Weddingbee Blog

I must preface this post by saying Mr. Cookie and I are avid cooks. Although I do most of the everyday meals, Mr. Cookie can navigate the kitchen very well. His dish of lemon seared scallops over a bed of cooked spinach and caramelized pecans is to die for *wipes drool from mouth* Ok, so I am just going to say it: we are foodies. We seriously live for good cuisine.

It is literally insane how many restaurants Puerto Vallarta boasts. So, we decided to skip the all-inclusive option in favor of dining on local cuisine. Here were a few of our favorite places to eat in PV.

Up and down the streets of Puerto Vallarta are fabulous street vendors. You can get a hearty meal for around $5-10 per person. By far our favorite spot to dine, period, was this little taco cart. Mr. Cookie and I ate there every morning for breakfast.

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The slightly overcast day was perfect weather for our ATV trek through the mountains. Mr. Cookie I decided to go tandem riding because a) I drive like a grandma, b) I don’t know how to drive a stick, c) there were times that I was holding on to Mr. Cookie for dear life. As this is the rainy season, the jungle rivers were high, which made our excursion all the more fun and muddy!
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Like I said in my last post, Mr. Cookie and I could have been recluse honeymooners, happily secluded in our fantastic room for the entire week. But there was so much more to Puerto Vallarta then our Jacuzzi…

Nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Sierra Madre Mountains, all I can say is that Puerto Vallarta is beautiful. I can see why it is a tourist mecca. But beware, because it is a resort town you will get heckled by vendors and tour companies all the time.

First off, we decided to get a feel for Puerto Vallarta by walking along the boardwalk.

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The buzz of the alarm clock came all too soon. Over the course of our three-day wedding weekend, I probably clocked about eight hours of sleep. The reason for my insomnia: a steady stream of adrenaline through my bloodstream. I was just too excited to sleep. But after the wedding was over, I crashed. So, when the alarm clock woke us up at 3AM to catch a 6AM flight, I was one sleepy Cookie. I slept the whole flight down to Mexico, and I don’t usually sleep on airplanes. But when I awoke, we were in sunny Puerto Vallarta and we were ready for some much needed R&R.

After a quick taxi ride, we reached the Villa Premiere Hotel and Spa and our room with a view.

We splurged on the honeymoon suite with a private balcony, jacuzzi, and hammock—it was worth every extra penny we spent. The above photo is not a PR photo; this is a photo Mr. Cookie took of our private balcony. I LOVED that balcony, especially at sunset.
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Lately, we are getting this question a lot: So, what is different about marriage? And to be honest our reply is, “absolutely nothing.” This question has got Mr. Cookie and I wondering why we got legally married. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mr. Cookie with all my heart and soul, but we really didn’t need a piece of paper or a pastor pronouncing us husband and wife to seal the marriage deal. We were married in our hearts a long time ago.

Sans a marriage certificate, we’ve been leading a nuclear family lifestyle. We eat breakfast and dinner together every evening—I do the majority of the cooking, but Mr. Cookie knows his way around the kitchen! I clean up the bathrooms, while Mr. Cookie has doggie poo duty. Mr. Cookie pays for the mortgage, while I pay off my student loans. And we both take care of our beautiful Pomeranian. We called it domestic partner bliss.

But, you may be asking, isn’t one of the advantages to getting married a tax break? Actually, not for us Cookies. Ever heard of the marriage penalty? Well, the marriage penalty is going to hit us hard this year, and that means no tax breaks for the Cookies. If you would like a longer explanation of the marriage penalty, ask Mr. Cookie, as he is the financial analyst in the relationship.

Besides love, what motivated us to get married?
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Image © IN Photography

Back in November 2007, we signed the contract for our venue. At that time, gas was inching toward $3 a gallon, and the Feds were still in recession denial. But how could we predict that in the next eleven months the global economy would go from bad to worse? Although, Mr. Cookie and I have yet to feel the pinch of the credit crisis (fingers-crossed), the economic downturn had a hand in slicing and dicing our guest list.

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Image © IN Photography

The weeks leading up to the wedding were stressful on varying accounts, but that stress was only exacerbated by a variety of vendors that backed out on us. Yes, you heard that right backed-out!

First, it was my hairstylist. Luckily, she had taken the initiative to already book me with another stylist.

But the icing on the cake, so to speak, was our cake baker.
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We’re back! And two sun toasted Cookies later, it’s back to the daily grind.

Puerto Vallarta was amazing, slow, scenic, and overflowing with tequila. After our whirlwind wedding weekend, it was just what us Cookies needed… a tropical paradise with nothing to do, but just be! Perfect!

I can only describe our wedding as magical.
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Photo courtesy of Justin Spencer

….Mr. and Mrs. Cookie!
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As the clock ticks closer and closer, it’s time to say a few last minute things.

To my dearest Mr. Cookie—There are so many hopes and dreams I have for this day and of our life together. But my biggest hopes are that we never stop dreaming, never stop living each day to the fullest together, and never stop loving each other even when parted…

To all of you out there, thank you! I only hope I have given you as much confidence and inspiration as you have given me. You, dear reader, have been my sanity, my humor, and my serenity in this chaos. For that, I will be forever grateful to you!

So, in just a few short hours, I will marry my best buddy in the world. The man who, with the words “Would you like to dance?” changed the course of my life forever. The man who has held my hand and wiped away my tears, laughed and goofed with me over nonsense, and who I drift peacefully off to slumber next to in the security of our cozy nook every night. Hopefully the weather will be nice, my makeup won’t run from the tears, and the wine will be flowing. If not, oh well!
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It’s crunch time, and here are just a few more DIY projects to squeeze in before the big day. Welcome to my hodgepodge of last-minute project mania.

First up, we have our programs!

I Goccoed the programs using the same screen I used for our invites. I was going to Gocco the whole program, but I have run out of lamps and there seems to be a lamp shortage.
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A while back I posted about my something blue —a Yogo sapphire. Since it was a loose stone, I was going to design a necklace and have it made in Colorado. For those who commented and gave me design inspirations, thanks for your suggestions!

Well, after getting the stone, I started shopping around for the right jeweler to set it. Much to my dismay, jeweler after jeweler quoted me some pretty astronomical prices. With the clock ticking narrowly close to the wedding, I thought I might have to abandon the necklace. Remembering that delegation is the name of the game for this Cookie, I handed the task of setting the necklace over to my parents.

After countless hours of talking with jewelers and each other, they decided to have the stone set back in Montana at Roger’s Jewelry. I was pretty much out of the picture for the rest of the process, so I was shocked and wonderfully surprised to see my design come to life.

Here is my something blue:
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Source

No, not that Church Lady!

When we first starting planning the wedding, I thought the one place we could save money on was not hiring a day-of-coordinator (DOC). Since I plan fundraising events and have stage managed in the past, I felt pretty confident in my ability to put our little shindig together. Then when our venue said they would have a coordinator on hand to help make the day go smoothly, I was even more confident that we didn’t need to hire a DOC. It was settled no DOC!

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As much as I wanted to be Superwoman and accomplish all of our DIY projects for the wedding by myself, I had to succumb to my mortal abilities and realized that I couldn’t do it all. As of this week, delegation is the name of the game. I officially handed the reigns of the day over to our DOC this weekend, and I’ve got the troops running errands in preparation for the big day.

One project I handed over to Lil’ Bro Cookie was the task of making rustic wedding signs.

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Another DIY project brought to you by my Gocco: our menus!

I wanted to keep them simple and informational, as we are offering a very selective bar menu. I used Laurell and Futura fonts, and also used the same paper by Art. Co from Xpedx that I have been using for our stationery needs.

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