Our Wedding || First Dance

A little #throwbackThursday for you! I have a few posts lined up that go back to our wedding. Pieces of the day that I never shared. I love thinking about that day, and this space is as good as any to keep the memory going.

While on Fall break from work, I've been browsing some blogs and listening to music. Taylor Swift's 1989 is totally on repeat (loving Blank Space!), but a song came up on shuffle on my phone that brought back good memories. 

It was the song that we had our first dance to! Never Let Me Go by Florence and The Machine. It was a perfect song, and I'm so glad that Rob brought it up as an option. I had never heard it before, and had only heard a few of Florence's songs. My heart was set on a few country ones, but that all changed the first time that I heard it - I was hooked.

Here's a few lyrics from the song:

And it's breaking over me

A thousand miles down to the sea bed

Found the place to rest my head

Never let me go

Never let me go

Never let me go

Never let me go

I hope you got a chance to listen to the song above. What was your first dance song? If you're not married yet, what are you hoping/planning to be the first song you dance to at your wedding?

xo. Nicole

A BBQ Preview

Our anniversary BBQ was a huge success! We're both super exhausted from being in the sun and interacting with so many people, but we are forever grateful that our family took the time out of their Saturday evenings to come and celebrate our first wedding anniversary with us. My sister in law took some pretty nice pictures, but I wanted to share with you some of the pictures that I have on me right now:

Today was such a wonderful day. Tomorrow is for relaxing, laying in the grass with Gunner, and some leftover cake. I hope your Saturday was amazing, too!

ps. Did you enter my giveaway??

xo. Nicole

Pinterest BBQ Ideas

Oh my gosh, you guys. Can you believe it'll have been a whole year of marriage for us on June 16? It's crazy how fast it's gone! In celebration, we're totally planning a huge BBQ at my dad's place for all of our family and friends. Unfortunately, our actual anniversary is on a Monday, so we're hosting the BBQ on Saturday June 14. I have been browsing Pinterest like crazy, coming up with ideas. I'll be sure to post pictures of everything after the BBQ, but for now, here's what I'm thinking:

A polaroid-style photo booth prop! Hung up by some string so that my guests can use some props!

Some super yummy non-alcoholic punch!

Mason jars will definitely have a big part!

With it being a potluck, we'll need some of these to label everything ;)

And of course, the traditional gingham table cloth and twine! 

I am beyond excited for the party! Our only thing is that June is such a toss up for rain here. It'll either be pouring rain, or be super sunny. Let's hope for sun!

I can't wait to share pictures with you :)

xo. Nicole

Our Wedding: Portraits

I have some more wedding pictures to share with you! These are the ones that we took between the ceremony and reception. Our freshly married faces ;) Enjoy!

As you can see in the picture above, we're a bit of a mess. We were totally goofing around, though :) There's a picture of him looking up my dress too, and my shoe has fallen off. Not graceful, but that's us! I also can't get over the ivy in the background. I just love it!

All photos were taken by my sister-in-law, Lauralynn from Treasured Forever Photography. She jumped in at the chance to photograph a wedding after our original photographer cancelled 2 days before our big day! I don't regret it one bit and things turned out better than we had imagined!

xo. Nicole

Our Wedding: The Bridal Party

So it's been almost 6 months since the wedding and I'm just sharing more pictures...oops! My sister-in-law was our main photographer and she did such an amazing job! Today I'm going to share the bridal party pictures with you!

All the pictures and portraits were done right outside the Chateau Cargill, which is the building where the ceremony and reception were. I just loooove the ivy and the stone! If I remember correctly, the weather wasn't so nice leading up to our big day, but it turned out to be gorgeous! We only had a few sprinkles while were getting family portraits done. It wasn't too cold and it wasn't too hot. Obviously, we were meant to get married that day ;)

Everyone showed up early on the day of the wedding to help set up and they stayed to take everything down. We had such an amazing time and I'm grateful for each and every one of them!

For the bridesmaids, I let them pick out their own dresses. They just had some guidelines, like it had to be black, knee length, not the shiny fabric, and no jewels on it. Then I asked them to wear nude shoes. 3 of them got nude pumps, while my maid of honor wore nude flats. I gifted them each a clutch made by the super duper awesome Jesse from AnyKind and stuffed them with wedding day emergency supplies. They also got a long gold necklace and some bangles to wear with their dresses! Jesse also sent me one as a surprise gift! I posted about them here.

The groomsmen rented their tuxes from Moore's and Rob gifted them with a flask and a cigar (which were tied together with twine)! You can see me and the bridesmaids with the cigars above. I'm glad we got that photo, haha!

