This is holly84wood's Orange Wedding!

hello again ladies!

due to a tight budget, my hubby and i didn't get to take our honeymoon following our wedding like we had initially wanted. we kept telling ourselves we would save money and book it for the springtime, but i was always a little nervous we'd keep pushing it back and it wouldn't ever happen, well now it is actually OFFiCiAL!

we got our tax return back and went and booked our honeymoon on valentine's day [happy v-day to us!] ;) we'll be going march 8-12.

we are going to the all-inclusive resort we had looked into prior to the wedding. it's in riviera maya, mexico and is called the Occidental Grand Xcaret. we are super pumped because the resort owns an ecological park called xcaret where you can visit mayan ruins, go zip lining, swim with dolphins, float down a river in a cave, etc. i am soo thrilled!

another plus is that this is my husband's and my first real vacation together after 4 & 1/2 years together. so we couldn't be more excited!

how many of you ladies have ever been to riviera maya before? i've heard great things about it!

anyone here ever been to the occidental grand xcaret before?

=]

photos taken after our ceremony at Penn State Altoona where we first met. =] a beautiful campus that made for great photos.

continuation of our professional wedding pictures. some of the wonderful moments captured before, during, and immediately following our ceremony. stay tuned for a few more posts of pics!

The continuation of our professional pictures--these are some of my faves from the pictures taken before the ceremony. i am going to add more posts of ceremony shots, outdoor shots & reception shots too! check back for those =]

so we got our professional pictures back from our photographer and i just love them! these are just some of the details of our day. i'm going to post some otherpics in separate posts since i have so many i want to share =]

hello again ladies!

i'm back and i'm officially mrs. thomas! and it feels amazing! we had the most perfect wedding day! it was rainy and dark out the morning of, as was called for so i was bummed about that, but as we were on our way back from getting our hair done, the sky started clearing and the sun started peeking through..from that point on we had no rain..it was perfect!

the whole day kind of felt unreal, i kept saying i felt like i was dreaming..it's just such a surreal feeling to have the day you've been planning for years finally arrive. parts of it did fly by as everyone says, but thankfully i felt that some parts of the day didn't. our reception was SO much fun and i kept thinking it was later in the evening than it was, so that made me happy! after dinner, if i wasn't making rounds to say hi & thank people with my hubby you could definitely find me on the dance floor--that's where i think a lot of our guests spent the whole night, which i LOVED. i really wanted everyone to let loose and have a great time!


i can honestly say there were no major things that went wrong..it was pretty much smooth sailing!

there were just a few tiny bumps in the road here and there but nothing that didn't get resolved. the biggest thing that could've been an issue but got resolved was that i got a call while getting ready at the church that the baker was trying to deliver my cake to the reception site but the doors weren't open and no one was there yet. i made a few calls and had no luck reaching anybody so i pretty much had to tell the guy delivering it "i don't know what to tell you..you're attempting delivery sooner than you originally told me so the doors aren't open yet" he just replied with "okay..sorry to bother you, we'll figure it out" and they did--both the wedding cake and the groom's cake got delivered just fine thank goodness!

a piece of advice i'd give to everyone--call to confirm vendors, re-read and verify all details on invoices or contracts. we had good luck with all of our vendors because i had been in pretty much constant contact with each of them the weeks leading up to the wedding.

there was another small glitch that could've been bad, but ended up working out even better in the end...even though i had read and re-read and confirmed all the details several times with our rental company [for our linens and china, etc] i STILL missed that we were using (4) 8' tables for our head table and only ordered 2 table skirts. i guess i don't know enough about linens to have a red flag go off that 2 skirts weren't going to be long enough. the first day we started decorating i realized we were 2 skirts short and had my fist mini freak out moment. i called the rental company and spoke to the man i had dealt with all along. he told me that the only way to get 2 more skirts would be to have them over nighted and it would cost $60+ just to have them delivered..he then told me he'd call me back after he did some calculations and figured out some other options. when he called me back he told me that they have (4) 6' tables that we could use that would allow the 2 table skirts to fit and we wouldn't have to order more skirts. to sum up the rest of the story-- the next morning [friday] another woman who worked for the company dropped off the 4 tables for us. not only did she help me set them up, she also helped put on the table cloths and skirts AND set up all of our white christmas lights between the tablecloth and the skirt the way we wanted so you would see the glow of the lights under the table. i thanked her numerous times because what was supposed to be a 5 minute task of unloading the tables ended up her being there for at least 30 minutes and taking over the task. i offered to pay her for the tables and her services and she refused and said their payment is pleasing their clients and making their day perfect. so needless to say, if you're in the Altoona, PA area and need to use a rental company i very much recommend Always A Party Rentals.

