{ Life } Halloween

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love decorating up the house and planning out my costume. For the last five years (I think!), my brother and I have thrown a Halloween party for our friends that are the highlight of my fall. I always look forward to Halloween baking, cooking, and playing dress up. This year was no different! I was especially excited for Halloween this year -- Last year Carl and I were driving across the country to start our new life together on the 31st! While I was sad to miss the celebrations, I was celebrating my own new favorite holiday -- the anniversary of Carl making the huge leap to move from New York to Minnesota. Halloween just got a little more special! Here are a few of the costumes from the parties over the years I've worn. You'll notice the pirate seems to come out whenever I just feel like wearing a costume! It's my fall back costume for everything!

2006 The first year of the pirate with my college 'roommates' - We all lived in singles, but pretty much together :)

 

2007, the pirate returns for a Halloween comedy club appearance

  

2007, my actual costume for the Halloween party -- Hermione Granger

2008, my dark literature side comes out -- I was Alex DeLarge from a Clockwork Orange

 

 2009, I was originally trying to be Penny from Dr. Horrible's Sing a Long Blog, but ended up being Snow White

2011, the pirate comes out for the Halloween party at work... 

But then I switched into my actual costume for the year -- Kaylee from Firefly.

Carl and me -- Jayne Cobb and Kaylee Frye (my first costume of the night)

Then I became a black cat...

And finally a blue wig because... why not? It's Halloween!

I morphed a lot last night, but it was a great party. I'm already thinking about a costume for next year... Perhaps a Raptor pilot from Battlestar Galactica? If so, I better start on the costume now...

Happy Halloween everyone!

{ Inspiration } Aisles

I had never thought about decorating the aisle I would be walking down. In my wedding blog stalking, I started seeing all these pretty pictures of different ways that aisles had been decorated. It got me to thinking... Outdoor August wedding in the early evening... Maybe a little gussying up would be nice! There are lost of styles to choose from. Check out some of these beauties!

Did you chose to decorate your aisle or not? What effected your decision?

{ Venues } Ceremony & Reception

It's been a while, but I thought I would let you all know... We're all booked! After days and weeks and hours spent looking for, emailing, and researching venues, we are all done searching. I really thought that looking for a venue was going to kill me. Carl and I knew we wanted an outdoor ceremony. We also knew we wanted to book a place that had ceremony and reception on site. I had been trying to stay within a certain ring around the Twin Cities area. We wanted to make sure there were hotels in the area and all that good stuff...

There was a time when, during the search, I yelled at my computer. I had sent out just about my one millionth inquiry and I might have snapped a little. Was it too much to ask that a place be somewhat affordable and pretty and do ceremony and reception on site?!!

It wasn't until I really started to spreadsheet out every cost and detail that I got good at narrowing down all the options. We only visited three sites and narrowed down all the other options. The first place was a dud. The second was pretty for a reception, but lacked any sort of good ceremony site. The third one was juuuuuust right.

Check it out! We have access to a patio attached to our room...

There are loads of pretty settings for photographs...

Not to mention the ceremony site. The pergola is beautiful! It's actually getting moved by next spring to be framed by a pond and a willow tree. I'm in love!

The reception hall comes draped, there is a fire place and a separate breezeway (which would be awesome for the little photobooth-y thingy I want to create... cause you know, why not?). And... chandelier! Again... in love. I'm super excited to plan out the table decor and all the other details.

That's two big things off of the list! Dress bought, site booked! Now we're rolling!

How did you find your wedding venue? Did you have any particulars you were looking for that made the search tough?   

{ Photos } Engagement Pictures, Part Five

To bring you up to speed with this last installment, we had left a beautiful tree for a secluded area on our way to the U of M pedestrian bridge thingy, then we were on our way to Stone Arch Bridge, but found another spot we liked better. Finally, we reached the end of the trail: Mill City Park.

The Mill City ruins are pretty cool. From the Mill City website:

Mill City Museum is built into the ruins of the Washburn A Mill, along the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The original A Mill, built in 1874, was leveled by a flour dust explosion that claimed 18 lives. That explosion and the resulting fire destroyed much of the riverfront business area, cutting Minneapolis’ milling capacity in half.

