Quick wedding recap

Ryan and I have been married for [almost] 8 months! Woo!  I never got around to posting any of our pics so here is a quick recap of the day.

All of our ceremony pictures were done by the wonderful John of J. Stuart Photography. 

Ceremony 

Unity candle lighting

First kiss as husband and wife!

Hitched!

Cutest flower girl ever

A few outdoor pics

The bridal party

Love Ryan's face

Getting on our getaway "car"

And we're off

Success.

Our reception photos were taken by Ryan's groomsman and good friend, Roger Metcalf.

Cake time!

Dancing with the cutest niece ever.

And the cutest nephew ever, in the cutest little suit ever.

Dancing with the hubs, the dancing machine.

Love.

We had a wonderful day celebrating with all of our friends and family.  We are so thankful to everyone who participated, helped, and traveled to celebrate with us on our special day.

Hitting the road

Ryan and I are off to San Francisco for the long weekend!  I will be taking a brief blogging break for the next week or so.  I wish you all a very happy new year, happy 2012!

Photo taken by our wonderful photographer, John.

I'm baaaack!

I would like to say a quick hello to everyone after my hiatus from the blogging world.

Hello!

Ryan and I are officially married and moved into our new place out in California! After many weeks of living out of a suitcase and traveling cross-country, it feels good to be finally getting settled in. I'll share more pictures at a later date and time, I want to do one giant wedding post. I'm still getting my "crafting corner" in order, but the crafts are starting even without it being finished.

And stay tuned...tomorrow is going to be quite a spectacular start to a new series!

Mr. and Mrs.

Just wanted to share a quick couple photos of our wedding celebration! We just got back from our honeymoon (or funny-moon as Ryan calls it) and packing up to drive out to California, woo hoo! I'll be back in the blogging world soon!

The fabulous photos you see above were taken by Ryan's awesome friend, Roger.

Wedding favors...

This week my mom and I have been busy making prototypes of the tags that will be on the candy boxes (for the candy table we're having for the wedding favors). This is the one I like the best. I bought that super fun scalloped punch from Country Needleworks here in town, and even if I don't end up using it for this, I will definitely use it later.

You also may have noticed that the stamp I used here is not the stamp I originally was going to use. Unfortunately, through the chaos of packing and unpacking, I have absolutely no idea where I put it so I had to order a new stamp. I love this one too though so it's really a win-win situation. :)

Party party!

Ryan and I want to have some Swedish elements to our wedding reception without going over the top. Here are a few of the things we're thinking about!

I think it would be fun to wear my mom's clogs from Sweden at the reception, at least for a little while. I'll end up taking off my shoes for dancing no matter what shoes I'm wearing anyway, so why not?!

I know I've mentioned before the Swedish-themed candy table, and we're thinking of putting a red and blue dala horse on the table (centerpiece?). The red horse will wear a veil and the blue one a top hat. Ryan keeps mentioning how he wants to wear a top hat at the reception. What do you think?

We're still doing these traditional Scandinavian kissing couple salt and pepper shakers for our cake topper:

And I'm still debating about centerpieces. Flowers are always beautiful and easy (although they can get pricey), but I still want to do something crafty but not crazy. Any ideas?

Hope you're having a great week!

A Swedish stamp set

I found this precious little stamp set yesterday - I'm in love! I've actually been on the lookout for a "Tack" stamp for a while so I was so surprised to find this one here in Japan. I thought for sure I'd have to order one online or at least look somewhere in the states, but here it is!

And not only does it have a "Tack" (which means thank you in Swedish) stamp, but it came with the cute little bird stamp on the right too!

So I tested them out...

...and liked what I saw!

I'm going to have a lot of thank you notes to write after the wedding and I think this stamp will prove to be very useful.

T minus 5 months!

It's coming fast, in just 5 short months Ryan and I will tie the ol' knot!

While we were back in the States for Christmas, we attended my BFF's wedding on Jan. 1, it was a blast! She made all her bridesmaids these adorable black velvet cape-lets (as seen below!), how precious is that?! And on top of that, she also made all her wedding favors - Michigan apple butter and Swedish nuts in adorable mini mason jars. Needless to say, I left her wedding quite inspired and motivated to get cracking on me and Ryan's wedding crafts.

I found a beautiful wedding dress when I was home over break and am so excited about it! And when I move back to the States in 3 months my mom is going to help me make my veil using the pearls and applique from her wedding dress. I'm so excited to work on it!

I've been scoping the world wide web for some other fun DIY wedding ideas and came across this adorable idea from La Belle Bride. This fantastic tutorial shows you how to make your own felt heart bouquet. Isn't it adorable? I was thinking it would make a cute toss bouquet!

And in my previous wedding post I mentioned how I wanted to use these Swedish salt and pepper shakers as the wedding cake topper, and guess what? I ordered them, we are going to use them, woo hoo!! Plus, I'm excited to be able to use them after the wedding, a fun little reminder of our big day!

For our favors, we're planning on doing a Swedish-themed candy table. Ryan has a pretty big sweet tooth (more like mouth full of sweet teeth) and we thought it would be a fun idea to have it all be Swedish! Swedish fish, junglevral, bilar, polka mints...the options are endless!!

I would also like to DIY the center pieces, place cards, bridesmaid gifts, and programs for the ceremony. So much to do! But luckily I have very crafty friends and family to help me! :)

Wedding Brainstorm!

Ryan and I have been in the thick of wedding planning recently. We've made some big decisions and I'm getting more and more excited for the big day!

But I'm even MORE excited to just be married to Ryan.

I mean, just look at that face.

We're thinking carrot cake for the wedding cake. Yum.

And I am in love with this wedding topper. So. Cute.

Plus, they're salt and pepper shakers so we could use them after the wedding!

And I'm liking the concept of this centerpiece.

I think it would be neat to get a bunch of vases from thrift stores and spray paint them all the same color (white? blue? yellow?) and put real flowers or these whimsical origami ones (I'm just not sure I'm that patient to fold that many flowers).

There's still a lot to decide, plan and create but I'm sure having fun doing it!