Election illustration

Look at this image and tell me what you see.

If you answered democrats and republicans than you may have a case of political overload!

(Illustration for The Hartford Courant)

Happy Halloween

Scultures by Thomas Keeley.

www.thomaskeeley.net

A video of our wedding(s)

One of the "quirky" parts of our wedding was that we had to legally get married two days before our big wedding ceremony. It was just a scheduling SNAFU and made for a memorable week.

Here is a video we made for my best friend, Sara, who is in Japan and couldn't make it to Omaha in time. Pardon the abrupt ending, but our camera ran out of tape (doh!).



Oh, and you get to witness the Internet debut of my niece, Zayza! Isn't she gorgeous?

Quite Like It just kicked it up a notch

I am thrilled to announce that this little blog is growing up. I am teaming up with my good friend and amazing designer Heather Winkel to start a little design business.

Heather and I have been friends since college. She has an amazing sense of style, both in clothes and graphic design. She started out as a designer at the Baltimore Sun and now works for the design firm Network Media Partners, Inc.

Together, we will be creating custom wedding invitations and developing a stationary line. You'll start seeing blog posts from the both of us about weddings, design and life.

Welcome, Heather!

Our flowers

Our florist, Barry Beard is a genius and a good friend. I didn't worry about the flowers at all because I knew they would be brilliant, no matter what. I did fantasize about them and in my head they were strikingly black and white. Maybe half black, half white with great black and white ribbon. I told Barry about the black and white idea and he agreed to keep that in mind.

I was right, the flowers were all breath-taking, thoughtful (he incorporated vegetables in some of the arrangements to honor my grandmother!) ... but they were anything but black and white.

Everything borrowed, everything blue

I didn't put much effort into seeking out things old, new, borrowed and blue ... but offers were flowing in from everywhere of old, blue trinkets to borrow. A family friend offered her veil, though I had my heart set on making a birdcage veil. My aunt Mary brought a hankie for me to carry down the aisle, but in the hub-bub I forgot to take it. My aunt Janet offered blue jewelry, but I had already borrowed my bling from two other people.

I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of help and support from everyone we know. I feel like my whole wedding was borrowed and I am happy to spend the rest of my life slowly returning the favor to everyone.

In short:
Earrings, brooch, bracelets = old, borrowed.
Dress, bouquet = blue, new.

Thank you, everyone!

Seeing each other for the first time

Schedule-wise, there was no way that I could avoid seeing my husband before the wedding. While the tradition is cute, a sunset wedding doesn't leave much time for post-nuptial portraits. Instead, we arranged to meet each other, all dressed up, in the middle of the day. Our photographer did such a great job of capturing our reaction. It was a really fun part of the day.

Wedding reception photo booth

One of the best decisions of our entire wedding was having a photo booth area set up at the reception. The photographer set up lights and a camera in a corner and left a bucket of fun costume props. The wedding guests did the rest. People who normally wouldn't have been photographed are now in some of the cutest snapshots from the day. Groups who knew each other were able to snap a portrait.

If it is possible, you must have a photo booth at your wedding!

Wedding day weather forecast

Lets talk about the weather, shall we?

Forecasters be darned, there is no way to predict if there will be rain at your wedding. A month out, I started checking the predictions and I was promised dry and sunny. A week out, I began to watch the news obsessively to see the forecast. On Monday there was a chance of rain for Saturday but by Wednesday they said the storm would move to Sunday. Feeling safe, I stopped watching the weather.

Saturday morning it rained and I mentally cursed all time and effort I had put into watching the weather. The rain soon stopped and we had a lovely, overcast, cool day. The clouds blocked my sunset ceremony but I am thankful that we were still able to hold it outside ... since our back-up plan probably was not feasible.

In short, have a back-up plan that you love just as much as the idea of having an outdoor wedding. Wedding photos with umbrellas are always stunning, it's just not very pleasant to be standing under one as your fancy shoes slowly sink into the mud.

{photo from jenniferechols.wordpress.com}

Shopping spree

I feel like it was splurging, but we went out last night armed with gift cards from the wedding and purchased a few items that we have wanted for a long time.

1. Cute pillow for our cute couch from Target
2. Coasters from Bed Bath and Beyond
3. Nice knives that Ben has been drooling over from Crate and Barrel
4. Flannel sheets for the winter from Target

My new favorite cake

It is a good thing that the wedding is over and done with because I just fell in love with a new cake. I loved my cake, but this one from Amy Atlas Events is just drop dead gorgeous.

Maybe I just need to throw myself a huge birthday party as an excuse to order a cake like this one.

The first photo

Our amazing photographer, Alyssa Schukar, posted a couple of our images on her blog. Check her out. fstopgo.blogspot.com

We wanted a stereotypical Nebraskan fields backdrop for our wedding portraits and this is what she came up with. No one would guess that we are on the edge of a parking lot next to a light post.

More to come soon!

Whirlwind

Flew home to Omaha.

Got married in Omaha.

Flew back to Hartford.

Put in notice that I will be quitting my job in Hartford.

Busy making plans to move home for good! Omaha, here we come.

Boy is my face red. No, really.

Before work, I ran a few last-minute errands, including visiting the tanning salon for the last time before I fly home to Nebraska. I don't normally tan because my skin is so fair, but I figured I should try to be a little darker than my white dress.

Much like the last chance workout on Biggest Loser, the guy at the salon made sure to maximize my last few minutes in the tanning bed ... which included using the 'tingle lotion.' I won't go into the background of why tingling is a good thing for tanning ... all that matters right now is 'tingle' really means 'turn bright red for an hour.' Bright red. Fourty days in the desert red. Ripe tomato in the middle of an office building red.

So here I sit. At work. People doing double-takes and asking if I am ok every few minutes. Red.

Jeez.

Image Source