it's the little things...

I have a confession to make. I went out of order. Hubby actually said his vows first. One of his friends was kind enough to shoot a little video on her camera during the ceremony. There was a clip of each of our vows and I remembered that Hubby was trying to hold his paper and microphone when he started reading. Yeah, that wasn't gonna fly with me. First, I wouldn't have been able to coordinate it all. And second, that would mean we wouldn't be touching at all during the vows. Luckily, our religious figure grabbed the microphone and all was well. A tip to folks out there who are writing their own vows... If you want your significant other to hear them for the first time during the ceremony (which we did), you may want to have a third party read them both beforehand. Pick someone you trust. Someone who will say, "Yeah, those didn't go together at all. This one was too short, that one was too funny, this one wasn't sappy enough." My Matron-of-Honor had the, ...

No, this isn't what we looked like when we started dating. We had tickets to a benefit for a local Women's Center on Saturday night. There was an Elvis theme. The cool thing about that is you can pretty much dress up in a 3-decade span. We went 60s-ish. (Or else I just had a really good "Texas hair" day.)

I'm not sure at what point in the wedding planning process I brought up writing our own vows. I'm pretty sure I wanted to do it even before we were engaged. And Hubby had already proven himself a good, creative writer so I thought he might be game. Lucky for me, he was and we ended up with a really awesome, personalized wedding (you know, in my opinion). How did I come up with something to say? I did a little online research for some inspriration but I also did a little research in my closet. I'm a bit (cough, cough) of a list-maker and I guess a little bit of a hoarder sentimental saver. I pulled out an actual list I made of attributes I had wanted to find in a mate, written years ago, and used some of the actual verbage in my vows. Is it weird to say that I ended up having a rough draft of my vows maybe 7-ish years in advance? I know we're not the first folks to do this but our wedding was the first time I'd heard non-traditional vows in person. Our guests (or he...

We really wanted to involve my husband's sister (I'd just say SIL but I now have two of those) in the wedding. She's a really great singer so we thought it would be perfect to have her sing a song during the ceremony. Then, of course, we had to search for an appropriate song. After we found that, I couldn't for the life of me find an instrumental version. My SIL had one of her friends learn the song on piano and record it. How awesome is that?! Here's the song: During her performance there were some technical difficulties. First, the music was so quiet and difficult for her (or anyone) to hear. But she still started the song. It was the first time I had heard her sing it (I think that's called faith). She was doing a wonderful job when my extremely-soon-to-be husband started crying. The only time he cried that day. He looks at her and she looks at him and she busts out laughing. I don't think she realized he was seriously crying, just that he was making face...

Annuals are planted on the porch. Hanging baskets have returned. Some plants that are in the ground are actually coming back to life. There are flowers! The garden is getting planted. Tiny pea seeds are popping up. Squirrels (and birds) are being fed. The lime tree has survived! Blackberries have been planted. The lavendar's back! There's a peach tree! Most exciting of all is that there has been progress on the back sidewalk project. If it ever gets finished, it will deserve a post of its own. Yea! Spring!

If you've been playing along, we obviously didn't get married in a church. I wasn't really feeling the typical "churchy" readings either. After a lot of searching, we came up with two that fit us (and our readers) pretty well. First up, one of my friends from college. I was in her wedding a few years back. She's a former elementary school teacher who now works in a library. This was a perfect fit for her and she did such a great job presenting it--excerpts from I Like You by Sandol Stoddard Warburg (punctuation and formatting added by me to conserve blog space). I like you and I know why. I like you because you are a good person to like. When I think something is important, you think it's important, too. We have good ideas. When I say something funny, you laugh. I think I'm funny and you think I'm funny, too. That's because you really like me. You really like me, don't you? And I really like you back. And you like me back and I like you ba...

My husband, his sister, and I threw a surprise 40th anniversary party for my in-laws last Sunday. I had my husband tell them it was a belated surprise party for my birthday. This seemed like the perfect plan since we could ask to borrow anything we might need for a party and numerous parked cars wouldn't be out of place. I crafted up some pretty cute invitations and we made plans for food and drinks. And of course there were flowers. Lots of flowers. Anniversary #40 is the ruby anniversary. Since red is also a popular color with the MIL, we went with a red theme. I think all the food turned out wonderfully (even though I failed to take a picture of the table). We had fruit and cheese skewers, candied bacon, chicken salad and cucumber sandwiches, a garbanzo-pesto dip with fresh veggies, layered shrimp dip, cherry brownies, chocolate covered strawberries, and raspberry-filled mini red velvet cupcakes. For drinks, we served a variety of red wines, champagne punch, and ginger ale with ...

Finally, it was time for the girls to make their way down the aisle. During wedding planning, I found a lot of really great musicians while searching to create the right mood. One of them was Patty Griffin. I lurve this song: Le sigh... Again, since you've seen lovely pictures of them already, I'll skip it. But I can't resist one. Some people don't like having children at their wedding let alone in their wedding. I say go for it. I'm glad Flower Girl E wasn't a toddler, though. That can be super cute but a little distracting. E did a great job. Old enough to make it down the aisle and through the ceremony without crying or causing a scene. And just look at how everyone else is smiling. As for me, no crying or causing a scene either. I guess I was in productive mode right up at the end. I think once everyone else had gone down the aisle (somewhere around the 2:00-2:20 mark in the music), I was standing there with just The Brother, singing the words, and got a lit...