Three Years!

Three years ago I walked down the beach side lawn at San Diego Hilton Resort on Mission Bay and said "I DO" to my best friend.


It was an amazing day!


And a killer party.


But the entire event almost pales in comparison to the love, joy, and intimacy that we've experienced over the last three years. I can't even imagine how I'll feel in 10 or 30 more years. This year of marriage was definitely the hardest, but we survived and grew closer than ever. And to that I say, "bring on year three!"

Wedding Reminiscing: Top 10 Things I Loved about Our Wedding

It's almost our THREE year Anniversary.

Yes, I'm well aware that this blog should be called "Newlyweds Next Door No More" or something, but I still feel like a Newlywed and I like my blog, so it stays as-is. My blog = my rules.

Since I've been thinking about our wedding, I though it would be fun to remember the top things I loved about our wedding


1. The guy I married
Duh. What kind of wife would I be if I didn't say that? But really, he is the best. I though that then and I think that now.

2. Our Ceremony

I loved the entire ceremony. It really was the most important part of the whole wedding. I loved the readings, the music, the Pastor, the message, our attendants, the view, the sand ceremony, and the San Diego summer air. Our vows was one of the best moments of my life.

3. Our Faith and Our Families
I love how we focused on our Christian faith in our ceremony. And I loved how our families played an integral part in the ceremony with readings and songs, and in the reception with hosting and toasting.



4. Our Friends
Never again in our lives will so many of our friends from childhood, schools, work, church, and beyond be in one place (except our funerals... how sad is that?). So many people traveled from afar to be there for us, which meant the world to us.




5. Having a Turquoise and Tangerine Wedding
When we chose these colors as our wedding colors, I quickly found out that they are not common. But I loved having a tangerine and turquoise beachy wedding. It reminded me of a sunset hitting the ocean. To add the perfect amount of "beach-chic" we decided to accent with pencil starfish and sand dollars.

This was my turquoise and tangerine wedding inspiration board...


And this is our REAL turquoise and tangerine wedding collage.

Not bad, huh?!


6. My Dress

I LOVE that dress. Still. Period.

7. The Band and Dancing the Night Away
I wanted a dance party and I got a dance party. The Ultratones rocked and I literally danced until the last song at 1:00 AM. I wasn't about to leave that party early.



8. The UpLighting in the Ballroom
I know this is a random thing to love. But just $400 turned an ordinary ballroom into a spectacular tangerine and turquoise paradise. The uplighting was the most ambiance-changing decor item we did.



9. The flowers
Our florist did a fantastic job on our wedding flowers without breaking the budget! My bouquet and the bridesmaids bouquets were made with ivory/tangerine roses, ranunculus, and gerbera daisies and was garnished with beautiful turquoise beads. But our ceremony flowers were my favorite! I loved the rose garland with starfish that got we married under.

10. My DIY Projects
I unleashed my creative juices (and saved a ton of money) by doing a bunch of DIY projects for the wedding. It was so much fun and it really added a special touch to the ceremony and reception. My three favorite DIY projects were the starfish escort cards, the sand dollar charity favors, and the ceremony programs.

I also did ceremony signs, reception signs, reception table names, menus, out of town gift buckets with a letter, thank you cards, a card box, and photo collages for the entrance to the ballroom. Just message me if you want any of my templates!

A True Wedding Keepsake

Remember 5 months ago when I said we were finally getting our wedding album?

Well, guess what FINALLY came this weekend?

I'll give you hint...


Yup, it's our beautiful leather-bound album!


With the thickest pages I've ever seen...


It definitely cost a pretty penny. But it is so worth it!

The professional layout...


And the awesome double page spreads...


We even got our "trash the dress" pictures in there...


I love it!

I had debated just making a blurb book of our wedding photos, but I'm so happy I went for the uber-professional album. It's a true wedding keepsake that we'll treasure for the rest of our lives. I told the Mr. that in case of a fire, he needs to grab this album, ha!

If you want to see the proofs of this entire album, you can check them out here...

Wedding Album Proofs

We're getting our wedding album. Finally!

After one year and 5 months of marriage, we've finally ordered our wedding album!

At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to pay for an expensive, high-quality wedding album. I figured that I could make my own on blurb.com. But after doing some thinking and looking at professional wedding albums like the one that That Wife ordered, I knew that it would be something that I would treasure.

