If I had to pick one photo to sum up our honeymoon, it would be this one.
That, my friends, was the view we had from our bungalow balcony. Bliss!
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Mr. Dolphin and I have been married for 1 year… ONE YEAR!?! I can hardly believe it. Wasn’t it just yesterday we were cutting endless invitations and fretting over whether an ivory vest would go with a white shirt? Ahh, the worries of planning a wedding.
This year has been amazing. So much has changed for us both personally and professionally. It has certainly been an eventful year with many weekends spent working towards our future together. I guess you can tell by my light posting from the past year that we have been busy enjoying the newlywed life.
Photo-boothing-it-up at Ryan & Jen’s Wedding we shot as Gator Bride Videography (the business we started as newlyweds!)
I love being able to call Mr. Dolphin my husband, which also makes chasing after him and calling him “boyfriend” so much more fun.
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While I was hanging out with the ladies, getting ready and having photos taken, King Hippo and his guys were doing much of the same… although it took them a minute and a half (give or take) to get ready. Totally not fair. Each of the guys wore matching navy blue ties and navy and yellow argyle socks that we gifted them along with their own black suits.
(Disclaimer: King Hippo thinks he looks horrible in all of these pictures, but I think he looks adorable, so I’m blogging them. Carry on.)
thompsoc75 and her new husband sneak a kiss!
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I know that I am spending a lot of time on Mr. D’s and my relationship, but I think it’s important to know where we came from to see and understand what our story is now. I know I left with a bit of a cliffhanger and probably had some of you worried as to what happened to Mr. D or me that would be considered tragic. Well, nothing physically happened, but what did happen has completely altered our lives.
We had gone up to Mr. D’s grandmother’s home in northeast Iowa to get away for a weekend and discuss our options when it came to our relationship. I had been offered a nanny position near my parents’ home, which was two hours away from Mr. D. Mr. D was still admitting that he was not sure when he wanted to get married, or honestly if he did at all. He said he loved me more than any other person in his life, but he had recently seen his parents’ marriage dissolve and their messy divorce and didn’t want to take the chance of that happening to us. I told him that not getting married was a deal-breaker for me. I loved him, and I would wait IF I knew that it would be coming, but I wasn’t going to stick around in the hopes of it. So I decided to take the job and let him have room to decide once and for all.
On our drive home, we got a call from his father who told us to immediately pull over. Mr. D put the phone on speaker and with what Dad D said, our world crumbled. Mr. D’s younger sister had been arrested that morning. She was being held on suspicion and there was evidence that she had in some way been involved in a crime.
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All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
“Make an elegant invitation statement without the fuss. Stylish invitation sets with matching envelopes, reception and response cards included.”
The first thing we started doing after getting engaged was look for venues. We did this even before developing our guest list because we really needed to get a sense of what things cost before we decided what kind of wedding we wanted. We ballparked our guest list at 150 and started doing our research.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t already have a dream venue chosen—The Lange Farm, which has a dreamlike rustic atmosphere with shady trees, a barn, and a freakin’ swing. I’d found and bookmarked that place months before, and almost immediately sent out an email to their event coordinator to get an idea of rates.
And wow—it was my first real letdown of the process. The place was far more than we could hope to afford, even in its smaller space. I really tried to figure out a way to make it work, but it just wasn’t possible. So the search continued.
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Video via YouTube / Courtesy of Doublemint Gum (Mars/Wrigley Co)
I don’t have a twin, but I do have two dresses! Two dresses clearly means that I have two pairs of coordinating shoes, right? Right?!?
I’m obsessed with my shoes for my white dress. As you might remember, the plan has always been to get red canvas TOMS to wear on the big day, so when I was perusing the internet trying to figure out who had cheapest shipping, I stumbled on a Nordstrom exclusive:
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Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
My dress search was foundering before it even began. I had no idea where to start. Then out of the blue my fabulous friend texted me saying that she would love to go to Running of the Brides with me here in D.C. For anyone who doesn’t know what Running of the Brides is, it is very similar to Running of the Bulls except with crazed brides going after discount wedding dresses. I don’t know which is more intimidating: fanatical brides or wild bulls. I was intrigued, but would Mama CS go for it?!
Shockingly she did! For anyone who knows Mama CS, you would understand why that is shocking. She is a very cool and collected cucumber who doesn’t like to be stressed (just like me!). Running of the Brides is all about stress. Mama CS was all in, though, because if there is anything she will deal with stress over it is a discount. We marked our calendars for June 30th.
