A Non-Wedding Weekend.

We took a much needed break from all things wedding; a break from attending wedding events and a break from thinking about our own. So what did we do? We played and we played a lot. Although it's no secret that D and I often put playing at the top of our list (much to the dismay of my parents), this weekend was focused on nothing else. While we do a ton of stuff together, our hobbies sometimes take us in different directions on the weekend (I can't go kayaking with him and he doesn't enjoy vino with ladies quite like me) but this weekend we managed to spend 99.9% of our time with each other. It was lovely.

A recap:
Friday night we ventured down the Animas river with Zeus for an evening swim and then made homemade beef stroganoff and watched The Dilemma. Saturday was a kayaking event at Vallecito Creek*, and because there were other spectators I got to -put my life in danger by trekking down a scary cliff- watch from a rock high above the creek. Sunday involved a lovely afternoon nap and a giant slip-n-slide in the park and BBQ with friends.

Here's the evidence:

 {Zeus loves rocks, he could search for the perfect one for hours}

{Cooling off}

 {Joe Dirt D & I}

{Hanging my toes off the 50+ foot cliff...vertigo ensued}

{Vallecito Creek...best 1 mile of boating in Colorado}

{Perspective on the size of the 'creek', an 8 ft kayaker below}

{Giant Slip-n-Slide!}

{D taking is first slide down}

My first trip down was with the girls:

And later, a train:

{personal videos from a friend}

We had such a good weekend, further proof of our awesome life. Now, those Save the Dates are in the back of my brain just calling out for addresses and stamps to be affixed...

*okay, just one wedding side note: Vallecito Creek is in fact the creek that feeds into Vallecito Lake; where our venue sits. I drove by our venue on my way to the creek and it was so gorgeous sitting there in all it's Colorado summertime glory. I couldn't help but think that we will be there gettin' married in six short months.

Our Urban Side

I whined about not being able to afford the photographer of my dreams in my last post, because of (the lack of) money and my best friendor situation. Well sometimes a girl gets lucky enough to have the best of both worlds: a bridesmaid AND a talented photographer.

We are fortunate to have gotten our engagement pictures taken by the amazing BM Candace, as our wedding gift. Since we aren't paying, we gave her full reigns, with a couple requests and suggestions. I think for her it was fun because she got to be uber creative, and for me, well it was my best friend shooting us, need I say more?! I knew we were in for something amazing, because in the days leading up to our first shoot she was sending me Pinterest pictures as inspiration. BM Candace decided that we would do two shoot; an urban influenced shoot and a Colorado inspired shoot.

It was exciting and nerve racking all the same. I've been in a gajillion pictures with BM Candace but never on the other side of her lens. Fortunately I mixed up a batch of Sweet Tea Vodka and Lemonade to help ease my nerves.

Sweet Tea Vodka



Our first stop was the local Skate Park



Of course Mr. Honey couldn't resist playing a little bit during the shoot!

Then we played in the park and on Mr. Honey's skateboard

We headed to our downtown area just before dusk and the light was incredible! We climbed some stairs and hung out on top of a roof, even though it clearly stated No Trespassing. We are rebels like that.

 The light at dusk and us standing on the roof made for these super unique and fun shots, a la Peter Pan!

The final stop was a bar. Yup, we had some engagement pictures taken in a bar. We were going for classy in a less than classy place, that's urban right?

We had SO much fun and Mr. Honey and I are so happy with them. They reflect US and show our personality through and through. They aren't expected and that's what we love about them. 

Our next shoot was inspired by this picture:

Image via Pinterest & Modern Photographers/Photo by Aves Photography



Tell me about your 'off the beaten path' engagement locations, Bees! I want to hear about other fun engagement session locations!

*All pictures by Candace Cross Photography unless otherwise noted

Wedding Pro's

This past weekend started the Wedding Extravaganza of 2011 (yes I realize I also have a Crafting Summer of 2011, it's gonna be busy folks). We will be attending a total of four weddings from June through September...then a couple months off and it's our turn. This is in addition to my cousin's wedding this past February and the three we attended last summer. Tired, yet? I'm sure poor D is, especially because these are all my peeps. My calendar is filled with hearts marking weddings and circled important wedding dates, I'm a doodler what can I say:

{Personal picture of my Wedding Events Calendar}

Since January, I have attended three bachelorette parties (with three left to go) and two bridal showers (with three left to go). I figure that with each wedding you typically have a minimum of three events to attend, sometimes four if you are invited to the rehearsal dinner. Adding that all up, that means we have around 15 wedding related activities to attend. Yowza.

