Giveaway #2 Winner

The winner of the gift certificate from Designs by Tami is....
Entry number 6...


Jenni! Congratulations, Jenni! Please email me at kingstonsqueen@gmail.com and I'll get you set up with Tami.

Thanks all for entering and for reading. If you haven't yet, you can still enter Giveaway #3 here

Giveaway #1 Winner and the Anniversary Weekend

Thank you all for participating in the Michaelangela gift certificate giveaway - there were only entrants, so everyone had great chances. The lucky random winner of the Michaelangela is...

JMJE of Making Stuff is Fun! Congratulations, JMJE! Please email me at kingstonsqueen@gmail.com and I'll get you set up with Michaelangela. Tomorrow, I'll announce the winner of the Designs by Tami giveaway so get entered if you haven't already.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Our anniversary and Dan's birthday weekend was awesome. We celebrated his birthday with dinner Friday night. We went to Macayo's Mexican Grill where we had our rehearsal dinner exactly a year ago. We stayed up late and watched movies and hung out. Saturday was busy, busy, busy! I got up early and cleaned and organized and wrapped up cookies. Dan got up and packed up the car and took our stuff and the dogs to his parents' house. I went to my friend, Mrs. ESPN's daughter's soccer game. She played so well and it was fun to watch. I'm surprised I didn't lose my voice screaming and cheering for her. After the game, I picked up the anniversary cake and head to my in-law's house, where we ran last minute errands and picked up the rest of the food and drinks.

My parents and some of our friends came to my in-law's house to celebrate with us and it was such a fun night. It's always nice to see everyone, and yummy food and beverages always make for a good time. Somehow we managed to not take any pictures, though. Hrmph. But I gave Dan a gift card to get a helmet so he can ride the mountain bike he bought, along with the tiniest bike shorts you've ever seen. His reaction was awesome. And! We got... get this, I'm so excited about this... we got a CRICUT CAKE! As a gift from my parents! I'm so excited to use it to cut fondant and play with designs and stuff. It's going to be rad.

Yesterday, we hung out at my in-law's until the early afternoon, then packed all our stuff and the dogs back up and went home to go car shopping. Because, you know, Dan's old car got totaled in a hail storm so he needed something else. He got himself a really good deal on a Lexus IS300. The Altima gets hauled away today. It's been good to both of us, and I'm a little sad to see it go, but I think with the high mileage on it and some front-end work that it needed, the storm may have been a blessing in disguise.

So, yep, the banniverthday weekend is over, and it's back to the grind. Only 9 days to go until our Baltimore trip!

Wedding recap: Details and DIY

As I said, I had a lot of fun playing with the details of our wedding, and I love how everything came together. Here are some of the fun details of our wedding:

My purple shoes from Chinese Laundry and garter from Etsy seller Creative Bridal Solutions. The seller custom ordered the motorycle charm for me and added it to the garter.

Our champagne glasses from One Haute Hostess. She also made the candy scoops that went on our centerpieces. You can't actually see the scoop in this picture, but they were on the table to get the jordan almonds out of the over sized wine glass.

We collected and saved wine bottles from the time we got engaged. We made sure the labels were distinct and could be read from a distance. The table names were the name on the label. Our head table was Wild Horse, the Pinot Noir the night we got engaged.

I made the giant monogram letters from paper mache-ish letters I bought from Joann Fabrics. The topper on the cake was my parents'. We also used their cake knife.

Our birdcage cardholder that I customized by adding ribbon and a DIY sign. Easy peasy. Bonus: it now doubles as decoration in our home.

I also made our favors. The adults got rock candy in our colors with "You Rock! Thanks for celebrating with us" tags. I made cookies for the kids - wedding cakes and big green hearts. Kids also got a little scavenger hunt that I titled "I Spy With My Little Wedding Eye."



Lastly, my jewelry and handbag. I ordered the earrings and hair combs from White Aisle and my bracelet was my grandmother's. The blue handbag was made by my grandmother for a family friend for her wedding in 1968. The friend sent the handbag to me as a shower gift.






Unique weddings are all about personal touches. They don't have to be expensive or flashy. They just have to be meaningful.

Wedding recap: the reception

After we were announced husband and wife, we walked back down the aisle and did a sort of receiving line. We had intended to just visit tables at the reception (which was also did), but I'm glad the impromptu receiving line happened because it was nice to say hello to everyone in the immediate after-glow of the ceremony. Then we signed our marriage license.

We took pictures with the bridal party and our families while the guests enjoyed a cocktail hour and simple appetizers.

Some of my favorite pictures from the whole wedding during the cocktail hour.




