Our Wedding (Part 2) - The Pictures!

Here they are!

These are most of the pictures that just have me and Robert in them, since the majority of my family don't want their pictures on here. *sobs*

There is still quite a lot, though! At least you'll get a good idea of what our wedding was like :)

We had the perfect kind of weather, not too hot and not too cold! I was so glad. I've been to some weddings where it just poured the entire day :/

 

MY DRESS!!!!!!!!!!

Me, while my train was being tied up :) Ugh, that blasted thing took forever to figure out. I just wanted to be able to move around! If trains weren't so pretty I definitely would have gone with something more practical for movement.

This is why I wanted to move around so bad. There was decorating to do! For my flowers, I just told the florist my favorites and let him design the arrangements. I was blown away by what he came up with! I loved everything about them :)

I bought the candles for our unity candle at Meijers, the stand on Amazon, and the ivy at Hobby Lobby :) 

The Memorial Table. My mom's parents (Paw-paw and Maw-maw), my dad's father (Papa), and Robert's dad. I only met Robert's dad once. He died of cancer the year we  met. We wanted to remember all of them in a special way and this is what I came up with. The flowers in the silver pot are from Lowes, I forget what the curly grass was called but the blue flowers are blue moons, I believe. At least that is what we've always called them!

The pew decorations! I found the music sheet cones on Etsy and the flowers and ribbon at Wal-mart. I LOVE how they turned out!

Another cone. I did lilacs and hydrangeas with a variety of different ribbon for these.

Our programs, designed by a dear friend! She did an awesome job! She also took our engagement pictures, which we used on our invitations, programs, and wedding website :) (The random flowers were put on this picture for privacy) The basket was found at goodwill :)

When the flowers arrived! I had my florist glue hydrangea blooms onto clips so I could put them in my hair. They were perfect :) Pssst! Notice the evenstar?! GAH! Geeky-ness was must on my wedding day, obviously :)

My dress again! And my bouquet, which was my favorite out of all the flowers :) I found my dress on Ebay for $152 with free shipping. And they custom made it at that price! My mother-in-law and I added the lace sleeves, lace at the neckline, (it was a sweetheart neckline originally) shortened it (cuz I'm short!), and added the bustle hooks. It was just perfect! It reminds me of Rose's "Heaven Dress" on Titanic.

 

The back with the bustle up. I don't think I have a picture of the lace up back now that I think of it! Darn. If you look closely you can see that I am wearing a chapel length veil. I also bought that on Ebay. It didn't spread out as much as I would have liked, but oh well, it was pretty :)

My sister did a braided crown with my hair and then I curled some of it. It takes forever to curl my hair, so I did just a few strands here and there.

My groom :) We found his suit at Men's Warehouse. He already had the dress shirt, shoes, and tie so that helped :) I still find it funny that his suit cost more than my dress, but at least he can wear his more than once! I made the blue handkerchief sticking out of his pocket from some sari material I had in my stash. For Robert's boutonniere I had the florist do a white rose tinted with blue, with some purple flowers. 

*swoons*

This is the flower girl basket! I found the basket at Jo-ann Fabrics, the ribbon from Wal-mart, and the grape hyacinths in my parent's yard :)

My nerves were starting to sky rocket at this point! I had to hide away in the bride's room at our Church while guest arrived. Yipes, I'm glad I don't have to walk down that isle again :D

Just look at it!

My sister's bouquet. You can kinda see her dress in this picture.

Peek-a-boo! The pic before venturing out to the front of church.

Going in.

Almost there. Thankfully you can't tell how nervous I was! Of course then Dad made me cry before going down the isle, which kind of helped because then I was more worried about trying not to cry instead of thinking about that long isle :D

His face while I was walking down. So serious. I think he was just as scared as I was! We don't like being up in front of a lot of people :D We also memorized our vows instead of having Father say them and then have us repeat them. So both of us were just trying to remember everything we had to do beyond this point.

Lighting our unity candle.

I really like this picture :) The rose behind us is for our Blessed Mother.

Presentation of a rose to Mother Mary. I chose "Ave Maria" to be played during this time.

The Kiss! People thought it was funny that I had to stand on my tiptoes :P I'm short, okay?

It's over! YAY!

There are only a few kissing pictures, I promise.

See my pretty train? I love the lace on this dress.

We made it through! I'm so glad I wore those blue shoes :D

Our church had some leftover pink flowers from Easter which I gladly put to use :) That's always the nice thing about getting married after Easter!

The train was worth it after all :)

Cutesie :)

It was bright outside!

