Our Wedding Day and my first Wedding Album Layout!

November 15th, 2008 was one of the happiest days of my life! I married the man I have waited a long time to find... the one I feel I was destined to spend the rest of my life with. Despite the fact that my dad couldn't make it to the ceremony or reception because his wife was very ill, and despite the fact that the weather was cold and windy, it was still a very beautiful ceremony!

We were married on Honeymoon Island in Dunedin, FL at sunset. Thankfully we had taken pictures for the wedding the week prior, when the weather was cooperating and the sunset was breathtaking and not obscured by clouds! You will see below a sampling of photos from both the photo shoot day and the actual ceremony below!

This shot was taken the week before the wedding.

What a beautiful sunset it was!

I should mention here that our good friends John and Brenda took these and most of our wedding photos for us. It was their gift to us for our wedding and we can't thank them enough. John is an accomplished photographer and his wife proved to be very talented at photography as well!

Another pre-wedding photo without the sunset behind us! We 'borrowed" the arch that was left there by a previous wedding! The torches were ours.

The actual wedding day getting ready to walk down the aisle!

See my dress just blowing in the breeze?

In attendance were our family (even Tom's kids from the other coast of FL and my aunt Cindy who surprised us all the way from MI), and many of our close friends. There were approximately 200 guests invited so it wasn't small, but still felt quaint and personal.

Standing at the altar during the ceremony.

Here is a shot of the decorations for the beach. Notice how windy it is!!

Along with the help of my daughter Leah, Tom and my friend Tiffani, I painstakingly made all the invitations and decorations for the beach. (See I told you I have been busy! LOL!)

We bought the arch from Michael's and wrapped it in organza and attached the wreath I made for it. We added two palms and two tiki torches that were decorated to match and also had tables for the sand ceremony and blessing stones (to be explained in a later posting.) Ricky and Tom's nephew Dustin raked the sand into a path for us and we added some conch shells to the base of the torches. It was very tropical!

As promised, I have a layout to share with you. I am very excited to make my wedding album! While in Vegas Tom took me to a LSS where I bought a zillion things to have for the honeymoon portion of our album. And then recently, Tiffani and I went to Whimsodoodle and bought tons of things for the album too!

Here are the colors that the album will have in it. I wanted to keep everything in the subtle colors that you would find on the beach, around the water and in the sunset. So the album will be using tans, peaches, oranges, blues and greens.

These colors are so yummy!!

Here is the first layout I made for our wedding album.

The large embellishment on the right side uses actual pieces from the arch decoration we used in the wedding.

Title: Decorating the Beach

Journaling:

"Driving to Honeymoon Island to prepare the beach for the wedding, the rain clouds were looming over us. As it rained briefly my stress level hit the roof. I realized that I had no control over the weather, but I could control the placement of the handmade decorations I had so lovingly prepared for our union. We were so thankful for Chad and Tiffani, Steve and Susan and Leah, Dustin and Ricky who braved what felt like hurricane force winds to drape organza, anchor the arch and torches and sweep a beautiful aisle. Despite Mother Nature, we created a beautiful tropical paradise for our wedding!

Fine Print: PP: Basic Gray; CS: Stampin Up (Sage Shadow and Barely Banana), Bazzill (Orange); Dried flowers and silk leaves from Michael's; Paper Flowers: Bazzill, Kaiser, and Prima; Brads: Creative Cafe; Ribbon: May Arts.