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Yesterday I watched our wedding video in its entirety (3.5 hours on two discs haha) and I bawled my eyes out. I know it sounds a little narcissistic to watch your own wedding video (In my defense, it was my first time!) but it was actually really really good for me to be able to just sit and see/hear everything that happened on that whirlwind day.

Our videographer, Dirk Gates from Studio West Video, was amazing. No, he wasn't fancy or crazy with his video skills, but he captured every. single. moment. No lie. I was so thankful to him to have all the important moments, speeches, prayers...even funny outtakes that he captured throughout the day. He even stayed for three hours past what he was paid for because he wanted to film more of the reception. BLESS HIS HEART-who does that nowadays?!?

Dirk slipped a mic into Blane's tuxedo lapel pocket before the ceremony and it really is comical to hear all of Blane's little comments throughout the day. During the ceremony you can hear him say things like, "There you go" to Grandpa after Grandpa finally came up with Blane's name in the introduction; "What do I do next?" after Grandpa sat down; and "Glad that's over" after the reading of our personal vows. You also hear him exclaim, "It was 20 bucks man!!!" to his friend Mark during the church reception while showing off his new wedding ring. LOL. My husband's natural lack-of-filter leaves the rest of us with some pretty funny moments. :D

One of my top 10 pieces of advice for future brides planning their big day would be to hire a videographer. You'll hear it a lot but it's so true-the day goes by so fast and you'll want something to look back on so that you can see all of your little funny moments and touching ones too that helped make that day so special. Photos won't cut it because you won't be able to see reactions on yours and others faces to things that happen during the day. I had the time of my life on my wedding day, but I really appreciated being able to watch the ceremony and all the speeches again...they hit me harder this time in a good way and now Blane and I will forever have them to look at time and time again.

Speaking of time, I've now watched the video in its entirety twice. Cheers to wedding narcissism ya'll! ;)

Mrs. S

Wedding Sneak Peaks from our Photographer

A sneak peak of our wedding photos by the ever lovely Viera Photographics!

If you want to see the full post on Viera's blog, click here.

I think Viera did a great job of capturing the emotion and feeling of the day don't you? I can't wait to see the rest of their photographs! I love the one of Blane looking at my Dad with his eyes. It might be my favorite of the bunch.

Which one is yours?

Mrs. S

TTYL!

We're off to the land of Kiwis and Lord of the Rings fame! Pray for us as we navigate a 14 hour flight, time change, figure out a new culture/customs and just get used to traveling together. We're excited and we can't wait to conquer New Zealand, rain or shine :).

See ya'll when we get back!

Aim

Some Special Moments from the Wedding Day

 Quid helping me go over my vows one last time before we headed for the church...

 Jdawg picking the bridal party up to chauffeur us to the church-he spent all night cleaning out his car and taking out car seats so that it would be "wedding worthy" for us...

 My amazing wedding coordinator Lori, showing off the necklace Blane and I made for her. The day would not have gone as smoothly as it did without her. And my bouquet...our florist, the Little Branch, surprised me with peonies in October! Peonies are my favorite flower but incredibly difficult to find this time of year. Apparently not so for the awesome Meg and Annie over at Little Branch. <3!!!

 Blane's brother and Best Man, Blake, simultaneously watching a "bow-tie tutorial" and tying Blane's bowtie, minutes before the ceremony.

 Our church reception food preparers extraordinaire-Christine and Joanne. They weren't even invited to the wedding yet they came to help anyway. Gotta love that heart. And my dear 90-year-old Grandpa who defied his own self-consciousness at walking in front of people to stand at the front of the church so that Dad and I could walk down to him. He told me the week before the wedding that he'd "do anything for me." Brings tears to my eyes at the love this man has shown me.

 On the left, Blake giving my sister a "how-to-hold-Aimee's-train-better" lesson...something he did all afternoon when we were trampling along at the beach after the reception for some photos. He was on the look out all day. Thanks to him my dress stayed pristine! Haha. And my beloved old friend Jamie on the right who was the lucky and of course random (!!!) recipient of my bouquet toss!

And finally, the ushers+Pat and their magnificent send-off for the two of us. Blane's favorite NBA player of all time is Lebron James, as you know, and if you know anything about Lebron, then I don't have to explain this picture any further. :) Blane died he was so loving this moment!

There's more to come-this is just a snapshot into the first half of the day.

Stay tuned!

