marked our three months of marriage. we have successfully ended the first season together as a married couple (yet, the snow hasn't melted yet... common minnesota!) it literally seems like yesterday we had gathered at the beautiful minneapolis city hall. but here we are, three months later and we are still alive ;)

this first season was slightly surreal. we had to get used to living with one another, got to on on a fabulous honeymoon, and have begun experiencing what taking care of one another is like. it was a fun one. 

 now to start our second season together, the spring!

i am excited to see what this season of material bliss will bring us.

time to get out of here!

tomorrow is the big day where chad and i are leaving on a jet plane ;)

we get to go on our cruise in the south caribbean 

seriously, is there a better time to go south then in the winter? i don't think so :) with that here are my friday letters

dear kitchen aid ice cream maker i am so excited that i got you off out wedding registry, if you know anything about me it is that i am a huge sweets lover, especially ice cream. so you will get some great use. wonder if any of the blogging friends have any recipes? 

dear husband (eeek first time using that word in a blog post, yay!) i am so excited for our little trip tomorrow. vaca for 10 days, in the warm sun with no negative temps. it will be a miracle and a 90 degree temperate difference from the weather we have had here! thanks for our little date to barnes and nobles last night so we could read up on all of the islands :)

dear library i am excited to go to you today. i decided that i should probably stop buying so many books from amazon. i do love amazon and owning books but for this newlywed budget i think that we should become better friends

dear boxes please go away. we have so many of you. and you don't condense very well. and you drive me crazy. 

happy weekend everyone! go link up with ashley

hunter boots at my wedding

so our amazing photographer put up a sneak peak of our wedding photos. and oh my. i am loving each and every one. 

she truly captured the essence of the day. and i am in love. 

there are already so many great photos to choose from, and i am trying to figure out in my head what ones we are going to frame, what one we should use for cards, etc. 

my favorite photo so far would have to be the first photo i put up with my hunter boots. if you know anything about me, you know that i love my hunter boots. they are my go-to boot so i had to make sure i had them on my wedding day, the most important day of my life! 

anyway, if you want to go see the full sneak peak head over to her blog!

what are your favorite types of wedding photos? did you actually print out a lot of the photos from your wedding? 

going to the chapel and we're going to get married

so we did it!

we went to the chapel (otherwise known as the minneapolis city hall) to finally get hitched. the entire day went so smoothly and truly was the best day of my life.

i woke up with my girls, did a little dancing on the hotel beds, went and got coffee, and then got ready for the best day of my life. and let me tell you, people are not kidding when they say your wedding day is the best day of your life. it is so much fun. we didn't want it to end. all of the happy emotions, all of the love, all of the support, it was amazing. 

so be expecting lots of fun wedding photos and post over the next few weeks as i experience newlywed bliss!

wedding invites

one month until the wedding.. eek! what better way to celebrate then sharing our wedding invites and the process of handcrafting them.

these bad boys may have taken forever to hand screen print but they turned out great, good job chad ;)
the invite had 4 layers of printing (black side pine cones,  front side w/ tree, lettering on front side, and rsvp cards) and each was hand made for our guest. we pride our selves for being DIY type of people and know that it means more to our guest to see the handcrafted work then going to a manufacturer to get them printed.

when building our invites we wanted to incorporate the winterness of the wedding but still make it look classy(hence why we choose the gold color). i am obsessed with the silhouette look- so chad drafted up the shadows of our heads- mine of course being in that top knot that i love :)

cannot believe the wedding is a month away- but boy am i glad that it will be over soon :)

Invites are coming...

1// screen printing supply store 2// chad at store 3// him & her 4// top of invite 5// back of invite 6// printing of back of invite 7// process of printing

if you remember from our save the dates, Chad manually screen prints every last invitation. Couple of reasons for this. The first being- he is a designer and uses screen printing as a method for some of his work. The second is we wanted DIFFERENT invites, not just the same old same old. Meaning we had to get creative. I did love the save the dates but I have to say our invites look soooo much nicer :) 

With the manual printing, the invitation process takes a very long time. We are doing three layers (or three different colors), so for 200 invites it takes about two and a half hours per layer. Hard work pays off and I am getting so excited about these- But we will have to wait to share those once they officially go out. 

Matthew 25:29 "To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away"

Wedding in Duluth

1// Duluth harbor 

2// C & I

3// Duluth Pack Shop

4// Local Train

5// Sight seeing device, beautiful view of Lake Superior 

6// Myself enjoying a malt. yum.

7// Katie & Brock Sharing a malt

8// Malt Shoppe "Thank you"

9// Cannel Drawbridge

10- 12// Essie & Micah's Wedding 

Last weekend I got to celebrate two lovely weddings, one in St. Paul and the other in Duluth. That being said C and I headed up to Duluth on Sunday to celebrate Essie and Micah joining as one. While being up there we got to spend some quality time with Katie and Brock, and walked around the beautiful town. If you have never been there, Duluth has a vintage feel that if full of life. Lake Superior surrounds the town, making it feel like a town off the ocean. It is a great, fun place and I am blessed to spend some time up there sight seeing as well as celebrating the wedding! 

Romans 12:9 "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good"

Be My Maid

I finally got the pleasure of asking some of my best ladies to be my bridesmaids.

These ladies have been with me through thick and thin, high and low, and I couldn't be more pleased with my incredible friends! 

Bridesmaids//

Maid of Honor: Laurel Anderson (sister of the bride)

Maid of Honor: Rose Anderson (sister of the bride)

Bridesmaids: Michelle Sass

Bridesmaid: Katie Smith

Bridesmaid: Melissa Kiresbom (sister of the groom)

I wanted to ask them in a special but unqiue way so I created up small gift packages, using things that would be representing our wedding theme

Pearl earings for the big day!

wrapped chocolate bars with a photo 

frame- explaining wedding details

the package

I then decided to bring them to a cute local place in my home town called Pardon My French, where we got a variety of drinks and deserts.

BRIDESMAIDS 

Maid of Honors

We began to work through some of the detials leading up to the big day. It was so exciting to see everyone togther, and how REAL it felt planning my special day.