We had to do a peek-a-boo picture for Robert too.

I love this picture!

Besties.

This is my favorite picture of us :)



I love how well my blue hydrangeas and his rose went together!

Our getaway car :D

Pictures on the reception grounds.

They have a lovely gazebo there that has been used for weddings before. I had my train hoisted on my arm because there was unfortunately a lot of duck poop on the ground :P

For some reason this reminds me of Tangled.

Our photographer was thrilled when Robert spontaneously kissed my forehead. It was so funny how happy she was about that :D

Blue shoes, hehe :D

I had to have a picture of Robert holding my bouquet, of course. :)

Just before going into the reception.

The people at our reception venue were SO sweet!

Our Cake Topper. I still cannot believe I found this!

I loved my cake lady. She has the same name as my mom and she also homeschools here kids! She is an awesome lady :) Her cakes are unbelievably tasty and she even did a gluten-free cake for us! I had a picture of what I wanted my cake to look like and she matched it perfectly. I bought the flowers at Hobby Lobby for the cake, the paper butterflies I made using a Martha Stewart butterfly punch, and I made the Eat Me sign out of poster board and sharpie :)

Our Entrance :)

Pretty presents!

Mingle, mingle. :) It's so difficult getting to everybody! People were already started to leave when we started going around to each table :P

The Blue Rose.

Our head table décor.

This was either my brother's (the best man) or my dad's boutonniere, I can't remember. 

The guest book table.

The beginnings of eternal servitude! Hehe, just kidding :D The food was wonderful.

Cutting the cake with my Medieval dagger to the "Blunt the Knives" song from The Hobbit :D Perfect song, right?

Ready, set....

.....stuff! We were nice, I promise :) I was eyeing him suspiciously in this one though!

"U'm mot fimished wif mwa cake!"

Our first dance to "Lottie Lies Among the Flowers" by The Willis Clan.

I think one of us might have stepped on the the other's foot in this picture :D

Throwing the bouquet! The girl in green right behind me caught it :)

And they all lived happily ever after :) The end! Hehe :)

I hope you enjoyed the pictures! It was a wonderful, happy, and amazing day :) It went so fast though! :(

 I have a couple more wedding related posts in the works so stay tuned!

Tootles :)

Random Things About Me No. 2

HI!

It's time for one of these again.

I find it fun because it makes me think up all the weird things about myself. Some things I do or like you might like also.....or not. And that's okay! I love hearing what other peoples' habits and likes and dislikes are! It really amazes me when I see how much talent each person has, even if they don't see it themselves.

So, here you go.

1. I come from a homeschool family. I was homeschooled all the way up to graduation and I absolutely loved it!

2. I have never planned on going to college. *gasp*

3. I love vanilla ice cream cones covered in colorful sprinkles. And I mean covered. Sprinkles make the world go round :)

4. I'm a movie buff. I quote them a lot. I can also pin-point which actors have been in this or that movie or TV episode. It's kind of annoying for other people. If someone says "Hey! Wasn't so-and-so in that movie?" my usual reply is "Nope". I'm almost always right, too.

5. I'm a book worm. Lately I haven't been reading as much as I used to. Once you have a job and a house to take care of it's hard to get that reading time in. I'm trying to though! My husband and I are planning to read 52 books each this year. Originally I had said 50, but I can't let him two-up me! I'm actually surprised at how far I've gotten. I've read 32 books already! And it's only May O_O Maybe I should change my goal to 100?

6. I wanted to be an Egyptologist when I was little. All thanks to seeing The Mummy movies! It still interests me, but I don't think that would have been the career for me. I like traveling, but not to that extent.

7. I like to channel Krystal Meyer's (Christian music artist) style.

8. I prefer fantasy to reality. I would live in a medieval kind of world with faeries, mermaids, gnomes, etc. if it were at all possible. In a small cottage in the forest. With seven dwarves ;)
Maybe that is why Ireland is so appealing to me :D It's similar to a fairy tale world, and it has definitely had more fairy and mermaid activity then in the United States! According to all the legends, anyway ;)

9. I hope to have a little girl like Elizabeth (Batty) Penderwick in The Penderwicks series. I fell in love with her character. She is so hilarious! I spent most of the first book just laughing and remembering what it was like to be her age.

