5 pin-worthy things from my wedding, even though Pinterest didn't exist at the time

Five years ago today, I was antsies in my pantsies excited about tomorrow...which five years ago, tomorrow, would have been my wedding day.  (word of the wise:  if you're going to write 'antsies in my pantsies' don't accidentally leave out the first 's'like I nearly did...inapprop although probably accurate.  tmi).

photo credit:  Michelle Misner

anyway, I'm one of those pin-lovers of today that feel a tinge of envy for all the brides that get to borrow and make-their-own all those beautiful ideas from pinterest.  Gah.

So in honor of my 5 year anniversary of my wedding eve, I am here to share with you five pin-worthy ideas from my big day, because even without Pinterest and a bajillion awesome ideas floating around via the internet, I still pulled a few goodies out of my sleeves (just kidding, I didn't wear sleeves that day, but ya know what a mean).

Before the dawn of Pinterest, my dear friends (and PinBrides who may have found their way here) - These were my Pin-worthy details from our October 2008 wedding.

photo credit:  Michelle Misner

1. My Something Blue.  Brandon and I are high school sweethearts.  Our high school colors were blue & white and we were the Blue Jays.  Brandon was (and still is!) an amazing athlete, especially though as a basketball player.  As part of his wedding gift from me - I persuaded both his high school and college coaches to give me his 'home' basketball jerseys and then I got them framed.  (He loved them!).  Since I also snagged his away high school jersey (which was blue), I cut a little square out of the bottom and pinned it to the inside of my dress as my Something Blue.  A little reminder of how young and lucky we were to have met in high school.

photo credit:  Michelle Misner

2. Fall Flowers & Foliage.  Thanks to the guidance and support of my awesome florists, we were able to have beautiful and unique flower bouquets and accessories at our wedding.  I was hopeful that we could stick to a fall theme with our October wedding, and the bouquets that were assembled including 'Pods', were perfect.  My bridal bouquet included big white roses and sprinkles of white throughout, ya know, to 'bride it up.'

photo credit:  Michelle Misner

photo credit:  Michelle Misner

The bridesmaids carried similar Pod bouquets without the bride-y white flowers and our flower girls wore matching flower wreaths atop their precious heads.

photo credit:  Michelle Misner

photo credit:  Michelle Misner

photo credit:  Michelle Misner

For the guests that got a little extra special treatment (Mums, Grandmas, Church Readers, Godmothers), we had similar mini corsages (or pin-ons) for them as well.  (Our male special guests got boutonnieres - see below about those).

photo credit:  Michelle Misner

3. Camo vests & turkey feather boutonnieres.  My outdoors-loving husband was ecstatic to learn that he was able to find Mossy Oak camo vests for his tux options.  All the groomsmen, ring bearers, Dads, and my Granpap wore black tuxes, white shirts, and their Mossy Oak vests.  Who says camo can't be fancy?  It certainly does look good-looking, if I do say so myself ;)

photo credit:  Michelle Misner

photo credit:  Michelle Misner

photo credit:  Michelle Misner

Our boutonnieres including a spray of fall flowers (matching our bouquets and corsages) beautifully arranged with an actual turkey feather.  With many hunters in our extended family, we had enough turkey feathers to go around for every boutonniere that day.

photo credit:  Michelle Misner

photo credit:  Michelle Misner

4. Table tops.  As we were going for the 'it's fall and also we're paying for this wedding on a budget' theme, we used that for inspiration for our centerpieces.  We got married in a fire hall, ya'll (also that's pretty customary around here where we grew up) but we needed the space (ahem, with 430 guests) and we're pretty country.  So our table tops were decorated with tall simple vases (dollarstore.com) filled with sticks (collected from my parents' woods) and sprinkled with some fake fall leaves.  I also snagged a ton of mason jars from the Trader's Guide and we had tea lights lit inside of them for dinner.  It was extravagant but it was simple and beautiful to us.

Photo Credit:  Michelle Misner

Photo Credit:  Michelle Misner

Because I like reading things in moments of waiting (like at a wedding reception dinner table), I also created triangle table tops for each table.  One side included a guest thank you from us with a Special thanks to those that helped prepare for the reception (family members that baked cookies, helped set up, and our Guest book attendant who took Polariods of guests (hi Yemily!))  Another side included a run down of our music from the night - our song:  Stay with You; John Legend, The Wedding Party song:  Cowboy, Take Me Away; The Dixie Chicks, Father/Daughter Song:  My Girl: The Temptations, and Mother/Son Song: There You'll Be; Faith Hill.  The last side included common wedding traditions and why the exist - like why we wear our wedding band on the third finger on our left hand, and why the groom sits on the right and the bride on the left.

Photo Credit:  Michelle Misner

5. Candy toss.  We had lots of kids attend our wedding because I was a teacher and always a big kid-fanatic.  And really, at this point with that many guests on the invite list - we figured you might as well go big or go home.  We loved having kids there and know its not possible or a good idea for all wedding receptions to include children.  I wanted the kids to feel included, but also wanted them to steer clear of the bouquet/garter toss since that's a potentially very awkward/inappropriate situation.  So we cranked up the song Candy; Bow Wow Wow's version and asked all the kids to join me on the dance floor.  Then I threw candy from a basket like a wild woman while kids ran and collected all over.  We did this directly before the bouquet and garter toss.

Photo Credit:  Michelle Misner

Photo Credit:  Michelle Misner

Photo Credit:  Michelle Misner

So there's my contribution to wedding pinmania, Internet.

