One Year Wedding Anniversary

“To fate and the strange way that it twists us all together.”

-Nora Roberts

You might be surprised to learn that the day Colton took me our our first date was actually one of the worst days of my entire life. Yes, that’s right. The day that my future husband showed up at my doorstep with a bouquet of flowers, opened the car door for me (which he still does every single day), and took me to my favorite restaurant was actually a horrible day.

You see, just a few hours prior to our date, I’d found out that my dad was diagnosed with Stage IV Lung Cancer. And being that my dad was only 44 years old at the time and had never been a smoker, it came as quite a gut-wrenching shock.

I was so upset that I wanted to skip school and cancel my plans for the night. My dad told me absolutely not. Sitting at home upset wasn’t going to fix things. And being a man of faith, he told me that I just needed to pray.

So I prayed hard all day, went to school during the day and went on a firs date that night. I was a mess and told Colton that I would totally understand if he wanted this be our first and our last date. Little did I know that it would be the first of many, and that this guy would turn out to be my future husband.

I really don’t think it was by chance that one of the best and one of the worst things in my life happened that day. And I don’t think it was by chance that after only meeting Colton once, my dad knew he was the one. He told my step-mom that I had “the googly eyes” for him. I wish that Colton and my dad could’ve had the chance to get to know each other better, because I know they would’ve loved each other; but I’m so thankful that God sent me Colton during that time.

Fast forward four years, and we’re celebrating our first wedding anniversary! I seriously can’t believe that it’s already been a year because it really does feel like just yesterday that we were saying our vows. I guess it’s true what they say — time flies when you’re having fun.

In our first year of marriage, we’ve traveled to Hawaii, South Dakota, and California together. We’ve completely renovated our entire house. Like, I’m talking we got off the plane from our honeymoon in the beginning of November and started the demolition process and didn’t complete renovations until May. During that time we learned that if we could get through that together, then we could get through pretty much anything — lol…but like, I’m not even kidding.

I got a little bit (okay, A LOT) nostalgic today and decided to share some of my favorite photos from our wedding. I still can’t believe this all happened an entire year ago…where does the time go?! Anyways, I hope you enjoy. 🙂

And I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, COLTON! Thank you for being the most gentlemanly gentleman I’ve ever met and the absolute best husband ever. I don’t know what I’d ever do without you. You’re my rock and my bestie and my bear.

The Preparation

I woke up on our wedding morning to a fun mimosa bar set up by my bridesmaids.

They also made these cute champagne glasses with blush pink bows and gold glittery stems to match our wedding colors.

Opening up my wedding gift from Colton, a letter “R” necklace to signify my new last name.

Colton and one of his groomsmen checking out his wedding gift from me; a watch set to the time that I walked down the aisle and engraved with the quote, “From this moment on” and our wedding date.

The Ceremony

I love the look on Colton’s mom’s face. She was so excited!

And my mom was trying so hard not to cry. 😉

My little brother and cousin took their duties as ring bearer and flower girl very seriously.

The cutest little photobomber. Also, the petals down the aisle were from my dad’s rosebushes — it was so sweet that our florist had thought to do that as a surprise for me.

I love this photo of our moms hugging during the ceremony after lighting the wedding candle.

 

The Wedding Party

Bridesmaids, anyone?

One of Colton’s favorite things about our venue was the groom’s room. Colton and his groomsmen loved playing pool before the wedding and I loved this shot our photographer got with the pool balls showing our wedding date and all of the guys in the background.

This is one of my favorite photos from the wedding! It was originally just going to be the groomsmen holding me but our photographer had the idea to put my little brother (our junior groomsman) in the photo last minute.

The Two of Us

We were lucky to have the most gorgeous sunset that night — it made for some really beautiful photos!

I had photos of my dad and grandpa attached to my bouquet so that they could be there with me to walk down the aisle and throughout the day.

Before going dress shopping, I was so worried I was going to have a hard time finding “the one” because I can be very picky. Oddly enough, I ended up buying the very first wedding dress I tried on! I ended up trying on probably twenty more dresses but nothing compared to my Essense of Australia dress and the service I received at Uptown Bridal. My favorite thing about my dress were the off the shoulder sleeves. I was also able to pull the sleeves up for the reception so that I could dance and it looked like a whole new dress.

I can’t tell you how much I stressed out about how I was going to wear my hair leading up to the wedding. I had planned on wearing it down up until about a week prior to the wedding and called up my hairdresser last minute worried that if I wore it down it wouldn’t show off the top of my dress. She came up with this style that I loved and I knew I had to wear it up.

 

The Reception

You can see in this shot how different my dress looked when the sleeves were pulled up for dancing. I loved it both ways!

One of my best friends and bridesmaids also happens to be an amazing cake decorator. She made our cake and I can promise you that it tasted just as good as it looks!

My favorite thing about our wedding venue was that it had a movie theatre. We knew that we wanted to utilize it and my aunt and grandpa ended up putting together an awesome video with the help of our families and it was played during our reception. You can view it here — the password is “wedding”.

Photography: Caleb Cooke Photography

Floral Design: Jodi Rinke

Cake: BayBee Cakes

Wedding Dress: Essense of Australia via Uptown Bridal

Hair: Molly Bardon

Makeup: Courtney Montes

Wedding Venue: Foothills Golf Club