Hey everyone!! What a whirlwind this year has been! Ed and I have been overwhelmed with complete joy and happiness from all the turn of events. It has taken some time to fully sink in that this isn’t just a dream, we are officially married!! I am so excited to finally share with all of you our amazing big day at the beautiful Bloom Lake Barn in Shafer, MN! I know tons of you have been patiently waiting and anticipating a new post for some time now and I am so glad to say I will be back in full swing again from here on out!
The morning had finally arrived, the day I was going to be a bride! The feelings and emotions were blanketing over me so heavy and filling my heart with complete warmth. I felt like a little girl again, waiting for Christmas morning and giddy with so much excitement. My stomach jumped for joy and was dancing all around like a rollercoaster. Who would have thought I would be so lucky?! I know it can sound cliche’ but I truly felt like the happiest girl in the world to have found the man of my dreams and this day would be the day we would remember forever.
Many ask, “how do you know?”, and many answer “You just know”. Seems so very complicated and simple right? One big factor for that “You just know” moment I believe comes from how two people interact with one another. The way you look at each other, immediately feeling butterflies and without warning, a smile becomes forever glued to your face. That gaze you feel from each other that makes you feel like you could be staring right into their very heart and in return sends back never ending warmth and love. The way your hands intertwine and how they always seem to magnetically find each other to hold. That unexplainable connection is something I never want to let go of. The sparks are real, the butterflies are real, this love is real and when you know, you know!
Every waking moment of this day felt surreal and magical beyond our wildest dreams. The days up to this very moment may have been stressful, lots of work and at some points felt like the world was just crumbling down with millions of tasks to complete but every little phone call, email, trips to the cities and days of putting our creative hands to work was all worth it! We finally got to just enjoy our dream come true! To describe to you the feelings of relief both Ed and I felt would be a understatement but we both knew the day was finally here and we were ready to celebrate!
Absolute pure joy as we walked down the aisle officially married and for the first time Mr. & Mrs.! Our hearts are overflowing with happiness and we couldn’t be more blessed and thankful for everyone that came to witness our marriage take place and help us to celebrate. We have such amazing support from all of our family and friends! We were even luckier to have had some of our closest family and friends stand right by our sides and be a part of our big day. Everyone made the day so fun and memorable! We honestly don’t know what we would have done with all the fantastic help they also provided throughout the planning process and on the actual day as well. It was all so greatly appreciated!!
We decided to do something a little different than the typical order of events traditional weddings have. We really wanted to be able to share our first dance outside and so our DJ, Matt Rush, simply suggested doing it prior to our guests all gathering inside for dinner, that way everyone was already outside from cocktail hour. We LOVED the idea! It also was so nice having everyone there to be able to see as many guests can’t always stay after dinner. We danced our first dance to the lovely “Love Someone” by Lukas Graham. The song fits perfectly to our relationship and who we are as a couple. We both spent a long time searching through songs and nothing quite fit us until one day this song was playing, we both looked at each other in pure silence soaking in all the lyrics and just knew, it was the one. We now both have it as our ring tones for each other (yes we are those cheesy love birds) but it is a reminder everyday when we call each other of our magical once in a lifetime day. That first dance was so magical, we felt like we were dancing on cloud 9 and honestly didn’t even notice anyone even watching, we were so wrapped up in each other’s eyes. The moment with one another was all so bliss and we were flying high on happiness.
Dinner was served by Unique Dining Catering. We chose to have a buffet style of beef tips and roasted garlic chicken breasts for our main two entrees. For our sides we selected to have strawberry pecan salad, roasted red potatoes, and mac n’ cheese. The food was delicious! One downfall of the barn venue however was only having one caterer to choose from for our day. The catering service was all fantastic but we had to go through a lot of extra work of finding our own plates, napkins, cups, silverware etc to fit within our budget as going with the catering options would have increased costs way too much! Thank goodness for Amazon! I found all the plates, napkins, cutlery and cups from there at great prices! Plus, anything we did not use was easily returnable to our local Kohl’s at no cost for shipping back!
We kept the fun rolling through dinner by playing a little bell ringing game in order for Ed and I to share a kiss. Typically most weddings we have attended and I am sure many of you too have experienced the classic clinking of glasses in order for the bride and groom to kiss. Well if any of you know me, you know I don’t like to stick to the norm and would rather choose to do something unique and creative. Our guests needed to come up and ring the bell and then choose a couple attending the wedding to kiss and then Ed and I would have to mimic their kiss. It was so entertaining and fun! We loved how involved all the guests got with our little game and we had so much fun copying all the different kisses.
Our cake and cupcakes were done by Bluebird Cakery who we had such a great experience with! Ed and I went down to visit for a cake tasting and honestly wish we could have chosen all the flavors! They were all so amazing and delicious! We had such a hard time choosing just four! Our main cake was a beautiful two tier’d cake with a lovely swirl design with hints of pink and gold detail. We had our florist add in the finishing touches of rose petals to complete this beautiful piece! We now can’t wait to receive our one year anniversary cake to celebrate one year!
We hit off the dance floor with a few special dances of course. The Father daughter dance and a remembrance dance with Ed’s sister for their mom Rose who had passed away ten years ago. We so wish we could have had her there with us on this great day but we know her presence was there in spirit watching over us. They danced to “Drowning” by Chris Young. We then got everyone moving and pumped up by doing a special family dance with my now bonus children Grace and Vince to the song “The Git up” by Blanco Brown. It was so fun dancing all together and then having all of our guests join in towards the end. It was such a hit, that we replayed the song again! The remainder of our fabulous day was filled with tons more dancing, socializing with friends and family, roasting tasty marshmallows by the bon fire to make smore’s and watching a beautiful display of fireworks in the starry sky that Ed surprised me with.
We couldn’t have asked for a better beginning to our lives. It was a celebration for the books and totally surpassed all our expectations. It all together was a million ooh’s and ahh’s. We relive this day over and over again in our heads and just smile. The day was perfect. It was us and forever will be ours.
Huge shoutout and thank you for Marissa Murdy Photography! She shot all of these amazing photos and captured every waking moment of our day with all the emotions and love we experienced. She is so fun to work with and is hands down the BEST!! We can’t find a single photo to not love! She is great!
Another special Thanks to the following:
Venue: Bloom Lake Barn
Catering: Unique Dining Catering
DJ: Matt Rush
Photographer: Marissa Murdy Photography
Officiant: Susan Lee Wright
Florist: Artemisia Studios
Cake: Bluebird Cakery
Dress: Christian Lane Bridal
Suits: Mainstream Fashions for Men
Hair: Hair by Theresa
Makeup: Beauty by Court Anne
I can’t wait to keep in touch with all of you! Now that we are settled back in to our regular routines of life, I am now more motivated than ever to keep up with future posts. I am super excited to keep sharing life updates, style inspiration as well as tons of tips and tricks for your everyday life! Stay tuned, the best is yet to come!
xoxo
Sam
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