Wedding in Hvar!

My long overdue wrap up of our holiday in July (epps, how is it almost the end of August already!).

We were in Hvar for a friend's wedding. It has changed slightly since we were last there in 2009. Maybe because I'm getting older, but it seems much more like a party island then it did before. We were catching up with friends over drinks (smoothies for me, beers and cocktails for everyone else) and there was a massive spring break-like party going on in the place next to where we were sitting. It was only 5!

Some pics from the wedding. They hosted the ceremony in this lovely ruin and then we took boats to a small island off Hvar. After the reception, there was another boat to another island for some clubbing. Hubby and I took the old people boat home instead. :)

Gorgeous wedding venue! 

Lady friends and the bride
Guess no one wanted to look in the same direction! 

Reception by boat! 

The Bride and Groom's James Bond-like entrance by speed boat (with flares!)

Hubby and I at the reception- Gorgeous views! 

Not a proper Irish wedding until the boat is rocked! 

The time I went to a wedding and got licked

• 350 people at a wedding in the Irish country side
• I knew one person (the hubby)
• I had some champagne 
• I made new lady friends
• One of my new lady friends couldn't believe I wasn't wearing spray/leave-in tan
• She licked my arm to find out if I was lying
• TWICE! 
• Irish girls are OBSESSED with fake tan

photo booth pics from the wedding 

Castlemartyr

Over the weekend (after the crazy flight home from SF), Hubby and I headed to a good friend's wedding at Castlemartyr. This was our second wedding at this venue this summer. It was a lovely affair   and the lucky newlyweds are heading to South America for their honeymoon (JEALOUS!).

Cows at Church 

The Gorgeously Happy couple! 

The ladies! 

Hubby and I after a LOOOONG night of dancing! 

{ one year }

Happy Anniversary to my favorite buddy!!! Sadly, I'm 5,080 miles away from Hubby today - Boo hoo-  but I'll be back on Friday!

Some of my favorite snaps from our wedding.

The Vietnamese Tea Ceremony 

Pictures in a field, as you do...

Mr & Mrs! 

First Dance

Silly!

Good night kisses on Lake Winnipesaukee

Wet wedding weekend

Hubby and I headed down to Cork this past week to celebrate our friends' S&R's wedding. It was a gorgeous wedding in a gorgeous setting. Sadly it rained....and rained and rained... Luckily, a little sunlight came out in the afternoon for them for a couple of quick outdoor shots.

The wedding was a blast and one of my favorite 80's band (one of? It's really the only one I know...) was playing at the wedding. So much fun!

The chapel on University of County Cork's campus.
The Bride went to school here (so did Hubby!). 

Man and Wife! 

Also man and wife :) 

Googlers!  

Hello? Is it me you're looking for? 

The bride and her lady friends

Spring break! 

Cool dudes. Who doesn't love props?!?!?

Surprise Package

Look what came in the mail today!!! The long version of our wedding video. Can you see the "review" below?

"The ultimate romantic comedy" - Friends and family. Har Har!

You know what I'll be doing this weekend! (Besides watching rugby AND soccer AND American Football!)

Belated New Year's Post

Ekks... I'm behind on my adventure posts! :)

Hubby and I headed to Westport, County Mayo on New Year's eve for a friend's wedding. We had such a short time there and sadly only saw the inside of the wedding hotel and the church. We didn't even head down to the village area with it's lovely canal and apparently amazing pubs with great live trad music. Oops! Definitely one to add to the potential travel spots for weekend trips.

The wedding was our first after our own wedding so was really nice to sit back and just enjoy the readings and ceremony and champagne!!! :)

Bride and Groom with a festive Christmas tree 

Prom pictures! 

New year, new hair for hubby! 

The gals with the bride 

Yippee!

Our little wedding got posted to a fun wedding blog (my wedding dream come true, besides marrying Hubby).

You can find the two parts here and here.

The Dress

Back to some wedding posts... and most importantly (besides hubby!), my dress! As you may recall, I bought the dress in New York at Kleinfeld's, and it was the very first dress I tried on. When I got home, I did a Google search just so I could look at it all the time and who happens to have worn the dress before in a music video? Taylor Swift... A little embarrassed that an 18 year old and I have the same style? a little bit...thankfully, I do really like her dress sense and she always looks fab on the red carpet so I got over it quickly. (Thank god it wasn't someone like, Avril Lavigne!)

And here is my actual dress in detail...so dreamy... I wish I could wear it ALL the time!

Pre-wedding festivities

Hubby and I drove up to the house on Thursday before the wedding, and before we even settled into the house we headed over to city hall to get our marriage certificate!! YEAH! Did you know, that you can get married at the age of 13 in New Hampshire? Nuts!

Marriage Certificate! 

We then spent the day organising the house for the wedding.

Working hard

Hubby's parents and sisters flew in on Thursday, and can you believe after ten years of dating, this was the first time our parents were going to meet? Hubby and I conveniently missed the first meeting because we were running errands. I was slightly worried as his parents have pretty thick Cork accents and my parent's have very heavily Vietnamese accented English. Luckily, all went well!

On Friday, my sisters, mom and I had appointments for mani's/pedi's. It was sooo lovely to spend some time with the gals and even lovelier because this was my first pedicure...EVER!

