6.9.12
Since I was MIA from this blog for almost 2 years (which I'm still angry at myself about...and missing out on blogging the first 9 months of Patrick's life...but that's a rant that's been sung before, so I'll spare you this time), there were a lot of significant events I missed out blogging about. When I did my "Time Lapse" post back in January, I did update on the things that have been a'happenin' the past two years. However, some of those things I felt like deserved their own post. One of those things being our wedding, which was on June 9th, 2012.
We are a little over a month out from our 2 year anniversary, and I thought I'd take a little stroll down memory lane to re-hatch some of the events and festivities from the best day of our lives...well, best day until May 2nd, 2013 rolled around. I recently looked at our wedding website and gasped that it's been 689 days since we got married! I was kinda shocked too that theknot.com didn't yank down our website once our day had passed. If you want to know all the lovie-dovie details of how we met or how Mike proposed, head over there and give it a read.
Our wedding was at the church both Mike and I grew up in, and our reception was at Rose of the Hill in St. Louis. Mike and I went to a police events several years earlier at Rose of the Hill, and then (in 2009) we were like, "Oh wow, this is a super cool place!" When wedding planning came around, we both wanted to look at Rose of the Hill (to see if our "super cool place" memory of it was actually real), and as soon as we did we booked it. It was just perfect and everything we wanted in a reception venue. Plus, the food was ah-mazing! Since Rose of the Hill is owned by Favazza's--an amazing Italian restaurant on the Hill)--they serve Favazza's food. It was so yummy.
My mom came up with an awesome idea to do a candy bar as wedding favors, but everything was green and yellow (our wedding colors) themed. This was a big hit at the reception! The line was literally snaked around the tables because so many people wanted to get their candy on! 'Twas a good call on the candy bar mama.
By today's standards--which it seems like everyone has 8+ bridesmaids and 8+ groomsmen nowadays--we had a small wedding party: 4 bridesmaids and 6 groomsmen. Since I have 2 brothers and Mike has 3, there were instantly 5 groomsmen. Mike then asked his good buddy John to be his best man, so boom. There were his 6--easy peasy. I had Mike's sister Erin as one of my bridesmaids, and then my friends Courtney, Lisa, and maid-of-honor Lauren. We really did have a fantastic wedding party and had so much fun with them that day. I should mention that my mom MADE all of the boys' bow ties and cummerbunds too! Since the tux shop we went with didn't have the same color as the bridesmaids' dresses (and I didn't want them not to match--one of the things I was a stickler about!), I ordered the same color and type of fabric from the maker of the bridesmaid dresses and my mom made all of the boys' their bow ties and cummerbunds.
And I loved how we got to walk out of the church with him too! Totally defines our life--and the namesake of this blog!--that we are living in his world. And, side note, I'd totally do this again too. Even though Patrick has completely stolen my heart, Scooter still has it too--I love him just as much as I did pre-human-baby. Some people told me that once I had a baby, the dog goes by the wayside. False. I love Scooter just as much as I did before Patrick. When Patrick came, my heart just got bigger.
One of my favorite parts of the day was that Mike drove us away from the church post-wedding in my aunt Kate's 1966 (green!) Ford Mustang. This was super cool and I think everyone loved seeing us cruise away in the 'stang. Plus, made for some cool pictures too.
We took pictures after the ceremony and before the reception at a few different venues: downtown Kirkwood, Lafayette Park in Lafayette Square, the SLMPD police station, and Ted Drewes. I just love how different each of these shots were and how they turned out! Scooter joined us for the downtown Kirkwood pics, then he went and crashed at our house the rest of the night.
The music was great, the food and drinks were excellent, and, we had a photo booth! This was definitely one of my favorite parts of our wedding! I still look back at our photo booth guest book (people got 2 copies of their photo booth strip: one for them to keep, and one for them to put in a scrapbook for us to keep!) and laugh. If you're reading this and planning a wedding (or will be one day!): get a photo booth. It's worth every penny you spend and you'll love seeing all of the creative pics your guests come up with! All of the props for the photo booth I either made or bought. Definitely glad we dropped a few dollars on them!
We are a little over a month out from our 2 year anniversary, and I thought I'd take a little stroll down memory lane to re-hatch some of the events and festivities from the best day of our lives...well, best day until May 2nd, 2013 rolled around. I recently looked at our wedding website and gasped that it's been 689 days since we got married! I was kinda shocked too that theknot.com didn't yank down our website once our day had passed. If you want to know all the lovie-dovie details of how we met or how Mike proposed, head over there and give it a read.
I know everyone says that their wedding day was the most perfect day, and I'm going to contribute to that sentiment: it totally was. We had gorgeous weather (albeit a tad bit warm at 90 degrees)--no rain!--and all of the year and a half plans came together amazingly. I should give a shout out to iKandi Photography for doing our gorgeous wedding photos! They couldn't have turned out any better, and we love love love looking back through them and reliving that day.
