East AND West Coast Bachelorette Weekends--With Dogs!

Today I’m sharing all about my bachelorette weekends! Yes, I had two. And it was one of the easiest decisions in wedding planning. I had a large wedding party and didn’t want my friends to have to fly all over the country. I also invited a few close friends who weren’t in my bridal party to extend the celebration. So, I had an East Coast bachelorette party at my parents’ Chesapeake Bay house in Virginia for my East Coast friends, and a West Coast one at a cabin in Lake Arrowhead for my gals in the West!

Also, in a way this post gets back to my blogging roots after weeks of all-things-wedding: both of my bachelorette weekends involved road trips and dogs! I wouldn’t have had it any other way :)

I had my East Coast weekend in June and my West Coast weekend in July, leading up to our August wedding. They were two of my favorite weekends of summer.

First up: East Coast! My wonderful maid of honor (and little sister) did a lot of the planning on this one, and it was a no-brainer to spend the weekend at my parents’ adorable cottage right on the water. When I got there, my mom and godmother (who had been there the week leading up to my bach party) had decorated the house with a bridal theme! I wrote a whole post about my parents’ Chesapeake cottage last year, if you want to see more pictures of it.

And my sister put together adorable little swan floaties with bachelorette goodies! She had these amazing custom cups made.

The first night was so much fun waiting as everyone got there one by one! Some friends I hadn’t seen in a year or more (who live far away). It was the sweetest reunion and we ate a delicious homemade meal on my parents’ cozy porch and drank wine catching up til the stars came out.

The next day we got up, had a slow morning, and then headed out for lunch, wine tasting, and shopping! The first stop was the Carwash Cafe, one of my favorite places in the Chesapeake area with the BEST softshell crab sandwich. If you’ve never been to the Chesapeake Bay, crabs are the big local product, and there’s even a seasoning named after the area (Old Bay!). I grew up partly at the Chesapeake and there is nothing better than local crab and oysters to me.

The softshell sandwich at the Carwash Cafe

After lunch we went to my favorite boutique in the area, called Farm, for some shopping. I picked up a couple of cute things to take on my honeymoon!

The Chesapeake area of Virginia also has a bunch of vineyards, and the wine from that area is awesome! Next up, we went to the Dog and Oyster vineyard for a delicious wine tasting.

We got caught in a huge rainstorm on the way to the wine tasting, so as you can see we were soaked while we sat in the tasting room! But it was so much fun.

After wine tasting and once the rain passed, it was a beautiful day! We headed back to my parents’ house to spend some time outdoors and went swimming off our dock. One of my best friends brought her adorable corgi, Butters, and much to our surprise he jumped off the dock and went swimming too (in his life jacket)! It was too far for me to bring either of my own dogs on the trip, so I was so glad Butters could be there—he was the mascot of the whole weekend :)

After enjoying the sun and the salt water, we got ready to go out to dinner, and one of my best friends had the HILARIOUS and amazing idea of having temporary tattoos made of Grace’s face. We all put them on and then went out to eat in town!

We went to my favorite restaurant in the area, Merroir. It’s owned by the Rappahannock Oyster Company, and oysters are predictably their specialty, so we had to get some on the half-shell. All the food was amazing and we had so much fun sharing a bottle of rosé and chatting into the night.

The setting of Merroir—gorgeous.

Butters came to dinner too!

Hanging out on the dock by the restaurant :)

My wonderful maid of honor!

The next morning it was time for my friends to head home :( I stayed with my sister for an extra night and flew home Monday, but everyone else had to head back to work and left Sunday. But, it wasn’t too sad of a goodbye knowing I’d see everyone again for the wedding in 6 weeks!

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ROUND TWO: West Coast Bachelorette! Just two weeks after my Virginia bachelorette weekend, I headed with several friends to a cabin in Lake Arrowhead, California, for my West Coast round! And because Lake Arrowhead is just a road trip away from LA, I got to bring my dog Bean with me! The first event of the weekend was picking up one of my best friends who lives in Portland, Oregon, from LAX and driving up to the cabin. Of course we had to stop at In-n-Out on the way there—her first time trying it!

