Whether you’re all suits or all gowns, you can’t argue with more happiness — or more cake or more dancing. You’ve probably seen this image going viral on all social platforms. Today’s all about marriage equality!
Love Letters // The best that I can be
Darling,
It’s been so long since I’ve seen you or talked to you. I miss you a lot. At night I lay awake and try to remember your face. I miss it all so much. I’m getting homesick. Every day is harder.
I lay in bed and wish I was home. I can’t help but close my eyes and try to remember your face. I’ll almost be asleep then I think about you…I think about home. Darling, I love you. I always will. Not just because of what we are, but because I’m becoming a man, I’m learning how to be the best that I can be for you.
You’re my girl.
I can’t wait to sweep you off your feet. I keep thinking about me taking you on a date when I get back. You’re so beautiful. 100% honesty, you’re the most beautiful girl in the world. I miss you so much. You probably don’t believe me but it’s all true. I’m still awake at night with you in my heart.
I love you,
Your Future Husband, Marcus
Tips for making it work
As a bride-to-be, I’ve been confronted by several people who, after congratulating me on my engagement, proceed to remind me about the percentage of people who get divorced. So, just because I’m getting married, automatically means I need to be warned about the divorce rates? Believe it or not, that’s something we actually talked about before we even got engaged. We talked about divorce and what our opinions were on it. In the end, we both decided that we only want to get married to one person and spend the rest of our lives together. Now, to some people that may seem a little bit out there when they start thinking about how complicated life can get. And it may seem like a silly rule, but we decided not to even mention the “D-word” in our relationship from here on out. Our thinking on that is if we eliminate the word, then it’s not an option that will even cross our minds in the future. We want to be the old couple that’s been married for 60 years that everyone cheers for. And clearly I’m not the only one who wants that kind of commitment.
We asked, you answered. Here’s some tips from our readers on how to make a marriage last.
1. Don’t get divorced or don’t date other people while you’re married. (Those will definitely cut things short!)
2. Talk out your problems and don’t hold grudges. Be there for your significant other no matter what.
3. Communication and lots of date nights.
4. Be open and honest with one another, communication is key.
5. Never take each other for granted.
6. The little things you do for one another are always important.
7. Don’t go to bed angry.
8. Always kiss goodnight, goodbye, hello.
9. Laugh — lots.
10. Find things you like to do together.
11. Say “I Love You” often.
12. Believe in your love and each other’s dreams.
13. Be best friends.
14. It’s always better to be happy than to be right.
15. Say sorry and forgive freely.
16. Make time for just the two of you, even if life is crazy and you’re broke.
17. Time with your best friend = stress relief.
A word to the wise: these may sound great, but the key is to put them into practice — that’s the hard part but you just have to know that it’s worth it.
Photography // Favorite Photos
Kathi and Chris got married on September 22, 2012.
“This is my favorite wedding picture because of the surprise look on my husband’s face. He absolutely loves Star Wars!” Kathi said. “The 501st Star Wars Legion were nice enough to pay a visit to our wedding reception as a surprise for my husband. I didn’t know which characters would show so I was equally shocked that Chris’ favorite character, Darth Vader, was there.”
Photo by: J & B Photography
Here are some of our faves from Real Weddings:
Bride Blogger // Unsolicited Advice
When you first get engaged you will without a doubt, get unsolicited advice from anyone and everyone you know. Not all of it is bad, but when you first get engaged it can be a little overwhelming. Best advice, say thank you and write it down or have them email you the information if you really want it. It took me a good month before I really started to listen to all this advice or actually ask for it.
Picking a date and a venue is of course the first major decision you need to make when planning a wedding. Everyone wanted to tell me what dates worked best for them and what dates not to pick because of other things going on. If you listen to everyone else, you will never pick a date. No matter what, you will have conflicts with people. In the long run, it is about you and your fiancé, so don’t let your friends and family sway you in your decision on when to get married. If you want a spring wedding, have a spring wedding.
When it came to making a decision on a venue, Mr. Thirteen and I had differing ideas. I had always thought it would be great to do a destination wedding and Mr. Thirteen said, why not the courthouse? I could not imagine having a courthouse wedding nor did I think I could have the big 500 person wedding. I figured why not just have our family and closest friends there? It’s about us and of course Mr. Thirteen just wants to make me happy so he said to look into a destination wedding. I had some contacts in the travel industry so I called them up and asked for a contact in the destination wedding planning industry that could help us in this process.