so, all in all, on my wedding day, if there were any other problems [ i don't think there were] i didnt't know about them! thanks to my wonderful bridal party, family and friends--everything was amazing!

we have gotten literally nothing but compliments on evertything--which i LOVE to hear after planning for 2 years. we heard so much that all the decor was very "us" and had so many compliments on even the tiniest details. the candy bar was a huge hit!

it feels wonderful to be a wife--my hubby and i didn't take a honeymoon yet, we're going to plan to go in march. but that didn't stop us from being in the honeymoon phase =] --we're closer than ever and loving every minute! <3


*note--we won't be getting our professional pictures back for a little while, most of these pictures my father -in-law took. he is very into photography and does a great job, so we are so thankful to have his pictures as a "preview" of what's to come!

i will add more pictures and little details as they come =]

well ladies, after 2 long years of engagement, feeling like it would never be my turn, it finally is!! i can't believe the week is finally here. it still just doesn't feel completely real and i really don't know that it will until i'm about to walk down the aisle. ahh it's so crazy!!

today was my last day of work until the middle of the week next week and i am headed to my hometown bright and early tomorrow with my car packed sooo heavily you'd think i was moving [and fh's car too!]

tomorrow i'll be running final errands for the wedding and thursday and friday are reception setup and also pampering days. then of course rehearsal and rehearsal dinner in the evening on friday.

we aren't going on a honeymoon until probably march or so since we spent wayyy too much money on the wedding! so i will be back a few days after the wedding and better believe i will be posting pics and stories for all you ladies! this website has been wonderful for me during the planning, i love all you girls and i will definitely still be sticking around after the wedding, even if it's not quite as frequently!

wish me luck and i'll see you all on the other side ;)

i finally had my hair trial on tuesday after having it rescheduled twice
=-P i also had my final dress fitting later that day so it was really nice to get an idea of how i'll look on my wedding day. i bought all new makeup for my wedding day and haven't tried it out yet, i was going to apply it to practice at the end of the day so i'd have the full effect with my hair and makeup. unfortunately i had run so many wedding errands and had a 3.5 hour drive back to my current home so i was too pooped to do so! hopefully i will get to that soon.

let me know what ya think of my hair..honest opinions! i liked it a lot except i want my hairdresser to make the "bump" higher at the back of my head so i don't look "bald" when you're looking at me head on.

i was also going to have a flower in my hair but the 2 i had taken with me didn't work out. one was too big and one was too small..i may buy some orchids to use if they look nice. we'll see!

the receiving line: a decision i have been struggling with for some time now! we are having a fairly large bridal party [12 total, not including the 2 of us!] and aren't really trying to have an hour-long exit from the church while all of our 135+ guests stops to greet every single member of our bridal party/family that they probably don't even know.

so then, that narrows it down to family members..well, fh and i both come from parents who have divorced and/or re-married so we have more than one set of parents each. so then there is the dilemma of do we add on 7 more people [all of our parents] besides ourselves and still have 9 people in our receiving line instead of having 14+ which isn't much better!? or do we stick to each of our actual moms & dads and run the risk of hurting the feelings of our step-parents?

the third option i thought of was to simply have the two of us, and our 2 siblings each, but that still doesn't seem right to me to have our siblings but not our parents. so basically i need your opinions, ladies!

everything is going to be rushed to get pictures taken after everyone leaves the church and get to the reception at a decent time [fh & i are not seeing each other before the ceremony for pictures], so i want the receiving line to move as quickly as possible..yet idefinitely want to have one so that if i don't make it around to every single person at the reception i will still have been able to thank them for coming.

please help, girls!! what are you doing for your receiving line? or married ladies, what did you do? i'm open to any & all suggestions!

saturday night was my bachelorette party & we went for a night out in philly. started with the ladies & i getting ready at my place & pre-gaming a little then we headed to the city for dinner and headed out for some dancing afterwards. we went to a club that had a salsa club on one level & a hip hop club on another. we kinda planned to make it to some other bars but ended up staying there the whole night. it was a blast! it was soo nice to have so many of my best friends together again for a night out. since we're all growing up & heading in our own directions it really doesn't happen at all anymore. so that was my favorite part! my sister who is 3 months pregnant had to miss out on the fun because she's been so sick as well as my future SIL who has a 3 month old baby & lives pretty far away..if everyone could've been there it would've been even better but either way the night was a great time!