Rosy in Texas: July 2013

After our wedding we traveled...a lot. I think we traveled more than the hobbits in Lord of the Rings (yes, I just made that reference...Brendan's nerdiness must be rubbing off).

We started off by hiking straight up to Philadelphia after the reception. We spent the night there and then, sick as dogs, got on our first flight. We landed in Toronto about two hours later, waited two hours and then boarded a plane to Halifax. After two hours of waiting (and some dinner) in Halifix, we finally boarded a tiny plane to our final destination, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
PEI is beautiful. I recommend going at least once in your life. Just bring a good GPS and a general sense of what you want to do. We stayed at Avonlea Cottages in Cavendish and I couldn't have asked for a better place to stay. It was quiet, the cabin was clean and well furnished and the free wifi was handy since neither of us had phone service in Canada.

Lemonade from Prince Edward
Island Preserve Company

Prince Edward is made up mostly of farm land which makes attractions few and far between. We only managed to get out twice because of how sick we were. We went first to Prince Edward Island Preserve Company's restaurant. They had some of the best lemonade and quesadillas I had ever tasted. The wait staff was very friendly and it had a gorgeous view of a lake and farmland from where we sat. Plus they had plenty of adorable tea cups as well in their shop.

Cavendish Cliffs

The second place we went were the Cavendish cliffs. They felt like something out of a Greene Gables book. The wind was cool, the water a clear blue, soft green grass on bare feet, and the red dirt so characteristic to Prince Edward. We spent probably a good hour there before heading back to Charlottetown to go home.

When we finally made it back to the states, we drove down from Philadelphia back to my parent's house. We opened the wedding gifts and talked with my family before falling into an exhausted sleep. The next day we planned to start for Texas early in the morning. We ended up not leaving until after noon because of waking up late and having to pack some extra things. It is at this point that I will give you a very valuable piece of advice that we learned the hard way from our road trip. When making a cross country trip, never, ever, ever, ever book your hotel ahead of time. We booked a hotel for that night in Chattanooga beforehand, planning to leave early and make Chattanooga by 10 or 11 at night. We didn't make it there until around 2 in the morning. We hadn't taken into account having to stop for gas and meals, making our travel time for that day around 14 hours.

The following day we made our start around 10 in the morning. We were to meet up with Brendan's family and one of his friends in Birmingham, Alabama, about 2 hours from where we had stopped the night before. We met at a Cheesecake Factory, still both sick, and had lunch with them before striking out on the road again, determined to make Louisiana before stopping. We made our goal and stopped about 6 hours from our destination of Houston, Texas. We stayed the night in a La Quinta hotel and managed to have a few hours to spend on dinner and a movie before going to sleep.

The next day, after 3 days of travelling, we finally made it to Houston and Brendan's apartment. So, with our adventures traveling all over the North America, let me give you some tips from things we learned the hard way:

Don't take a long trip to Canada when you don't feel good. Stay home and rest up
If you're travelling out of the country, make sure to contact your wireless provider and get service for the country you're travelling to
Plan ahead for a road trip as far as road snacks and food stops go. Makes life a little easier
Don't book a hotel ahead of time-when you're ready to stop, simply exit the freeway and check with hotels in the area to see if they have vacancies-most of the time, they do
When taking a road trip, agree on driving shifts ahead of time. For example, switch off at every rest stop

So now we've settled in Texas and started everyday life as newlyweds (mostly, anyway; we're about to move to another apartment). And this Yankee is trying to get used to a new life in Texas.

It's been a while since I've had a post. So it's time to bring y'all up to date again (I seem to have to do this a lot, huh?).

Wedding Prep
Our wedding went off mostly without a hitch. The day before we spent somewhere around 12 hours setting up the hall that we used for the wedding. And every single decoration was diy. It helped that just about every single groomsmen was a handyman.