Mrs. S

Some stills from our Wedding Video...

XOXO,

Mrs. S

We're MARRIED! :D

Just a little snippet from the best day ever. :D Our wedding was everything that I could have ever imagined and more. It was amazing to see a vision come to life, to receive all of the love and support from family and friends, to just celebrate the love that God has given us and hopefully, in it all, we glorified Him.

 "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." Psalm 51:10-12

Here's to a new Chapter!

The new Mrs. S ;)

Countdown to I Do

8 more days!!!

<3,

Aim

Help Wanted

You know, when you're working on something as big as a wedding, it's easy to get overwhelmed. Many, many people have asked me if they could be of help in anyway. It's hard for me to know what to say sometimes. I know some people really mean it, but there are some tasks that I need to get done that aren't so glamorous and I feel bad about asking others to do them when they aren't the most fun things to do.

Enter these wonderful people. 

 My Mom and B's Mom have been to almost every single appointment with me. They are rockstars. If I need a buddy for a dress fitting, or to taste test cake flavors or to go downtown to pick up a hairpiece...you name it, they're willing to do it with me. For them I am thankful <3

This is Christina. She is one of my oldest friends from our conference. Christina is gifted in many ways, but one of her great talents is putting shindigs together and making everything look cohesive and insanely professional. She is organizing/beautifying/running our entire church reception. I trust her to pull it off without a hitch. She has lifted a huge weight off of my shoulders for our wedding day. We met this week and spent hours going over everything from set up to food to decor...all the nitty gritty details. I appreciate that she's action-oriented and she gets stuff done. So thankful for you NBF!

Kiks volunteered on her own this past week to take care of our slideshow. I was SO thrilled. It has been something that has been stressing me out because I am not good at putting those types of things together. Kiks even offered to scan all our old pictures. She's a doll and a lifesaver. Thank you Kiks!

Excuse the group pic, but I didn't have another pic of Linda (she's smack dab in the middle). Linda gets her name from always trying to set up single people she cares about with potential future spouses. She's notorious for this...skill? Haha. Anywho, Linda used to be my Sunday School teacher when I was growing up and more recently has been serving with me with the youth. She's our Middle High Sunday School teacher and she's also been helping me with other youth stuff too. :) The job she volunteered for is not glamorous by any means, but man, am I grateful that she is going to be doing it! You see, B and his guys are going to be staying at our new house the night before the wedding and I wanted someone to go in and clean it on Saturday before the wedding because B and I will also be going back there after the wedding that night. I didn't want to be coming home to a messy house. Linda didn't even bat an eyelash when she told me to give her the keys because she's on it!

 And this one: you can call her Junior or Marymount or FFB, whichever one floats your boat. Today I'll call her FFB. FFB is one of my past kiddos who is a big time collegiate now. Her and the rest of her posse/my kiddos from her year are serving at our wedding as our receptionists. (you remember them from the post where I was kidnapped? :) Well, FFB is going to make/create/organize all of the props that we need for our photobooths (we're having two). She is actually a master organizer and a people motivator and I have no doubt that whatever she creates will be high quality and totally unique to B and I. I am thankful that she is always so willing to jump in and help me and she's actually one of the only people whom I feel comfortable asking to do something for me. I don't know why-she's easy that way :).

These guys have been faithfully plugging away at our house for the past three weeks in hopes that we can move in soon. (cross your fingers!) I am thankful for B's Dad (in the middle) and his two hard workers for everything that they are doing to make our house liveable and beautiful for us. They work from 7am-5pm every day and it is looking so wonderful!

 And of course this guy. Because he works hard every day and then comes home to his "this-wedding-is-crazy-and-there's-still-so-much-to-do-in-just-16-days" wee bit stressed out fiancee. Thank you for just being by my side through it all. <3

So that's what's on my heart today. These great people and the way that they are tangibly loving me (and B!) right now. I am so grateful!

Cup runneth over,

Aim

Nom Nom

Amongst the plethora of wedding related tasks that B and I had to get done this past weekend was our final food tasting for our reception. (I know-poor us right? Haha) We knew better this time around and we came hungry-last time they gave us so much food that we could barely take a bite of each thing because we were so full.