Hard to believe that it has already been five years and sometimes not hard to believe at all.  Love is funny like that.  More on the sentimental happiness tomorrow:)  

But for now, let me make this proclamation:  Even without pinterest - our wedding was chalk full of joy, laughter, dancing, and love.

Photo Credit:  Michelle Misner

a blog beautification & trying new things

Hey hey!  Look who got a face lift this weekend!  Hahh.  Thanks to the amazing design talents of Bailey from Let Birds Fly - my blog has finally taken a step in the right direction for ease and simplification.  I have been wanting to do this for a long time and I'm so happy it's here and looking beautiful.  Thank you to Bailey (who recently found out she has Chronic Lyme Disease so please send some positive wishes her way).

Getting my blog overhauled has been something I've been meaning to do for a very long time.  I unfortunately do not have the graphic design nor web application chops to do it myself - so I was pretty intimidated for awhile.  It was a huge help to have a professional help me and give me guidance on what I wanted, needed, and how to get the things I have been meaning to get.  It was really first about pushing myself into trying something that I had absolutely no clue about.

This seems to be a current theme in my life since I am working on climbing a very steep learning curve for our secret project.  In the past few weeks, I've learned about bleed lines and how to use Photoshop, how to convert images from RGB to CMYK (and what that even means), increasing dpi, and saving jpgs as PDFs.  It's been an uphill battle, but I think I'm in the final stage of 'I-don't-know-what-the-hell-I'm-doing' phase, so that seems comforting.  You know what they say, 'It's only impossible until you do it.' So, I'm pushing through it until I can finally say, "It's Done!"

the face I apparently make when I'm about to take a leap of faith

I'm also trying to use that philosophy (the get to the 'It's Done!' moment) with a few other things in my life including writing my novel and finishing our family yearbooks.  My novel writing has been going awesome (big thanks to Jessica, my instructor in my writing course - seriously check it out for next time if you're a mum who can't find a balance between writing and ya know, keeping humans alive).  I have been pounding out pages for my book and I just keep telling myself - get to 'It's done!' and then you can go back and clean up the writing/grammar/problemareas.  I just need to get to the end.

For our 2011 yearbook, I've made it to October2011, which means I am almost done.  I'm hopeful to finish it before the end of November so I can get a start on this year's book for 2013.  Almost there!

Basketball season is nearly here which is both exciting and terrifyingly new for us.  We have fundraisers to prepare, "I <3 and="" br="" coach="" create="" creative="" family="" get="" in="" it="" make="" nbsp="" one="" our="" piece.="" plans="" scheduling="" through="" to="" tshirts="" xciting="">

So, the point is to say - we are trying all sorts of new things here at the Team Studer.  What new things have you been trying?  

1 thing I do regularly that makes my life easier

there is this thing I do regularly (usually many times a day) that makes my life easier and also sprinkles gratitude and peace in my life.

I consider future me.

I have been thinking about this recently as Brandon and I keep finding ourselves butting heads over putting things back where they go.  He just don't.

Prime example, when I get out of the truck when we get back from being somewhere, I lug up to the house the kids, diaper bag, empty togo coffee mugs, bags, and any leftover garbage.  Even when its a royal pain in the butt, I still empty it out and put things away.  When Brandon gets out of the car from being away, he walks up to the house with the keys...and then sets them on the counter instead of the key hook.  Coffee mugs left, hunting supplies strewn all over the backseat, suit jackets in the passenger side...it honestly makes me insane.

So I tried to explain to him last night about the reason I care so much about putting things back where they go has NOTHING to do with being clean - because - BHAHAHAHBHAHAHHAHhahahahahahhahaha, that's the joke of the century - with 2 kids and 2 big dogs; nothing of ours is clean, ever.

But its because I care about the happiness of future us.  And not some distant future in like five years.  I'm talking about the happiness of future us later this evening, or tomorrow future us...or next Monday morning future us.

If our things are put back where they are supposed to go, maybe tomorrow or next week, or wherever future us are currently existing and most likely any (or all) of the following:  (a) running late, (b) annoyed,  (c) have our hands full; future us will not have to deal with a big mess or searching for these items.  The thing we need at some future moment will be right where it is supposed to be and future us can get on with juggling the inevitable other 62 things we will be trying to do at that minute.

Besides putting things back where they go, I also do things like reload toilet paper rolls, put a new soap in the shower, write down future notes in my planner ("remember:  stationary cards for Christmas with my fav nature shots from Shutterfly" post it on the November page), or I leave the last two k-cups for tomorrow's breakfast and drink tea this afternoon instead...

it's not because I'm incredibly organized or on top of things.  Let me assure, I am NOT.  I just truly imagine myself out there in the exhausting, possibly having a worst day than I am today, frustrating future and think, let me do something to make your day better, future tab - this one's for you.

Because honestly, the happiness of future me is a nice thing to be able to bank on.  My husband is amazing and supports these crazy dreams in my brain like no other human could possibly and my kids are equally adorable and rotten, but if I'm being honest - as the Mum it very rarely feels like anyone is taking care of me.  Ya know, last in the line sort of stuff.

I'm the one up before everyone else, in bed last, checking that the dishwasher is either loaded, emptied, or running, moving heaps of clothes, paying bills, administering first aid, oh, and making sure every living thing in our house is fed, bathed, warm enough, and contented.

This little gesture of considering future me is a way to bring a little boost to a future day; it makes me feel like someone is watching out for me, even if it is just a past version of me.  And I'm glad to know she has my back.