If you saw my July favorites or follow me on social media you will already know that in July...I GOT MARREID!!!
Time has seriously just flown by! I got engaged to my high school sweetheart last year on our 9 year anniversary. We have spent this past year planning the wedding and we got married this past July on our 10 year anniversary, it was the perfect way to celebrate 10 years together.
We both had just an amazing day with close friends and family. We wanted to keep our wedding very small so we only had 60 people attend. Surprisingly everything went exactly according to plan, we were on time the entire day and all 60 people showed up for our wedding! How did that happen? I'm still not really sure. Chris (my husband) is always late...always!! With me being a perfectionist and detailed planning, it really bothers me when he's late and things don't go according to plan. I've had people prepping me for MONTHS! Telling me that if things don't go according to plan don't freak out, just go with it, enjoy your day...and turns out everything did!
The Friday night before our wedding we went to the reception hall to set everything up and then we said goodbye. We didn't have a wedding party so there was no rehearsal dinner....we both kind of just do what we want. We decided to only follow a few "traditional" wedding rituals that we felt we wanted to follow. So our wedding was slightly unconventional.
On the morning of our wedding my dad took Chris out for breakfast while I started to get ready. We started our day out at the church @ 1pm. It was very important to my husband to get married in a Catholic church...for me it didn't matter where we got married. Chris hadn't seen me or my dress previous to me walking down the aisle...it was really emotional when we saw each other. The ceremony was perfect! Short, sweet and to the point. I had my auntie stand up as my witness and my husband had his close uncle stand up for him.
After the ceremony we chose to skip the receiving line and go straight to family photos. I had my grandma there who we had to be checked out of the hospital for the day...we thought it would be best to get family pictures over and done with so she could go back to the hospital for a break before heading to dinner.
Immediately after family pictures our wedding photographers took us away from the chaos and did some private photos with just myself and Chris. I haven't seen any of the photos yet so I am anxiously waiting to see them!
From there we went to the reception hall which was just a few blocks away from the church. We had an amazing meal and got to visit with all our guests. On our wedding day it was 36 degrees!! Everyone was so hot and of course we rented a hall that didn't have AC! We had about 10 fans set up plus there was a walkout onto a patio so people could leave and get some air which was very useful. Following the meal, of course, we had a dance! Chris & I were almost the last ones the leave...I think by the time we left it was around 1:30am.
At the reception we skipped things like the bouquet & garter toss. As you can see from the picture we aren't big flower people. Originally I wasn't going to carry anything down the aisle but then I found a feather bouquet online. My mom ended up making me my wedding bouquet and it is truly amazing and unique! It's layers and layers of feathers, sparkle, crystals and pearls. I just couldn't toss it away. I'm planning on getting a shadow box to frame and keep the bouquet forever...I think it will be a wonderful keepsake. The garter that I wore has been in our family for 60 years! It's blue with white trim lace (which has yellowed over the years). The garter belonged to my grandma and has been worn by every bride on my moms side of the family for the past 3 generations. I was the very first one in my generation to wear it and I felt so honored being able to borrow it and keep the tradition alive!
Because of our current financial situation we weren't sure if you could afford to go on a honeymoon. We didn't end up officially booking anything but we did take a week off of work just to spend some time together and whined down. I told Chris that it didn't matter where we go on a honeymoon, if we go on a honeymoon, I just wanted to spend some time together. That's really always been our attitude, it doesn't matter where we are in our lives. We've gone from being 21 and living together in a crap apartment with no money, to being well off, to dealing with a live altering car accident, to dealing with piles of debt, to being well off again....but it doesn't ever matter. All that matters if we've gone through it together and stayed together and we are both happy!
Our family's found out we weren't going a honeymoon and wouldn't stand for it! They insisted that we get out of city even for just a few days so we did. The Wednesday after our wedding we headed down to Banff. Banff is were we took our very first holiday EVER together when we were 19 so the trip was very special for both of us. We went back to the same hotel and spent 3 nights there. It was so peaceful and wonderful. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate...it was about 10 degrees and rainy the entire time we were there but we just made the most of it.
A lot of people have been asking me...what's life after marriage like? And my answer is, it feels exactly the same as it did before. I think that for everyone it is so different but for myself because we've been together for so long and we've been through so much nothing has really changed....we just finally made if official!
We are both so happy and we are looking forward to the next chapter of our lives.
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