The groomsmen (l to r) Daniel, Tall Chris, Brian, and Isaac,
hang fluff balls.
(Photo by Mark Morgan)

Christina, Yakira, Charis, Deanna, and I worked on centerpiece
bowls.
(Photo by Mark Morgan)

I wanna give out props to the best man, Brian, who did every single thing Sarai, my maid of honor and wedding coordinator, asked him to do. This is included putting together paper lanterns, making puff balls, hanging both of the aforementioned from the ceiling all around the hall, spending hours up on a ladder, hanging streamers and giving lots of man advice on how things should go.

The girls were great too. They helped put together centerpieces and two bridesmaids, Jaimie and Bethany, designed the flower scheme on the fence that separated the ceremony and reception areas. Brendan's family arrived the night before all the way from Rome, Georgia and spent the whole day helping with us. They helped hang things, arrange centerpieces, and make fluff balls along with going out and getting us lunch.

Jaimie and Bethany, my two closest friends from nursing school, helped me the most by helping me keep my sanity. Toward the end of the day, I was starting to lose it.

Various members of the bridal party, their spouses, and families came and went during the day. All the groomsmen but one and the photographer all traveled up from Alabama (Brendan knew them all from his days at Auburn University in Alabama). I think all-in-all we had over 30 helpers to set up for the wedding.

In the end the finished product came out great, and not a single bit of it was done by anyone other than ourselves.

The finished product for the ceremony.
(Photo by Sarai Goldsberry)

Best Day Ever!

We went with a Tangled theme for the wedding. I personally love this movie and cannot get enough of it. It's just the kid in me. So, details that every girl loves to know.

The colors: Lavender and yellow, based off of Rapunzel's dress, the kingdom flags, and the floating lanterns.

Photo by Betsy Weldy

The Dress: Rapunzel had lots of flowers in her hair. I had them down the side of my dress and on my sleeves. It had a corset back which originally came with a white tie. We switched it out to a long yellow ribbon to symbolize Rapunzel's hair. The veil my sister Keturah and I handmade. And when I say handmade, I mean literally sitting for about a week with a needle and thread and hand sewing 8 yards of lace to a stretch of silk tulle. It was then attached to a tiara because Rapunzel was princess and every girl is a princess on her wedding day, right? All in all it was a princess cut ball gown that had a cathedral length train and ribbon, modest sleeves and neckline, and a veil reminiscent of Kate Middleton's on her marriage to Prince William (because who didn't love Kate's veil?).

Maid of Honor bouquet
(Photo by Betsy Weldy)

The flowers: The basic theme of Tangled is that this drop of sun fell from the heavens and from it grew a single flower. So we have the sun and flowers so...SUNFLOWERS! I found a bouquet via Google (which was actually really hard to do since not many people use them) and then had my local florist shop recreate various versions of it for my maid of honor, bridesmaids, groomsmen, my handsome groom, the best man and the parents. All in all the came out great and mine in currently drying out in my apartment. I think I'm going to get some clear Christmas ornament and put the petals inside as my way of preserving it.

Photo by Betsy Weldy

The rings: My engagement ring is a pretty unique ring...and in saying that it was virtually impossible to find a wedding band for it? Solution: most jewelry shops will custom make a band for you. My engagement ring is a Tolkowsky that doesn't yet have a band made for the designer by it. And that's where Kay's Jewelers came in. It meant giving up my ring for about two months (which, if you've had it happen, you know is not an easy thing to do) but the finished product was stunning. As for Brendan, he chose a simple white gold band since he's the kind of guy that doesn't like any kind of frills.

The bridesmaid dresses: These were all handmade by my sister Keturah from a pattern called the Jamie Dress (not sure of the designer). We found some really cute swirly hearts fabric at the local fabric store. With six bridesmaids we ended up buying pretty much all of the fabric they had! The maid of honor's dress was done in a darker shade of purple with the same pattern, resembling a bit more of the kingdom flags than Rapunzel's dress. Then we got them all matching wedge sandals from Payless and these girls were gorgeous!