So, basically, it exploded and now we have this pretty park area with it's historically preserved remnants. History geekery? Yep. I dig it.

We wandered around and found a spot to set our last section of pictures. Here we go!

We had a great time taking pictures with Kate. It was a long day with a lot of walking and clothes changing (this was another fun spot in which I wiggled into a dress, trying to be subtle, while people walked around on the bridge above us, and Carl changed his pants behind a chunk of the ruins... I think by the end of the day we were pro at it! After all the walking and photos, we rounded out the night with a nice German meal at the Black Forest Inn. It was a rewarding meal after our journey!

Check out Kate's website! She's stellar and we loved working with our friend on these great photos.

{ Photos } Engagement Pictures, Part Four

Catching up, we had left a beautiful tree for a secluded area on our way to the U of M pedestrian bridge thingy, and now we were on our way to Stone Arch Bridge.

We stumbled over the end of the Minneapolis Slut Walk and found our way to the main bridge when we spotted something even better... A little wooden bridge surrounded by trees down closer to the Mississippi river.

A search for the entrance ensued! When we found it and made our way to the bridges, Kate snapped these great photos:

 

After we were done here, we had one last stop to make... Stick around for our final set!

{ Photos } Engagement Pictures, Part Three

So we started in a tree, found a secluded area, and then headed to our next destination: the U of M pedestrian bridge thingy (like my technical name for it? Can you tell I went to an out of state college?).

It was crowded there that day. It might have been that it was possibly the last nice day in fall, or it might have been all the new students still eager to run around campus on that 'back in school' high. Or it might have been a fire drill... who knows.

I love the Minneapolis skyline, so Kate framed us with the skyline in the picture and caught these fun photos:

We were then headed off to the Minneapolis Stone Arch Bridge, but as we got on the bridge, we saw something that might have been better...

Stick around for part four!

{ Photos } Engagement Pictures, Part Two

After we left our tree, we wandered to our second destination, still on the University campus. On the way, we found a quiet little spot that made for some awesome photos. Cue changing in public because the building next to us was locked... Good thing high school gym locker rooms made me a pro at doing this covertly!

While I was playing around with creating our photo guestbook just for funzies, I made these:

Tee hee! Look at me giggle like a little school girl. Full color! Some color! Pretty fun.

Anyway... After this quick little session, it was time for another quick change and we moved along to our third destination.

Stick around for part three!

{ Photos } Engagement Pictures, Part One

I've had these photos for a week, but I've been too busy to blog them. It's been killing me! I've wanted to post them all over the interwebs since the second I got them, but alas, work has been draining this week, so my evenings have been a routine of me coming home late and passing out early. But here we are -- it's Saturday morning, and I'm revealing to you the first set of our engagement photos!

Kate was a ton of fun to work with. It was relaxing for Carl and I to do our photos with her because we all know each other and are comfortable together. I'll link you all to her work when I'm done posting the e-pics, but I don't want you to skip ahead and ruin the surprise! We're quite happy with how these photos turned out.

We started out our day by heading to the University of Minnesota campus. Unfortunately, on the way there we ran into HUGE road construction that killed almost 45 minutes. Normally the full drive is 25 from home. I'm not patient in traffic, and I was anxious to see where Kate was going to lead us!

We finally got on campus and wandered around til we found this courtyard. We goofed around a bit, and eventually, Kate suggested we climb up this neat, branchy tree. Ever the tomboy, skirt be damned, I climbed that thing and Carl followed. Here are the results!

 I love how boyish Carl looks!

 Kate is clever -- the title of this photo has to be "K-I-S-S-I-N-G" haha!

 Awwwwh...

I think I'm blushing...

This one feels dreamy!!

After a few shots in the tree, we decided it was time to move on. Getting out of the tree was not nearly as graceful as the climb up. It involved me almost falling, and Carl catching me like the man he is... But I'm pretty sure I flashed anyone who walked by. Whoops -- thankfully I wore cute undies...

Stick around for part two!