It was already dark once we got there, and the first night was spent being silly, playing games and checking out our accommodations. In the morning, we had an amazing breakfast cooked by my friends! One friend made an amazing shakshuka egg bake and another made my favorite pancakes.

After that, we headed down the mountain for a lake day! Lake Arrowhead is beautiful and we had a lot of fun strolling around the little town and hanging out on the shore.

Of course my Bride swimsuit had to make another appearance . . . there is only a very short window of time when you can wear one before it becomes very weird, haha!

In a parallel from my East Coast bachelorette when the same thing happened, we got caught in a rain storm! We decided to head back to the house and hang out/do girly things/watch a movie. The movie we unanimously decided was perfect? Parent Trap!

Hanging on the couch with little Bean!

Sheet masks with friends

During the movie, we said that Bean is like the boy at Camp Walden who shows up thinking it was an all-boys camp. This won’t make any sense if you haven’t seen the movie, so I hope you have.

We also had some amazing snacks, featuring the hilarious decorations my friends put up.

And later we got dressed for dinner, took some pictures and popped champagne out on our beautiful porch, and walked up the street for some awesome Mexican food and margs.

After dinner it was more cocktails plus a viewing of Troop Beverly Hills. Our movie selections were supreme if I do say so myself.

The next morning on our way out of town, we stopped by The Tudor House for the most amazing champagne brunch! It was so yummy AND I got to bring Bean in with us (in my purse!). He did so well and was adorable.

Bean’s little face in this one is so hysterical to me

We weren’t ready for the weekend to end, but at the same time I was so excited because at this point, it was less than a month until our wedding.

Thanks for reading this extremely long post letting me relive two of the best weekends of the summer! I would say they were only second to August 4, 2018 :) If you’re torn about how to celebrate your bachelorette, why not have two?! I highly recommend it. And, of course, dogs are the best guests of all to have at them!

60 Before 30 Update

If you’ve been reading my blog since this past summer, then you might remember my 60 Before 30 goals list I posted! If not, basically 60 Before 30 is a list of 60 “bucket list” type goals that I want to complete before I turn 30. This isn’t about fear of turning a certain age - I am honestly excited for EVERY age - but more about using a set amount of time as motivation.

Some of the goals below just say Personal (and a category in parentheses), which means they are either private, have to do with surprising someone, or not fully my own story to tell. If they are done and I can share them, I have updated here :)

Since posting my 60 items this summer in June (when I had exactly 3 years until I turn 30), I have actually managed to complete more of them than I would have thought, less than 6 months later! In case you’re curious to read, here’s the original list, with bolding and notes added for the ones I’ve already checked off.

1.     Marry Grace Baldridge - YES.

2.     Go on a honeymoon - yes, we went to Hawaii for 2 weeks and it was truly perfect.

3.     Legally change my last name to Baldridge - yep! So glad I got it done quickly!

4.     Build an emergency fund of 6 months’ living expenses with Grace

5.     Start a collection of Christmas decorations - yes, and they are all up in our house right now and making me SO happy! I’m hoping to post a Christmas decorations tour soon

6.     Increase planned/intentional charitable giving

7.     Host a baby shower or a bridal shower

8.     Switch to all natural beauty, cleaning, and laundry products - slowing doing this; I wouldn’t call it done yet but I am making progress

9.     Personal (career) - now that this is done, I can share it: this one was to leave my current job (at the time I wrote these goals). I honestly thought this one would happen toward the end of my 20s, but I was blessed with the most amazing turn of events and I already did it!

10.  Get first Christmas tree of my own (for my first married Christmas) - yes, the cutest best smelling Fraser Fir. I never want to take it down!

11.  Personal (spiritual)

12.  Go somewhere wild/exotic/remote (some initial ideas are Bora Bora, Antarctica, or Kenya)

13.   Personal (family)

14.  Personal (spiritual)

15.  Make a beautiful heirloom-quality wedding album - YES. It is stunning and I know we will have it for the rest of our lives.