10. My favorite actress is Keira Knightley. When she's in something good. Like Pirates of the Caribbean, Pride and Prejudice, The Treasure Seekers, and Princess of Thieves! Lately I've been disappointed in the movies she has chosen to appear in.
She got married the day after I did, which I thought was pretty cool! Whether or not her marriage will last is another question entirely :P
Happy Anniversary, Keira! I guess she forgot about it, which I thought was rather funny! Usually that's the guys job :D

Her wedding style was interesting....I did like the little flower garland she wore, and the fact that she had already worn her dress a couple of times before. Who says you only have to wear it once?

Thinking up things about myself was way harder than I thought it was going to be this time. I guess I have to delve deeper. Or shorten my list, hehe :D

I hope you enjoy!

Cheers!

Our Wedding (Part 1) - Preparations

May 3rd was my 1st anniversary of being married to Robert! Yikes, if this is a premonition of how the next 50 years (or more) is going to be like then I'm kind of freaked, because this year went by FAST!

It's been a wonderful year. Being married has it's ups and downs, but I can live with that. If it means getting to spend the rest of my life with my partner in crime, then bring it on :)

So I thought I would share several picture posts of wedding related things that happened around this time last year. 

In this post I'll show you some of the wedding prep pics.

Our first wedding gift! From Robert's Mom :) She knows what I like, huh?

Pictures in my old bedroom the day before the wedding. I stuffed my bookcase with everything I thought I might need :)

I made the guest book in the middle, using an old guest book I found at goodwill. It was practically new, but I didn't like the cover. So, using scrapbook paper, double-sided tape,stamps, and cool pictures, I made it my own :)

My maid of honor's accessories. My sister was my one and only bridesmaid/maid of honor. Simple and super sweet :)

A little flower pin I had designed for my nephew. He was my Mom's escort down the isle :)

Cake cutters! And yes, that IS a dagger on the right! We cut our cake with my medieval dagger :)

My throwing bouquet that I made with some pretty flowers from Wal-mart and my card box which I made out of a hat box. I modge-podged scrap book paper all over it and cut a slit in the top (not in that order!). Voila, a card box.

My accessories! My fairy shoes that I covered with leaves and flowers, but I found that they were too fragile to walk in after that. Oh well, I'll save them for a future fairy costume. My clutch, my fan that my friend bought me while she was in Korea, my "something blue" anklet, hair sparkles "my something borrowed" from my sister, and Celtic earrings from the Trinity College gift shop in Dublin.

My Evenstar necklace that my brother gave me for Christmas one year, my lace fingerless gloves, (which I didn't end up wearing) my garter with pretty flowers I sewed on, (And no, I did NOT have a garter take and toss. It was merely for tradition) my handkerchief with my first attempt at ribbon embroidery. It turned out quite nicely, I think.

My blue crochet TOMS that I wore instead of the fairy shoes, my sixpence, and a Scottish pin borrowed from a friend that I didn't end up wearing because I didn't get to wear the shawl I had originally planned to pin it on.

Junior Bridesmaid and Flower girl dresses!

Found this at a thrift store, and it was just perfect :)

Also found this at a thrift store. I couldn't believe my luck with both of these dresses! I think I spent $14 total for them!

The flower girl wreath. I made this with floral wire, floral tape, flowers from Wal-mart and ribbon, also from Wal-mart. I love how it turned out :) She loved it too!

Well I must go to sleep now. More pictures on the way!

Goodnight, dear readers :)

Settlers of Catan Cupcakes, Anyone?

Happy May Day!

May 1st always seems to creep up on me. I always say "This year I'm going to make a may pole!" and I always run out of time :P Someday, I tell you.

Well, April has just flown by!It has certainly been a productive month. Lots of stuff happened and I got lots of stuff done. I think all of it will be better described through pictures!

Here's what happened this month:

Selfies with my new-ish teddy bear :) He is a build-a-bear I found for an awesome price at a garage sale last year. I plan to make some outfits for him. Or her. I haven't decided yet. Thus it is a nameless bear.

First little purple flower in my myrtle patch.

A little friend was outside my window :) I love squirrels. They look so huggable, but sadly not :P

It snowed. In April. I have to admit it did look pretty awesome on all the tree branches. God is an amazing artist that is for sure. He has a good sense of humor too :D 

My brother recently became a deacon  and this is what I wore to the ordination :) I'm so proud of him! I can't believe how fast the years have flown by. He should still be in college! Haha ;)

My nails for the day! I bought nail stickers for the first time. I loved them! I took step-by-step pictures of how to put them on but I'll save those for another post.

And this is what I wore for the party the next day. Gotta love mirror pictures :)

My sisters and I joined forces and made these Settlers of Catan cupcakes for my brother and my Dad's birthday! (They have the same b-day) Even my niece and nephew helped! I'm thrilled with how they turned out :) We found the idea on pinterest, of course.