The gorgeous maids (l to r):
Melody, Keturah, Deanna, Caitlyn, Bethany, Jaimie, and Sarai
(Photo by Mark Morgan)

The boys: Flynn Ryder sported khakis, a blue vest, and a white button up all throughout the movie. Our boys were decked out in similar outfits. We had them buy their suits, rather than deal with a bridal boutique, from Macy's. They wore light gray vests and pants and lavender shirts to give them a Flynn Ryder feel.

The gentlemen (l to r)
Brian, Cameron, Daniel, Tall Chris, Big Chris, Zeke, and Isaac (not pictured)
(Photo by Mark Morgan)

Eliana and Sofia
(Photo by Caitlyn Maloney)

The flower girls: Their dresses were made by my mom since she makes most of their clothes anyway. These little cuties are my youngest sisters. The dresses were made from a fairytale dress pattern in lavender and yellow. Their adorable flower wreaths came from Etsy. And, to match Rapunzel, we had them walk down the aisle barefoot. All in all these little cuties stole the show.

The ring bearer: Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a picture of our adorable ring bearer, Marcus (our wedding pictures aren't in yet). But we dressed him up a yellow vest, shorts, bowtie and newsie cap paired with a white shirt and barefeet just like our little flower girls. And best of all, his pillow was none other than Rapunzel tower companion, Pascal.

Photo by Betsy Weldy

The photographer: Our photographer was Brendan's friend from college, Betsy Weldy (who is also groomsman Cameron's wife). She did a gorgeous job with the pictures that I have seen so far and I can't wait to see the rest. Cameron also took some official portraits and some reception portraits as well with his wife. I personally hate getting my picture taken and feel really awkward when posing for them. But Betsy did really well in making feel comfortable as well as posing us for some really great shotsThey were a great team and really easy and fun to work with.. They also make really great friends.

The caterer: An old friend of the family catered our wedding for us. Since the wedding was at 2:30, there was no need to order a big dinner (which, by the way, will save you a ton of money). We instead had snacks like fruits, veggies, chocolate fountain, sliders, crackers and cheese. Which all tasted amazing and I couldn't have asked for better wedding food.

Cutting the Cake
(Photo by Marinah Boyles)

The cake: Another friend of the family did the cake for us. She's been doing cakes for years and years, probably since before I was born. First off, it tasted amazing and it was a beautiful cake. I found it on Pinterest and together we worked out how to change it to make it work for our wedding. Best of all, I found a cake topper on Etsy that read "Best Day Ever" just like Rapunzel screams while swinging from a tree in the forest.

The rice toss: I added this just because I loved the "rice" that we had for the wedding. You can get it at Michael's Craft Store and if you need to make 100 little baggies of them, I suggest two bags of the stuff. But the rice we used was heart shaped, non harmful to birds, and dissolved in water, which meant, as soon as it rained, it was washed away. That meant we didn't have to try and sweep it all up after the wedding. The rain, the next time it came, went ahead and took care of that for us.

The send off
(Photo by Mark Morgan)

Our day was great (now that I look back on it). Yes, I tripped over the hem of my dress, a lot. Thankfully I had a reception dress to change into. Our ceremony started late because the pastor was late and at the official start time, not many people had showed. But I'm so thankful for all the ones that did. And at the end of the day, we were married. We were both sick at the end of the day too. We managed to catch some kind of flu bug and spent the first three weeks of married life sick. But, as our wedding vows say:

For richer, for poorer,

In sickness and in health

Until death do us part.

Photo by Betsy Weldy

My Daddy and Me
(Photo by Mark McGrath)

My family (l to r)
Back row: Dixie (neice), Katie, Hadassah, Netanya, Y'shua, Big Chris, Israel, Tony (Dad), Sarai
Front row: Yakira, Keturah, Rachel, Sofia, Eliana, Elizabeth (Mom)