We started with appetizers. I forgot to take a photo (my bad) but they were good. I was happy because the first appetizers we tried way back when weren't impressive. Today's were. Mission #1=accomplished. We tasted Fried Artichoke Balls, Mushroom Canapes, something phyllo dough w/spinach inside and some sort of chicken on a stick. All were good but the artichoke balls and mushroom canapes were goooood. :)

 From there we headed straight into the big ticket items=entrees! We tried two of each type of main dish-chicken, fish and beef. B and I are chicken lovers and, like our last tasting, the chicken was our favorite dish. B liked both but I liked the peppercorn flavored one a bit more so we're going to go with that as our chicken selection, complete with the chard and candied sweet potato pieces, just as it was served. It was yummy and all our fellow chicken-lovers will be happy! (btw, the other chicken dish was a lemon butter chicken that was still tasty, just not quite as tasty as the peppercorn one)

Next up are our fishies. Normally B and I eat salmon as our fish of choice, but this one was a bit dry and fishy-tasting for us. We also were not a fan of the rice pilaf that it was served with. Trying to serve rice to a group of Asians is never a good idea unless the people cooking the rice are Asian themselves. Can I get an amen please? Anywho, the other fish we tried was a Sea Bass and it was good-flaky and moist, with the most delicious balsamic reduction glaze on top. Again, the sides were mediocre at best so we decided on the Sea Bass but we're serving ours with purple fingerling potatoes and haricot verts. Fancy!

 Lastly, for all you cow lovers, are our beef dishes. We tried a filet and a flank steak and B said that the filet won, hands down. Apparently it was tender and well seasoned and all that good stuff. Plus it looked better on the plate than the flank steak did and of course, that's important! :D The grilled asparagus were yummy and we're going to pair it with garlic mashed potatoes. Mmmmmm.

So that's it. The final menu tasting has been completed! Yippppeeeeeee! What did you order? Hopefully you won't change your mind after you read this post! ;)

Gochisosama,

Aim

FFBTR, Day Two

While Day One was jam-packed full of fun and new experiences, Day Two was the perfect counterbalance. We started the day with a glorious sleep! I think being able to sleep in is one of the top 10 luxuries in life, most definitely! 

Once we finally got ourselves out of bed, we made our way to the nearest caffeine station, a definite must for any "morning." ;)

Here we are closing the "door" of our Venice pad. 

The place came with two beach cruisers so we wanted to give them a go. The problem was that there were four of us and only two of them. Hence the following hilariousness:

Quid and I attempted many ways at writing tandem. She's so little that she fits just about anywhere...

Bub was on the other cruiser and Pap was on her rollerblades. The girl can still work a self-portrait though. Incredible!

On to coffee we were...which ended up being just down the block. Haha! I don't think we would've made it that much farther though so good thing it was :)

Groundwork Coffee Company is a Venice Beach hippie's paradise. There were so many characters in there! I think the four of us stood out like sore thumbs :). The coffee was strong and good and they serve breakfast until 1pm on weekends-the breakfast burrito was delish!

Later that night the girls had a special potluck dinner planned back at the Venice pad. 

 Pap and her mad kitchen skills created thyme butter and salt/pepper salmon as well as a peppery lemon chicken, both of which she cooked fresh on the grill outside!

 The girls brought yummies such as honey fried chicken wings, tofu salad, chinese chicken salad, spinach salad, chicken tortilla soup and of course, rice which made up the rest of the spread. There was so much food! Here is the table with everyone getting their grub on!

As a special surprise, the girls had a masseuse come in house for the evening and everyone got a massage! One of the lovely ladies from our conference, Kaoru, is an amazing masseuse and she came with her table and gave each one of us a wonderful massage during the evening. There were also a few presents that I had to open that shall remain in their boxes. Sorry! Not for blog-eyes to see ;)

 Also on the agenda that night was a "movie under the stars" outside on our private patio. We watched the movie "Bridesmaids" and laughed our heads off at this sometimes crude, but also incredible hilarious movie. Perfect timing too because it just came out on DVD in time for this evening!

 Here's the gang at the end of the evening. It was also Kaoru's birthday the next day so we stuck some candles into the cake and sang to her too. Great fun with all the ladies! I am thankful for each one <3

To Pap, DD, Quid and Bub~THANK YOU for the best-for-me Bachelorette that a girl could have asked for. You know me so well! I enjoyed so much all that we did, but most of all, I enjoyed just being with the four of you. Thanks for finding the cool Venice pad, for organizing an incredible dinner with friends, for fun times in Malibu and for the late night talks too! 

Here's to the bridesmaids of the century! <3

Aim