one year anniversary!

yay!!! we made it to our one year anniversary!! what a crazy, awesome, refining, blessed first year of marriage we have had! of course, as in every marriage - there are the wonderful times and then there are the times of struggle. but we made it! :) we are SO grateful and soo excited to see what the Lord has in store for us for year number two!

if you're just joining us - welcome! i'm so happy you're here!

if you're interested in reading all about our love story - you can read [part one], [part two], [part three], [part four], [part five], [part six] and [part seven] to catch up on it all and reminise over our relationship and how we got to where we are today! :)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

so you might think i'm crazy for planning my entire wedding under budget and doing everything myself with the wonderful wonderful help of my family and friends.

it was definitely a lot of work - i wish i would have documented more of it.. i have some stuff and maybe i'll do some more in depth posts on that another time :)

our engagement was just shy of 6 months. 5 months and 21 days to be exact.

there was one month in there that i didn't have anything going on.. i had just graduated college.. and hadn't started my job yet. my momma encouraged me to get started and i thought.. nahh i've got plenty of time.

well, let me tell you.. 

she was right.

so right.

i wish i wouldn't have taken almost a month off from everything. [i seriously was probably the laziest person you've ever met and filled my time with naps, relaxing with friends, flipping through magazine pages and not a whole lot more.]

the rest of those months got so busy.

i was training and traveling for my job.

taking licensing exams. [that i ended up having to re-take both of them again because i failed them both the first time. talk about pride squasher].

planning and crafting our [my] dream wedding. you will be able to see a lot more hand crafted stuff in these photos :)

and trying to get our new yet temporary home painted, moved into and situated so we had a home to live in once we got back from our honeymoon.

what a ride it was!

but, we're here and we made it!

i wanted to share with you some [a lot.. get ready] of our wedding photos as well as some highlights from our first year of marriage :)

this was my dress before [on the left] and we took of the rhinestones and gave me some pearls instead [on the left!] :)

highlights and favorites from our first year.

- our wedding day

- our wedding night ;)

- flash mob [yes, it's true! we had a flash mob at our wedding. if you're lucky i'll hunt down the youtube video and share with you :)]

- our first holidays together and new traditions we're making

- movie nights

- figuring out how to live together :)

- growing in selflessness

- falling asleep and waking up next to each other [bad breath and all!]

- honeymoon in the bahamas

- sex [blunt, but oh so true!]

- cooking for mr. b

- outdoor adventures

- making our house our home and doing fun projects together

- watch so many different friend couples of our get engaged!

- road trips

- dance parties in our living room. alone. sometimes with no music. :)

- watching some of our friends get married!!

- pillow talk

- hosting friends and guests in our own home

- laughing together and making each other laugh 

- christmas vacation in mexico

- doing ministry with each other hand in hand 

this list could go on and on.. but i'll spare you cause there are still lots more photos to be seen!

especially this next one... ;) 

yes.. this is part of the flash mob. and yes, our flower girls and ring bear were definitely part of it!!!

reflecting on our wedding day gives me the butterflies.

it was such an amazing day.

it's been an amazing first year!

i can't thank and praise God enough for what he's done and what he's doing in us, our marriage and our futures!

thanks for reading along! you all are so sweet! :)

month of september.

oh me oh my! i am SO excited for september.

not only is it one of my favorite months because fall is starting to kick in. the leaves are starting to change [and we have some beautiful trees here with gorgeous colors in the fall!!], warm apple cider starts coming out, i get to bring out the fall clothes, cooler temps [i love comfy sweatshirt weather].

here are the wonderful things i'm looking forward to this month.

- labor day vacation [i took yesterday off too, so i'm loving my 4 day weekend!]

- amazing awesome changes coming to the blog that i am SO excited about!

- a mini surprise vacation to celebrate our one year anniversary!

- our one year anniversary [that is photo of our entire party. what a wonderful day it was!]

- a week recap of our love story leading up to our one year on the blog!!

- celebrate mr. b's cousin's marriage to one of mr. b's college friend/roommate at their reception

- going on a road trip with these two friends and baby t to visit another wonderful friend and go to the country living fair

- some guest posts for some wonderful blog friends

- taking engagement photos for one of my besties [but not the official ones.. i'm not that good :)]

- going to a bridal show with miss riss and help with more wedding plans for her!

- taking one year photos of mr. b and me!!!

- another bestie is coming to stay the night with me and we're going to have a girls night!! woohoo! [sorry..gotta kick mr. b out ;)]

busy month huh? but it's going to be so fun!!! a lot of this falls on weekends.. so we will be so busy on the weekends, some of it falls during the week. we have a huge fair in the town i work in that is thrown into all this as well, which will make things even more crazy busy. but i'm so excited! can't wait to share all our fun adventures with you all too.

stay tuned for a fun-filled month!

invites at the door two months before!

It has been almost an entire month since I've last posted.. crazy. I apologize - I've been so busy with work and wedding planning and attending other wedding events (shout out to lindsey who is getting married in less than a month! - check her blog out here!!) She always has some great encouragement throughout the week and even little glimpses into her own wedding planning :) It's so fun to have someone to share ideas with and help each other out or just call and talk when we're excited about something!

The latest thing that I have been working on are the invitations. I am pleased to announce that they are officially in the mail and headed to the doors of my friends and family!

They were so much fun to make, although some parts were a pain. A special thanks goes to my friend, Amy, at Brown Paper Packages for lending me some of her scrapbook supplies as well as her entire day last week to help me crank these babies out and get them in the mail on time! There's that little saying that says "invites at the door, two months before" and I was trying so hard to get them done and with her help I did!

Here are some photos I took of the finished product :)

 

Anything that is in color I embossed and the rest I created and printed on my computer. I made all of these invites for less than $20!

PS... if you didn't notice the date.. we get married two months from today!!