Bryan and Melissa's Wedding

Jake's brother (Bryan) got married on Saturday, July 6th, 2013

We definitely started off our 4th of July with a bang!

Wedding guests started arriving the weekend before and it was just... crazy

I'm not gonna lie and say things were all peachy. It's a wedding.

When does that ever happen? It doesn't. 

The 450 mini cupcakes that they had at their wedding?...

.....Were made by yours truly 

These cupcakes were vanilla with a chocolate hazelnut frosting, made from scratch.

The frosting that is.

They also had edible pearls on them.

Photo taken on my iPhone

These cupcakes were chocolate with a buttermilk frosting, made from scratch.

Again... The frosting made from scratch. Not the cupcakes.

And of course, edible pearls. 

My friend (Cari) helped me w/the piping and baking.

I could not have done it w/o her. 

My sisters were also around to help w/the baking & reception set up.

Photo taken on my iPhone

The wedding was a country western, vintage theme.

They used tan/brown, mint green, and yellow for their colors and lilies, roses and sunflowers for their.... flowers, duh.

The groomsmen 

Bryan and Jake

And here we all are, as Strain's, in our cowboy/girl get up

Oh it was such a warm day. Beautiful, but warm. 

We had quite the time preparing all the food and drinks at the reception.

Any time there's a wedding in the family, you better be sure Jake's parents will be some how involved in the food.

They are excellent cooks!

We all helped pitch in w/the cost of food. I'm sure Costco appreciated our business that week!

Happy wedding day, Bryan and Melissa! I always knew we'd be sisters ;) 

Baby brother gets married. What?

A couple weekends ago, my brother got married in California

The husband and I decided to fly, since it'd be such a short/quick trip.

We actually ended up getting on the same flight as my sisters (flying out there).

So it ended up working out perfectly well! I was excited to fly w/them.

04/04

We took off from SLC Thursday night and landed in LAX that evening

We picked up our rental car and drove straight to the temple apartments to meet up w/the rest of my family. 

Photo taken on my iPhone

These were my wedding nails BTW

All Essie brand. "Fiji", "Mint Candy Apple," and "Set in stones."

The next morning, my brother was married to his new bride, Carlie

They had a ceremony at 11am in the Los Angeles, California Temple

Friday

04/05

Photo taken on my iPhone

Aubre . Courtney . Kelsey

Aubre and Jake 

Grandma Smith and Aubre

And here they are as the new Mr. and Mrs.

Side note: For some reason, this photo looks out of focus on my blog, but on my computer it's just fine. Weird.

The rest of these photos, are just random ones I got while we were hangin around

The wedding colors were mint green and peach. Or coral. Whatever 

They called it coral, but that aint coral folks. It's peach

Anyway- The girls wore mint green, and the guys had matching peach ties. Yup

Jake, Aubre, Austin, Carlie, Tyler, mom, dad, Courtney and Kelsey

And that, my fellow readers, is my baby brother. Married. Say what?!?! I still can't get over it. That's something I thought I wouldn't be saying for a long, long time. Congratulations to the new Mrs. and Mrs. Tyler Albert! 

We flew back to SLC the next day, and got back safely, thank you very much. Extremely exhausted though. 

Josh & Veronica... Nicky

We received the most beautiful, classy wedding announcement. Sigh

I fell in love when I first saw our names addressed on the outside of the envelope.

I'm very critical when it comes to wedding announcements. I'm sorry

I think a wedding announcement says a lot about the couple. It's scary

You have to be careful with color, pattern, pictures, etc.

So their photo looked like this: WOW

Not a typical hand picture and not 50 "We're so cute, look at us" pictures. 

Just a perfectly beautifully taken photo. My photo of the photo (taken below) is blurred on purpose.

So then I read the actual wedding announcement. Sigh again

Just a beautiful, classy and perfectly color coordinated w/fall, announcement.

Notice how they don't tell all where they're registered :)

I think everyone knows Target and Bed Bath & Beyond are the usual ;)

I love love love this. I didn't feel pressured to get them a gift.

Of course we got them a present & wrapped it to match this wedding announcement, but it was nice not to see it on the announcement.

Photo taken on my iPhone

And here they are, first coming out of the temple. Mr. & Mrs. 

