the honeymoon!

so our honeymoon was a last minute decision.  we were originally going to just stay local and have a low-key week together and go on a cruise in april 2011.   a few weeks before the wedding we decided we really wanted to go away and looked into florida beaches but couldn't afford much. 

the same day i went to pick up my dress (where i decided i no longer LOVED it and the awesome manager let me exchange it!) a family friend called and saved our honeymoon!! she got us a hotel room for the week, so all we had to do was get there and we'd have our honeymoon!

we decided to go pompano beach, fl, we flew out on Monday after the wedding and stayed right on the beach.

on the plane.

first lesson learned: the 7am flight to orlando, fl is full of screaming children because Disneyworld is in orlando....we didn't think that one through very well at all....

after a 3 hour layover...we made it to pompano!

our room!

we learned our second lesson of the week on our first night. be sure to research the area because not every beach is like ocean city, md! we couldn't walk anywhere (well within reasonable distance) and we didn't rent a car since we're used to being in a resort area when we go to the beach.

the only happy picture of the first night. after this we ate the gross buffet at the casino, lost $80, and then attempted to go back to the hotel.  we took a cab to the casino which ended up costing $30 so we didn't want to spend that much to get back.  wonderful new husband decided we could just jump on (any) bus and get back. not so much. we ended up on 2 wrong buses, in a run down neighborhood, and then we met Charlie!  Charlie was the nice man that told us how to walk the mile back to our hotel just before offering us a bag of weed to celebrate with...thanks but no thanks....

wonderful husband again decided not to listen to Charlie and we went our own way.  Florida has little lakes in between their streets so you can't cross over them everywhere. we ended up having to call a friend at home to pull up a map and get us back to the hotel! it was 1130 pm, raining, we had no clue where we were, and ended up walking a total of 5 miles that night!

needless to say....we rented a car the next day!

first half of the week was soo windy...

view from our balcony

down the beach a little bit.  i wanted so bad to walk out on that pier but you can't...

the Everglades tour was probably one of our favorite parts of the week.  we went on an airboat and saw 3 gators!

and it was so pretty....

then we drove to Miami and went to South Beach. its soo pretty there but soo hot in August!

our last day...so pretty...

we took the dress and had a last minute photo shoot.

plane home....even with our first night adventure, we had a blast and relaxed a lot!



our big day!

we waited SO long for our wedding day to finally come. dated for over 6 years and were engaged for 2 of them before the day finally arrived.

we got married at our church, St Bonaventure and had our reception at the gorgeous Twelve Oaks Mansion in Mars, PA.

we had a BLAST and enjoyed every minute of the day!  it was well worth every penny and every minute spent on it.

   

 

we played our version of the newlywed game and of course we won!!

first dance! jimmy wayne's "you are"



maid of honor and best man!

goin for the garter....totally surprised me. the dj surprised us with the theme song from Mission Impossible so Rich just went with it!

cutting the cake to  "pour some sugar on me" (we like to be different!) and he was NOT shoving it in my face...

we didn't want the day to be over but it really was a perfect day! nothing went wrong and we had amazing weather!

wedding projects

we LOVE to save money and we LOVE the satisfaction of doing things ourselves almost just as much.  both came in handy BIG time for the wedding. we made (and remade) the majority of the details for our big day.



we used these invitations from Michaels (bought with a coupon of course-ended up being about $25 for a box of 30)

we made the programs for the ceremony.

the top page is a piece of vellum that we printed on, put it on top of a picture of us, and the back two pages were all the details of the ceremony, tied together a bow! the bows took forever! thank goodness for little sisters! :)

the aisle runner of course

somehow i didn't get a close up of the centerpieces (or i can't find it at least) but we bought strands of orchids from our florist ($3 a strand) and floated them in water insie of a glass cylinder vase ($3.99) that we etched an "L" onto and topped with a floating candle ($1.99). nice and simple.

total cost: $9 (MUCH better than the $80 each the florist was charging for a bubble bowl of tulips!)

total time: about 15 minutes each plus drying time for the etching creme

also in this picture are the favors we made.  my grandma made homemade molded chocolate and we filled those little favor boxes from Michaels with it and tied it with a bow.

under the favors were the menu cards that we made.  we had dinner served family style so this way everyone knew exactly what was coming and what they were eating.

this was the project we had to completely re-do because we had a last minute menu change! not fun!

we printed the place cards ourselves and lined them up and used the extra strands of orchids to make it look pretty!

this was our table.  its hard to see, but we also made the table name cards.  each table was a different golf course in the area (again we like to be different and couldn't just use numbers).

last, but not least, we made the pearl necklaces and bracelets for the bridesmaids and flower girl to wear.

i had more pictures of everything we made and what we used to make everything, but i lost my camera case that had my memory card in it....very sad day.....

all of these projects helped keep us busy in the weeks (months) leading up the big day.  apparently i didn't have enough projects though; i finished everything so early that i decided to make homemade, icing filled cupcakes for the rehearsal dinner. we literally finished them less than an hour before we had to leave! oops!

our aisle runner

the aisle runner was our most exciting, most nerve wracking, and most complimented on DIY wedding project.  we got the idea browsing on etsy and decided we could make it ourselves and save a ton of money.

we bought the 100 ft plain aisle runner from Michael's (with a coupon of course!) for $20.

rich designed it using Microsoft Publisher and we had it printed at Kinko's for less than $10 (once we confirmed that it just needed to be in black & white).

we positioned it where we wanted on the aisle runner, so that it would be right behind us when we were standing at the altar. once it was securely taped down we traced it with pencil, dark enough to see but light enough so that the paint would cover it.

we spent less than $5 on a variety pack of paint brushes and two bottles of paint.

i started with the "L" since it was on the inside:

  i let it dry for about 4 hours before i painted the rest             

after a few touch ups, we let it dry for the weekend before we rolled it up and stored it until the big day.

total cost: $35

total time: less than 3 hours, not counting dry time

lessons learned:

1. scotch tape will rip the finish off your kitchen table!

2. be sure to tell the guy at the printshop you only need black and white or it could end up costing $80+

final product at the wedding: