The Fabulous Videographer, Jordyn Siemens

Travis and I are lucky enough to have amazingly talented friends! One of our amazingly talented friends is Jordyn Siemens who just so happens to be the little sister of my other amazingly talented friend, Kelsey, who was also one of my bridesmaids. Jordyn is a videographer who is young, vibrant, and has an extremely creative eye. She did Caleb and Clara's wedding video last year and we knew that we just have to have her do our wedding video.

Let's just say... This video is amazing!!! I cannot believe how well she captured the day! We were so excited when we watched it with Kelsey and Jordyn via Skype, and Travis and I both agreed that the memories came rushing back when we watched it.

Jordyn hard a work... yet having so much fun getting dirty! She is so dedicated.

(Photo Cred: The Nickersons)

Now to you who were there, I hope it brings back the goodness of July 22, 2012.

To those who were not there, I hope this makes you feel like you were there!

Jordyn, thank you, thank you, thank you!!! We are so in love with this video... and we love you web more!

Enjoy everyone!

Palette Stage DIY

Well, I have decided that since I have just a little bit of time before mid terms, I want to get out another blog post about our wedding decorations. This time, I will be discussing how my amazing husband made our stage for the wedding.  

I originally saw this idea on the Green Wedding Shoes. I loved this wedding, and was also inspired by their style and creativity (*cough* the stage *cough*). I told Travis that I wanted to make a palette stage and he thought I was nuts. Then he saw a photo and understood what I was wanting. 

 

Yes, Travis made the palette stage, and it looked AWESOME. We were so blessed by our friend Eddie who was able to get 8 palettes from his work. Eddie was SO helpful and brought the palettes to us so that Travis could get this project started. THANK YOU EDDIE!

Travis went out to the Home Depot and bought a nice ply wood (enough to cover the tops of each palette) and cut each piece out to size with a jig saw. After cutting, he nailed down each piece of ply wood to the tops of the palette. He then sanded down the edges and started staining the tops, the sides, and the inside (just the first few 2x4's that people could see). 

  

Yes, this is my hotty working hard on our stage. He is quite the fella.

We were able to set up the stage the day before the wedding and were so excited about how it turned out.

This is a time consuming project... however, it was worth the time and effort (thanks Trav). We were lucky enough to get the palettes for free and the approx. cost of the ply wood and stain together was $130.00. It is a budget friendly way of doing a stage for an outdoor wedding if you do not have a hill or other means of elevation. And, it looks great!

Hope you enjoyed this post!

Seat Assignment DIY

Travis and I decided that we would try doing a seating chart. When we started putting all of our guests at tables, it ended up being one of the easiest parts of our wedding planning, and a really great idea for us. And to top it all off... EVERYONE who R.S.V.P'd to come to our wedding actually CAME! We had NO no shows. Pretty amazing, and almost unheard of. 

 

This is how our beautiful Seating Chart ended up looking. My Maid of Honor (Clara of PS: Heart), did ALL of the calligraphy, and I am SO grateful! She is one of the most talented people I know, and I was STOKED that she agreed to do this project for us.

It all started with my very generous friend Jen, she got married in May of 2011, and she said that she had so many pieces of wedding decoration left over that I could use whatever I wanted. I was one blessed bride.

So Jen's husband (Tyler) is a real handy man. He made this amazing chalk board with easel, and I wanted to use them. Jen suggested that I re-paint it with chalk board paint and use charcoal pencil to write the names. It is so helpful to recycle a wedding. It saves money, and time. I was so thankful for Jen and how she helped me with many crafts and decorations as well (THANKS JEN!)

This is after I repainted the board.

The beauty about a charcoal pencil is that you can have neatness and detail without giving up the chalk effect. Clara did SUCH a good job on this board... just look at this detail!

I bought the charcoal pencil at Micheal's (approx. $4.00 for a 2 pack of white charcoal pencils) and the chalk board paint from the Home Depot (approx. $15.00). I loved the way this chalk board seating plan turned out. It was unique and rustic with a smidge of vintage.

I loved it. Thanks again Clara!

