My Wedding, M-Z

Thank you so much for your sweet comments on my last wedding post and here I am wrapping it up! I have to say, it’s been fun taking a walk down memory lane considering that we’re going on 3 years as husband and wife.

Music

The music at our ceremony was traditional and nothing out of the ordinary.

Our wedding party was introduced to Sexy Back by Justin Timberlake and we walked in to Crazy in Love by Beyonce and Jay-Z.

Our first dance was to the song Stolen by Dashboard Confessional.

The DJ company we hired was so good and kept everyone dancing all night long.


First dance

Newlyweds

You bet!



Old, New, Borrowed, Blue

I wasn’t crazy about this tradition, but went along with it anyway.


I did love my monogrammed garter!

Photography

Hiring Cindy Guessford was the best decision we made throughout the whole process. She was incredible to work with and I’m so impressed with what a great job she did shooting our wedding.


I love this picture of our engagement pictures. We used this as our guestbook.

Question Popping

Geof proposed to me at Longwood Gardens two days before Christmas. It was a magical night. The whole proposal story is here.


Fountains at Longwood

Reception

Our reception was held at Drexelbrook. It was a beautiful venue and I loved the ballroom our reception was in. They treated us like royalty



Shoes

I went with an ivory d’orsay pumps from Liz Rene.



Trash The Dress

I was all about doing this and kind of lost interest. I guess I could still do it if I wanted to. I had a whole plan to go to the beach and get in the ocean with my dress.

Unique

Details were very important to me. For favors, we had candy apples to fit in with the whole fall theme from our favorite place, Linvilla Orchards. We also had a candy buffet, which everyone raved about.





Vows

We went with the traditional vows. We both would have been too nervous to recite our own.



Wedding Woes

The Pastor admonishing our photographer in front of everyone was pretty bad, but now we all laugh about it. Full story here.

X-Rated

Eww!

Young Kids

We only had a flower girl (my little cousin). She was the cutest!



Zzzz

Our wedding and reception were on a Friday night and it was more of a party atmosphere in my opinion. Saturday was spent relaxing with our family and then Sunday we left for our honeymoon!



Thank you so much for reading!

My Wedding, A-L

The fabulous Meghan of My Perfect Compilation Tape (don’t you just love that name?) had this on her blog and I couldn’t help but play along.

For those that don’t know, Geof and I met in April of 2005 through online dating. I had a good run of losers in my life and was ready for a good guy. I honestly feel blessed and so lucky to have a wonderful man like him in my life. I know that’s an incredibly cliché thing to say, but it really is the truth.

We were engaged in December of 2006, bought our house in April of 2007 and were married in October of 2008. Our wedding day was absolutely beautiful and something I’m so proud of. Everything came together exactly as I wanted it to and I married the love of my life!

Attending:

118

Bridesmaids:

I had four bridesmaids, one of which was my cousin and the other 3 are friends.



Cake:

I got carried away with this! We had two cakes. One regular cake and one baby cake that was a replica of the larger cake to display on the sweetheart table. I was so impressed with how this turned out and the cake was delicious.


Big Cake


Baby Cake

Dress:

My dress was an ivory, strapless, A-line dress from Ella Rosa. I loved it and had tried on so many that I never thought I’d find the one. I loved my train and how it bustled. The dress shop I purchased it from could not have been better from the service to the price.



Engagement:

I did a post on my engagement story here. It was seriously like a fairy tale and that day stacks right up there with my wedding day. Seriously. We were engaged for a year and half. It gave me plenty of time to plan.


The night we got engaged right before he popped the question!

Flowers:

My bouquet was pretty traditional and consisted of lots of roses and some stephanotis. I also had some pretty crystals in my bouquet to really make it pop. The bridesmaids had colorful fall bouquets and I love how they turned out.





Groomsmen:

Geof had 4 of his buddies in the weeding party. The pic I’ve posted only has 3. There’s a story behind that here and it's a funny one.



Honeymoon:

We had a pretty traditional Honeymoon and stayed at The Royal in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We relaxed a ton by the swim-up bar and met some other great couples that were honeymooners too. The highlight of our trip was going to Xcaret for the day. We went snorkeling, then swam with the dolphins and caught the Mayan show that evening.


The view from our balcony. We even had a Hammock out there. I remember reading a little bit of Twilight out there everyday.



Invitations:

I loved everything about our invites. They were custom designed by Allison Barnhill. She created a pretty fall motif and carried it through all of our wedding related paper goods.


Our invitations!


This was at the top of our invites on the inside


Pretty paper goods for the reception

Justice of the Peace:

We were married by Pastor Richard at Saint Matthew.



Keepsakes:

I kept a ton all of the important stuff and sold the rest on The Knot. The Trash to Treasure board is amazing for that!

Ladies Night:

My bachelorette weekend will go down as one of the best times ever! My bridesmaids planned a weekend away in Atlantic City. The main party night consisted of a great dinner with the boys at The Continental, after which we went our separate ways to really get the festivities started. The girls took me to a fun show at Showboat and then we went to Mixx at The Borgata to end the night.


