kristen & daniel (our wedding!!).

Finally, our photos are out!!  Oh my...I want to describe our celebration with you a little bit, so here goes:

Dan and I got engaged in March of 2009 and after some deliberation with family, friends, and each other, we decided on a December wedding.  We had a budget of $7,000 which at first sounded like a very large sum-until we realized some of the costs of the different things that normally go into a wedding (especially when the guest list reached about 300!).  In all areas though, I feel we were able to cut down costs quite a bit.  I really liked the idea of doing a lot of things ourselves, which also greatly cut down costs!!  Our two very close friends got married in June of the same year and had a combined ceremony-reception, where, when the guests arrived they actually headed straight to their tables where they would later be enjoying brunch.  We really liked that concept and the fact that it could tone formality down quite a bit.  We also decided on having an early wedding (it helped with things like: cost, still having at least an hour or two to enjoy our wedding day together after everything was cleaned up, and...avoiding dancing!  Yeah, there it is...we're not into dancing!).  We decided on December 19th, 2009 at St. Elizabeth's, a big and beautiful old Catholic church that is now owned by the Vineyard.

After figuring out those big details everything else just had to come together slowly and in its time.  After seeing this lovely tutorial/DIY idea we decided on fabric flowers.  I purchased fabric for my dress with the help of my friend Beth at an amazing warehouse near Minneapolis.  We decided on having Spicy Pickle and homemade organic soups for lunch, with Izze's to drink of course (Spicy Pickle even let Dan create his own sandwich...which was gobbled up before we got to try one!)!  Espresso Guild catered the tea and La Terza coffee which was delicious.  We had a very original cake made by Take the Cake.  I've never been a huge fan of normal cakes (growing up I always requested cookie cake, ice cream cake, or dirt cake!!) so I called them to see if they might be able to create some kind of tiered cake that was cookie like.  It was hard to explain and I wasn't really even sure what I was asking for but we settled on a 3-tier cake, each tier made up of 3 layers: blondie brownie with raspberry swirl, buttercream connecting that to a chocolate layer of cookie/brownie, and then ganache connecting that to another blondie layer.  Oh my, it was SO delicious (and not to mention, under $400 for two!!).  I created the paper goods which later resulted in...homeseed!!  I did not expect to enjoy that portion of the process so much, but I really did.  We had some very dear friends do the music (I walked down the isle to sigur ros :D) and scripture readings, some more dear friends help with serving the food, a dear friend officiate, and two other very dear friends take the lovely photos below!  

A lot of how we were able to have a wedding as big as ours was with the budget at hand, was thanks to our beautiful community.  So many of our friends and family were willing to help (everyone asked me through our engagement how they could help!).  One of the most beautiful expressions of this willingness to help and sacrifice self was when 3 days before our wedding I slammed my finger in the car door.  I still had a fair bit of my dress to finish, the flowers for bouquets/tables/boutonnieres had not really been started, tags needed to be tied to the guest gifts...and more!!  It was awful, I was so afraid of what was going to happen...but, my wonderful bridesmaids, now mother-in-law, aunts, and cousins took care of the flowers and my mom drove over two hours to rescue my dress!  It was incredible.  So was watching the church get set-up (again, all of these beautiful people are to thank).  It was just an amazing thing to behold-the support, love, and friendship that was surrounding us and our future marriage.  I am so thankful.

One of my favorite memories from the day was of my incredibly peaceful morning.  Some family and friends along with all of the bridesmaids and I stayed right next door at the old convent which has been turned into a wonderful retreat center.  I woke up a couple of hours before any of my bridesmaids and went downstairs to coffee and bagels that were ready to be enjoyed.  I took a long shower and was able to take my time getting ready, not feeling rushed at all (which was amazing, I'm not the most relaxed person when it comes to time).  It was so fun too, to be getting ready with four ladies that mean a whole lot to me.  And then...it SNOWED!  I was so hoping for snow.  It was beautiful.

Well, I think that will do for now, I suppose that wasn't really a little description!  Enjoy!!

Happy eleven months Roger Daniel :)

I hope you liked those!  Here are some of my personal favorites.  Maybe we can call them bloopers?  Just look at the progression of body movement and facial expressions, amazing!  The photos we took with the bridal party might be my favorites... 

 And in these two, I really like how disheveled we look...:)

Thanks for looking, and friends and family-thank you, thank you, thank you for your endless and sacrificial love and support.

venue: St. Elizabeth's

dress: me and my momma!

bridesmaids dresses: Calvin Klein

paper goods: homeseed

coffee: Espresso Guild and La Terza

food: Spicy Pickle and Consumme Soup

photography: Cameron Huntington and Sarah Greco Elam

rings (only the bands, engagement is heirloom!): silverwoods

burlap table numbers/banner: funkyshique

paper goods/rings photography: Joe Lieske

cakes: Take the Cake

flowers/boutonnieres: everyone!

ps...If you have any questions about anything or if you'd like help/ideas for more inexpensive ideas, shoot me an email or leave a comment!