As You Wish

So, a year ago, I promised you guys a wedding blog. Either I forgot I said that, or life got so busy it MADE me forget that... but somehow, that never happened.

Here we are, a year+ into our marriage, and I am finally going to write it. Now, a recap for those new to the blog: Steve and I have had quite a journey over the last 9 years. We became friends on Twitter, over our love of the Atlanta Braves. When I became single a couple years later, we started talking more often, and our relationship developed. We met for the first time in person in Atlanta, June 2013, when we attended Chipper Jones's number retirement, and have been together ever since.

Steve likes to tell people he proposed 493,876 times - he probably did, but in his version of the story, I turned him down all those times. Truth is, we planned our wedding in October 2013 in a hotel room in Halifax, NS. We knew I was going to move to Canada, so we agreed the wedding would be in Atlanta. Atlanta will ALWAYS be home to me, and is the foundation of us getting together, so it was the perfect location. Little did we know, our immigration journey was going to be a long and bumpy one. November 2018, I FINALLY moved up to Canada on a visa. We got married in a quick justice of the peace ceremony in December so we could put in my permanent resident application. I didn't want to let go of the wedding I'd been planning for over 5 years, so we decided we'd still have the Atlanta wedding, and that would be the day we actually celebrated as our wedding anniversary.

I spent 5 months planning a wedding remotely, and let me tell you - I could not have asked for better vendors than the ones we used. I'll add all of their links at the bottom of this blog, because they deserve any and all business I can bring them. The ONLY part of the planning that was stressful for me, was not being able to see the venue in person. I am ALWAYS in hostess mode, and not knowing exactly where everything was, and how it was laid out (I was given floor plans and pictures, but it's never the same as seeing it in person) was killing me. Having a ridiculously patient venue staff was much appreciated, because I know I can be a lot, at times. I also was stressing over our wedding portraits, not knowing the scenery available to us at the venue. The portraits were EASILY the most important part of the day for me, because we had waited so long, and worked so hard for this moment. Our photog, Katie, was incredible, and made a point to visit the venue months ahead of the wedding to tell me what she saw for pictures. We had a bit of a kerfuffle getting an officiant, and I'm glad we did, because James ended up being the perfect choice for our special day.

I was blessed enough to have my Mama and sister do the flowers and cake for our day, so there wasn't any stress there, since they know me so well. My only stress with that part was making sure they knew how much I appreciated their efforts.

So, the day before the wedding came, and Mama, Gordon (stepdad), and I met at the venue to do a walk through of the venue, and make sure we had a good plan for setup the next day. Our wedding was a small affair, just family and close friends, so there wasn't a big event to prepare for, and seeing it all in person calmed me a lot. Again, the venue staff was so accommodating, and patient with all of my questions.

The prep on the wedding day is a bit of a blur, because it was so crazy. But I have this weird trait, as a SUPER anxious person, to go into calm mode when things are hectic (especially in a party setting, maybe it's the hostess in me?). So I just adjusted with the little curves the day threw at me. I simplified my makeup, was fine that the cake was melting in the heat, didn't care that I forgot some of the decorations in the car, etc. All that mattered to me was that Steve and I were getting our day, finally.

We started with a first look. I love the whole "first look is the walk down the aisle" concept, but since the portraits were so important to me, this gave us a chance to knock most of those out pre-wedding.

Then we came to the ceremony. As my readers know, my Daddy passed away in 2014. So, I knew I needed to have my Mama walk me down the aisle. She means just as much to me as he did. I have been so blessed with the parents (David, Jan, and Gordon) that God has given me, and having them all there, even with one in spirit, meant so much to me. We walked down to Haley Reinhart's version of Can't Help Falling in Love with You, as a nod to my Daddy. He was known to call and sing Happy Birthday to his friends/family as Elvis, so that was my way of including him in the moment.

We had an unplugged ceremony, and I think our guests felt restricted from that, so we have hardly any pictures from the reception (I'd hoped we'd have selfies galore). But the day was PERFECT, and we have amazing memories to last a lifetime. We could not have asked for a better day, and both still comment on the day when we look at the pictures. I mean...

PERFECTION.

If you're looking in the ATL area for wedding vendors:

Photography: Katie Coon Photography

Venue: Lanier Islands

Officiant: James Hamp

Hair: Laura Austin

Busy... I'm So Busy, My Head is Spinnin'

I was shocked, when writing my last blog, that it had been 9 months since I'd written last. I said I was going to write the post about our wedding, next.