Arrow Signs DIY

Making these arrow signs was a lot of fun. Again, I got this idea from Pinterest and fell in love. This was one of the projects that I worked on with my bridesmaids when my Maid of Honor, Clara, came to help me with wedding plans

I wanted to keep this relatively inexpensive so I ended up recycling the wood from an old IKEA bed frame I had. Thanks IKEA!

 

First, the bridesmaids and I measured the arrows (approx.) to the right length. Then, thanks to my friends and bridesmaid, Kelsey, used her jigsaw to cut the arrows out. I'm so thankful that she lives on a farm.

 

After cutting the arrows out, we sanded the edges...

 This is one of my bridesmaids, Kelsey. She is one handy woman.

 And this is Jordan (another Bridesmaid), and Clara (Maid of Honour). I was so thankful that they came out to help out with the wedding as much as they did. All of my ladies are such blessings.

 

After we sanded, we started staining the wood. This wood (above) was used for the posts and the base.

 For the arrows, I then had Clara use a pencil to make a nice handwritten font for the types of activities we would have at the wedding... they turned out AMAZING!

This might be a little harder to explain, but I'll give it a shot anyways. I lined up 2 pieces of stained posts that were the same length. I then lined arrows up and down on the 2 posts. I then nailed the arrows pointing left onto the left post and the arrows pointing right onto the right post.

 

When you put the right and left posts together, it looked like one unified sign. BUT...

 the sign posts then acted as hinges to add some dimension to the sign.

These photos were then taken on our actual wedding day by The Nickersons. We ended up using them for not only decorations, but our photobooth too!

We LOVE how these signs turned out, and I hope you enjoyed this blog post too.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

The Amazing Nickersons

It is about time that I wrote about our photographers, Sarah and Graeme, otherwise known as, The Nickersons. They are a husband and wife team that have an AMAZING talent for capturing pure emotion with their cameras.

I first discovered them while going through a friend's wedding photos on facebook. Then a few months later, I saw another friend's wedding on facebook that the Nickersons had done. Their style was classic and fresh. The genuineness in each picture was moving and absolutely breath taking.

And I wanted them for our wedding!

They made the process SO easy. I contacted Sarah just from their website and I heard back from her within the hour.  We set up a skype date (because we were in Edmonton and they were in Vancouver) and Travis and I had an hour and a half conversation with them talking about what kind of wedding we were imagining... but more importantly, they were wanting to get to know us so that we were all comfortable on the wedding day.

After we said the big "YES", without hesitation, they sent us little letters and care packages saying how excited they were for our wedding as well as reminders to relax. This made us feel SO unbelievable special.

Aren't they WONDERFUL? This package came at impeccable timing!

Now, we have walked out of our wedding having made 2 very talented friends that we are very fond of who are MORE then welcome to come to Edmonton and hang out with us! (Teehee)

I wanted to share just some of my favorite photos of the day. You can see more photos of our day on Sarah and Graeme's blog HERE. And you can see our engagement photo session that they did for us HERE.

  These are the bridesmaid dresses hanging up with my wedding dress. Sarah and Graeme may not have known this, but this was a tree that my brother, Kevin, and I climbed as kids.

 From left to right: Great Grandma Mac's wedding dress, Grammie Mac's wedding dress, my Mom's wedding dress and mine. After Grammie passed away, my Auntie Joan had both my Grammie and Grandma Mac's wedding dresses, so I NEEDED to get this shot. It is so nice to have this photo.

 The pearl necklace was my Grammie's and the pearl earrings are my Mom's. Again, very special to wear these pieces of jewelery.

 This was my Opa's German Bible. My Mom kept it and I asked if we could use it for the ring bearer to bring the rings down. The top left photo is of my Oma and Opa, and the bottom right photo is of my Grammie and Grampie.

 

 This is my brother, Kevin, our AMAZING MC, and our ring bearer, Caleb, whom I have known since he was just a baby. They said that they looked the same and Graeme asked if he could take a photo of them. This is the final product, and I'm in love.

 Caleb was SO great! My Auntie Sherry (my Mom's Maid of Honor), and my Auntie Rita (my Mom's younger sister), made the boutonnieres the day of the wedding out of babies breath and other leaves from our back yard garden. 

