Thursday, October 31, 2013

bridal portraits

my very talented photographer, roommate of 3 years, and maid of honor took my bridal portraits for me this August :)












 ^^this was my "something blue", I got my wedding date stitched into an under-layer of my dress in blue thread :)

 thank you, Kate and Ashley, for being 2 of the best bridesmaids, doing my hair, and carrying my dress/veil around for me :)
this is the Photographer, Morgan, herself :)

wedding tidbits

 A little bit out of order, I posted about our honeymoon and now I have a few pictures from the actual wedding!

First, lets chat bouquets. A big theme for my wedding was to be budget friendly. Not neccessarily because I was forced to, but I think there's alot of money that can be saved planning a wedding if you just try. I'm a frugal person and enjoy getting the most out of so little, so I gladly took up the challenge. Anyways, I knew flowers can cost a pretty penny and I wasn't too keen on spending hundreds on flowers just to chunk them after the wedding. I did check out a few local florists in my hometown and no one seemed to understand my vision, plus after 1 extremely rude florist, I was fed up and ready to do my own!

My solution:

for the fall wedding I had, it was appropriate to put tree branches and leaves in the vases for the centerpieces. FREE.

however, I did want pretty, real bouquets for myself and the girls. Keep in mind, I had ten bridesmaids! 
I had pinned a fall bouquet years ago that I knew would be my inspiration if I had a fall wedding. The bouquets I wouldn't say turned out like it, but followed the color scheme pretty well and I absolutely LOVED my bouquets.  

I'm obviously no florist, so I stuck with basic names, haha. The "Real orange mums", "real brown flowers", and "real cream roses" I all bought from Albertsons the day before the wedding. They cost around $4.99 a bag, and I used 1 back of each flower. (I used 2 bag of roses, each of the bridesmaids bouquets got 2 cream roses, my bouquet got 4). 

I wanted real wheat, but Hobby Lobby always had some when I went and as their fall stuff went on sale to 40%, I was able to get a big bag of it for $2.99!! I maybe used half a bag for all 11 bouquets. 

The "fake blue floral" I got from Hobby Lobby for $2.75 (normall $5, but always remember the 40% off coupon!!) I wanted some blue in the bouquets since that was my "main" color, but since thats not really a color of flowers, finding just a touch of it worked out perfect.

Cotton. I really wanted to incorporate cotton. I felt like it went with my fall theme pretty well, was beautiful, and different. Lucky for me, I live in Lubbock where there are cotton fields every.where. While I easily could've gone to the side of the road for some ;), a friend of mines grandfather took us out to his cotton farm and cut me off a ton of cotton! Thank you! total cost-free!

The "fake orange bead floral"-Hobby Lobby for $5.99

These bouquets came out to about $3 a piece! And they are gorgeous! 



^^this is what they looked like all crammed in the box together. I wrapped the bouquets in cream masking tape (ha, but hey! it went with my colors AND kept the stems all together) and then wrapped them with jutte. My bouquet was the same as the girls just bigger, wrapped in satin ribbon, with a lock around the stem (Cody had a key on his boutinerre). Keep a lookout for more bouquet pictures!!



It'll be 6-8 weeks before we get the real pictures back, so the pictures family/friends took at the wedding will do for now!

us walking down after being announces, can you tell we're excited!?
being walked down the aisle with my dad-check out the double doors he made so I could have a door entrance!

 our sparkler exit. it was POURING rain at this point so everyone piled under the awning and I pulled my dress wayy up, haha.
 one of my sweet bridesmaids, Brooke
 Cody had the BEST bestman. When we were scared it was going to start raining before we could take our couples pictures, Hadden held an umbrella over the photographers equipment, while snapping a few pics himself :) thanks for this picture, Hadden! 
this is the entrance to the venue, Willowood Ranch. Isn't it beautiful!

 here we are walking down to go to our reception, it was a rainy, rainy day but look how cool the sky looks!!






Wednesday, October 30, 2013

the first days as Mr. and Mrs.


we are MARRIED! 

the day i'd been looking forward to for the last 7 months of engagement... 14 months of dating... and 22 years of life finally happened!

it was PERFECT and looked exactly how I wanted. It poured rain all day long but stopped for an hour and a half just enough for our outside wedding and for some pictures. Most importantly, I married my best friend.

TONS more on the wedding day later, when I get pictures. But for now, the honeymoon

My wonderful groom knew the one thing I wanted, a Canon Rebel, and surprised me by giving that to me on our wedding day. I am so excited to have it to document everything now!!






We went to Downtown Dallas for our honeymoon. We had such a great time enjoying eachother, being on our own agenda, learning about eachothers habits, ordering room service, touring the city, and just having a vacation away from our busy lives.


thats my handsome husband!!!

 check out that wedding ring ;)
 we went to the Dallas Aquarium, Cody and I cracked up laughing at all the animals as we made dialogue for them. 

^^look at this lizard just posted up for the picture




 this cracks me up everytime I see it!! It's a...shark? but he was pressed against the glass (that we stood underneath) so this is all we could see


 Cody and I partook in a cheesy romantic idea and bought perfume/cologne specifically for our wedding day/honeymoon/anniversaries. This way, that rare scent will remind us of these times 
 ^^the view from our room



 Cody wanted to go look outside and around the pool area. He kept looking over the balcony while I took pictures. Little did I know he was watching for... 

the horse drawn carriage he rented to take us around Downtown Dallas and to the YO steakhouse for dinner :)



 we stayed at the beautiful Omni Hotel

 ^^6th floor museum (where JFK supposedly got shot from)
 the night view from our room
 the next day we went to the Dallas Arboretum where there were tonssss of pumpkins!










 ...he's a goof!

we did alittle bit more of exploring downtown before lunch. We both live nearly an hour away from Dallas and have been there countless times. But, we've never gone to Dallas to just explore. We've always been on an agenda and left with no time to just hang out. It was so nice to just look around and decide what to do spontaneously. 




 We ate at Ravenna's on Sunday night and it was very good! They even treated us to a tiramisu to celebrate :)
 We had Dallas Fish Market for lunch on Sunday and it was very good as well!


We also got a couples massage and it was very worth it!

All in all, it was a great honeymoon! Now we're back in west texas at our new home town figuring out our new daily routine. So far, I feel like a housewife...watching my husband get up for work in the morning while I sleep in :) I'll enjoy feeling like that 3/4 days of the week and work the rest ;)