Holiday Photo Cards and more at Shutterfly!

B and I recently took some portraits for our annual holiday cards. I just LOVE sending and receiving holiday cards with a photo attached. We've sent holiday cards since before we were even married. After we adopted our dog, we just felt the need to show off our little family, holiday style. Since then, our friends and family have come to expect a photo of the three of us each Christmas season.

I love sending fashion forward cards and have used a few different printing companies when designing our photo cards, including Shutterfly. This year, I was really impressed and overwhelmed with the extremely stylish and unique designs available at Shutterfly! I was even more excited when I learned about their promotion for bloggers! Go here to see the deal on getting free cards!

Since I've used Shutterfly many, many times and know that their products are of great quality, and with their constant promotions and discount codes, I find myself coming up with fun projects including photo books and specialty prints. Definitely take a moment to look at their super stylish designs for this holiday season.

Love the idea of purchasing personalized gift tags. Can't you just picture this atop a plate of Christmas cookies? Or tied around a bottle of wine! Love it! This design found here

I am loving the corresponding address labels. Such a Christmas-chic touch! Find these here.

So much to choose from! I would love to see what y'all come up with for your own cards!

Do I need a Keurig Coffee Maker?

I've seen a few bloggers/tweeters go on and on about how much they love their Keurigs. I tend to see this brand mentioned the most, as opposed to Tassimo or Senseo. Since we received a very nice krups coffee maker for our wedding, I never really considered adding another small electric to our arsenal of appliances. But, my mom called me last night to tell me she had bought herself an early birthday present and was just overjoyed (and most likely, over-caffeinated). She was sipping a freshly brewed cup of coffee from her brand new Keurig and basically told me to run, not walk to my nearest retailer and purchase one immediately. She gave me a 15 minute informercial-style rundown, and it got me wondering, do I need one?

Anyone have one, thoughts?

A wedding recap, one year later!

We have been married for over a year. Crazy. And, somehow I never recapped the wedding. I really miss blogging. I'm still an avid blog reader, but just haven't felt compelled to write, until right now.

Our wedding was truly a beautiful experience. It was so much more than I could have imagined. We lucked out with gorgeous weather. It was about 75 degrees, a beautiful blue sky, peppered with clouds and no crazy wind during our hilltop ceremony. Thanks to Kate Miller Events, our day went incredibly smoothly. We had some issues with Taber Ranch's staff, but of course Kate was able to work everything out and I felt nice and calm all day.

My bridesmaids looked gorgeous, my family looked amazing and I definitely felt like a beautiful bride. The food was a huge hit, as was our signature cocktail, the "Maverick Lemonade", an ode to our cherished bulldog. I was incredibly impressed with our DJ, In the mix916. Not so impressed with our bartender, but really, there isn't much I could complain about once the day was through!

A main wish for my wedding day was that I'd get to dance all night with my guests. And dance we did. I don't think I left the dance floor but once all night. After the wedding, I briefly wondered if that was a mistake. Did I ignore the guests who didn't dance? But honestly, I had the best time and am so glad I was able to interact with all of my friends who were getting busy on the dance floor with us.

Yes, that's me in the plum cardigan, getting very into the music, as I tend to do. I changed from my lace bolero to a simple plum cardigan, and I love how it came out in photos.

all photos by Terra Tabbytosavit Photography

The Flowers Part I

My MOH's family is a huge part of our lives. Her father married us and her mom offered to spearhead out centerpieces. While she was up for the challenge of the bouquets, etc. I decided to go the professional route for those. Unfortunately, I liked our DIY flowers SO much more than our pro-personal flowers.

After the rehearsal dinner was through, I "invited" my bridesmaids, moms and MOH's mom up to my suite to help me arrange all of our centerpieces. I had warned them all that I was counting on their help and they were all up for the challenge (of course)!
I had purchased all of glassware at a local thrift store. I bought bud vases, cylinder vases, fish bowl vases-basically anything that was plain. I spent under $40 on all of the vases for the entire wedding.
The morning of the rehearsal, my brother and I headed to the wholesale flower mart where we had made a pre-order. Friday mornings at a large wholesale flower market can be NUTS and this Friday morning was no exception. They did not have many of the flowers I had requested, but I was somehow able to do a super-market sweep style run through the freezing refridgerator room with lightening speed. We ended up with JUST the right amount of flowers. Tons of dahlias, hydrangea, mums, spray roses along with beautiful, hand-selected "filler".

My hotel suite soon became a centerpiece factory and we were done with everything in just over an hour. I could not have been happier with how they turned out. No two were alike and all of the colors really popped!