 

 This is my handsome husband getting all ready to go.

 My Maid of Honor, Clara, and my Mom helping me getting dressed.

 And these are my wonderful bridesmaids and my Mom, surrounding me in prayer. These are the ladies that continually encourage me, support me, love me and show me the love of God. This was extremely special... and I wish I had a recording of this prayer.

This is my Dad putting on my Grammie's (his Mom's) pearl necklace.

 This is Travis and I praying before the ceremony. We did not see each other until I walked down the aisle. We almost did not have time for this, but Sarah knew that I really wanted to pray with Travis before hand and she really wanted to capture the moment. Thank you Sarah!

I love my Dad.

This is it... we are getting married!

An amazing shot of where we had our ceremony. Thank you Lord for the beautiful weather!

Travis's Mom and Dad with our little flower girl and niece, Isla. She is going to be a big sister soon which means we are going to have another niece or nephew... we are thrilled!

My beautiful Mom and Dad. 

The man that married us is like our second father. Art is Caleb's (the Best Man) Father. Travis grew up with them and always wanted Art to marry him to his future wife. It was so special for us to have him join us on our day to make us Man and Wife.

 This is Kathy and Mike. You may recognize them from our engagement HERE. They have been such a blessing to our lives and we are so lucky to call them our friends. Mike is the director of the Quest Bible program I did at CBC and his wife, Kathy, is my spiritual mentor. We had them present communion to us as well as pray a blessing over our marriage. The cup we used for communion was my Grammie's as well. This moment was so special to us.

 We are MARRIED!!!

This was one of our first photos after we got married. The Nickerson's are amazing and catch so much raw emotion through all of their photos. I am IN LOVE with this photo.

 Our ADORABLE niece, Isla, the flower girl.

And our handsome ring bearer, Caleb.

 

My LOVELY bridesmaids who stood up for me. This photo of us is one of my favorites. They all looked amazingly stunning!

 And the extremely dapper groomsmen. They all looked so good in their outfits.

 This was our entire bridal party... and they were all wonderful!

 Caleb and Clara were the Best Man and Maid of Honor. They were also the friends that set us up. We love our best friends so much.

 The above photos are some of our favorites. Even the one with our backs showing, I love that you can see Travis's new ring.

 The cake was made by my good friend Liana. We are actually 3rd cousins... something like that, but she made the cake to have a lemon coconut top tier with a chocolate coffee bottom tier. It was AMAZING! We were HUGE fans and so in love with this cake. Doesn't it look DIVINE?

 My brother was the wonderful MC for our reception. He did an amazing job and was unbelievably hysterical.

 One of the games we played at the reception was "Guess the Groomsmens Bums"... yes, I have felt all of the groomsmens butts, against my own will. However, it was one of the funniest parts of our reception. My brother knows how to make me blush.

 The bridesmaids put us up to a kissing challenge...

 This was also a kissing challenge... we needed to pull of a Spider Man kiss... this is probably one of my favorite photos from our entire day. It is just TOO funny!

 Dancing with the man of my dreams. I'm so blessed I get to spend EVERYDAY with him.

 Dancing with another amazing man... my Dad.

 And this is Travis and his beautiful Mother dancing together. It almost looks like he's singing to her. I love it.

 Isla dancing with her cousin Oliver. I love having nieces and nephews.

I love this picture so much. This is Travis's Grandma. We just lost Grandpa about a month or so before the wedding... and Grandma especially has been through a lot. But to see her ripping it up on the dance floor was AWESOME!

 I love how my Mom goes crazy dancing... here is exhibit #1.

And exhibit #2. She is a DANCING MACHINE!

These photos have captured blessed memories for us, and now all we want to do is share them with people because they are beautiful photos from our day.

Sarah and Graeme want to travel worldwide for their photography. I highly recommend these 2 to ANYONE who is looking for a photographer. They are amazing and are always making sure that they understand your style. They want you to have photos that you can be proud of... ones that will make you re-live your wedding day. They certainly did that for us. I'm IN LOVE with this couple. 

Thank you Sarah and Graeme. We love you guys and cannot WAIT to see what the Lord has in store for the two of you. You have been such a blessing to us. We love you!