#cdnblogsquad #blogger – Notefull Living

10 Wedding Tips

I promise the nursery blog post is coming. I’m learning September and “getting back into routine” is a bigger task then I thought.

Until then I’ll share a family post with why September is more special around our home. Wedding Sept 12 359

It’s been 10 years since my husband and I got married. September 2018 has been a wedding month for us, this month is almost over. We have been talking about our dreams and goals that we are currently living.

YES, Dreams do come true.

We even watched our reception video (lots of fast forwarding), made a favorite meal, read our wedding bible verse and discussed our next dreams and goals for what’s ahead.

But, If you have been reading my blog then you know some of those future goals already and I don’t want to repeat myself.

This list I’m going to share are often the things we let our friends or family know when they are getting married. Everyone gives advice, but we’ve learned couples want to hear from those who have gotten married in the last 5 to 10 years.

So, here’s a list of 10 Wedding Tips:

1: It’s a celebration of you and your future spouse, it’s YOUR day. Wedding planning can get dramatic. I was one of three brides living under one roof to know how “dramatic” it can get. I’m just going to leave it at that.

Wedding Sept 12 305

From experience here’s a few….

“Do’s and Don’ts”

2: Do your research for a wedding photographer. The one we wanted would have costed a good chunk of our entire wedding budget. Wedding photography isn’t cheap, do your research.

3: Don’t make your own veil. I thought it was crazy what they charged and what you got for the veil itself. 1/2 way through making mine I knew WHY. I love a good DIY , however no matter how much I did my best to secure the beads my veil was coming apart most of the day.

4: Do find a good rental company. We rented our table centerpieces. The rest was made by family or gifted. Our wedding arch is a part of my garden currently. I love decor and decorating but having the same of 20 plus table centerpieces can add up and you have to do something with it after. No, Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of what ours was.

True fact: Pinterest didn’t exist when we got married

Yes, I’m technically a “millennial”, pinterest would have been a great help particularly in this area. However, I do like that we got to use a lot of our own creativity for the decor. Their wasn’t much online back then for “ideas”.

Attention BRIDES: Someone I know locally has a business just for this and I wish her business was running 10 years ago.

If you live in the Fraser Valley, check her website Elegant Decor Rentals

5: Don’t make your own invitations or thank you cards. Just like the wedding veil that was time I could have spent doing other things. We had a “card making” party with family which was fun, but in the end was a big job. There’s lots of great options now that can still give that crafty vibe I was going for.

6: Wedding Car: I’m grateful for the car we got to use. Here’s the thing, it was a MESS. If your ever planning to lend your vehicle for a wedding. PLEASE, clean your car out. We unexpectedly got to borrow someone’s summer convertible before it went into storage.

Wedding Sept 12 349 I got a sunburn on our day, it was HOT out.

A convertible car was fun, but not when your feet can’t reach the floor boards from all the garbage.

7: Remember to write a proper “Thank You” speech for the reception. We didn’t pay attention to this detail and were fully caught of guard when we got called up.

Going to other wedding since our wedding we always joke and look at each other at what a good job the couple does when they list and name everyone, that helped make their day happen.

8: Wedding Cake:

Wedding cakes don’t always have to be wedding cakes.

This was one of my favorite of breaking the “wedding cake” tradition. We had homemade cream puffs done by my mother in law. Every time I see this picture I just want to eat some.

Wedding Sept 12 419

9: Destination? No our wedding wasn’t, I’m not talking Mexico or Hawaii either. I can’t take credit for this.

One of our friends did this recently. Our wedding guest list hit 200, a lot of that is family. Our friends list easily was 300. So they chose to go to a resort a couples hours drive from where they lived. The capacity of the resort was much less and helped refine the guest list.

Dreams do come true. I’ve said this before. This wedding was BEAUTIFUL. The ceremony was on a frozen lake and it was SNOWING, during the ceremony. The name “Narnia” kept coming up. Just to give you an idea of how to picture this incredible day.

10: This tip isn’t actually wedding related but worth sharing. This was told to us before we got married, we did this and deeply appreciate the tip.

Go on a DATE just before the wedding.

One rule: No wedding talk allowed.

As I shared before, wedding planning can be dramatic, and obviously busy. This date just brings you back to the one person that you want to be with.

Marriage to my husband and I is a big deal. It’s a day that you start being a family. Your life isn’t all about you anymore it’s the loved one that you get to share it with.

Wedding Sept 12 374

If your reading this and getting married, congrats!

Relax and Enjoy your day when it comes.

Have fun, be yourself.

I hope some of these tips are helpful.

This last picture, is one of our favorites from our wedding day. It’s “US”.

I remember thinking the photographer was crazy to ask me to pose like this, but I couldn’t stop laughing. First picture we framed and was on our wall right away.

If you liked this post you can subscribe or follow my blog.

You can also follow me on Facebook and Instagram.

I’m hoping to now that a routine is starting to take shape at home to keep up with posting new content.

Boys Bedroom

Here’s is the Boys Bedroom. Here I share some tips to help make a small shared bedroom space work.

Boys Room(Shared) Here’s a look at our boys bedroom. With the arrival of our little girl, we knew we had to put the boys together.