I should point out our (mine and the bridesmaids) shoe selections for the wedding: I wore lace Toms, and the bridesmaids all wore matching Teva mush flip flops. I wanted to be comfy all day, and I wanted my bridesmaids to be too, therefore, these are the shoes we went with, and I think everyone was happy about them! Thank you long dresses for covering them up for the "formal" pictures :)
Most of the wedding plans I was totally chill-go-with-the-flow about. I'm not a crazed person about these types of things, so when my mom kind of took the reigns in our wedding planning, I was more than happy to let her do whatever she wanted (that we were okay with :)--she loves doing that stuff, and she knows how "roll with it" I am, so it worked out very well. There were a few things I was adamant about, and one of those being how we were going to sleep at each of our parents' houses the night before the wedding, and then we wouldn't see each other until I was walking down the aisle. That was probably may favorite part--seeing Mike for the first time at the church.
My mom came up with an awesome idea to do a candy bar as wedding favors, but everything was green and yellow (our wedding colors) themed. This was a big hit at the reception! The line was literally snaked around the tables because so many people wanted to get their candy on! 'Twas a good call on the candy bar mama.
By today's standards--which it seems like everyone has 8+ bridesmaids and 8+ groomsmen nowadays--we had a small wedding party: 4 bridesmaids and 6 groomsmen. Since I have 2 brothers and Mike has 3, there were instantly 5 groomsmen. Mike then asked his good buddy John to be his best man, so boom. There were his 6--easy peasy. I had Mike's sister Erin as one of my bridesmaids, and then my friends Courtney, Lisa, and maid-of-honor Lauren. We really did have a fantastic wedding party and had so much fun with them that day. I should mention that my mom MADE all of the boys' bow ties and cummerbunds too! Since the tux shop we went with didn't have the same color as the bridesmaids' dresses (and I didn't want them not to match--one of the things I was a stickler about!), I ordered the same color and type of fabric from the maker of the bridesmaid dresses and my mom made all of the boys' their bow ties and cummerbunds.
She even made one for our little ring bearer too! Wasn't Scooter just the cutest?!! He definitely stole the show.
And I loved how we got to walk out of the church with him too! Totally defines our life--and the namesake of this blog!--that we are living in his world. And, side note, I'd totally do this again too. Even though Patrick has completely stolen my heart, Scooter still has it too--I love him just as much as I did pre-human-baby. Some people told me that once I had a baby, the dog goes by the wayside. False. I love Scooter just as much as I did before Patrick. When Patrick came, my heart just got bigger.
One of my favorite parts of the day was that Mike drove us away from the church post-wedding in my aunt Kate's 1966 (green!) Ford Mustang. This was super cool and I think everyone loved seeing us cruise away in the 'stang. Plus, made for some cool pictures too.
We took pictures after the ceremony and before the reception at a few different venues: downtown Kirkwood, Lafayette Park in Lafayette Square, the SLMPD police station, and Ted Drewes. I just love how different each of these shots were and how they turned out! Scooter joined us for the downtown Kirkwood pics, then he went and crashed at our house the rest of the night.
Like I said before, the reception was so.much.fun. Looking back at these pictures makes me wish we could relive this day over and over again!
The way we ended our night was that we were driven home (we elected to stay at our house after the wedding--it was literally 3 miles from the reception place and then we wouldn't have to pay for a hotel and/or find a place for Scooter to stay!) in a police car! The police handcuffed us, then escorted us out to be taken home in the back of the police car! Who needs a limo, anyways?!! This was super cool. I think I posted these pics right away too because I thought it was super neat. Not many people (willingly) leave their reception in the back of a police car!
The only snafu of the entire day was that I forgot to put on my garter! Oopsies! I remember seeing it at my mom's house, and thinking, "I'll put that on before the reception cause it'll be hot and it'll bother me all day" and then--woopsies!--it never made it into our bag. We improvised during the garter removal at the reception and used one of Mike's brothers bow ties instead. Other than that, everything went perfectly and it was definitely the best day we could have asked for!
In true Alex-fashion, I did snap a few pics of my own that day...
I posted this one on Facebook in between the wedding and reception...typical Mooney surprised look.
I did love how both our parents had similar wedding cake styles, and we totally recreated that for ours! Another favorite part of the day. And, side note, the cake topper I had custom made from Etsy, and, of course, it had Scooter on it too. Would you expect anything else??!!
I hope you've enjoyed this trip down memory lane with me from our wedding day. I will forever be grateful to our parents, wedding party, friends, and family for such an amazing day and showering us with more love than we could have ever asked for!
