Friday, January 29, 2016

Our Honeymoon

Thank you all so much for all the kind comments on my wedding post. I thought I'd do another very belated blog post to share with you all our honeymoon.

We left for our honeymoon 4 days after the wedding. Which was perfect because it gave me time to get things cleaned up after the craziness of getting ready for the wedding. I also got all the social security office & dmv stuff done for changing my last name before we went. 
We stayed in a super cute little cottage at  Cannon Beach! Which is only like a 1.5 hour drive away. 
It was super nice because we even found a cottage that allowed us to bring all 4 dogs with us! My little brother was super nice to stay at our house with the cats & rabbits while we were away. 

The little cottage was super cute....




This was so much better than staying in a hotel because we could leave the dogs in the cottage while we went out to dinners and such (If they could hear other people in a hotel they would bark).



This place was so delicious!!!

 Puppy Kisses!

There was little baby bunnies running all around the area, they were so cute!



Being Silly with the selfie stick.


This waterfall was right in front of our cottage

It was beautiful  the whole time we were there.

The dogs & I all got Cannon Beach hoodies as souvenirs


I love them so much!!!!

My lazy boys sleeping in.

For my wedding I lost 25lbs so I could look my best on our special day. The first picture is the previous year on the beach (July (2014) then again on our honeymoon (July 2015) 25lbs lighter.

Since Lilly (our black Pom) is a 3 legged dog she gets tired faster and can't walk as far as the other 3 can, & we did a lot of walking on the beach and to all the shops. Silly me forgot her carry bag, but luckily we got her a new at one of the two really cute doggie shops, she loved it so much she even fell asleep in the bag.


I am so glad I bought a selfie stick for our honeymoon as silly as they are. Otherwise we wouldn't have been able to get pictures of us together on our honeymoon.

I am such a lucky girl.
Thanks for visiting my blog :)


Saturday, January 23, 2016

My fairytale backyard Wedding 7.18.2015

This is a very very belated blog post! A couple days ago was already the 6 month anniversary of our wedding, I can't believe it.
I can't believe I didn't do a single blog post all of 2015, either yikes!
2015 was a wonderful year, the first half filled with wedding planning the 2nd half being a newly wed.  

This is my favorite picture of my hubby, myself and our babies.
Yes we had our Pomeranians in our wedding!

(Stay tuned to the end of this very long post for our wedding video)

I want to thank my wonder Aunt Stacey who is a photographer for doing our wedding photos as our gift. They turned out so beautiful! Best gift ever!

The Ceremony


We had our wedding in my Mother & Step Dads backyard.
They both worked so hard on making it such a beautiful setting for us, I am very blessed.


I will say the hardest part of the wedding planning was the guest list. As we could only fit about 100 people in their backyard, but it all worked out. We had all our family that could make it there, and each had a couple of our closets friends. There was others such as friends & coworkers, I would love to have had there also, to share our special day with us. But I was so glad I had many beautiful pictures to share with them all on Facebook. As our original guest list was about 250 so cutting it down to 100 was tough!

Our wedding party

I had my 3 sisters as my bridesmaids, and my niece Taylor ( My Husband Sidney's sisters daughter) as my flower girl.

My Husband had his Dad as his best man and 2 of his very good friends as his groomsmen.

My little cousin Jaxon & my Pom Bentley were my ring bearers.
My niece Taylor and my Poms Bella, Lacie  & Lilly were my flower girls

Jaxon pulled the dogs down the isle in the wagon. Taylor walked behind tossing her flower petals.
I was so proud of the dogs for staying in the wagon.

Here is a little cellphone video clip one of our guest took of them coming down the isle.



Sidney ushering in his Mom & Step Mom.

I had both my Dads walk me down the isle.


The first time Sidney saw me.

The prayer

Our first kiss as husband and wife

The Sotos



We had both our ceremony and reception in the same place in the yard. Since we did not have enough space to be set up for both we had to have a change over. So us & our wedding party went out to the front of the house to have our receiving line. My team of people in charge of the change over did an awesome job and had it all switched over to the photo below in about 10 minutes, before the line was even all the way done, it was amazing!