Getting pretty with mommy

Finally, after we finished at the beauty salon, it was time to sort out the flowers- nothing like leaving it to the last minute. I was cheap  wanted the flowers to look really natural and not very bridal so I thought it would be perfect to do the flowers (both bouquets and centerpieces) ourselves. There was a cut flower farm just 5 miles from the wedding house so off we went.

Unfortunately, when we got there, they didn't have tons of flowers. They barely had any flowers at all. Ut-oh. We managed to find some pretty potted plants for the centerpieces and feathery yellow flowers which we thought would work for the bridesmaids. Sadly, there was nothing for me! I am not gonna lie, I was pretty near tears. However, my lovely sister/matron of honour, took control. After leaving the  farm, we dropped by a florist and she picked up some simple hydrangeas. When we got home, she pulled the bouquets and centerpieces together and they were EXACTLY what I had imagine. How lucky am I?

Here is the lovely lady, herself, at the farm. 

Flower picking

The scary, before flowers. I didn't think it would work! 

Below are the finished products! 

The lovely bridesmaid's bouquets... natural and airy...just the look I was going for. 

 Gorgeous, no?

My bridal bouquet- Love, love. It was exactly what I wanted...not too bridal and not one of those tightly bunched bouquets. She's amazingly talented (and wait until you see how she did my makeup!)

Bridal bouquet & Table centerpiece

Wedding Week & Wedding Details

Get ready for loads and loads of post recapping the wedding! It was such a crazy week. We started off with a Wednesday night BBQ at a friend's house in Boston. This is when hubby (EKKS!), first flew into Boston. We went to pick him up and we drove straight to our friend's house.

What I miss most about living in Dublin is warm summer nights- having a couple of drinks outside.... Luckily we got the most perfect weather at the BBQ and the hostess was fantastic... Amazing BBQ, peanut butter cupcakes and champagne.... I don't think we could have asked for a better night!

Besides that I spent the week pulling together the programs, guest seating charts and finalising the centerpieces.

A quick look at the work, my mom and I did from our wedding photographers!

- Remember my cake toppers? Here they are in all their glory. I love them!

- To the right are straws with colorful flags that I made using cocktail straws and Washi tape. I am slightly obsessed with the washi tape... There were tons left over from the wedding so I can't wait to use them in other post wedding projects.
- Up until Wednesday, I had no idea what to do for a seating plan. Randomly, Ms. Martha Stewart sent me an email about seating plans - like a fairy godmother- and I copied her idea. Branches, decorative paper and calligraphy.

- Our centerpieces! The lovely pots from hobby lobby that I was obsessed with and then some potted plants thrown in.... We had 4-5 different shaped pots with 4-5 different flowers that worked well together. 

- A lovely little sign we had for our bar. 

Below are my programs and confetti bags. I debated a long time about the confetti, but I'm so glad I got them! We have one of the best pictures from the wedding (so far) with the confetti.

See? Happy and confetti-ed!

I'll try to space out wedding posts between other updates. xx

Sneak Peek!

First picture from our photographers! :)

Making out in fields, as you do, on your wedding day.  A big fat cricket crawled up my dress after this pic. The things I endure for a good picture!

Final Fitting!

I had my final fitting today. EPPs! And the dress is still perfect... I cannot wait to wear it for real in 4 days!

Also, my mother finally finished sewing my veil, and it's LOVELY! I went with a cathedral length simple veil. It makes me feel like I'm playing dress up. As a bonus, the least expensive similar style I could find that I liked was at David's Bridal for $150 and mom made it for 10% of that... 10%!!!!! Veils are so ridiculously, silly expensive!

Score

Since I've been home, I've been scouring the craft shops (Michael's and AC Moore) for centerpiece items. I have a whole pinterest page of items saved as inspiration, but I'm finding it really difficult to locate pieces that fit my ideal look for the venue- rustic and simple. I was in quite a panic today so I went shopping...for honeymoon clothes. Priorities, no? Breaks from wedding talk is completely necessary!

After a grueling day of shopping with mother, we decided to meet my dad and sister for dinner at a local restaurant. Since they arrived late, we went across the street to Hobby Lobby. I've never been in there before, but I LOVED it. It is WAY nicer then the other craft stores!

With literally 10 minutes to go before meeting the rest of the family, my mother and I walked into the front door and were greeted with the most perfect buckets for my centerpieces!!! AND, they were on SALE! How much did I love my life? I got way too excited and wiped their display out grabbing everything I could get my hands on.

They also had some lovely home decor stuff right in the front of the store and like a marketer's dream, I started grabbing things for our house. My mom had to calm me down and said that we could go back when we had more time (this said, while I had a nautical knot door stop and a humungous iron wall clock in my hands) How the heck would I have gotten the clock back? Good thing she stopped me.

Anyways, here are the lovely buckets! I can't wait to find flowers and greenery for them!

Practice, Practice, Practice

I FINALLY booked a restaurant for the rehearsal dinner. There are a limited number of restaurants in the wedding village, and they have been less then responsive to my emails and phone calls, but it's finally done!

Since the booking was so late, I had to send out email invites. I wanted something cute and easy and I found the loveliest template on Wedding Chicks. They have an amazing selection of templates for save the dates and even whole invitation suites.

They make it sooo easy as well! You just chose your color, fill in your wording and ta-da! A Jpeg! Amazing...