1 year (+2 months) Anniversary

Justin and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary exactly 2 months ago (there would have been a post 2 months ago, but it was a busy spring and I'm a hard-core procrastinator). On the whole, I'd say its been a good year. And to all those who have asked "how's married life?" I say, married life is great! Sure, we've had our fair share of arguments about stupid things (cough...WoW...cough) and we've both put on what I'm now referring to as the married 15 (I'm chalking that up to newly-wedded bliss), but I would say that the good times have far out-numbered the bad.

Speaking of good times, we decided to go all out for our first anniversary (you only get one first anniversary, after all). And, no, we did not eat freezer-burnt, stale, year old wedding cake...we polished that off after the honeymoon when it was still delicious.We took a weekend trip up to Chicago and stayed at the new Trump International Hotel and Tower. Very fancy, let me tell you. It's the nicest hotel that either of us have stayed at....not only was the room big and luxurious, there was a TV in the bathroom mirror, people...yes, in the mirror. The service was also amazing - everyone was incredibly friendly, polite, and helpful - it reminded us of Jamaica.

Aside from the hotel, we had a lovely dinner at MK The Restaurant, which serves contemporary American food. We tried fois gras for the first time to see what all the fuss was about and, surprisingly, I get it now (this is coming from someone who doesn't like liver...for some reason fois is different). If you ever have a chance to try fois gras someday I would highly recommend it, and if the whole force-feeding of geese to fatten their livers makes you feel bad, just remind yourself that geese are mean anyway. ;) The fois was the highlight of our dinner, but the rest of the food was great too. They even gave us an extra dessert for our anniversary (I would have preferred more fois, but cookies are good too). My one complaint about MK was that the tables were really close together so it's a little awkward if you want to have an intimate dinner with your significant other.

On our actual anniversary we went to The Art Institute. Justin had never been there before, so it was quite an honor for me to share in his first Art Institute experience. I look forward to more firsts in the years to come!

Honeymoo-hoon!

April 7-14, 2008


Jamaica me crazy!

We had a blast on our honeymoon! We went to Couples Negril in Jamaica for a week of total relaxation. Yeah, mon! Basically, it was a lot of eating, drinking and lying around all day, but we also found some time for snorkeling, scuba diving, a couples massage, and a catamaran cruise. It was paradise! The pictures don't even do it justice!

Go here for more pictures.

Just Married

OK, so maybe not just married - it's been a month. Happy monthiversary to us! I know I've been really slow to get something up about our wedding, but I've been really busy (and I thought things would settle down after the wedding... ha!). Between writing thank yous, going back to work, trying to figure out where to put all our new gifts, and finding some time in there to just enjoy married life I haven't exactly been very diligent about blogging. Anyway, enough excuses - lets talk wedding.... Our wedding day was awesome! We couldn't have asked for a better day. It was sunny and 60 degrees - absolutely perfect! Not to mention everyone and everything looked fabulous!

Our ceremony was amazing. Everything was so meaningful and heartfelt. I told Justin afterwards that God was definitely there with us because I think everyone there was touched in some way by His presence. There were definitely a lot of tears...happy tears I hope!

The reception was awesome (a BIG thank you goes out to my parents for putting on the reception - we couldn't have done it without you!). Best reception ever - and I'm not making that up. The people at Kennedy's said that we were the best wedding they had had there - everyone was friendly and having a good time. The food and the cake were both very good...there were lots of rave reviews from our guests. There was lots of dancing, which I thought was awesome because at a wedding you never know if people are going to want to dance. I was exhausted by the end of the night, though. It takes a lot out of you to try and mingle with everyone in addition to it being a very emotional day. I really don't think it could have gone any better - it was like a dream wedding!

Pictures are still online at web.sendtoprint.net (let me know if you need the event code). And for something extra special that our photographer put together go here (this made me cry when I saw it).

Bachelorette Party

My bachelorette party was on March 29th (I was so busy with final wedding plans that I never got a chance to post anything). We may not have been totally wild and crazy, but I had a lot of fun hanging out with the girls and I hope everyone else had an awesome time too!


Michael Dougalicious even made it to the party...I haven't seen him since college. And in case you're wondering why there is lingerie hanging in my living room...all the girls had to bring lingerie that somehow represented them and I had to guess who it was from. Let me tell ya, it was very challenging!

This is a lovely veil that one of my aunts made for me, and yes, I wore it out in public.

More games...picking out which "macho" to pin on the man. There was such a variety to chose from ;)

The bride-to-be gets to go first. (Justin informed us the next day that we had actually played this game wrong because we let everyone touch the poster, which resulted in all the "machos" ending up in about the same place. Whatever...it was still entertaining to watch everyone "feel up" the guy on the poster....hehe.)

All the gals out on the town.

Par-tay

This past Saturday some of our friends threw a little pre-wedding party for us. We had a blast! It was great to get all of our C-U friends together in one place so they could meet each other before the wedding. Here's a few pics from the party...

Here we are opening presents. We got some really cool stuff, including a food processor, which we used on Sunday to make hummus (yummy).

We also got a rolling pin. Justin is attempting to threaten me with it...as you can see I'm taking him very seriously ;)

A couple of our swing friends volunteered to teach a swing lesson to anyone who wanted to learn so they could bust out some moves at the wedding. Jamie looks like she's getting the hang of it.

Jen and Corban....Say cheese!

Ya know, it's not often in adulthood that people throw a party just for you. It was kinda weird to think that Justin and I knew everyone who was there, but many people were meeting each other for the first time. It's cool to have people from different parts of your life all come together in one place...it should happen more often! Thanks to everyone who came...we missed those of you who couldn't make it, but we'll see you all at the wedding!