Three Years

On the day we were married, we had dreams of our future together and the family we would build. Just three years later, it feels like an eternity has passed, yet it also feels like only the blink of an eye. I'm not sure how that's possible, but it is what it is.

Today, we have the beginnings of the family we had hoped for. We have a little girl who is so much more amazing than we ever could have known. There is so much love within these (less than) 1,000 square feet that we need to move to a bigger house. (OK, so the move might have more to do with outrageous amounts of stuff that babies/kids need, but... love sounds more romantic, so let's go with that.)

Life is good. Cheers to three years, and to many more...

I swear to you - I will always be there for you
There's nothing I won't do
I promise you - all my life I will live for you
We will make it through
Forever - we will be
Together - you and me
Oh and when I hold you - nothing can compare
With all of my heart - you know I'll always be -
right there
I believe in us - nothing else could ever mean so much
You're the one I trust
Our time has come - we're not two people
Now we are one
Yeah you're second to none
Forever - we will be
Together - a family
The more I get to know you - nothing can compare
With all of my heart - you know I'll always be -
right there

"I'll Always Be Right There" - Bryan Adams

Read more...

Two Years

On June 21, 2008, I married my best friend.

Now, we are just 13 (or so) weeks away from embarking on the greatest adventure of our lives--parenthood. I am so happy to have Michael as my partner in this journey.

(If you haven't been a blog reader since the beginning, and want to see more wedding photos,
check out the slideshow I made for our anniversary last year,
or take a look at my wedding recap posts on Road to the Aisle.)

Read more...

One Year

One year ago, I woke up to my wedding day. And two seconds later, when it was all over, we had lived the best day of our lives, and we were married.

It's been a year. Wow.

To view this video bigger, simply click on it to take you to YouTube and watch it there.

While on the one hand, it feels like an accomplishment--an anniversary! a milestone!--On the other hand, I know that this is just one year out of many, many more. We have so much to look forward to in our future.

We will certainly be celebrating today. But we'll also be celebrating again within the next couple of weeks at home. We have anniversary cake to eat, and toasting flutes to drink champagne out of, and a unity candle to burn. We may even go back to our reception venue for dinner.

And so begins the celebration... :)

Read more...

Eleven Months

Well, how about that? This is the last monthly installment of our "mini anniversaries." Next month, we'll officially start counting in years. Pretty amazing.

I've found myself reflecting on where I was in my life one year ago. Have I ever expressed just how happy I am that I started blogging? At first, I started Road to the Aisle just for me. I was so excited to be engaged and getting married, and I wanted to chronicle the whole thing. I never expected anyone to read it, but once people started doing so, I remained motivated to blog because of it. I have always sort of felt an obligation to keep it up because of all of you, and I am just so glad I did.

I love going back and reading it all, but I especially love the entries in the month leading up to the wedding, and of course the wedding itself, and then the honeymoon. For whatever reason, those posts take me right back to that time, and I can feel the feelings--I can relive it all.

It's possible I might touch on this stuff again once we hit the one year mark, but when I look back at this post, sent from my BlackBerry, right before I went inside the church to get married? I feel the anticipation all over again. And it's funny, too, because I was standing there by myself just waiting, and trying to pass the time, and when I first thought about taking a photo and posting it on the blog, I laughed at myself. Noooo, certainly I shouldn't do that. How stupid of me, to be thinking about my blog at a time like this. But I did it anyway. Now, it's probably one of my favorite posts I ever put up on Road to the Aisle. And it doesn't even contain any words! Oddly enough, it happened to post at the exact time my wedding ceremony was scheduled to start--2:00 p.m. I look at the timestamp and I can't help but smile.

One year ago, I was preparing for a bachelorette party. Making jewelry. Hunting down late RSVPs. Designing rehearsal invitations. Trying out a spray tan. Doing funny things in my sleep. Getting licensed. Running into issues with programs (then fixing issues with programs). Indulging in a glass (or two) of wine almost every night. Bidding adieu to work for three weeks. Losing weight without even trying.

What a crazy time that was. I don't have any desire to do it again (except for maybe the effortless weight loss; that, I could live with). I'm grateful to be living a more relaxed lifestyle this year. But wow, looking back on all of that? F-U-N.