It has now officially (tomorrow) been one year since that blog, and not a draft has been written. 

I guess life has changed a bit, huh? So, I am still going to do the wedding blog, maybe even tonight, but want to just do a general catch-up blog, first. I have a blog that I know is coming soon, but posting it without catching everyone up first would not make any sense, since none of you know what has happened in the last year, unless we're friends on social media. Brace yourselves - this is going to be a long one.

My last blog was July 2nd of last year, and I was discouraged about us finding a house. Exactly 18 days later, we did just that! When I was still in the States, and not sure when I'd be able to move up, we would talk about where we were going to live. My joke was always "well, we'll have a house on the water, for sure." Knowing that would never be the case, because the housing market up here is so expensive, that waterfront property was out of our reach. We'd been looking in an area that had big yards, because we had a precious pooch, that needed space to run. As all of my readers know, we unexpectedly lost her in 2017. But we stayed in the same area, because it was still the area we loved. On July 19, we got a text from a friend for us to take a look at a house in a different area, that we'd not had any desire to look at. His advice "I know it's not where you're looking, but trust me." We looked online, and it was a lakefront house. We called our realtor, asking her to add it to the 3 houses we had lined up for viewings the next day. When we showed up at the house, as we turned on the street, I was already saying "Ughhh... I hate how close the houses are to each other." When we parked in front of the house, and got out of the car, I instantly said "Wow... I love the outside. Look at that door! It looks like a lakehouse. You don't even notice that it's close to the neighbors." 

I was in love before I knew I was in love.

As we walked through the house, more and more got better. So we came to the moment we were "dreading". Going down to the basement. Every other house we'd looked at that we'd loved the main floor(s), the basement had killed it. For those not familiar with our relationship, we met on Twitter and became friends from both being Braves fans. We both happen to be big sports memorabilia collectors, so we were in need of a big basement to display everything. We walked downstairs, and I won't say we were blown away by the basement, but we could definitely see it working for us, plus it had my much desired downstairs guest bedroom. I love a guest bedroom where your guests feel like they have their own space at the end of the day. We walked down to the lake (even though there was no need - IT'S A LAKE, I'll take it), and by the time we got back up to the house, we looked at each other, and just knew. By early afternoon, we had an offer in on the house, and by that evening it had been accepted. We were under contract for our house!!

This was it the day we saw it first.

And this is the view from our backyard. 

So, our closing day wasn't until October 1st. Lots happened between then, most important: MY BIRTHDAY. I kid, my birthday used to be a big thing... but now that I live up here, the multiple friend celebrations can't happen. Our most notable thing between July and October was our visit to Newfoundland. Steve is from there, and his sister/her family live in St. John's. So we decided to go over Labor Day weekend. I am going to post some pictures, but NONE of them do the beauty of this area justice. I hope to get better with our "good" camera, and go when we can spend a good amount of time for me to capture the magnificence properly. We had SUCH a fun time with family, and I was sad to leave.

I also HAD to get screeched in while I was there. I am now an honorary Newfoundlander. I'm going to post the video of that moment first, but I HIGHLY recommend you watched them in order, because the guy that did the ceremony was BORN to do this job, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. 

The moment of being declared an honorary Newfoundlander (last of the series - video 5)

Pre-show (video 1)

Cooking the Newfie steak (video 2)

Most of the ceremony, plus kissing the cod! (video 3)

The shot of screech! (video 4)

So then, October rolled around, and we moved into our new house! We have done SO much work on the house since we've moved in, and even hosted a couple of parties in November and December, even though the house wasn't anywhere near ready for company. We got the fabulous news that Steve was finally going to get his hernia surgery that he'd been waiting on for almost 2 years at the time. The week before his surgery, COVID became a thing in North America. THANKFULLY, since it was so new, it did not delay his surgery. 2-3 more weeks, and he would've been on another indefinite end list. That being said, it has been our life since then. He's thankfully back at work (but from home), but we've been mostly at home for 5 months now. 

Yes, it sucks at times - my Mama & Stepdad were supposed to visit us end of May/first of June, and got cancelled - but you know what? We're healthy, and have income and a roof over our heads. I say we're good. 

I hope you all are, too!