Photo taken on my iPhone

We were privileged enough to be able to attend their sealing. Sigh

It was so beautiful and nice to be in the same place we were married.

just on the other side this time

This temple is HUGE and ANYONE could get lost in there. Anyone

Photo taken on my iPhone  

I love gift wrapping and color coordinating the presents to match the theme :)

Photo taken on my iPhone

Photo taken on my iPhone

This reception was beautiful & classy. Sigh again

What a breathtaking view of the Salt Lake Valley too!

Photo taken on my iPhone

And of course there's the most beautiful, matching "Thank You" card

More sighs. That's all I could do. Just sigh of pure perfect-wedding happiness 

Until next time,  Raney's! And yes- we should get together soon. Congratulations, from The Strain's. We wish you all the happiness you two deserve. 

One year. Booyah

Jake and I celebrated our one year anniversary this weekend. It was so nice!

I can't believe it's been a year already! Holy cow

It really makes a difference when someone is your best friend. Really

I can honestly say Jake was my best friend before I married him

PS- post later on our weekend get away

10.29.11

One year ago (today) we boarded the ship for our honeymoon to the Bahamas

Here are our hands in the Bahamas sand

Thanx (mom) for the cute Pinterest idea

We had so much in Florida before and after the cruise. Loved it

what a difference the east coast beaches are, compared to west coast

We hope to (one day) go back to the islands. I'm just glad we aren't there right now

We would've left in the middle of a big hurricane. Dodged that bullet!

If you all didn't get a thank you (post) card from us, I'm sorry

I tried to keep track of everyone's addresses. But just in case...

here you go 

We truly appreciate all the love from our family & friends. Thank you!!!! 

It's been a great first year. We've been through a lot, and from what I hear, it never really stops. It's a journey we're on together though, and I can't imagine going through life trials without this guy by my side. He is my everything and means so much to me. He's my best friend and will never know the love I truly have for him. Though I may have a hard time expressing it sometimes, I really do cherish how lucky and blessed I am, to have found Jake. Third times the charm, right? (or three times tried) 
We talked about goals, we have for this year, on the way home from our weekend get away. Those are very personal things I choose to not share with others, and will only journal in my personal space though. I'm very excited about said goals. This year will be another growing year for us, as every will be. I look forward to sharing some of these growing experiences with you and cannot wait to photograph more journeys. Here's to our first year of marriage and being sealed to my best friend for all time & eternity. SLC | October 29th, 2011

365 days ago

 I cannot believe that we sent out our wedding announcements a year ago

Wow! Time has sure flown by

I still remember the first card/present we got in the mail. Post later on that

I love looking back & reflecting on this time/journey we had. Oh boy

If we only knew what we were in for :) Just kidding of course

These cards (pic. below) were so special to me in our invites. If you got one= You're special

PS- I know it was a lot to ask, for you guys to arrive 30 minutes prior to 8:20

On a Saturday might I add

Trust me when I say- I know. We had to be there earlier than all ya'll 

The wedding announcements were a bit of a hastle. Let's just enjoy them

or we can talk about them so you know

:)

I originally had a very talented friend design them. Epic fail

Not the friend. Not the designing. Me. My indecisiveness 

I wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted to top everything

Most importantly, I wanted to make everyone proud

This was all me. No family was here to help me. No mom, other than phone

Just me. It had to be something that showed all my work

This is the best I could come up with

 The announcements were supposed to be a tan background. Not green

Oh well. Everything else came out decent. I loved the font/color of our names

they were the perfect color of coral, to go along w/the wedding colors

I loved the brown scroll work too. That turned out great

I loved how we worded the announcement too. We announced ourselves :)

(that's proper etiquette for when you're throwing your own wedding)

I spent many hours on Google, trying to figure out proper etiquette 

this is what we came up with

Photo taken on my iPhone

We did beige envelopes to match the wedding colors as well. Loved them!

