Our Day by Design

Today is our 3rd wedding anniversary. I know I say the same every year but this last year really has flown by. We had a busy 2012 watching Holden grow, and a couple of weddings and holidays. So far the start of 2013 has involved Holden turning 1, my return to work, selling our flat, and moving temporarily to my parents house. We have lots to look forward in our fourth year of marriage including our new house being completed in the summer and taking Holden to Florida at the end of November.   (Image by Craig & Eva Sanders ) We are having a quiet evening tonight then we will celebrate properly in a few weeks by enjoying a tasting menu meal at Martin Wishart , which was our Christmas present from my parents.

1 year since we walked down the aisle, said our vows surrounded by family & friends, cut our cake & danced our first dance. I'm not sure I can actually believe we have reached our anniversary already. So much has happened in the last year, a whirlwind of weddings, honeymoons & holidays, which has made the whole year disappear so quickly. We have started our second year of marriage doing what we love, with our trip to Bratislava & Vienna. While we don't know what the rest of this year will bring, except for a trip to Marrakech for Grahams 30th and my 30th later on in the year, we hope to spend it on many more holidays, with our family & friends and of course, a wedding or two! (All images by Craig & Eva Sanders ) This is my 300th post too; cant believe I've kept writing for so long {probably because my wedding posts took forever}, so thank you for following along!

Inspired* by Kirsty from a safe mooring , I thought my last post about our wedding should share the marriage advice given to us by our wedding guests. As you may remember the guest book had different questions for them to answer, one of which was 'Any advice for the Newlyweds?' We received lots of wonderful wisdom from our guests; some funny, some helpful, some we already followed and only a few that were really silly! Here is some of the fabulous advice: "Always listen to Gaynor" {sound advice from our very wise flowergirl} "May the best days of your past be the worst days of your future" {a perfect reminder that your wedding day shouldn't be the best day of your life; there is plenty more to come} "Be happy and treat life as an adventure to share together!" "Never let the sun go down on an argument" {and loads of other variations of this theme} "Keep a sense of humour" "Be best friends!" "Always remember t...

As you know we had our gift list with John Lewis . We were very lucky to receive the majority of the items on our list. We were also given a lot of John Lewis vouchers; half of which we used to buy the remainder of our list so we ended up with everything we chose. We had the delivery arranged for the Friday after we returned from honeymoon on the Wednesday as Graham was still going to be off work. When we were stuck on honeymoon my dad phoned to cancel the delivery for us. The first Saturday we could then rearrange for was the 29th May, when loads of boxes appeared at my parent’s house so we could store them in their garage until we could unpack them. Having lived together for three years before the wedding we already had a lot of everything. However most of it was fairly cheap from Ikea so we used our list to upgrade things like pots, pans, glasses, towels, bedding, bathroom accessories, bins and a new fancy Dyson ball vacuum! We also got a Wedgewood china dinner service and Robert ...

As we originally found our photographers at the SECC wedding fair, they had an offer for a free 16” x 12” framed print. We chose the image they had put on our mini album covers which is one of the black & white images of us in amongst the trees. (Image by Craig & Eva Sanders ) The print looks fantastic in its black frame with the white mount and it will look even better when it’s finally up on the wall {hint hint G!} Our names and wedding date are on the mount as well. They also gave us a 10” x 8” print of one of favourite photos which looks lovely in the black slate photo frame we were given as a wedding gift. We have loads of other photos on display, including square black & white ones of us in the car and during the first dance; a square one of me & the girls laughing; one of us in amongst the daffodils, the full bridal party photo and the one of us against the wall. I have loads more printed out in square format that I’m planning to put in the purple frames we used ...

The photography package we chose included a 16” x 12” landscape album with 40 pages / 20 spreads, by Bellissimo. We had looked at some album examples when we met them in the February before the wedding and decided to change it to a 12” x 12” square album with 50 pages / 25 spreads. Rather than having the photo cover, which was included, we opted for the engraved aluminium cover. It cost us an additional £70 and we were able to use some of the money we had received as a wedding gift. Eva created a first draft of an album design to get us started back in May last year. Once we had received our CD of images, I swapped some around and made some changes to the layout before the design was finalised. This process did take a while and in the end we went through to their studio so I could see each page once the changes had been made. After deciding on the last spread we had two options for, we were finally happy and ready to order it by the end of July. The album & prints we had ordered...

It only took 30 posts for my wedding recaps & 15 posts for the honeymoon ! (Image by Craig & Eva Sanders ) I cant believe they took me so long but 2010 was a busy year, I'm just glad I managed to get them finished before our first anniversary! I have listed all of the recaps together on a page in my sidebar so its easy for everyone to find or in case you missed anything. Ive made a separate page with all of my DIY posts as well. I'm thinking of getting all of my recap posts made into two books so I can have a record of it all. I still have a few more posts to do to finish off everything wedding related {that wasn't a recap} including changing my name; our album; the photographs & our gifts. However, I was wondering if there is anything else you would like to know that I haven't covered? If you have any questions about anything to do with the wedding or the honeymoon, leave me a comment on this post and I will try to answer it.

11 months married which means less than a month till Bratislava & Vienna! February included a lovely day in Edinburgh with My Spare Thoughts ; Daydreams in Lace ; A Dizzy Girl , Conversation Pieces & This Girl Is... at Loopy Lorna's & Urban Angel and a couple of busy weekends seeing family & friends since my nephew was up staying with my parents. We spent last weekend down in London where we took my nephew to the Science Museum and celebrated my brother-in-law's 30th with dinner at The Antelope then drinks at Tooting Tram and Social . I only have one more post to finally finish my honeymoon recaps and then I just have a few more to complete all of the wedding stuff before our first anniversary. Not sure what ill write about then! This month we are going to use one of our Christmas vouchers, by having lunch at La Potiniere with my parents & aunt & uncle then we are going to be looking forward to our anniversary trip. We are also looking at options ...

10 months already; this first year is going so fast! We have enjoyed the first few weeks of 2011 with nothing much planned, and actually having time to sort things out, like tidying the living room and other exciting things like that! I am continuing my honeymoon recaps as I am determined to finish them all soon, I just have the Maldives to do! As our anniversary is fast approaching we decided to go on a city break to celebrate, as we do love our holidays and really any excuse! After ruling out a return trip to NYC, our criteria for the location was Europe and a country or city that neither of us had been to before. This turned out harder that we thought, especially because we wanted somewhere you could fly direct from Edinburgh. After going through the full list of Easyjet & Ryanair destinations, we chose Slovakia and Austria. We are going to spend 2 nights in Bratislava then 3 in Vienna and I cant wait to go, in just 8 weeks! This month I'm looking forward to meeting the blog...

2010 has been a fabulous year; I'm not sure 2011 will come anywhere close! Inspired by both R & Laura , I thought I would recap the highlights! January A busy month of wedding planning . February We posted our wedding invites & I had my first dress fitting. March I got made redundant ! Then I had my fantastic hen weekend ! Before I managed to get a new job in amongst tons of DIY ! April We got Married ! Then we went on honeymoon to Sri Lanka & the Maldives, where we got stranded because of the volcanic ash cloud , finally getting home 5 days later than planned! May My blog turned 1 . June Graham turned 29 . I started my wedding recaps . July Helen had her hen do . R & O got married . August We went to Italy for a week. While there, I was a bridesmaid at Helen's wedding followed by their UK reception. Then I met some lovely bloggers for the first time . September I made my sisters wedding invites & my nephew turned 1 . October We spent a week in th...