Now you can’t just go to Running of the Brides cold turkey. We needed to set up some dress appointments to find out what style we would be searching for. Looking through 1,700 dresses with hundreds of other frenzied brides is not the time to be deciding if you look good in a trumpet style. So we set up appointments for the next time I would be home at David’s Bridal and La Bella Moda for dress “research.”
No dress appointment is complete without an entourage, so one Sammie sister, my godmother, Mama CS, and Mama CS’s mama (Grandma CS, if you will) all made the trip. They are so good to me. Our first stop was David’s Bridal. The purpose of the trip was to try on as many styles as possible to narrow down which ones I looked best in. Of course I looked fabulous in all of them, but the ones that stood out were the narrower A-lines. Our consultant was very helpful, and she mostly just pulled our suggestions since our group was very vocal. Too much chatter, not enough pictures of dresses!
Style #SWG9902 / Image via David’s Bridal
Before I start my recaps (no, I haven’t forgotten them!) I want to take a moment to get real with you all. Not that I’ve ever been anything else… but this is something I need to say.
You all know this is my third marriage. As in, I’m already divorced…twice. Right. Third marriage. You all get it.
So here’s the thing. More than once in the past year, I’ve wondered what people must think of me. After all, some of these folks came to my first wedding. And some of the same folks showed up at the open house we had after my second husband and I eloped in St. Lucia. Some of these folks must wonder where I got off having an event for my third wedding.
When it got towards the end, I was all over the place emotionally. And finally I sat down with one of my oldest and dearest friends and told her what I was feeling. It was a good choice I made. What she told me that day still makes me cry. So pardon my tears while I tell you what happened.
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Hi, Hive!
I’m back, married, and it was legen-… wait for it… -DARY! But alas, we don’t have pro photos back so you’ll have to wait a little bit longer before my recaps begin. Sad, I know.
I’m saving most of the details for the recaps, but I can at least spoil you all with a few teaser images shot by some of our lovely guests. Right? Right!
personal photo
The morning forecast had been calling for thunderstorms and rain right when the ceremony was scheduled to start, and that had the butterflies in my tummy doing barrel rolls a la Starfox-style. Mrs. Meerkat even drove out of her way to bring me a cute pair of galoshes and matching umbrella, just in case. (Isn’t she the SWEETEST?! The answer is yes, yes she is.) As cute as they are, I’m thrilled to say they won’t be making an appearance in photos at all. The weather was absolutely beautiful—warm, sunny, and very summery without a single raindrop! Just what we ordered.
Congratulations to our winners:
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Recently @dove tweeted a contest for brides to win the chance to have celeb stylist Gretta Monahan perfect their wedding day hair. Amanda from Georgia won because she saw @weddingbee’s retweet of the contest! Congrats to Amanda!
And while Amanda scored her perfect wedding day hairstyle, Dove wants you to have perfectly soft wedding day hair as well! They’re giving away 10 sets of their new Nourishing Oil Care collection to 10 lucky Weddingbee readers!
If I had to pick one photo to sum up our honeymoon, it would be this one.
That, my friends, was the view we had from our bungalow balcony. Bliss!
Finally, we were ready to kick off our bridal party portraits! We walked out to a field on the other side of the church parking lot. How convenient!
This long holiday weekend saw the completion of phase one of what I’m dubbing Project Floral Creations. (Have, I mentioned that we aren’t using any real flowers in our wedding? Well, we’re not. And now that I’ve remembered to inform you of that, this post is gonna make a lot more sense!) The list of florals that need to be created isn’t all that long, but it’s felt really daunting because I assumed that everything would take a long time to complete. And if phase one is any indication, I was absolutely right about that. Thankfully I’m super pleased with the final outcome.
I often I feel guilty that our wedding festivities are happening exclusively in Illinois, since the majority of Mr. Pony’s family lives in Tennessee. Not only does Mr. Pony’s family have to travel a long distance just to attend the wedding, it is also harder to involve them in the wedding plans.
But, we were fortunate enough to have our very first wedding celebration a few weeks ago hosted by FMIL Pony and FSIL Pony in Tennessee. And I am happy to report that it was fabulous and made me even more excited for our wedding in just a handful of weeks!
FSIL Pony, the decorator extraordinaire, coordinated the linens, decorated the tables, and arranged the flowers for the centerpieces. While FMIL Pony prepared enough food for a small nation, which we scarfed down so quickly I failed to get a proper picture. I did manage to capture a few shots of FSIL Pony’s handiwork:
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