Read more...

DIY Parent Wedding Albums

Technically, this post probably belongs over at Road to the Aisle, so I might post it over there, too. But a few people have asked me about this, so I figure, what the heck...

Back at Christmas, I mentioned how we had given our parents wedding albums for gifts. I promised to take photos of the pages and post a full review.

Well, 4+ months later, here I am, and I'm finally doing what I said I'd do. I stole my mom's album for the weekend and took photos of it for all of you to see.

We had the albums made from Mpix.com. They are their "Assembled Albums," and we chose the 8" x 10" size, with 40 pages. The cover is black leather, and it is quite beautiful, and very sturdy.

We had our names and the date foil stamped on the cover. This cost a little bit extra, but we thought it was worth it.

I designed all of the pages myself, using Photoshop. I created a separate Photoshop document for each page using the specifications (measurements) from Mpix. From there, I pretty much had complete creative freedom.

The photo pages are mounted onto the album pages leaving a 1/16" border around the edges. If you decide to do collage pages like I did, you can make your background any color you want. I decided to keep it kind of classic-looking, and made my backgrounds black. I added a thin white border around all of the photos to give it a more finished look.

We did a couple of black-and-white spreads, too.

Mpix doesn't offer any templates, so this was all me. I experimented with different sizes with the photos, different crops, different positioning. Once I found combinations that worked, I repeated them on several pages, sometimes just changing them slightly. Above, you see that the templates on these pages are simply mirror images of each other.

For the groomsmen and bridesmaid pages, I decided to add a little text. Our parents didn't know all of the bridesmaids and groomsmen prior to the wedding, but everyone got along really well. I wanted them to be able to remember the names of everyone in the bridal party, so we had these pages that included a photo of each of the groomsmen and bridesmaids separately, with their names underneath. They came out really well.

Our parents' albums were slightly different from each other. Some pages were identical in both albums, but we swapped out some of the family photos. For instance, above, you see a page with photos of my parents and me. In Michael's parents' book, that page contained photos of him with his parents.

I love that the pages lie flat when you're flipping through them.

On the right, I cropped the photo to be 8" x 10" size, and uploaded it as it was so that it took up the entire page.

One limitation to these albums (as compared to some others) is that you cannot span a photo across both pages (as a two-page spread). If I had that option, I probably would have done it for the photo of our bridal party in the field.

The page on the right is one of my favorites. Our photographers had taken a photo of us dancing from an angle that included a lot of the floor in the shot. I cropped the photo to fit to the full 8" x 10" page, then layered smaller photos over the top of it (over the dance floor). I just loved how it turned out.

We had to have a full spread dedicated to the toast. SO. MANY. AWESOME. TOAST. PHOTOS. It was so hard to narrow them down.

This is another one of my favorite spreads. Love the huge full-page photo of the cake!

For the reception, I ended up using a lot of smaller photos. We had so many good ones, and we decided we would rather use more photos at a smaller size than have to narrow them down and use less of them at larger sizes. These turned out to be some of my favorite pages, simply because they are so filled with FUN.

Last page, with the back cover.

Here is a close-up of one of one of the pages with a full-page photo. You can easily see the 1/16" black border that they leave around each page. The photos are mounted onto the album pages really well.

Here is another photo of one of the corners. I wanted to show you what one of the pages looked like that had the black background.

We are extremely happy with how these turned out, and couldn't be more pleased with Mpix. These albums are a bit pricey--definitely more than you'd pay should you decide to use Blurb, My Publisher, etc. But the quality, in my opinion, far surpasses that of the other companies. These are professional albums, and if you look at it that way, the prices aren't bad at all.

They were delivered to us really quickly, too. Once I uploaded the pages and submitted our order, I want to say they were on our doorstep less than a week later. I think they generally process and ship orders within 24-48 hours.

Disadvantages to these albums? Well, the biggest one is that you kind of have to know what you are doing. Experience with design and layout certainly helps, especially when you have to be mindful of leaving space around the edges for trimming. As I mentioned before, Mpix doesn't provide any templates, so you have to start from scratch on your own. For some people, that's a huge advantage--total freedom to do what they want with every page--but for others, it's a disadvantage because it is wayyy more work.