16.  Make a beautiful heirloom-quality album of pictures from our Alaska road trip

17.  Make a beautiful heirloom-quality album of pictures from our honeymoon

18.  Make the outdoor spaces of our house special

19.  Make an awesome and welcoming guest room - still a lot of progress to do here, but we have now had our longest-term guest (6 weeks), so that counts for something, right?! haha

20.  Combine all finances with Grace and have both our names on all bank and credit accounts

21.  Personal (surprising someone)

22.  Celebrate my mom’s graduation from divinity school

23.  Celebrate my sister’s graduation from college

24.  Go back to Elon with Grace (maybe for her cousin’s graduation, or for homecoming?)

25.  Visit D.C. to see two of my best friends and my grandmother, who all live there - yes! This is another one that I thought would not happen for a long time, but a couple of months after making these goals, my grandmother offered to fly Grace and me out to DC and I got to see her, as well as my best friends who live there! It was a super short visit so I want to go back, but so happy that this officially happened.

26.  Do a month-long contentment/spending freeze challenge

27.  Celebrate our first and second wedding anniversaries

28.  Find a dentist in LA

29.  Personal (health)

30.  Send out our first ever Christmas cards (as the Baldridges!) - YESSS! Best moment putting them all in the mail!

31.  Personal (career)

32.  Personal (career)

33.  Go a week without social media

34.  Be able to say, at least at some point, that I’m in great physical shape

35.  Go back to Grace’s hometown in Belgium

36.  Fix our closet and hallway lights - thank goodness for Grace’s parents - they did this while they were pet sitting for us at our house over our honeymoon!

37.  Give a speech at a wedding or rehearsal dinner

38.  Have my blog featured somewhere

39.  Personal (surprising someone)

40.  Personal (health)

41.  Blog every detail of wedding planning and the day itself - yes, I’m so proud of my wedding planning series and so happy with how it has been received by sweet readers.

42.  Personal (surprising someone)

43.  Upgrade/change up my car when my lease expires in 2019

44.  Replace our foundation mattress (we just got it, but it’s from IKEA and not good…)

45.  Offer to help a friend with some aspect of their wedding: hand-addressing invitations like I did mine, serving as an informal day-of coordinator, passing down my collected wedding décor items, etc. - I definitely want to do more, but we did pass down our table numbers to some of our best friends who got married about 6 weeks after we did!

46.  Personal (misc.)

47.  Personal (gift/surprising someone)

48.  Start a tradition with Grace of having tea in the evenings - little by little we are doing this more :)

49.  Take a trip with both dogs (instead of boarding Bean like we’ve been doing while he’s a puppy)

50.  Take Grace to my parents’ place on the Chesapeake Bay

51.  Hang art or photos over our bed

52.  Introduce Grace to my grandmother (finally!) - yes!! on the DC trip mentioned above.

53.  Have 10+ baby books in my collection (Grace and I started a tradition after we got engaged of collecting baby books on special trips we take . . . it might sound crazy, but I love the idea of having an amazing collection of books from special places for our babies if we’re lucky enough to have them one day) - still building our collection, but we did add one from Hawaii! And I want to get one in New Orleans when we go there at the end of the year

54.  Swim (actually swim) in the ocean 10+ times - working on it! Swam 3 times on our honeymoon (I’m talking actually treading water not just wading out)

55.  Visit Ojai at least once a year

56.  Have a dinner party using our beautiful new kitchen wares we’ve gotten as wedding gifts - yes!

57.  Get orthotics/generally get my flat feet assessed by a professional (I truly have the flattest feet on earth—like the palm of a hand—and I need to be more proactive about the health problems my lack of arches will cause me as I get older)

58.  Go skiing with Grace (and stick to the bunny slopes because of the knee issues we both have!)

59.  See Carly Rae Jepson live with Grace

60.  Have professional photos taken of Grace and me each year of our marriage - so far, we’ve gotten one set: our professional honeymoon photos in Kauai

So far, I’ve completed 13 out of 60. I still have 2.5 years to go, so I’m feeling good about this!

If you have made a similar list, please feel free to share a link - I’d love to see it!

