4th anniversary

today is thatcher's and my 4 year wedding anniversary! i feel like this is the most special anniversary yet because we have azalea to share it with. i can't think of a better gift. in honor of our anniversary, i put together this post that i saw on another blog that i read.

our wedding abc's:

attending:
we had around 170 friends and family in attendance.

bridesmaids:

i had 4 bridesmaids. 2 friends and 2 cousins. my best friend kelli was my maid of honor.

catering:

our hors d'oeuvres and dinner were catered by amore victoria an amazing italian restaurant in uptown.

our cake was from queen of cakes in edina. yum!

dress:

i got my dress from brides of france in uptown. it was the first dress i tried on, i got it for only $200, and it didn't need any alterations. i'm pretty sure it was meant to be :)

engagement:
we got engaged a year before our wedding on may 2006 in venice, italy! i couldn't have asked for a better proposal!

flowers:

i got my flowers from the flower guys. they are super quirky, do a lot of farmers markets, and don't even have a website...but they did a great job! i had lillies and roses in my bouquet and the bridesmaid bouquets and "market bouquets" for our centerpieces.

 groomsmen:
thatcher had 4 groomsmen. 2 friends, his brother, and my brother. he also had 2 friends as ushers.

honeymoon:
we had our honeymoon in maine, new hampshire, and boston. i came down with a strain of meningitis and took a trip to urgent care, so it was a trip not soon forgotten :) we managed to have a wonderful time, though...in between all my naps!

invitations:
as a gift to us, our family friend april (who is an artist) created our invitations for us. they were non-traditional, but i loved them! unfortunately...no pics of them. 

justice of the peace:
both of the pastors from my lutheran church married us. one has been the pastor there since i was 5, so that was cool!

keepsakes:
as in favors? we just did these little bags with chocolates inside. who doesn't like chocolate?!

ladies night:
i had a really fun, fairly tame bachelorette party. dinner at a hibachi restaurant and a sleepover at a hotel. the girls did make me wear a blindfold though when i left the house. ha!

music:
for the ceremony, my college roomate sang 2 songs and she did a wonderful job! for the reception, we had a dj and he wasn't great, so that was sort of lame.

newlyweds:
newlyweds? we're pretty much an old married couple these days ;)

old, new, borrowed, blue:
i was pretty bad at this one. i don't think i had anything old...or borrowed. obviously my dress was new...and my garter had some blue!

photography:
most of these pictures you are seeing were taken by our wonderful photographers at graddy photography. we would definitely recommend them to anyone!

question popping:
i'm pretty sure we already went over this in "engagement", but he asked and i think my response was "are you serious?" followed of course by "yes!"

reception:

we had our reception at a greek orthodox church overlooking lake calhoun. (we are not greek orthodox), but they had a great event hall. it was perfect! some friends of ours recommended it and we went on to recommend it to another couple.

shoes:
i don't think we actually got any pictures of my shoes, but they were white strappy sandals with little rhinestones on them. cute and fairly comfortable, but i think i went barefoot for most of the reception!

trash the dress:
well, i never actually got it professionally cleaned, so maybe that counts? haha. but no, my dress is still intact.

unique:

i don't know that there was anything especially unique about our wedding, but we were surrounded by all the people we love and who love us, and that's enough for me!

vows:

we took fairly traditional vows, with a little editing to fit us.

wedding woes:
everything went nearly perfect that day. it started to rain a little during our pictures, but not much. and we managed to get pictures with some pretty cool clouds in the background. the florists forgot the flowers for our cake, but a good friend of ours just pulled some from the centerpieces and made it look great!

x-rated:

riiiiight 

young children:

we had our friends' daughter celia as the flower girl. she was adorable and did a great job. she was a little nervous and stopped halfway down the aisle, but that's the fun part of kids in a wedding, right? :)

zzzz:

we stayed at the grand hotel in downtown minneapolis. we didn't get there until almost 1am and we were tired from a great day!