Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Anniversary Weekend

Had the best time this weekend.  It was really everything we had hoped for, a nice quiet weekend at the lake where we got to enjoy all the fun things we missed last year with that little thing called a wedding going on.  I can't believe it has been a year!  It has been a really good one and I know the next year is going to be crazy and exciting and stressful, so I am glad we got a little quiet before the storm.  
PS We went to Sonic for lunch on Sunday which was AMAZING!
xo,
C
view from our window
we went out on the rowboat.  rowing is hard!


our cute little cabin



we saw two deer on our hike (not pictured here)



tetherball is the funnest game and it only takes a minute (if you suck at it like I do)





Friday, August 19, 2011

Poconos or Bust


Today we are heading back to the Poconos to relive all the fun of our wedding weekend and I CAN'T WAIT!  Really looking forward to a fun, relaxing, stress free weekend.  I've posted a few more wedding pictures below and will continue the wedding extravaganza when we get back.

There's little miss lyss, so excited for my special day!  Alyssa was working it this weekend, let me just tell you.
Me and my brother and sister.  Just a candid moment.  (Fine, we had food stuck in our teeth after the  hors d'oeuvres finally made their way to us.)
Our fabulous wedding party.  Look how happy everyone is!


Sunday, August 14, 2011

Anniversary Countdown - The Venue

The mister is running a 5K in Prospect Park today.  I feel so bad for him because it is pouring rain!  I've decided to stay safe and warm by spending the morning on the couch watching this new Paris Hilton reality show on demand.  It's always important to take a little quality time for yourself, girls.  Words of wisdom from someone who knows. 


I know the blog has been a little quiet lately but life has not been.  There is so much going on around here.  The mister and I are celebrating our one year wedding anniversary next weekend.  I can't believe it has been a year!  We are planning to go back to the scene of the crime and spend a long weekend at the lake where we got married.  It was a great weekend the first time around but it went by so fast.  This time, we'll be going back just the two of us to enjoy all the fun stuff the lake has to offer.  In celebration of our pending anniversary, I'm going to post some of my wedding photos this week so we can all relive wedding memories together.  

So, Post 1, The Venue!

Let me just say, I loved planning my wedding.  Yes, it was stressful, but only in the sense that I wish it could have been my full time job, wink wink.  Erik and I got engaged in December and originally thought we would get married in the Fall, but once we started looking at places and checking available weekends, our timeline somehow became a little accelerated, and we ended up settling on August 21st.  

When we first got engaged, we had no idea where we wanted to get married.  I always thought I would want  a destination wedding, but it quickly became apparent that a destination wedding was not in the cards for us. We ultimately decided to get married in Pennsylvania, where I'm from and, looking back, I think it made things a lot easier for me seeing as how I tend to be a bit of a control freak when it comes to planning.  It was so important to me that we pick a place that had a special meaning.  I found it easy to become overwhelmed and intimidated when reading all the wedding blogs.  To me, it just seemed like everyone was tying the knot at their family farm, or their house upstate that they visited every year since childhood, or the summer camp where they met their fiance.   It was really annoying to me as I felt like we didn't have a place like that and I wasn't sure how we were supposed to find one in a few months.  We decided to start looking in the Poconos as it was close enough to both of our hometowns and would allow for a fun weekend getaway destination, which was important to us.  We really wanted all of our guests to enjoy the weekend and get to know eachother and have fun together.  

We chose Mountain Springs Lake after visiting several (old school) Poconos venues because it was everything we wanted.  It had a great outdoor space for the ceremony, a bright, beautiful space for the reception and the most adorable log cabins for our guests to stay in.   A few minutes into our first visit, my dad and I both realized that we had actually stayed there for a week with the family exactly twenty years earlier.  Special!  Fate!  And at the end of the day, it meant so much to me that we could get married somewhere that my mom had been since she couldn't be with us on that day.


Finding the right venue really set the tone for the whole wedding and all the planning that was about to take place and I am still so thrilled with our choice.  It's not every day that something just feels "right" and this one of those times.  Take a look at some of the pics below.


xo,
C


We used this picture on the stamps for our Save the Dates!

The cabins were so cute and came in all shapes and sizes.  We had a few cabin parties.  Luckily we didn't lose anyone in the woods!

Each cabin came with its own rowboat!

The cabins were gorgeous on the inside, all wood.

Our cabin had a huge porch.  Perfect for flip cup ;)

The reception hall was set next to a little pond.  


So pretty on the inside, all cream colors and big wide open windows, as day faded into night.

There was a gorgeous red barn on the property.  Perfect for picture taking.

Our ceremony site!  Peaceful and sweet.



Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Beach Week

Last week we took a little family vacation to Wildwood, NJ, also known as the Jersey shore!  It was great family fun - everyone managed to take the week off to be together, a rare feat as we all get older and are in different cities.  Each night a different pair took turns cooking dinner and we had some serious feasts.  Other than that it was just ice cream and fun in the sun (and we did get a lot of sun, I'm still peeling).  My only complaint is the week went by just a little bit fast. It's always so great to get home and back in the swing of things! ;)  And yes, somehow I managed to only get three pictures.


xo,
C