We plan to eventually make an album like this with our honeymoon photos. I just have to find the time! For our parent albums, we had a reason to get them done quickly--I had a deadline! But it was all very time-consuming. I spent the better part of a WEEK in front of the computer designing pages.

In the end, it was completely worth it. Before we gave them to our parents, I was flipping through them myself several times a day. They're beautiful, and the quality of the photos is fantastic. I have no doubt that these albums will stand the test of time, and will be something our parents will be able to share with people for years to come.

If you have any questions about the albums, please let me know in the comments. Be sure to check back, because that's where I'll answer the questions as well.

Read more...

Ten Months

Remember when I said I couldn't wait to get to the 10-month mark?

It was because I knew that by 10 months, it'd be spring. So here we are; and it is. In fact, it is supposed to be 80 degrees on Saturday, and like 75 on Sunday. Finally! Yayy!

Now we're looking forward to the big 1-year mark. We'll be in San Francisco!

Wedding-related confession: Our photographers sent us the electronic proofs of our album pages like 3-4 weeks ago and I have done almost nothing with them. I know that I want to make changes, but am completely overwhelmed by it. I don't even know how to start. At this rate, our album will NEVER be done! I wanted to have it by our first anniversary, but I highly doubt that is going to happen. :(

Read more...

Nine Months

Read more...

Eight Months

I'm actually having one of those days when it feels like we've been married longer than eight months. Usually these posts involve me talking about how quickly time is flying, and I guess that overall, it is.

But right now, I am so sick of and done with winter that these last several weeks until spring are just killing me. As a result, I wish I was posting about say... the ten-month mark instead. :)

*sigh* Soon enough.

It is still nice to celebrate yet another month of our first year of marriage, however.

Speaking of the wedding, we are still waiting on our album from our photographers. I can't wait to get it; it will be nice to go through it and reminisce. I love looking through the albums that we made for our parents for Christmas.

We're really closing in on a year now. June will be here again before we know it. I absolutely cannot wait. The warm weather, the shorter hours at work, our trip out west... not to mention all of the new babies that will be here by then. We have much to look forward to.

Read more...

Seven Months

I went through a good portion of the day thinking to myself, "January 21. January 21... why do I feel like something happens on January 21?"

As it turns out, nothing happens on January 21, but the "21" will probably always sound familiar to me.

Why? Well, because of June 21, of course.

Seven months now! Well on our way to the one-year mark.

And speaking of the one-year mark... Tonight, we booked our flight for our first anniversary trip. We're going to Seattle and San Francisco!

I was born in Seattle, but only lived there until I was 6 years old. I've been back a few times, but Michael has never been. It's been on our "list" for a while, so we figured we'd jump at the opportunity to go all of the way out there while we have the chance.

Neither of us have been to San Francisco, and we've always wanted to go, so hey--if we're going all the way across the country, we might as well take advantage of it and visit two cities instead of one.

So we're going to be spending about 5 days in Seattle, and then another 5 in San Francisco. Fun, fun! We're hoping the weather will be kind to us and it'll be beautiful for mid-June. Can't wait!

Meanwhile, we still have four more "mini anniversaries" until we hit the real one. But with the way things have been going, those will all fly by before we know it. Isn't that just the way life works?

Read more...

Six months

It's our half anniversary. Half a year already! I can't believe how quickly time is passing.

Read more...

Five months

Read more...

Four months

We've been married four months today. A third of a year!

We've officially made it longer than most Hollywood couples. Go us.

P.S. Our friends, Kristin and Keith, welcomed a beautiful baby girl to the world today. Emma Rose. Big baby girl weighed in at 8 lbs., 14.5 oz. :) Happy Birthday, Emma!

Read more...

Trash the Dress - Preview

Well, we didn't really trash the dress. As Judy, the photographer, said--it was more like "celebrate" the dress. And we did.

Judy just e-mailed me with some preview photos. Weeeee! She made sure to say, "These aren't even some of the best ones... I figured I'd save those for later." So now I'm really curious as to what they all look like. But I'll share the teasers with you. Photos are copyright of Judy Cormier at Elementz of Fotographie.

To tell you a little bit about the shoot as I take you through the pics...