The Reception
It was important the isle between the tables be the same as the isle for the ceremony so that my isle of petals  could be seen for both. These two long table are made with 4 8 foot tables on each side. with a separation at 16 feet for a pass through. Then there is 16 more feet of table to the right (from this view) of the head table. I was limited for space so I didn't go for the traditional round tables as they take up more space, and I actually really like this look a lot more.

We hung ruffled curtains between the patio and yard to create a separate space for the food. My step dad hung the curtains on both sides so that both sides would be the front of the curtains, then in the middle of the backs we strong white lights. I don't have a good picture of it once it was dark but it was pretty.
We self catered the wedding. This was a huge job and I am so thankful for our families doing so much of this. I was so busy getting ready the day of I had no time to help with the food. Sidney's Mom was in charge of the tamales, beans, rice. My Mom made the cucumber salad, my step Dad made sesame noodle salad, he also barbequed corn & hot dogs during the wedding. My step Mom made the other noodle salad and a yummy fruit salad. We also had little sandwiches from Costco, chips, fruits snacks for the kids and other misc. things. The food was delicious.


My Sister Chantel, her boyfriend & I spent several hours wrapping 250 water bottles in lace tape and tying bow on them with twine

I personally did not want a seating cart. I had a head table for only Sidney & I and let everyone else sit where they wanted, this was easier for me and better for my guests I think.

You may be wondering why there is a crib by the head table....

That was where the dogs sat during the reception, this was the perfect way to keep them together in one place so no one would step on them. As well as be a beautiful place for them to be the "dogs of honor" as their banner says. They stayed in the crib most all of the evening.
My brother was in charge of them for the night and he did a great job watching them, I really appreciate that.

I adore this photo of my babies & I.

 My wedding cake was actually made by my cousin Victoria she did such a gorgeous job on it, it couldn't have been more perfect. I ordered the customized cake topper from Etsy.







The banquet toss


My good fried Rachel caught it!


Dancing

Our first dance.

The dancing continued late into the evening.
Jaxon really had some crazy moves lol.






The Décor
I really don't know how people who only have their venue for one day can possibly get it all decorated fast enough. We spent a whole week decorating the backyard. Luckily it was very warm, actually way to warm 90 degrees pretty much all week but thankfully no rain so that was the most important part.

I love the way the mirrors reflected off each other.



My Step Dad and I took down almost all the mirrors on my mirror wall at home
and hung them all over the fences all the way around the yard, I love the way it looked!
When were doing my me only pictures Bentley kept wanting to be in the photos with me, it was sweet.


On the "focal wall" the wall we got married in front of and the same wall we sat in front of during the reception. We hung crystal chandeliers in front of the mirrors. This was the perfect lighting when it got dark. Those chandeliers were dual purposed because they are now installed in different rooms in my house.


We had no florist, we made all the arrangements and banquets ourselves. My mom did most all of them and we stayed up almost all night the night before doing it.



I ordered my flowers from Costco.








Instead of a paper program, I had all that info written on huge chalk board at the entrance.

For our guestbook we had everyone sign this white wood board.

Our card box was an old suitcase.

More Pictures
My Babies & I.


Us with my Dad & Step Mom.
The reason only Bentley is in this photo is because he came over and posed himself into the photo lol.

I am such a lucky girl!


My beautiful Mother & I

My gorgeous Maid of Honor my sister Chantel

The kids loved blowing bubbles.

My Grandparents and their little dog Annie
My Aunt Wendy

My Brother Gage



My Cousin & her new baby
Love

I love how this picture shows my girls dresses. I got them from wooflink. They matched my Maid of Honors & flower girl dresses very well.  They also wore lace Harnesses I had custom made for them on Etsy they also had matching leashes.
Bentley wore a dog tux and we got him a matching bowtie from the same place we rented the groomsmen's bow ties from. We sewed a leash hook on Bentleys tux and we had a block leather very ringtone sparkly leash.

Grandpa Jerry & I

 Sidney's Mother & us
 My Sister Chantel & her Boyfriend Deangel











Favorite picture of my brother Gage

Sidneys Dad & Step Mom
My Brother Wyatt
My Parents
Just us.


Limo ride Home


 We left in a pretty white Limo. Our dogs even got to ride home in the limo with us.


Our Wedding Video



Thank you so much for stopping by my blog.
I hope you enjoyed our wedding photos.
It was the best day of my life!