When we arrived at the reception this past weekend, I died and went to bridal planning heaven (is that an oxy-moron?!). Sure, I noticed extra details that a lot of guests probably didn't just because I have bridal brain right now, but wow. I'm positive that even the most out-of-the-wedding loop, first-wedding-ever-attendee, I-despise-weddings guest was beyond impressed. D turned to me and said "We should take notes." My brain had already taken it all in glancing from the silver Chiavari chairs to the stacked vintage tea cups to the glass chandeliers to the cabana's posted up outside of the main tent. I didn't need notes to know this was one for the books. I can already imagine opening my Ruffled daily email to see her wedding featured.

{Personal Pictures of Cabana's}

It hit me that when D suggested taking notes, that by the time we have our wedding we will have gone to eight weddings together...and each wedding, in all of their original glory, is inspiring and gets my bridal juices flowing. The wedding this weekend, beyond the amazingness mentioned above, supplied guests with white boa's to dance with. Feathers were flying through the air and covering the ground. It was so unique, check it out:

{Personal Picture of the Bride dancing with BM Candace}

While claiming to be pro's might be a bit of an exaggeration, I think we will take in a lot from the four weddings we go to this summer. And the best part? After celebrating with each of those four couples on their special day, they will get to celebrate with us on ours. *Cue the aww's*

Who Wants To Be My Venue? Part Three.

After we had narrowed the list down, decided that a cafe with restrictions, and a venue with alcohol limitations but an abundance of dead animals didn't quite meet our vision...we drove to Vallecito Lake to check out the Community Center. I'm going to go ahead and say, at the risk of sounding snobby, that I'm not too fond of the generic Community Center name. From here on out, the venue will be referred to as simply Vallecito Lake or Vallecito Lake Events Center. Don't judge.

While I'm being honest with you, Hive, I'm also going to show you the picture that I came across in our venue search that quickly deterred me from considering it:

 Image via Vallecito Lake Chamber

The decoration, in my opinion, doesn't do the room justice. However, being taught not to judge a book by it's cover, I wanted to check it out myself. The only other picture the website offers is the one below of the outside of the building, and while it still isn't the most flattering picture of a wedding venue, we saw potential. 

Image via Vallecito Lake Chamber

Vallecito Lake should sound familiar because it is where we got engaged on our sail boat. The lake is positioned 18 miles northeast from Durango and sits at 8,000 feet above sea level. Vallecito, meaning "little valley" in Spanish has a small community surrounding the shoreline, which has only about 400 to 500 residents year round (this number jumps to around 2,000 in the summer months). The lake and community represent Colorado to a perfect 'T', just what we were looking for.

We visited in early fall, so the colors were vibrant and the air was crisp but things were starting to hibernate for the winter. We were okay with that because we know that Aspens are bare in winter, so we had a better idea of what it would look like without the foilage. The outside of the building is really great in person...it fits the little rustic community of Vallecito. When we entered the space, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. Without the clustered tables, it is a blank slate. The most decoration they had was antler shaped chandeliers, which we can totally handle. This building is fairly new, being constructed after a devastating fire destroyed 70,000+ acres in 2002, much of it in the Vallecito Lake area.


Image via Colorado.gov/Photo by Shaun Stanley with the Denver Post

There is a fully covered wrap-around deck, an industrial self serve kitchen, plenty of parking, a couple potential OUTDOOR ceremony locations. It comes with tables (round or rectangle) and chairs. Plus, since we are getting married in the very-much off season, they are totally relaxed. And the price? Ridiculously affordable. Score, score and score.

The one downfall catch is that Vallecito is a good 30 minutes from Durango. And the roads are curvy mountain roads. And in January there is a good chance for blizzards. We want everyone to be safe heading to and from our wedding so we had to make sure we could offer some places to stay. In the summertime, the lake is speckled with RVers from all over the country...in the wintertime majority of the population close up shop and winterize their buildings.

While we were at Vallecito, we drove around the lake and stopped in many of the little 'resorts' they have. Most of them are a combo RV/Resort, with the resort portion offering charming mountain cabins. We confirmed that there would be about ten 1,2 & 3 bedroom cabins available in the winter months along with a few larger homes. We knew that not all 150ish guests would be staying the night at Vallecito so we felt that what was offered seemed to be plenty.

