The most amazing day of my life...

This being Valentine's Day, and with our wedding anniversary just over a week away, I thought it would be fitting to talk a little about the most amazing day of my life. :)

Just about a year ago I married my best friend...

It is hard to believe that it has been that long actually. We were engaged for over 3 years as we wanted to purchase a home and get settled into our professions before we went ahead and tied the knot. It was important for us to have a solid foundation. We knew we were getting married and we knew we were going to be together forever, what was the rush? I felt comfortable in knowing that we would both have jobs, and could pay the bills before handing over money for a cake, flowers or DJ.

We wanted a small wedding with only our close friends and family. We had first planned on inviting about 50 people... 50 turned into 75, and 75 turned into 80, and the next thing you know we had over 100 people invited to celebrate our special day. We didn't have a whole lot of money to spend as we had just moved into our home, and I was not willing to skimp on any of the details. I researched for what seemed like FOREVER to be able to have my special day and be able to look back on our wedding and not think I had missed out on anything. Of course, for that to happen I had to improvise. We ended up doing a lot of thing ourselves. By "we" I mean my Mom and I! Kevin (my Husband) was always very encouraging, but was never a big fan of filling 60 jars with all the ingredients needed to make cocoa, or cutting out all the place cards or invitations by hand. I love him dearly, but patience is something the boy really has very little of! Fortunately, its something my Mom and I have a lot of so, we put our heads down and got it done. Thanks Mom!

We had a small wedding party that was absolutely amazing. I got so many emails asking to help, sending ideas and inspiration. They were lifesavers! I love you Ryan and Justyna!

Our amazing wedding party! Can't thank you guys enough!

Kevin and I love the winter so much that we had to have the wedding while there was snow on the ground. We found a fantastic venue that was so organized and amazing. We could not say enough about how awesome The Manor was! The staff were the nicest, and most understanding people. We had so many guests and other vendors come up to us during the night to say that it was the only wedding they have ever been to where everything happened ON TIME. Something that was very important to me. There is nothing worse than your guests waiting around for hours!

The Manor PyPeterandPauls

Money was the biggest obstacle for us. We wanted to have a nice wedding but we had to sit down and count all the pennies and make some tough decisions. What could we go without? What was a 100% necessity? Little did we know this was great practise for married life. Compromise! I wanted a good selection of food for our guests, so we had to give up a limo, and get our family to drive us home. We wanted to invite more guests, so we went without a fancy hotel room and just went home because we lived close to the venue. I wanted nice decor and good music and beautiful flowers so we gave up an exotic honeymoon and just went up north for on overnight getaway. These were small things that we could live without. It was more important to please our guests than it was for us to have a few extra unnecessary details. Sure we would have loved to go to St. Lucia for a week, but we decided that there will be plenty of time for that. We didn't need to go on our honeymoon right away. We could wait and hope that we would be in a better financial situation another time, where we wouldn't be worried about coming home from that honeymoon and going to the mailbox to sort through bills we couldn't pay! I am still dreaming about St. Lucia, but I don't regret any of the decisions we made about our day! We had each other and really thats all we needed!

For Your Tears of Joy, Tears of Laughter, Tears of Happily Ever After

Beautiful Stretchy Chair Covers! Nothing I hate more than loose annoying covers that end up tripping you up all night!

My bouquet

A really special moment with Dad

Right after the ceremony! 

                         

Our Cocoa Favours

A thank you to our guests! Wouldn't have been the same without them.

Justyna's Pomander

My amazing family! 

My new family!

The food was amazing and the company was ever better! We could not have asked for a more perfect day. And here we are, one year later, still going strong! We still have our ups and downs but it was a great decision deciding to spend the rest of my life with my best friend! <3

Photography By Gemini Photography
Flowers By Curly Girl Flowers