Another view. We used licorice for 'bricks', oreos for 'ore', marshmallows and black frosting for 'sheep', shamrock sprinkles for the 'forest', crushed up graham crackers and blue frosting for the 'desert',  rice puffs for 'wheat', and blue sprinkles for 'water'. I think it turned out smashing :)

 

Here is my main spring display.

My friend made me the 'alice in wonderland' tea cup with the clock and the flower for my bridal shower! Isn't it adorable? :)

The lighting was just perfect in this pic!

April was a nice month. I like months where lots of things happen and I'm constantly doing something. After such a long winter I don't mind being busy so much anymore. I was so burnt out after all that cabin fever :)

It's hard to believe that Robert and I will be celebrating our 1st anniversary in just a couple of days! Where does the time go?

We'll be taking a weekend trip to celebrate the day :) I don't think we've done anything except maybe a couple of day trips since our honeymoon and some relaxation is much needed! It'll be nice just to forget about work for awhile :P

I hope everyone is having a great week!

Cheers!

P.S. Keep an eye out for lilacs! They should be making an appearance soon around here. BEST FLOWERS EVER!

My Heart Is In My Throat.

I just had a huge scare.

I thought I had accidentally deleted my entire blog!

Over the past 2 weeks or so, I created a new e-mail. Totaling my e-mail accounts to three. My first e-mail (which has acquired TONS of spam), my business e-mail (An e-mail for putting on applications, basically), and now this one.Well, I've been tired of checking more than one e-mail for a long time now and decided, you know what? I want to keep my life simple and just have the one new e-mail.

Changing over everything was going pretty well, until today.

You see, my blog was created with my other e-mail, which is a yahoo account, so I basically created a g-mail account with my yahoo e-mail. Confusing? Yeah. I didn't know what I was doing at the time :P

So I used my new g-mail account to become the new admin. for my blog and I removed my original account. I added all the blogs I followed with my other account to this one. I also have the same picture and name now, so it won't be so confusing for you guys.

But, when I went to log into BlogSpot with my new account after deleting my other one, it said my blog had been REMOVED!

I was on the verge of tears.

So I typed in my blog address to see if it was still there.

AND IT WAS!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm still trembling. I don't know why it said that before, because now I can log into it just fine.

On the other hand, there seems to be a defect from me deleting my other account. None of my post pictures seem to be showing up or my new blog header for that matter. I'm wondering if it's doing that because they were uploaded from another account? I just have no idea, but I'll try to figure it out. I may just have to upload them again. *sigh*

This is much more work than I planned for.

Also, does anyone know if Google Friend Connect is on it's way out? I thought I saw something about that when I created my new account and followed everyone again. It wouldn't let me upload a picture for my profile....so I thought maybe something wonky is going on with it? It hasn't been having that picture/name as a commenting option anymore, which is why I haven't been commenting on anything lately!

Anyway, some of you should have a new follower: Mary (Aliceoutofwonderland) or just Mary, with no picture yet. I'm guessing my other Google friend connect account was deleted along with my other account.

Please bear with me while I figure this out. I'm doing everything I can think of to get everything sorted!

At least my blog is still here. *phew*

*hugs and kisses*

~Mary

P.S. TRESKIE! Thanks for recommending picmonkey!!!!!!! I love it :) It is SO much simpler than Pixlr. I'm gonna go nuts with it! *evil laugh* :D

Easter

Wow. I have been away from here for quite awhile. Life has swept me away lately!

I have TONS of pictures that I have taken over the past few weeks. One event happened after another and I'm feeling overwhelmed with how many pictures I have now. So instead of one big post, I will try to break all the pics up into little posts by the end of this month.

For now I'll cover Easter :)

Happy Easter! Me and Robert after Easter Sunday Mass. I grabbed him for some pictures before he high-tailed it inside to change :P This guy does not like to get dressed up!

I like being color coordinated :)

I wish we owned the woods next to our house! I could do so many awesome photo shoots inside them.

                                                               

Yes, we still do Easter Baskets :) You are never too old to get one! Psst...did you notice the Robin Hood BCC?! *Squeals!*

Robert's Basket. This year I just added things that we had bought recently in our baskets. Although, I did surprise him with the gummies :)

Hard boiled eggs that my Niece and Nephew decorated :) SEE THE FAIRIES? I'm sure I don't need to tell you which one I ate ;)

Bunny M&M's! Extra delicious after a long Lent!

