One year ago today, I married the best husband a girl could ask for. He is patient and kind, silly and sweet, thoughtful and genuine. He builds me chicken coops and garden beds. Washes the dishes after I make a mess of the kitchen. Takes me on great adventures and spends weekends at home watching silly movies with me. I don’t have enough words to tell you what a lucky girl I am, how blessed my life is, how amazed I am to get to share this life with such a loving man.
Recently, I was contacted by Easy Canvas Prints with the request for a link ad, in exchange for an 8×10 canvas print. Because we had just gotten our professional wedding photos back, I thought it would be a good way to see how we (and by “we” I mean Travis) liked a photo on canvas print before we spent money on a really large one.
If you managed to get through my lengthy Kodak Gallery Photobook post, you may have noted that my process is fairly simple, yet the time it takes to make decisions almost doubles once I get my sweet husband involved. I think I’m supposed to be happy he has an opinion and wants to share it, but sometimes it would be easier if he just let me do what I want. [note: He actually does let me get away with an awful lot of things, so maybe I should just be grateful for that and let him have his opinions about things like, say, our wedding photos.]
Read on for gratuitous wedding photos and see which one we chose…
Posted in product review, wedding
Tagged canvas print, easy canvas prints, wedding photos
Disclaimer: As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I received a standard Medium Hardcover Kodak Gallery Photobook. However, we opted to upgrade to a Large photobook with extra pages and paid the difference ourselves.
Almost five months ago, I married the most amazing man. Five months may not seem like a long time, and I’d agree with you. It’s flown by so fast, I feel like we’ve been time traveling. We finally received the pictures from our photographer and I figured they would sit in their beautiful case for ages before I actually got around to arranging them in a photo album.
Serendipitously (totally a word, I say so), right after we got our photo disk, I got an e-mail from Foodbuzz offering a free Kodak Gallery photobook to review, as long as I got a post up by a certain date. Photos in hand, free photobook, AND a deadline? The universe wanted me to get this done.
I had actually been dreading making a photobook because there are so many places you can build one, it can get pretty expensive, and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing in terms of page layout and design. I am an engineer. We deal in straight lines and numbers. No artsy photo arrangement skills.
Continue reading to see how Kodak compensated for my left-brainness…
Posted in product review, wedding
Tagged foodbuzz, kodak gallery, photobook, tastemaker's program, wedding photos
[photos to come...]
As I mentioned, all Mount Woodson Castle events are catered by Personal Touch Dining. One of our original thoughts when planning our wedding was to choose a venue that would allow us to bring in any caterer we wanted (we wanted Cavaillon to cater it, since we love their food and Luc’s Bistro AND they were super affordable), but this proved to be nearly impossible. I wasn’t willing to compromise enough on venue location and overall “feel” just to be able to bring in my own catering. I didn’t want to have to decorate a community center rec room and I certainly wasn’t going to get married in Marina Village where it smelled like, well, a marina when you walked outside.
Please note: I completely admit to being a snob about my venue “wants” and if we had serious budget limitations for choosing a venue, I probably would have been more open. We attended a nice party in Marina Village before our wedding and, while it did smell vaguely of fish outside, the room was well-decorated and we had a lot of fun. But I’m glad we didn’t get married there. If YOU got married there, I’m sure it was lovely and that you also had more patience and creativity than I do about decorating a space. We are not decorators. We’re two engineers living together. My improvement on Travis’ “design” of our backyard was to throw in curves and round patio areas because he had drawn everything with straight angles. That was about all the creative input we really have.
Tagged catering, personal touch dining, wedding, wedding caterer
As a little girl, I may not have been planning my perfect wedding and storing ideas in my head for later, but I always knew I wanted my dad to walk me down the aisle. I knew I wanted to get married so there would be an occasion to walk down the aisle on the arm of my dad.
My dad is my hero. He’s also a saint. My dad taught me how to ride a bike and how to drive a car. He was so patient with me as I tried to parallel park, even after I caused the car battery to die (how, I’m still not sure)! He bought me my first car and I’ve been the happy recipient of each Prius “hand-me-down”. He sent me to college and told me he was proud of me on graduation day.
My dad lives in a house with upteen dogs and umpteen+1 cats. But, I think he likes the cats a little – he has little containers of kitty treats within arms reach of his recliner and has been known to hunt a cat down from under a bed if I’ve been looking for one and couldn’t find it. He has put up with years of living with me, my mom, and my sister and whatever woman drama we come with.
My dad has watched over the years as I explored boyfriend after boyfriend and he’s always been nice and polite to all of them. Even the poor choices of mine. He’s happy to see Travis and show him whatever new airplane/helicopter/flying thing he’s bought.
As our wedding day approached, my dad logged into our honeymoon registry and “bought” the remaining excursions and fun things we hadn’t gotten yet. I’m actually really glad he did, because the spa massage was heavenly and the gondola ride in Venice was so fun!
On our wedding day, my dad was full of smiles. More smiles and laughs than I’ve ever seen in my entire life, which warmed my heart and made me even happier than I was to start with. We practiced walking down stairs, walking in step, but not our dance. As we took the first step into the aisle, I may have been nervous enough to actually lean on his arm. But, we made it to the end and I was handed off to my handsome groom.
We danced to Natalie Grant’s “Always be Your Baby”, a shortened version that still felt so long! And then the rest of the night is just a whirlwind.
Happy Father’s Day, Daddy! You are amazing and generous and loving, and I love you so much!
(photos by Mandi, Melissa McClure Photography)