I found the stickers @ Hobby Lobby (duh!) and they just matched perfectly

so naturally I had to get them to work as envelope seals 

we used clear address labels to address the guests & as return addresses

Photo taken on my iPhone

I loved every bit of sending out the wedding announcements. It was so exciting to me! Even staying up late the night before, stuffing them all in our living room and double checking to make sure the right people got the right sealing invites, was exciting. Ha! I'm exhausted just listening to how much work it was. And we only invited like 50 people to the sealing & sent out like... I dunno- A good couple hundred invites? Yeah- So it wasn't even that many we had to invite to the actual ceremony. But, super paranoid me had to double check everything (twice) just to make sure! We didn't want Joe Shmo coming to the ceremony, and not grandma. Oh- I could just see nightmares in the future.  
Also- We sent out two different pictures. These pictures had to be perfect. Any bride knows this. Your wedding announcements say a lot about yourself. I wanted people to know the theme (vintage) and the colors (coral, tan and brown), by looking at the announcements. I hope I accomplished this!
I also didn't want people (who hadn't ever met me yet) to judge me negatively, when they first look at my picture! Oh- The 14545243284663 thoughts that ran through my head. (is that even a number?)
PS- I've always thought it was tacky to announce where we were registered. Everyone figures you're registered at Target and Bed Bath & Beyond anyway, so I didn't feel the need to put it on there. An announcement, is simply a way of telling people (family/friends) "Hey, we're getting married. Come help us celebrate at our reception and if you're cool enough, we'll send you an invite to the actual ceremony." That's all a wedding announcement is. So, I chose to be less tacky and not put that on there. I just wanted people to know we were tying the knot. 
We still received plenty of gift cards (in the mail) and at our wedding reception. Both, of which were extremely useful/helpful. Promise! And- Sorry if I offended any of you readers out there, by calling you "tacky." I just didn't want people to think that's why we were sending out invites. 
* side note * I've been on Pinterest several times, looking for ideas of what to do w/extra wedding announcements. Nothin yet. My creative juices need to get rollin on this! I have OCD when it comes to storing things for a certain amount of time. They must go, all!
And- if you're reading, I hope we sent out an invite to you. If not- I'm sorry. We have plenty of extra invites, that I could send to you 365 days later? 

Mark and Breanne's Wedding

Jake and I have been to quite a few weddings together

not just since we've been married, but since we've been together This goes back to when we were dating even. Our first wedding was last spring. 

Jake's old room mate (Mark) got married two weekends ago

I volunteered to throw a shower for her. Real last minute but real fun

I also went to one of her other showers and got to get to know her friends

It was really nice. I'm glad she invited me and that we have a friendship now :)

Her wedding colors were purple and yellow. So I stuck w/that theme for the shower

I made lemon cupcakes and bought purple cupcake holders. They had purple frosting too

I put them in these cute 'lil plastic holders and tied purple tulle around them

Okay, so sometimes I get a little too carried away with decorations

I made this "Bride To Be" banner for the shower and hung it in the kitchen 

We had a dessert/lingerie party and I had a buncha different treats goin on 

it was fun

We were invited to the sealing of Mark and Breanne

During all this time, I've been able to get to know Breanne and some of her friends

This is her really good friend Kati and her husband Reagan

They just got married in June and are so cute!

this photo was taken at the temple, while waiting for the happy couple to come out

And here they are. Mr. and Mrs. Mark Lyman

Saturday, August 4th, 2012

Mt. Timpanogos Temple

We were also invited to the dinner afterwards. They didn't have a reception

They just invited a select few and had a special dinner/small reception. 

It was so nice. Very relaxing and intimate. I loved it

Here are some pictures from the dinner, that was held at the JSM Bldg. 

PS- I loved being able to look out and see the temple where we were married :)

She had delicious cupcakes at the dinner. I love cupcakes!

Cutest decorations ever. So nice that she can put these in their home too!

Our friends Tim & Melissa (and their cute 'lil baby) sat with us

Jake and Tim used to live together when Jake and I were first dating in '09

We knew Tim & Melissa and would hang out w/them when they were first dating/engaged

So much fun being there w/their little guy. I miss having him over

first dance

We hope you enjoy the xbox we/everyone chipped in and got you! YAY

it's tradish

I was texting Breanne the week of the wedding, telling her I would be sure to look down and see the exact time the sealer pronounced them as Mr. and Mrs. and it came out to be the exact time of 12:14 pm, so I was sure to tell her that, when we first congratulated/hugged them after the ceremony.

We absolutely loved spending your special day with you. Thank you (again) for inviting us, and allowing us to be a part of this special memory (s). I can't wait for crafts and girls nights, and to get to know your friends better. We've already started planning a triple date w/Kati and her husband, so the three of us couples will have so much fun together!