 Image via Lone Wolf Lodge

We were set on booking this venue. It has sentimental meaning. It fits our charming/rustic/whimsical vision. There's so much potential to make it our own. We signed on the dotted line and handed over the deposit check.


We drove back up to Vallecito Lake in early December to cut down our Christmas tree and so we made a pit stop at the venue and I snapped a few pictures:

Rustic Little Building

Showcasing the Covered Porch

Happy Honeys!

So hive, tell me, did you have to look past the first picture you saw of your venue to see potential?

Decision One: Made

I'm hoping I was like all some newly engaged gals when I say that, even though I had only been engaged for a mere couple hours, my mind was instantly in wedding mode.

For me, setting the date the night we got engaged was priority one two three. I called my parents (priority one), and called my best friend (priority two), MOH Honey. After asking how Mr. H proposed, and then of course congratulating us, the first question my parents and MOH Honey asked us, was when...When will we get married?! The date is so important and everything revolves around the date. I know that is the first question I ask newly engaged peeps. I guess it's in attempt to know how soon (or far away) the date is. Are we talking next month or next year? The date is a pretty big deal.

So, we sat down after drinking our celebratory champagne and discussed the date, very very lightheartedly. I knew this: we already had four friends getting married in summer 2011.These four ladies were engaged before me and I did not feel comfortable tromping in and squeezing our wedding in between ones that had already been set. We wanted to be different, provide something different. And that's when decision one was made: we will have a winter wedding!

Lets indulge in some winter and snowy wedding goodness.

Our own Mrs. Champagne! Image via Weddingbee.com/Photo by  Design MB Fotografie

Another snowy bride, Mrs. Knitting! Image via Weddingbee.com/Photo by Josh Levinson

Photo by Elizabeth Vanderbij

Photo by Ian Johnson

Image via Wedding Splendor/Photo by Shandro Photo

Image via Snippet & Ink/Photo by Kristopher Orr

We instantly had our hearts set on the winter wedding in the Colorado mountains. Being that we got engaged in August we decided to take the long engagement route and rather than push ourselves to plan a wedding in 5 months, we would take 17 months. Picking the date in January 2011 involved nothing more than looking at what the dates were on Saturday's and picking my favorite. Super technical and special, heh? Since we didn't have our hearts set on any particular date, this worked the best for us, and even though there wasn't a lot of though process behind the decision, I love the way the dates look together. Easy peasy, on to the next step...

Did you just pick a date because the numbers looked good together or were you lucky enough to have sentiment behind the big date?! Who else is loving the off-beat season of winter weddings?

She Said Yes: The Second Part

When I left off, we successfully took the sailboat down and kept my bling hidden from my best friend. The drive home was surreal as I sat there and stared at my left hand ring finger. My parents and I are very close and it was always important to me that my parents knew of the impending proposal. Mr. Honey did good and spoke to them before popping the question, so when I called to tell them they were giddy with anticipation. Of course were thrilled...and cried tears of happiness.

Celebration was in clearly in order. We rode our cruisers downtown to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. We splurged and got seafood and Prickly Pear Margaritas. I positioned my hand each time the waiter would come to our table to attempt to blind him with my new sparkly:

Mr. Honey picked out my ring by himself, the only thing that ever came up was that I adored a 'cushion cut'. I don't even know if that's a technical term, but I saw a ring on Tiffany's once and I knew that's what I wanted. I love the shape of the ring and that it has an antique flare.

After dinner, we stopped at the liquor store and got the finest yummiest sounding Champagne we could find...we got home to our backyard, popped the cork, and watched the sunset with our four fur babies.

{Our first picture of an engaged couple!}

Sailboats, actually watercraft in general, tend to be named. You know the creative names you see plastered all over the sides of fancy schmancy boats. We have had many conversations about what to name ours and finally it came to us: She Said Yes. Our engagement will be forever memorialized on the side of our boat. Perfect.

How did you celebrate your engagement? More importantly, who else celebrated with the finest bottle of $18 champagne?!

She Said Yes: The First Part

I apologize for the spoiler alert in the title...

Last summer, Mr. Honey purchased a sailboat, to round out his collection of skateboards, kayaks and snowboards. I frequently tell him we need a garage so that he can sit in all his manly glory and admire his toys. Side note: don't google images of man and his toys; weird things come up.

