let's start from the beginning {of January}

it has been soooooo long since my last blog post. it would seem that i'm the kind of girl who blogged during her wedding planning, and then stopped. sadly, it's true. this post starts it back up again, so here we go!

i loved blogging about all of my ideas during the wedding, and things i stumbled upon along the way. there were so many ideas flowing all the way, that I could not even begin to share all of them. planning my wedding was actually one of the hardest, most challenging, and incredibily fulfilling things I have done. it was so nice to be able to dream a dream, and then see it all come together. we could finally see the fruits of my labors on January 19th. on a cold, wintery day, i became a wife.

i think everyone says it about their wedding, but the day was absolutely perfect. i thought that i would be a ball of nerves, and a crying mess all day. i spent so much time fussing over details that i think i finally let it all go the day of, and truly enjoyed the day!

our pictures before the ceremony, but we couldn't see each other

all photo courtesy of pure amour photography

what I also realized (and what you hear so much of, but never really believe) is that all of the details can go unnoticed, even by you. there were so many things that i spent hours agonizing over that I never even saw myself. i spent hours and hours thinking about the branches and hanging votives, probably even days. unless someone has a picture of these, i never saw them, and unfortunately, my photographer didn't capture them. i am sure that they turned out great considering all the time I took to get those together. i hope that they added to the decor, but i'm not sad that i missed them.

while i may not have saw the final product of the branches, there were so many things that I talked about in my posts that did make it into the wedding and reception. here are some highlights:

Our unity candle during the ceremony - blogpost: falling

heirlooms in the making

one of my favorite places to go to get lost in beautiful things is Etsy. it always amazes me how I can find one thing I love, and an hour later, I've clicked my way through hundreds of handmade goodies. i've been a fan of Etsy for many years, but have never spent as much time on it as I have since I got engaged. I think it's great to find really talented people who make a fabulous product, and give them my business.
today I decided to see the featured items in the revamped Wedding section on Etsy. I was immediately drawn to this beautiful cake topper:

I wanted this. I needed this. how adorable would this be displayed at a wedding? then it would be such a great keepsake from the day, knowing that it was used during such a special time. it could be kept and passed down to your children and grandchildren. simply amazing. I wanted to share this with you, to give this stand the credit it deserves.

while the cake stand was just beautiful, it was sadly out of my price range (if I even have one for such things as cake stands). however, this set me on the quest to find some amazing cake stands that would fit into my {hypothetical} cake stand budget.

this beautiful glass cake stand would add a simple touch, with a great personal touch to any special event

my wedding has a bit of a rustic feel since I'm having a Michigan winter wedding. this stand below would fit in perfectly with some touches that I plan to have throughout the reception. I love the initials, which add a very personal touch

I am so excited to explore the possibilities for my wedding, and I hope these beautiful items have made you want to go out and bake a cake :)