I started working with Sandy from Travel & Transport who has tons of experience in destination wedding planning. She took what we were looking for and gave us some great places to start. This of course turned into more unsolicited advice because this person couldn’t come or did you think about how much this would cost for this family to go and what about passports and airfare and the list goes on and on. Again, this isn’t about everyone else, it’s about Mr. Thirteen and I celebrating our wedding day.
After about a month of looking at destinations and really thinking about what we wanted and what kind of wedding we wanted, the more I realized I wanted to have a wedding here in Nebraska — but we’re going to do it our way, non-traditional and full of what we love. We knew we didn’t want to get married in a church and we knew we wanted to have a fun, fun party with those we care about most in the world.
As we started looking at venues, I did get some ideas from friends. We were looking for a venue with both indoor and outdoor space and preferably a space to get married in as well as have our reception. The first place we looked at was 1316 Jones. I fell in love with it right away! It is located in downtown Omaha, had an amazing deck (my outdoor ceremony space) and tons of character. But I decided to keep looking because, like the dress, you can’t pick the first place you see, right?! Well over the next few weeks I looked at a half dozen more venues and made calls or sent emails to another dozen places. Nothing could compare to 1316 Jones. I made one final call to Chad to get dates available. He gave me every date left in 2013. After much discussion (as I wanted to get married sooner rather than later) Mr. Thirteen talked me into picking the only date left in October. In the long run I know it was the best option as it gave us enough time to plan without being stressed and gave us more time to save money for the wedding.
Whatever you do when planning your wedding, always remember it is your wedding. Mr. Thirteen did a great job in reminding me of this and you should too as it is about you and your groom, no matter what anyone else says.
Happy National Proposal Day!
It’s National Proposal Day! We’ve heard some great engagement stories throughout the years that you can find on our blog here.
But today we’ve scoured through our favorite proposals on YouTube — and probably used about half a box of tissues in the process. So hopefully these might give your guy some inspiration!
The guy who remembered every date
It isn’t a proposal without puppies
Bringing long distance together with flowers
Engaged // The Bachelor
Confession: My favorite guilty pleasure TV show is The Bachelor.
I don’t know whether it’s the drama, the extravagant dates, exotic places or fairy tale feel of this show that keeps me coming back for more. But this season was one of the best, I’d say.
With National Proposal Day coming up, we thought we’d share some photos from this incredible Bachelor proposal. If you watched this episode, you might know that Catherine wrote Sean a letter and he read it right before he proposed to her. It sure tugged at my heart strings, that’s for sure! Catherine’s reaction looked absolutely genuine — she didn’t even look at the ring right away! For being on a reality TV show, I feel like that says a little something about her character and that her heart is in it for the right reasons.
Besides the fact that she’s engaged to one good-looking guy, besides the fact that she’s got a gorgeous rock on her finger, besides the fact that she got the man of her dreams, she didn’t just ride off into the sunset, she rode of into the sunset on an elephant. Try and beat that one, Omaha!
Love Letters // First Valentine
Dear Sweetheart,
Although it is a lot to live up to, I am so excited to be your FIRST Valentine. More importantly, I am excited to be your best friend. You know you have something special when you can spend 24 hours together doing absolutely nothing and have it be one of the best days of your life. You make me laugh and smile more than ever before. Whether it’s your adorable laugh, obnoxious burps or first grade jokes, it makes me feel so good to be around you!
In such little time it is truly incredible how much you have meant to me. I have known you were something special ever since we had our group project together in class when we were in college. I am so excited to see the amazing things we will do together. As for now, let’s live every second we have together like it’s our last and live it up to the fullest. Happy Valentine’s Day, Sweetheart!
From the bottom of my heart,
Your Future Husband, Mike
P.S. I love you
Real Wedding | Bret + Brittany Harper
Bret and Brittany met as college freshmen at Northwest Missouri State University. He was the baseball stud at the gym and she was an office worker for the Rec Center and Pool, but they really hit it off during a game of flamingo football put on by their residence hall.
Almost five years later, Bret and Brittany found themselves on a family ski trip to Keystone, Colorado.
On the last run down the mountain for the day, the family all decided they would just ski down the mountain and meet back at the condo. But Bret and Brittany wanted to look for a trail called Ripper’s Roo. After finding it they started to ski down, but about twenty yards down there was a closed sign. Unable to ski back up the mountain, the couple decided to ski through the trees to get back to the main slope.
