Sunday, June 28, 2009



This picture of Brandon and Santa is so endearing. Please note that Brandon is young enough to sit on Santa's lap, yet his legs are as long as Santa's.

Brandon was always quite a bit taller than most kids his age throughout all phases of childhood, and I'm guessing maybe this Santa was a shorty. And also, Santa looks like he might be drunk. I'm just sayin'.

Monday, June 15, 2009

I'm back!

Today was my first day back at work. In addition to a post-it note on my computer monitor that said, "Welcome back, Mrs. Hess- we missed you!" I had a jar with garden-picked flowers from another coworker waiting for me on my desk. What a sweet return after a wonderful week off. How often do you get such a happy time, full of friends, family, and desserts galore? It was magical.

My coworker printed off copies of her photos from the wedding and gave them to me today. She didn't take a lot of photos, but the ones she did take were good! She printed them on her inkjet, so as a result, the photos scanned in a little grainy from my scanner. I had fun playing around with the color tinting, and actually like how this makes the photo look like it's some late 70's wedding picture. The black and white version is kind of fun, too.'


It's the strangest thing. I had this terrible fear the day after our wedding that nobody outside of our professional photographer took any pictures of us. I don't remember video cameras or anyone asking us to pose or camera flashes at all. I barely remember Cindy taking this photo, until she told me the story of how I said to her, "Oh, no- I looked away!" I kind of remember that part. In any case, I'm so happy to see these new photos.

My groom looks so handsome in his suit!

My green dress and his yellow tie really did look good together!

I look like a bride from 1956!

My fake eyelashes didn't fall off!

I even like the part with him staring at the camera and me looking away.

I am not even sure I can put into words what a great week we had, and I can't wait to see more photos from that evening. Even though I was convinced that my groom and I would eat on our wedding day, and that I would be in the moment and not let the day slip away from me, the little details are kind of a blur. I remember looking at all the beautiful faces of everyone as I walked up the aisle, I remember the kissing menu performances and the toasts and the hugs and dancing and photo booth shenanigans. I'm just not sure I took the time to soak in how delicious the dessert table looked, or what the decorations looked like all together, or what the room looked like full of all the people. It's probably perfectly wonderful that I remember who was behind me in the conga line, how beautiful my flowers looked, and how we tried to convince my dad he needed to wear a certain costume in the photo booth.

I think part of me is afraid that in a decade, I'll remember the details so broadly, whereas I want to remember all the tiny little things that made up the whole day, like Sarah's son Jack coming down before dinner even started in a flashy pink hat with an American flag in his hand. I've started a document that quickly became 3 pages of wonderful wedding memories- like the fact that a bunch of people took time to make and bring desserts for our dessert table. My sister Kelli told me the story behind her daughter getting up to sing the Barney song on her chair during the dinner, and I was touched and amazed and LOVED hearing how it all came about. I started a conga line not once, but twice, per the request of a certain 4-year old who just had way too much fun the first time and kept asking her mom if we could do it again.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

We had so much fun with all our friends and family at our wedding this weekend! From the Thursday night bachelorette party to the multiple conga lines on Saturday night, it was amazing and seriously one of the best weekends of my life.

Our Flickr photo sharing site can be found here. I am so enamored by the photo booth pictures! We passed out cards with the login and password to our Flickr site, and are hoping guests add their photos using the username and password we shared at our wedding. If you lost your card with this info, drop me an email and I would be glad to share with you!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

it's almost time!!

I can't believe our wedding is less than two weeks away! In just about a week, we'll start seeing the first of our friends and family roll into town. Brandon picked up his new fancy wedding shoes today, and after a long weekend of non-stop wedding projects and planning, our to-do list is becoming amazingly short!

Can you believe it?




Sunday, May 10, 2009

My poor blog has been so neglected! We moved two weeks ago, then my wedding shower was last weekend, and now our wedding seems to be coming up sooo quickly. Wow. At times, it feels like we've had so much time to plan ahead, so we're in a really good spot, and other times it feels like there are so many little details to remember and things to accomplish before June.

We're still trying to get settled into our new apartment. We have yet to put anything up on the walls. That's always so hard for me. I look at magazines for inspiration, and wonder how people make their places look so creative and inspiring and lived-in, then I just freeze. I think I actually over-think where things should go. In our last apartment, it was so bad that we lived there an entire year and never put a single thing on our bedroom walls.