 

Starburst Jelly Beans. I decorated the bowls that both candy are in with yarn and double-sided tape to mimic "nests".

Pre-digging in selfie :) Yummers! The blue peeps are my favorite. I think they taste better, too ;)

Well, that is all for now!

I hope you all had blessed Easters :)

Jesus is Risen! My God's not dead, he's surely ALIVE!

There is something about ThredUP....

Well, hallo :)

This is a post I've been meaning to do for several weeks and I'm just now getting around to it. But it kind of worked out because now I have more pictures to share with you!

I've noticed that several other bloggers have recently discovered ThredUP, a website that is sort of like an online thrift store. I'm mainly a thrift shopper when it comes to clothes, and finding this site was a huge highlight of this year. You don't even have to leave the house to shop! I'll just start with saying that it is really super cool and amazingly awesome.

I discovered ThredUP on Pinterest (Thanks to AmandaBeth for posting the link btw!) and I've been hooked ever since. The best part is that when you are new to ThredUp and you click on a link that somebody has posted or emailed, you automatically get $10 to spend and so does the person that posted the link, no strings attached. You can literally buy $10 worth of clothing and not have to pay anything except shipping OR if you've added shipping into the $10 limit, then nothing at all! 

You can also share your own link, which ThredUp will give you once you have your own account. There is also the option of sharing via email or facebook, and whenever someone clicks on your link, you'll get money to spend!

How awesome is that?!

Here is my ThredUP haul:

My ThredUP Haul! So far....:D

Pretty Polka Dot Packaging.

The hoodie and the two shirts next to it are by Abbey Dawn, one of my favorite brands that is no longer in stores. I just typed  the brand in the search bar and it gave me all the results for that specific brand!  The sleeveless jean shirt used to have sleeves, but I'd been longing for one of those cute jean vests lately so off they came! Getting one for free beats paying $50 in-store!

The red dress and black dress I actually got for free because they both had small tears that they didn't notice when they were inspected the first time. So I was refunded for both! Since sewing is another one of my hobbies, this wasn't a problem for me. Both are easily fixable. I was actually pretty pumped about the defects! :D If this isn't something that floats your boat, ThredUp does have a return policy if you aren't pleased with your item. I haven't had to use it, but I haven't heard any complaints about their return service as of yet.

 

I love their tags!

Here is the hole in the black dress.....

.....and one of the holes on the red dress. It's no wonder they didn't notice them on this one, they are very hard to see.

 Now, you are probably thinking: So what happens when I run out of people to share the link with? Is that the end of free credit? Nope! There is another way to earn credit to either spend or cash out on ThredUP. They have something called clean-out bags, which they send to you for free so that you can send nearly new clothing to them in the brands they accept. Pricing varies depending on the condition and brand of the item you send. All the info on what they accept is on their website so check it out if you are interested! Also, they cover the shipping as well, so this doesn't cost you anything!

My first clean-out bag! I haven't shipped it out yet, but I managed to fill it to the brim :)

Guidelines to follow. They'll send you this card in your clean out bag envelope.

On the other side....Note: the brands the state here are not the ONLY brands they accept. Again, check out their website for more details.

More instructions.

All ready to get shipped out! I'm pretty proud of this bag. I kept saying to Robert: "Just look at it!" :D

Well, that has been my experience so far! I'm thrilled with this site and I'm sure you will be too. Let me know if you love ThredUP! I love seeing other people's hauls :)

Here is $10 for both of us to spend! Have fun shopping!

Pure Happiness

HI!

I'm extremely happy at the moment, so I wanted to do a quick post!

I FINALLY HAVE A DECENT BLOG HEADER! *squeals with happiness*

You have no idea how happy this makes me. That thing has been bugging me for awhile, but I hadn't given myself the time to research all the different options out there. Thanks to The Wonder Forest, I was able to design my own header :) *dances around* SEE HOW HAPPY I AM?!

"I am most content" - Evangeline, Nanny Mcfee.

Yup, that pretty much sums it up.

Thanks for putting up with my off-center header for waaaaay too long, people!

Pixlr is an awesome site. I'm addicted.

Now I am not very tech-savvy, and if you aren't either, here is a wonderfully helpful Pixlr tutorial on Youtube:

It's fun once you get the hang of it! And probably another time waster......oh well ;)

I feel so accomplished. I can't stop looking at it....it's...so...beautiful. *happy sigh* (Robert is looking at me weird, lol)

 Well, I'm going to float away on my cloud of happiness now. Goodnight, friends!