Advice on Planning a Wedding as a Gay Couple

Reliving our wedding through many many blog posts - sixteen so far to be exact - has been so much fun, and I am so thankful for everyone who has taken the time to read about our best day. But now that all of the substantive recaps are done, I want to take a minute to pass on the wisdom we gained from doing something that looking back, was big: plan a gay wedding, essentially by ourselves, having never attended one before. I do not mean to sound cheesy, overly political, or fishing for sympathy at all. But the plain truth is that I remember in high school having NO idea if I would be legally allowed to get married, ever. Gay marriage wasn’t even 100% legal in the United States when Grace and I started dating in 2013. And neither Grace or I knew anyone personally who was gay and had planned a wedding. We didn’t really have any mentors or role models in the process. But our wedding day turned out even better than my wildest dreams, and I think I learned a lot and have a lot to share! Here are my best tips:

Overall, as a gay couple your wedding IS just like any other wedding—but know (and celebrate) the fact that it is still “different”.

I think this was one of the hardest things for me to grasp, but sweetest to embrace once I finally did. Our wedding was traditional in a lot of ways, even more traditional than many straight weddings I have been to. My dad walked me down the aisle, I wore a cathedral length veil, Grace and I didn’t see each other before our ceremony, and we had a religious wedding. Those are just a handful of examples. I think at the beginning of wedding planning, I really fought for our wedding to be “normal” and resisted anyone asking what my “partner” and I were doing for our wedding (why not fiancée like everyone else?), etc. But as time went on, I grew to love the fact that we could go non-traditional in certain ways, and I took the liberty of throwing out a few wedding traditions that didn’t appeal to me. A garter toss—no thanks. I actually didn’t even toss my bouquet because I loved it so much I wanted to take it with me at the end of the night! We didn’t do parent dances, either. We also chose to keep our wedding menu pescetarian, which has nothing to do with being gay, but is just our preference and something you don’t see at a lot of weddings. One of Grace’s bridesmaid’s dad (who was also a guest at our wedding) brought a rainbow flag and Grace waved it and danced with it during the reception, and we had some amazing queer friends vogue on the dance floor and they were SO fun. Even though I didn’t want anyone to think of our wedding as different—or less than—any other wedding, I’m so glad I was able to cherish the fact that it was different. One of a kind :)

Choose vendors carefully, but don’t get hung up on contractual language.

We were extremely lucky to get married in a part of the country where gay weddings are not uncommon. But even still, I found it important to go through potential vendors’ galleries, online reviews, and showcases and see if they had worked with gay couples in the past. This was not meant to unfairly disqualify anyone just because they hadn’t worked with a gay couple, but honestly, my sensitive heart couldn’t take the chance of being rejected. And yes, I have heard of gay couples being rejected by wedding vendors. Working with people who proudly showcase their queer clients was important to us and calmed my fears.

However, even with the most gay-friendly vendors, I often found that vendor contract language was outdated. There was pretty much always a space for Bride and for Groom. My advice is to not get hung up on this. If it was a paper contract, I’d cross it out (maybe also as a gentle nudge for them to update it for the next couple), but overall, I just let those things roll off my back. If you already know the vendor has showcased their weddings with gay couples, then personally I choose to assume the best and not worry about “standard” contractual language.

Surround yourself with your people.

I mean this in two ways. First, I LOVED having a huge wedding party (we had 10 bridesmaids each) and highly recommend it if that floats your boat. Who says you can’t have 10 (or more?!) bridesmaids! After years of not knowing if I’d ever get legally married, having so many besties stand up with me was really special and filled me with pride.

Second, when making our guest list, Grace and I wanted to be sure we had room to include as many of our queer friends as possible. Knowing that we hadn’t attended a gay wedding ourselves, we hoped to be that for some of our friends who maybe also hadn’t ever been to one. This isn’t to say we invited people that we wouldn’t have otherwise, but nonetheless this was important to us. We also made sure to express how much they meant to us in the letters we wrote each guest at our wedding.

Infuse your wedding with what sets you on fire as a couple.

I wrote a post all about the little details of our wedding, and I think that really sums up my feelings on this. Chances are, your wedding might be the first or one of the first gay weddings your guests have attended. And for Grace and me, many of our friends and family were meeting our new spouse for the first time. We dated for three years long distance and grew up on different continents, so there was pretty much no overlap of mutual old friends (except for college friends). We really tried to show our guests who we are as a couple and we took pride in the little details.