Here’s the thing: The bedroom is 10′ x 10′

We learned, from visiting friends houses with bunk beds in their kids bedrooms, that it wouldn’t be a safe option for our second son.

We were given the matching bed frames, which do stack into bunk beds. However we are missing the ladder and some important hardware to make the set into bunk beds again.

There’s many things about this room that I love.

With it being small, keeping it SIMPLE was key to making this space work.

Our oldest wanted the room to be ALL red. So we worked on a compromise. We talked about making a red racing stripe.

While doing our researching we really liked the classic: red, blue and grey “Superhero” colors.

We have a house built in the 1970’s so we took the red and painted it on the boxed out curtain rob (They are ALL over this house).

Here’s the “stripe” we made. I can’t get over how great this turned out. The boys call it many things, but not a racing stripe.

The boys think it looks like a super hero cape or a laser beam, and many other creative things.

TIP: Use yellow painters tape if you want to make the same look.

Here’s all the colors together. One of my favorites in this room is the artwork on this wall. It can fit in many different spaces in a home. I was hoping it would still work in their room and I think it still does.

What also makes this space great is the bedding and decorative pillows.

Can you see where the color scheme idea is coming from? The motorcycle pillow originally comes from the first bedding set we bought for our oldest. This has been “driven” all over our home.

We got the bed sheets recently from Costco. The comforters are duvet covers from IKEA.

I fully thought I bought matching bed sheets, nope, matching duvet covers.

It worked out in the end, the boys had different comforters so this helped keep everything matching without buying all new bed sets.

Curtains are still original and work as great black out curtains. Plus the grey worked out. So I’ve kept them for now.

Keeping a shared space organized can be tricky.

I went to the dollar store and bought these bins and put some in the closet and some under their beds.

Remember my oldest wanted an ALL red room. You can tell which side is his.

I love these bins. They are easy for the boys to clean up and move toys back down to the playroom if they bring some up. The bins are also great to store, artwork or paper work from school.

Here’s another angle with the blue wall again.

I’ve purposely not shown the closet, I’m still trying to figure out how to make some kind of system. This is where sharing a room is challenging.

We are still planning to build and add our own DIY floating shelves. The floating shelves will go near the end of their beds on the wall.

Currently all their personal stuff that would go on them are in the closet.

Hope you enjoyed this small tour of our sons small shared bedroom.

The paint we used was by DULUX:

Fashionable Grey
Salty Dog (Blue)
Positive Red

TIP on saving money to buy paint: buy the small cans when doing a feature color. Since this room is small that worked the best for us. We had enough to do 2 coats.

Additional tip: Wait for paint to go on sale. We always buy the cans on sale and don’t tint them right away. We wait to tint them when we are ready to paint another space.

Can’t wait to share the nursery next.

I would love if you would subscribe to the blog.

You can follow me on Instagram and Facebook with the links on the side.

Have a great weekend.

August Birthdays

Sharing a family update today. The end of summer is more then just busy with back to school, we have birthdays in our family.

Anyone else busy with August birthdays?

It’s a busy month, it’s not just summer holidays in the mix too.

Today is my birthday. A big shout out to all my other birthday buddies in the world.

Happy Birthday

3 years ago this date was also my seconds sons due date. He is the only one of my kids that’s gone overdue, so thankfully we don’t share the same birthday. Having birthday’s close in the family makes for interesting family get together’s. I have lots of nieces, nephews, uncles, aunts and cousins with August birthdays.

My Aunt and I share the same day!

Does being a year older make me wiser? That always is my grandfathers question. He’s 96 years old, I think so.

How I celebrate my birthday today is very different then how I used to. As a kid I counted down the days in August. A teenager, I learned where the present hiding spots where. End of August birthday also meant no one was around for your birthday party as they were all going on that one last holiday with the family.

When I graduated, it meant the first week of college was literally a week away. Just after I turned 22, I was getting married in a few short weeks.

For a short time when we first got married I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday, it’s just another day, NO IT’S NOT. Why bothering sharing this. Believing your not worth it is a dangerous mind set to live with.

Celebrate YOUR day. Your worth it.

Today, as I said, I’m celebrating differently then I used too.

I texted my husband spontaneously and we had lunch together as a family. Dream come true, that was never possible before. I put on my favorite earrings, summer dress and did my makeup. After lunch we picked out candies at the old fashioned store and sat at the park across the street and enjoyed our treats.

My oldest asked me today when my friends where coming over, “isn’t that what your supposed to do?“. I also bought a bunch of sunflowers from the flower stand in the little village.

“Mom, your friends are supposed to buy you flowers, not you”……

On the drive home I told him I was having lunch with my friends. It’s my hope that when your older you will see me more then just a parent but a friend you can always talk too.

Side note: Fighting in families isn’t fun, it makes for birthdays and other special occasions especially difficult.

The day isn’t over yet, looking forward to what’s ahead.

Again, if your birthday is today, August 28, HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

Remember: celebrate YOUR day, YOUR worth it.

Home Tour update: I’ve learned attempting to photograph the kids rooms on top of regular family life is quite the challenge. You will see more once it’s done.

It would be great if you could follow my blog. I also am on social media with Facebook and Instagram.

Have a great day, I know I will.