So much fun!

I’ll be doing M-Z soon, so stay tuned for that!

Year in review: Personal and Pop Culture

2009 was a good year overall and I got to experience many things and places that I never had before. Here are some quick highlights from each month:

January – Brought in the New Year with Geof and Kelly at Barnaby’s. A good time was had by all and it was the perfect way to start 2009.


Kelly and me on New Year's Eve

February – Went to Las Vegas with Geof for Valentine’s Day. It was a work trip for him and I got to tag along. We were able to spend a good amount of time together and he made Valentine’s Day an unforgettable evening. We went to Prime for dinner and saw “O” at The Bellagio.


Geof and me in Vegas at The Bellagio

March – Successfully had our first ice show in awhile at the rink that I teach at. Geof and I went to the Nickelback concert and it was such a good show.


Geof and Me at The Nickelback concert

April – Went to Orlando with my mom for a mother/daughter trip. She had always wanted to swim with the dolphins, so I took her to Discovery Cove to do just that. It was her belated Christmas present from Geof & me.


My Mom and me at Discovery Cove

May – Geof and I went to a Phillies game and Chase turned 2. It was a pretty uneventful month.


Mandy and Chase for his 2nd Birthday

June – Summer fun! Pool time, Phillies game, date nights with Geof and some fun girls’ nights.


Geof and me at our first Phillies game of the season

July – Geof and I celebrated our birthdays. His is technically June 30th, but we celebrated in July. Some more fun girls’ nights, beach time and I met Danny Bonaduce.


Danny Bonaduce and me


Geof and me on my birthday

August – Fun girls’ nights at The Deck and more beach time in Atlantic City. I also got to go to another Phillies game.


Bally's Bikini Beach Bar in Atlantic City

September – HAWAII! This was by far the highlight of my year and the best trip I have ever been on in my entire life. I also jumped off a cliff when I was there, which was pretty insane. It was a rush and I’m glad that I did it. I also got to go to the Britney Spears concert.


I miss those Hawaiian sunsets


Happy in Hawaii


Cliff I jumped off of at Waimea Bay

October – Geof and I celebrated our 1-year anniversary as husband and wife. The beginning of fall arrived and we got to see some postseason Phillies baseball at Citizen Bank Park.


Geof and me at NLCS Game 5

November – Finally went to see a World Series game live. I also got to meet some bloggers at a meet-up and spent Thanksgiving with the family.


Blogger meet-up in King of Prussia

December – Braved the biggest snowstorm on record in December with Geof and had a cozy weekend. It was also a wonderful family Christmas!


December snow
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Top 10 2009 Pop Culture Highlights...in no particular order, according to me

10. Horrible parents – Jon & Kate, Octo-Mom and the Heene’s
9. The year of Gaga – she came out of nowhere and in my opinion dominated the music scene the entire year. I’m a huge fan.
8. Chris Brown & Rhianna fight
7. Twitter
6. Vampires rule
5. Susan Boyle
4. Kanye West/Taylor Swift VMA’s
3. Tiger Woods scandal
2. The Hangover…funniest movie all year
1. Michael Jackson’s death

What were some of your highlights of the year? Any major pop culture events I forget?

3 Years

On this night 3 years ago, Geof proposed. I will remember this night forever and actually put it up there with my wedding day in terms of the best days of my life. He could not have made it any more special than it was. It was perfect.


Us at Longwood Gardens


Pretty lights at sunset


Ice rink where skaters performed vignettes


A little bit after he popped the question. He looks so relieved.



Fountain show


Roses at Dilworthtown Inn

Dinner & Reconnections

Tonight, Geof and I met up with someone who used to be one of my best friends. Somewhere along the way we lost touch and thanks to the power of technology (Facebook, texts), we got connected again. We hadn’t spoken since about a year before my wedding and both missed each other a ton. When we saw each other tonight, we hugged for the longest time and I even got a little emotional. Isn’t it amazing how when you haven’t seen someone in a long time that you have history with, you can just pick up right where you left off? I felt bad for Geof, because we could have chatted for hours! It was wonderful. We made a promise never to let anything separate us again because life is just too short.

Iron Hill Brewery

Okay, enough of the sappy stuff. For dinner, we went to Iron Hill Brewery, which I love. They have a wonderful menu and delicious brew. I was bummed because their pumpkin beer isn’t in season yet (which makes no sense), but ended up with the good old Light Lager. The three of us split some cheesesteak eggrolls and nachos. For dinner I had Belgian Meatballs with Yukon gold potatoes and beer braised red cabbage. As if that wasn’t already enough, we split crème brulee and old fashioned oatmeal cake. We hardly touched the desserts. It was pure gluttony.

Barb and I. We both came right from work!

It was a fantastic night and I left feeling so happy. Because I don’t have any siblings, my friends are my family. I feel like I just got back a sister and it feels so good.