Make everything easy for your guests.

My final piece of advice is to make sure to give a lot of instructions to your guests who might be well-meaning but unfamiliar and wondering if there is anything “different” about your wedding they should expect. I made a wedding website that gave every last detail I could think of, from driving directions to nearby accommodations to details for our welcome drinks party to a heads up about our pescetarian menu. I even put instructions on our flower petal packs for guests to toss after our ceremony—extra signage and direction can never hurt, I think!

Every wedding—no matter the genders of the couple—is different, so I don’t mean to provide blanket advice for any gay wedding. But I hope this is helpful, and thank you for reading my wedding blog series! If you’re a recently engaged bride or groom to be, congrats!

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

The Day Before Our Wedding

Before wrapping up my wedding blog series, I have to share about the day before our wedding—almost as full as the wedding day itself! Even though I saw Grace very little the day before our wedding, it was SUCH a sweet day spent with all of Our People who had flown in and traveled to be with us. Honestly, it wasn’t until the day before that things started to feel “real.”

Two days before our wedding, we checked into the Westlake Village Inn, which was absolutely lovely and Grace and I plan on going back for anniversaries in the future! It was close to our venue and the perfect setting to relax for the weekend.

The grounds at the Westlake Village Inn.

I woke up on the day before our wedding in my beautiful wedding suite with my sister (and best friend) and could NOT believe I was getting married the next day! We got breakfast and then headed out to get our manicures and pedicures with my mom. After that, we drove to Pacific Palisades where one of my mom’s best friends lives. She and my other “aunties” (my mom’s best friends from growing up) hosted my bridesmaid’s luncheon - a way to honor all the ladies who were standing up beside me on my wedding day and have some good old fashioned girl time before the nuptials. We dined on delicious food, including a cake flown in from a favorite cafe in the tiny town in Virginia where my parents have a vacation house, drank champagne, and got giddy and excited about the big day tomorrow. It was also one of my bridesmaids’ and best friend’s birthday, so we celebrated that as well.

Me with the birthday girl!

As you can see in the back of the photo above, my brother was one of my bridesmaids too! I gave all of my ’maids Plum Pretty Sugar robes as bridesmaids gifts for them to wear as we were getting ready the next day, and for my brother, I had a large white terry cloth robe embroidered with “Bride’s Butler” across the back.

Two of my oldest friends - I’ve known them even longer than I’ve known my sister!

During this same time, Grace’s bridesmaids had organized a pool party for her in one of the cabanas at the Westlake Village Inn, so she had time with all her best friends too.

After spending sweet time with our friends, it was time to go back to the hotel to get ready for the rehearsal! We rehearsed our ceremony at 5pm at our venue, which was vital to get all of our points and placements down - especially with a wedding party this large. I had a fun paper bouquet to stand in for the real one I’d have the next day.

Standing right in the spot where I’d walk down the aisle to Grace in just 24 hours!

Then we headed down to Zin Bistro for our rehearsal dinner! Because we had a huge wedding party and have big families, we had a HUGE rehearsal dinner - over 60 people - which was so festive and got us teary-eyed in advance of the big day. Zin Bistro was the perfect location right on the water.

At our rehearsal dinner, my dad gave a beautiful speech about our relationship being like two rivers meeting, joining together, and becoming stronger together than as one. My best friend (who also set me up with Grace 5 years ago) and a few of Grace’s friends also gave speeches.

We loved our rehearsal dinner food, and after we had eaten everything, we couldn’t believe we had ANOTHER event - our welcome drinks party! Our family friends from my hometown had rented out an outdoor space in the nearby Hyatt hotel (where many of our wedding guests were staying) and we had a welcome party open to all of our wedding guests. It was SO much fun to see people ahead of time and get more catch-up time with guests. We had a big wedding, so this event was really nice to be able to get more meaningful time with people. Here is the invitation our family friends sent out for our party:

If you can swing it, I highly, highly recommend a “wedding eve” party. It’s just such a fun way to extend the celebration!

It was so hard to sleep, even though I was exhausted, and I barely slept at all the night before our wedding. I couldn’t believe when I woke up—or more accurately, waited in my bed until the sun came up—it would be the day I married the love of my life.