It was a lot of fun. When I got there, Judy had a makeup artist ready to do my makeup for the shoot. Judy wanted it to be dramatic, so that's what she did. It was pretty funny to catch glimpses of myself in a mirror now and then. I don't wear a lot of makeup so it was like I wasn't even looking at myself.

We started off in an old, abandoned brick factory in Toronto. We sorta had to sneak in through an opening in a fence--which was a challenge in a wedding dress--and down this short, steep hill into a makeshift entrance at one of the corners of the building. As soon as Darsi (Judy's assistant) stuck her head inside, she was like "Oh my god!!" (Judy and Darsi had never actually been inside before. They had only heard it was cool.) At first, I didn't know if that reaction was a good or bad thing. As it turned out, it was good.

There was graffiti everywhere, which made for some interesting backdrops. All of the catwalks and kilns and such were all still standing, so I was all over the place in there for different poses.

At one point, when I was up on the catwalk, something happened to catch my eye on the far wall. Someone had actually spray painted "TRASH THE DRESS" in big red letters. So apparently we weren't the first dress trashers to ever be in the brick factory. But of course we had to stop and take a few photos in front of it. Can't let a perfect backdrop like that go to waste.


They also played around a bit, using a video light and a grate/cage looking door. These ones are actually sorta dark (almost creepy!) looking. Very non-bridal. I like it.

Then I went down into one of the kilns (they were long and hallway-like), and she asked me to run. From an axe murderer. OK, she didn't say that, but doesn't it look like I'm maybe in some horror movie?

I think this next shot is from Judy's favorite location/pose of the day. Also in one of the kilns. The brick factory had these skylights all throughout, and in these shots, Judy used the natural light coming down from them.

I'll recap the rest later this week/next week when I have the rest of the photos. I think some of the stories will make more sense that way.

Read more...

Three months

I realized today that yesterday was our three month anniversary. Wow.

Dear Time,

Please stop passing so quickly. At this rate, my life will be over before I know it.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Heather

Read more...

One Month!

We have been married for one month.

On one hand, it's hard to believe that time has passed so quickly. On the other, the wedding seems like it was ages ago already. It's weird.

I've been getting a lot of the "So how's married life?" question. It's funny, because I'm never quite sure how to answer that one, aside from saying, "It's good! Very good." I try to come up with a more unique answer, but seriously... what do you say?

The truth is that married life--at least for us--is not much different than unmarried life. We already lived together for three years before we got married. With the wedding and the marriage, all we did was make it official.

The biggest change has just been my name. I'm still getting used to it. I honestly haven't had to use it that much yet, so in a way, it hasn't even hit me that I'm not Heather Oldlastname anymore. I always knew I'd change my name when I got married. I didn't think it was a big deal. But I'll admit to being a little bit sad on the day I was at Social Security and the DMV, "handing over" my old name for the new one. It is just an odd thing--I've spent almost 26 years of my life as Heather Oldlastname, and now I am not "her" anymore. I don't regret changing it, though. I know I'll adjust.

And I love saying "my husband" now. That's a change, too.

We are still waiting (impatiently) for our pro pictures and our video. I thought for sure we would have both by Friday of last week, but apparently everyone is running a bit behind. Hurry it up already, I want to relive my wedding!

You hear people talking about "wedding withdrawal." After spending so much time and effort planning the wedding, there are the people who are really sad when it's over and don't know what to do with themselves.

Yeah, umm... that's not me. I have not really experienced any of that. There are times when I think I'd like to go back and relive the day over again. But that's only because 1) It went by so fast, and 2) I had SO much fun.

On Friday night, we were at my mom's house for a party. At one point, I did sneak away to go "visit" my dress. It's still hanging on the back of the closet door in one of her spare bedrooms. I hadn't seen it since the day after the wedding, so it was kind of funny. It is still completely filthy. I had a lot of second thoughts about my dress between the time I bought it and the wedding day, but now, I can't imagine having worn anything else. On the wedding day, as soon as I put it on with everything else--made-up hair, professional makeup, my jewelry, the bouquet--it all really came together for me and I knew I had made the right decision.

We aren't really "celebrating" tonight. I'm just going to make dinner at home.

So here I am, on the other side. And I gotta tell you... life is good.

Read more...