My sister-in-law did such an amazing job with our wedding photos. It was her first time being a lead photographer at a wedding, but it looks like she's been doing it for ages! If you want to check out more of her work, click here!

xo. Nicole

Our Wedding: The Ceremony

Our ceremony was one of the main things we got compliments on, and people are still talking about it almost 3 months later! I hardly remember it, everything's a blur, but I've been told there wasn't a dry eye. I remember coming down the stairs and focusing on Rob the entire way down the aisle. I had been holding in tears all day and when it came my turn to say my vows, I burst out in to a blubbering mess! We did a Celtic Handfasting Ceremony along with some personal vows, and none of our guests had seen it done before. Our commissioner had also never done it before, so we did a quick rehearsal a week before the wedding. Everything went smoothly! Except I didn't know when to give my bouquet to my Maid of Honor...so that was pretty awkward..

During the Celtic Handfasting Ceremony, a ribbon is looped around the bride and groom's right hands, which are held by each other. The colors of the ribbon depend on the meaning. It only takes a quick Google search to decipher the meanings. We chose purple, white and blue because they're our favorite colors though, then I braided them together. My Maid of Honor and the Best Man each took a turn looping the ribbon over our hands after each question was asked. The commissioner asked us 6 questions, and we answered "We do". Then it came time for our personal vows (cue crying), putting the rings on, the kiss, and signing the registry!

We walked back down the aisle to Boston's 'More Than a Feeling' and our bridal party followed. It felt amazing to walk back down the aisle with my new husband!

xo. Nicole

Our Wedding: Getting Ready

Getting ready was one of the best parts of our wedding day! I had all my bridesmaids (which included my sisters), my mom, both my mother-in-laws, and my sister-in-laws. We all met at my place around 8:00am, went to the Chateau to set up, and then back to my place for hair, make up, and dresses!

Our make up was done by my friend/coworker, and our hair done by my new sister-in-law. They did such an amazing job! I'll go into detail in another post, though. We had a lot of fun chatting and drinking orange juice. I ended up getting pretty antsy around 1:30pm to get my dress on because the limo was arriving at 2:00pm to bring us to the ceremony, and because I was just too excited to hold it in anymore! 

While doing up the corset back to my dress, my mom tried to get a funny shot in. There were plenty of laughs and I'm pretty sure my heart stopped when we all heard a snap. It turns out my mom had snapped one of the loops for the corset, but it all worked out in the end! In the picture below, you can see everyone laughing..and where my heart stopped. I laughed too after the initial shock!

I am so very grateful for all the help we got that day, and how everything turned out. Our timing was pretty much impeccable and we all looked stunningly gorgeous! I wouldn't have had it any other way.

All photography by Treasured Forever Photography.

xo. Nicole

Our Wedding: The Cake

Our wedding cake was one of my favorite things! I browsed Pinterest for like, ever, before we sat down with our baker. We came up with a branch and flower effect and 3 tiers. The top layer was gluten free (seperated from the other 2 layers with cardboard) and it was amazing!

My younger sister also made 3 different flavors of vegan cupcakes! I wanted a vegan option for dessert, as my mom and one of my bridesmaid take part in that lifestyle. The Chateau's chef also made them a delicious vegan dessert, so they didn't feel left out!

The cupcake flavors were Apple Pie, Lemon Cranberry, and Reese Piece! The wedding cake, I have no idea what it was, but I know all three tiers had a different flavor. One was mango filling/vanilla cake, another was boston cream filling/chocolate cake, and the gluten free was butterscotch filling/vanilla cake!

All the stands were made by my father-in-law and new uncle! They sanded and bolted the pieces on so it wouldn't move. My mom ended up getting both of the stands for her garden after! 

It was definitely tasty, and we know from all the compliments and comments that our guests also enjoyed both the cupcakes and cake! It was also nice for our budget to go through a friend for our cake rather than a big name bakery, and for my younger sister to just buy the ingredients to make the cupcakes and then for us to reimburse her. My uncle helped her ice them as well. I wouldn't have changed anything!

xo. Nicole

Our Wedding: Bridesmaid Gifts

I don't even know where to start on how happy I am about my bridesmaids gifts. First off, I got the idea for my bridesmaids holding something other than a bouquet down the aisle, from Allison's wedding. My brain went in to over drive thinking of how I would find the perfect clutch for my girls, without breaking my budget. That's where Jesse came in.

Jesse and I emailed back and forth for a couple weeks trying to figure out a theme, the colors, the design...and this is what she made up! My Maid of Honor received the clutch with the silver in the middle of the heart, and my other bridesmaids got the ones with the pink hearts!

The best thing EVER (and it actually got me all choked up) was that Jesse surprised me with my very own clutch! She made it different than the rest by adding some lace on the top. How amazingly sweet is that?!

I am so so sooooo happy that I reached out to Jesse and that she was so willing to come up with something so awesome. I am forever happy and grateful! My bridesmaids loved them! I filled them each with a little emergency kit of sorts, and added in the necklace and bracelets that I wanted them to wear for the day. 

Please check out Jesse's blog and shop!

Well It's Okay

xo. Nicole

This is not a sponsored post. All views are my own.