Our Wedding: Refinery29 Feature

I am so excited to finally announce that Refinery29 has featured our wedding on its web series World Wide Wed. Full disclosure, our best friend (and one of my bridesmaids) works for Refinery29, and a couple of weeks before our wedding she asked if we wanted to have Refinery29 film our wedding and do some interviews during our wedding week. We jumped at the chance to tell a little bit more of our story than photos alone can convey, and I love how the video turned out.

Without any further ado, watch our episode of World Wide Wed below! You can also find all of Refinery29’s original series here.

Our Wedding Morning

Grace and I spent the morning of our wedding surrounded by our respective wedding parties, first getting ready at the Westlake Village Inn for hair and makeup, and then driving up to our venue for finishing touches and to get into our wedding attire.

There is an old ranch house at our wedding venue with two wings for getting ready, so Grace and I each had our own space with our bridesmaids.

The day before our wedding, I gifted each of my bridesmaids with a Plum Pretty Sugar robe to wear the morning of the wedding. I chose an all-white robe for myself and it was very festive and exciting to see everyone decked out in matching robes in the morning!

To be honest, I was much more jittery on our wedding morning than I had expected to be. I have a feeling others who have been married can relate to this, but it absolutely wasn’t jitters about marrying Grace—it was just a sudden realization of how many eyes would be on me, and as an introvert, feeling the pressure of the spotlight suddenly had me shaky. But thankfully, one of the perks of having a huge wedding party was having lots of people to calm me down.

Grace was pretty nervous too (or so I heard, since we didn’t see each other before walking down the aisle), so I was thankful that she had all her best friends to make her laugh and help her get polished for the big day!

Jitters aside, our wedding morning was SO much fun. Babies were passed around, sweet moments were shared, pre-festivities drinks were sipped (but not for me because my stomach was way too weak/nervous before the ceremony, haha!), and it was just such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have all of our best friends in our place. It was also so magical peeking out the windows and seeing our reception area coming together and floral installations going up.

Grace’s sweet parents!

When it was time to get into my dress, it was so sweet to have a few very special people help me:

My mom and sister got me into my dress

My best friend, roommate of 2 years, and round-the-world travel companion, Anna, put in my veil

My sister put on my grandmother’s bracelet that her husband (my grandfather I never met) gave her as an engagement present in the 1950s

And I put on my own shoes!

I also helped my mom get into her dress.

Before I knew it, it was time to walk down the aisle!

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Our Wedding: Grand Exit

One of the moments I was most looking forward to about our wedding was our final exit! I knew I wanted to do a big, sparkly exit at the end of the night.

After a fun last dance by our wedding band, our wedding coordinator got our guests lined up to send us off to our getaway car!

For a couple of reasons, the traditional sparkler exit was out—most importantly, because of California’s fire risks. I spent a long time trying to come up with a fun alternative to a sparkler exit, and I loved what we came up with.

I ordered about 200 hand-held battery powered light strands (actually wine bottle fairy lights!) and our coordinator passed them out for our guests to wave and cheer as we exited our reception.

I love this picture above sooo much—Grace grabbing my dad’s hand as we left through the tunnel of our friends and family!

At the end of the tunnel of our guests, there was a beautiful 1983 Rolls Royce convertible waiting for us! I rented the car with a driver so we could just relax in the back seat while we were whisked back to our hotel suite for the night. They even put a temporary custom decal on the back for us!

Leaving our reception in a classic car was, I believe, one of the best decisions we could have made in planning our party—it was the perfect cherry on top of our night and signaled to our guests that they could go home (or go to an afterparty, as many of our friends did!).

Definitely a “pinch me” moment, especially knowing we were leaving for Maui in just a day! I felt like the convertible floated on cloud 9 to our hotel.

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Our Wedding: Cocktail Hour

While Grace and I were getting some sunset portraits taken after our ceremony, our guests enjoyed a cocktail hour in our reception area. The bars were open, chilled seafood was passed, and everyone could start celebrating! Our amazing caterers served oysters, sea salt-poached shrimp, veggie burger sliders, fig and ricotta bites, and a cheese and mezze grazing station.