So I worked with my photographer and ordered a 40 page 12x12 album with approximately 130 images in in it. It covers getting ready for the wedding, the ceremony, the couple/family/friends pics, the reception, and our "Trash the Dress".

I just finalized the proofs and I am so excited! I love all of the layouts but I think my favorite are the panoramic two page spreads.

Here are a couple of previews....

{Click to enlarge -- Wedding Ceremony }


{Click to enlarge -- After the ceremony}


{Click to enlarge -- Wedding reception details}


{Click to enlarge -- Panoramic page, Trash the Dress}

Can't wait to show you more pictures of the album when I get it!

How about you other married gals out there? Did you do a professional wedding album? Make your own? Have not yet made or ordered one? If you posted about your wedding album on your blog, please link to that post in your comment. I'd love to see other people's wedding albums!

Show Us Your Wedding Reception and Honeymoon

I'm really loving this "Show Us Your Life" Series that Kelly is doing! I could spend all day looking at weddings. Seriously, it's really bad for my productivity!

This week is Wedding Reception and Honeymoon. Lucky for you I've already blogged about both of these!

Wedding Reception

Click here to read all about our wedding reception

Honeymoon

Click here to read all about our Honeymoon!

Also, if you missed my prior "Show Us Your Life" posts they are here:
- Wedding Party, Flowers, and Ceremony
- Wedding Dress
- House Tours

My Wedding Dress!

Kelly from Kelly's Korner is doing a new blog carnival called "Show Us Your Life" and this week is Wedding Dresses!

I'm sure every girl says this... but I really really really love my Wedding dress.

I found it at the first dress shop I went to in San Diego the October before our August Wedding. I loved it, but I had just started trying on dresses, so put it back on the rack thinking that I couldn't choose a dress so early. I shopped around for a few months finding a lot of great dresses, but non that made my heart sing. Then in January before our wedding I went back to that same dress shop to try on more dresses and happened to pick up the same dress, try it on, and knew it as THE ONE. My "Amara Royale."

The front...


The back...


The designer is Maggie Sottero. It's the "Amara Royale" dress in Ivory. It's a corset, strapless gown with sweetheart neckline, dropped waist, flare skirt, and a sweep train. It features swarovski crystals and bead embellishments.

Here are some shots of the details in the dress...




You can read all about our entire wedding here!

And yes, I still am going to do a Trash the Dress.

Happy Friday!


Wedding Photographs by Kim Irons

Honeymoon Memories: Part Two

I shared a little bit about our honeymoon yesterday, but since it's a dreary day here in LA, I thought I'd do a bit more reminiscing about being in love in paradise.

We Honeymooned at the Grand Wailea in Maui, Hawaii.



I'm a Hilton Diamond Member from all of my work travel so we paid for all of our accommodations with Hilton Points (in case you're wondering that's 480,000 points). We also got upgraded to a top floor Ocean-View room. Beautiful!


The resort is amazing! We spent a good amount of time just hanging out there in the beautiful pools, watersides, rivers, and jacuzzis. We also took advantage of the world famous spa at the spa with massages and Roman/Japanese baths. We also did the some snorkeling at the beach and saw some awesome fish including sea turtles, morey eels, and what I thought was a sea snake but turns out it was almost certainly another eel. (Hint: buy cat food at the grocery store and bring a plastic bag of it out to snorkel and feed the fish. They go CRAZY!)

We had dinner at the Grand Wailea's floating restaurant, Humu, which was spectacular.


We also had amazing Dinners at Ruth Chis and Mama's Fish House:


We did the bike trip down Haleakala volcano and as part of the bike trip got to taste wine at Maui's only winery. Like everything on Maui the wine was super sweet, like Boone's Farm sweet. It was definitely not Napa, but cool to do anyway.


We went on the Road to Hana and some some great views and rainforest. This picture is funny because we were in the rainforest and the Mr. wanted to take my picture but right before he snapped the shot I started getting attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes and started running. He took the picture anyway. Hilarious!


We finished off the trip with a Sunset Dinner & Booze Cruise. All you can eat Hawaiian BBQ and tropical drinks while cruising the West side of Maui. Amazing.



Ahhh paradise.

Sadly we can't go back for our Anniversary this year. However, we are planning Carribean Cruise this winter and/or a trip to Italy and Greece next Summer. More on those later...