Once pictures were done, it was finally time to go into the reception. On the left side of this picture, you can see our amazing wedding coordinator, Erin. I honestly don't know how the day would have gone without her. The thought in my head in this moment was, "oh my gosh, it's my wedding!"

We decided to go straight into our first dance to get it out of the way. We danced to an acoustic recording of Stellar by Incubus. We discovered that first dances are awkward. It's really weird to have everyone watch you. We were pretty much over the whole thing in about a minute. We even looked at the DJ at one point to wrap it up. Despite having gotten engaged while dancing, we are not good dancers and don't like the spotlight, and I honestly think the first dance was the most uncomfortable part of the day for me.

After our first dance, we invited everyone to join in on the buffet. Instead of a traditional head table or a sweetheart table, we elected to sit with our siblings and their significant others. So we were at the table with Megan and Daniel and David and Alex. The rest of the bridal party sat amongst the other guests. This way, we didn't have a huge head table, didn't split up couples (ick), and weren't on show at a sweetheart table. Win-win-win.

After we visited the tables and said hello to everyone again, my dad and I did our father-daughter dance. We danced to Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender. When I was little, my dad bought me a music box with a daddy and baby panda that played that song, and I always think of my dad when I hear it. I cried some while we were dancing, and thanked him for the wonderful father he's been and for giving me a beautiful wedding. My mom said she looked around the room and many people were crying.

Dan and his mom danced to It's a Wonderful World.

After dancing and mingling with our guests for what felt like 10 minutes (but was actually an hour and a half), it was time to cut the cake. Dan knew I'd ordered a groom's cake, but didn't know anything about it. His family loves to play Yahtzee. Like, all the time. And he usually wins, because he's awesome. So the cake was a Yahtzee box with 5 dice each showing a 5 (5x5=someone's 25th birthday!).

Our cake was 3 tiers of amazingness. We cut into the cookies and cream tier, but we also had a lemon tier and a chocolate mocha tier. We were nice and didn't shove cake in each other's faces.

Of course there were toasts and our moms presented us with a homemade photo display of pictures of each of us through the years. We had an amazing time and enjoyed hanging out with our guests and having some drinks. When it was all over, we went upstairs for our first moments alone together all day. I gave him his birthday gift and we had a couple of chocolate strawberries the hotel had brought up. We changed into comfy clothes and went to our favorite place, Dave & Buster's to party our little booties off.

All in all, our day was perfect. I wouldn't have changed a single thing about any of it. I truly married the man of my dreams, and I can't believe it's almost been a year. Cheers to many many more happy anniversaries!

Wedding recap: the ceremony

Our wedding ceremony was at 11:30am on Friday, October 16, 2009. I know, I'm a bad bride and made everyone take time off. But it's what worked out best for us on the day we wanted. Amazingly, I didn't have to get up all that early. I had hair and makeup done in my hotel room with my mom. My bridesmaids and mother-in-law went to a salon nearby for hair and then came back to the hotel for makeup. We were ready to go by 11:15, and just about everything went perfectly.

I was so excited to walk down the aisle. I remember standing with my dad in the hotel lobby, waiting to see Dan and feeling butterflies throwing up in my stomach. As each person ahead of me walked out the door to the aisle, the anticipation grew and grew.


Finally, it was my turn to exit the doors and I walked out onto the patio to the sound of Apocalyptica's cover of Metallica's Nothing Else Matters. In that moment the nerves were gone and the world fell away. I remember being aware of walking with my dad, but I don't remember seeing anyone but Dan, and it felt like I flew down the aisle.

The first thing I said to Dan was a whispered "happy birthday." My friend Andrew, who officiated, did an awesome job throughout. Dan was hot (as was everyone - who knew it would be almost 100 degrees that day) and giddy, and being in front of everyone was nerve-wracking.

We had written our own ceremony (or really, I wrote our ceremony) from bits and pieces of others I had found in my internet searching. I loved how heartfelt and personal I was able to make it. Exchanging my vows and rings with Dan is something I'll never forget, now matter how nervous I was.

Long-time friends read a beautiful poem by Pablo Neruda.

Dan and I did a wine and love letters ceremony. We put a bottle of wine and letters written to each other in a box made by my grandmother. The idea is that if we're ever in hard times and struggling in our marriage, we'll open the box, read the letters and drink the wine to remember why we vowed to love each other forever. The hope, however is that we wouldn't struggle and that we would open the box and enjoy its contents in celebration of our 10th anniversary.

The funny thing about that picture is that we don't remember the photographer being there. We were both surprised to see that Kyle got that shot. It literally felt like we were the only ones there in that moment. Finally, we were pronounced husband and wife and I got to kiss Dan for the first time as Mr. and Mrs. Kingston.

And that is the story of how me+he=we.