Our coordinator, florist, and venue hosts set up sweet details around our cocktail hour area, with little bud vases and bowls of citrus that fit with the outdoor setting of our celebration.

We also rented some vintage couches and love seats to give our guests cozy places to sit and enjoy a drink before dinner started.

Because we were off taking photos for most of cocktail hour, it was so fun to get the pictures back and see everyone hanging out and having fun!

After we finished our couples’ portraits, we rejoined our reception and were so glad to start hugging our loved ones and celebrating!

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

December Goals + November Recap

“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn—how did it get so late so soon?”

—Dr. Seuss

Really, I cannot believe it’s December. Just yesterday it was the beautiful midsummer eve when we were married. But I’m thankful. I’m hoping to write more about this here, but this has been my FAVORITE Fall of my whole life and I am actually looking forward to Winter for the first time I can ever remember. I’ve always loved the holidays, but to me Winter has meant darkness, cold, and the blues. I’m finally really embracing the season and it feels so special. A big part of embracing Fall was my Autumn Bucket List, and I made one for Winter too! I will share it here soon for sure :)

In addition to being the first winter I've ever been excited for, this December will have a lot of other firsts for me! For a long time I have wanted to save certain things for being married (or at least engaged as the case was with living together). Two of those things I’ve waited for are sending out Christmas cards and getting our first Christmas tree. I’ve never had my own! We are also taking a big trip at the end of the month and I’m so excited. Overall, I think this month will be incredibly sweet. I know it will fly by so my goals are intended to help me savor it!

First, how I did on my November goals:

• Spend Thanksgiving in North Carolina with my family—yes, it was wonderful.

• Celebrate Grace turning 28!—yep! We spent a fun weekend in Joshua Tree with friends.

• Send lots of fun happy mail to friends—a good amount!

• Design our wedding album—yessss! It just arrived today and I am waiting until Grace is here to open it, but I’m SO EXCITED!

• Host a dinner or brunch at our house with friends—yes, we had a small dinner party that was very special.

• Take better care of my body—I like to think marginally better. I worked out while I was home in Raleigh and it felt great.

• Rest, be present, and be thankful—I can always do better but I’m proud of how I did on this.

• Do all my Christmas shopping (and take advantage of Black Friday sales) so I can spend December resting during Advent—done and done!!!

My goals for December are:

• Send our first ever Christmas cards

• Enjoy items on my winter bucket list (try to do at least one a week)

• Get our first ever Christmas tree

• Decorate our house for Christmas

• Reverently and joyfully observe Advent

• Update my 60 before 30 list with progress so far

• Take an exciting trip just Grace and me

• Set goals for 2019

• Host my mom in our house!

• Wrap all Christmas gifts and mail the ones that are going to out of town people

• Replace my phone screen protector

I hope you enjoy and make the most of the very last month of 2018! xoxo

Our Wedding: Sunset Portraits

After our ceremony and while our guests enjoyed cocktail hour, our photographers whisked us away for some magical golden hour portraits! We hadn’t seen each other before the ceremony, so this was our chance to get beautiful pictures of the two of us. We planned our whole timeline for the day around the light, and thankfully the sun didn’t set until almost 8pm on our wedding day.

In the picture above you can really see where our photographers drove us. On the far right of the photo, you can see a road leading up to a hilltop covered in oak trees. That’s where our wedding was held. Our photographers put us in the back of their car and drove down the hill with us so they could get some dreamy portraits in the golden grasses growing around the property. I’m so glad they did, because I’m absolutely in love with how they turned out.

In the picture above, Grace was pointing out to me that the lights of our wedding reception were starting to twinkle. I love that they captured this :)

Our photographers snapped a couple of solo shots of us too. They also had us do funny things like spin around in a circle with our eyes closed and then try to find each other and kiss, leading to pictures like this:

We had such a laid back, fun portrait session, and I was so grateful to our photographers. We chatted about leaving for Hawaii in just over 24 hours, our photographer Jesse’s pregnancy, and looking forward to eating our wedding food.

Here are a few more favorites:

Thanks for reading! I still have several posts left in my wedding series, so keep checking in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I am loving writing these, and I hope you love reading them.

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love