“Bret asked to go first through the trees since I was a little leery,” Brittany said. “He barely started and fell over! I was laughing because he didn’t need to fall over and then he started trying to take his skis off. I went over to help him and see what he was doing and he was on one knee with the ring.”
Brittany said he gave a very nice speech — one that neither of them remember because she was crying, shaking, jumping and saying YES!
“Before our ‘first look’ moment, we were getting ready and there was a door that headed straight out to a patio area,” Brittany said. “The boys were told to stand at one end, with the girls at the other, and the groom in front of them with his back to me. As I exited the doors, I was greeted with our handsome group of boys and it was nice to see them looking so sharp. As I turned and headed toward my groom, my heart started to beat faster and faster. Finally, our photographer told him to turn around. It was such an amazing moment with just our wedding party, to see my groom for the first time.”
The couple then exchanged rings, which neither of them had seen before. Brittany had picked out Bret’s and she hadn’t seen hers after the wedding band was sautered together. She said it was the perfect moment to share before the craziness of the day was about to begin.
Throughout their engagement and wedding planning process, Bret and Brittany’s main goal was to incorporate as much of their personalities and love for each other into the wedding as possible.
“I had been looking for ideas for some kind of unity activity during our ceremony song,” Brittany said. With so many couples doing sand or a unity candle, I wanted to think of something different. My mom found the idea for a unity braid, which had an amazingly biblical meaning and really contributed to our ceremony. We literally ‘tied’ our marriage together.”
Brittany recalled a sweet moment she had with her dad right before walking down the aisle. They had about five minutes just to themselves and started talking about the day ahead. They told each other they loved one another, but as the words were coming out of their mouths they quickly took them back as they both started to cry and tried to reel in the emotion a little so they weren’t bawling by the time they reached the ceremony doors
“We arrived at our reception, Hillcrest Country Club, where our signature drink, Tequila Smash, and a DJ were waiting for us to start the party,” Brittany said. “During the reception all of our guests began to ring the bells we had left for them as part of their favors. After doing this a couple times, we both stood up at the head table and Bret began to dip me, and plop! I fell on my chair! Everyone laughed and we secretly thought it was a good plan to have no one ring bells anymore.”
The couple ended the night with fun and dance in their lavender and pink, glitz and glam reception hall.
Best Advice: Stay organized
“Since I did not live in Lincoln for most of my engagement, it was a hard task to keep everything in one place,” Brittany said. “I started a wedding ‘tub’ where I kept everything from contracts, to promotions, to contact information. I filed everything accordingly, and this tub worked great on the go and was always with me on any appointment or trip.”
Essential Details:
Church: Christ Lutheran
Venue: HillCrest Country Club
Photographer: Slice-Studios
Videographer: Sullivan Photography
DJ: A Sound Impression
Cake: Sharon’s Cake’s
Florist: Russ’ Market
Bridal Party Dress: Ellynne Bridal
Tux’s: Tip Top Tux
Limousine Service: Leisure Limousine
Stationary: Melissa Leigh Designs
Other details can also be found on Bret and Brittany’s Wedding Website
Traditions // Luck of the Irish
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we decided to find out a little bit more about Irish wedding traditions. And maybe if you’re planning a St. Patrick’s Day wedding, you’ll be inspired to incorporate some of these traditions in your wedding.
The Claddagh Ring is a original Irish tradition that is a symbol of love, friendship and loyalty. This ring is often passed down from mother to daughter for an engagement. When the crown is facing inward, it’s supposed to symbolize engagement and when the crown is facing outward, it’s supposed to symbolize marriage.
Irish Wedding Blessing:
May God be with you and bless you,
May you see your children’s children,
May you be poor in misfortunes and rich in blessings,
May you know nothing but happiness from this day forward.
Irish Wedding Toast:
May you live as long as you want and never want as long as you live.
At a traditional Irish wedding, the men wear plaid kilts and the bride’s veil is lined with Irish patterned lace. Your groom may not be too keen on going all out and wearing a kilt for your big day, but incorporating Irish lace on your gown, veil or garter is definitely a must for a traditional Irish wedding.
Some brides also choose to carry a handkerchief down the aisle, usually a family heirloom passed down from the grandmother. This is a symbol of family and is often used incorporated into a baby blanket in the future.
If any of those don’t suit you, some brides also carry a horseshoe (turned up) either on her dress, jewelry (such as a necklace or bracelet), or bouquet as a symbol of good luck.
When dinner is served at a traditional Irish wedding, the menu typically includes corned beef, cabbage and topped off with some Guinness. And the dessert? It’s fruitcake!