I had never been sailing before, and envisioned calm, relaxing afternoons in the high mountain lakes. Mr. Honey, of course saw the new hobby as an addition to his extreme sports. You know, the kind of sailing that involves harnesses, high winds and sail boats sailing sideways:

Photo by John Harvey Photo

While I understand his desire to be extreme, I made it very clear that if I'm on the sailboat, both pontoons need to be in the water...a little bit of this is out of my control as you are at the mercy of the wind on the lake, which is why I don't have pictures of Honey sailing, because the wind can take him far, far away.

Finally one weekend in August I accompanied him to the lake for a sailing trip. He swore to me he would be mellow and promised a calm relaxing afternoon. I believed him and we made our way to Vallecito Lake, a beautiful mountain lake at 8,000 feet surrounded by mountain peaks. We set up the sailboat, carefully looped all the ropes and put the pins in the proper places. (I'm such an expert, heh?) and finally got our lil' sailboat on the lake:

{Our boat at Vallecito, with the doggy}

And hive, it was amazing...so peaceful and calm, but exciting at the same time. I was honestly loving every minute of it and I could tell Mr. H was pretty happy to have me on his newest toy with him.

The clouds were rolling in over the mountain peaks and we decided to drop the sails and have lunch. A very sophisticated lunch of PB&J sandwiches. We were laying on the trampoline deck soaking in the sunshine and all of a sudden he just blurted out "I love you. Will you marry me?" I laughed and said, "Yes, I will marry you." He must have known I wasn't taking him serious because the next thing I know a pretty, sparkly ring was being dangled in front of me. I can't remember exactly what was said in the seconds following the presentation of the ring, but I guarantee it was sweet. I do remember asking him if he was 'for real' and even 'is the diamond ring real?'. Of course I managed to get my response out, which was "Hell yes!!!!". Or maybe it was "Absolutely!!". I can't remember. But we were engaged!

And then we laid there in our newly engaged bliss while I stared at the sparkler on my left, ring finger. In. Love.

{The Honey's on our sail boat}

It just so happened that my BFF, who is now my MOH, and her entire family were at the lake wake boarding. Not five minutes after Mr. H popped the question, they pulled up to us to get us to wake boarding. We declined the offer since we were still in such a state of bliss. I decided I wanted to tell my parents first, before telling anyone else and so I tucked my purty lil ring inside her safe case in the dry bag and we made our way back to shore. We began the tedious task of taking down the sail boat and if you've ever put together/taken apart a sailboat, you will know it is no easy task. It involves heavy pieces of very large metal, excessive amounts of rope, and p.a.t.i.e.n.c.e.

This trait ceases to exist just moments after you have gotten engaged and are trying to keep it hidden from your best friend.. So I kept my left hand hidden the entire time. I got so distracted at one point I failed to do something with the sailboat which resulted in the mast being dropped and good chunk of skin being removed from Mr. Honey's shin. Oops. That's when MOH Honey casually said "Well you know what they say...if you can put a sailboat together without fighting, you can have a successful marriage". While I don't know if that's what they actually say, us Honey's found it amusing and gave each other a wink.

How we celebrated our engagement is next!

How about you engaged bees, did you have to keep your newly engaged status a little secret before you made the big reveal to friends or family? Did anyone else have to manage patience with the excitement of being engaged?

*All personal pictures unless otherwise noted.

How Two Became Six

Alternative Title: The Honey Furbabies.

Our first night together was in January. Our first getaway was Valentines weekend. He said I Love You that following Monday morning. By the end of February we decided we wanted to live together and in the beginning of March we moved into our home. Ya, in case you aren't counting, that's less than three months from our first night together.

{Personal picture of our house the first time we looked at it}

In addition to combining our lives, we would be combining the lives of our current pets:

{My 10 year old kitty, Cloud}

{The Misters 2 year old puppy, Zeus} 

I think it was fate that we were to be together because, duh, our pets are the exact same color. Nothing says soul mates like matching pets, right?

So two pets, two people in a new home. A lot of changes, but both us and our pets were adjusting to our new lives perfectly, when we decided to up it once more and round out our family with these additions:

{Duke & Macie, as teeny tiny babies in May 2010}

Hive, I'm not exaggerating when I say that we adore our animals. They make us smile and are at the center of our lives so it was only appropriate they had a post all their own. There is no doubt that we will be incorporating them into our big day. We have learned to be less selfish and also rely on each other for taking care of our mini family very early in our relationship.

Did anyone else take huge relationship steps in a short amount of time? And, where my animal lover's at?!

*All personal pictures unless otherwise noted.