So … Our big debate was whether I should get an iPod Touch or a Kindle Fire.

For me, it came down to one thing. Camera.

So Apple won out and I can now literally blog on the go.

HOLLER.

Also, now I have Instagram and it’s funnn.

Xoxo

My first contribution to The Broke-Ass Bride went up today.

I’m sharing all the deets of a pink-and-zebra jazzy luuurrrrvvveee-filled wedding.

Check it.

Well, we’re halfway there to a whole damn year. Many of my favorite blogs are doing a roundup of posts, or best of’s or sumthin’ sumthin’ of that sort.

But, considering just six months ago we took the plunge, tied the knot, got wedinated, I thought it more apt to talk about that.

In the 184 days since that radtastic day on the beach in Hawaii, there’s been a lot of momentum in the Moynihan-Hunter household:

- We got a new apartment, just the three of us.

- I got a promotion.

- We both turned 27.

- We had our first Thanksgiving together.

- We shared our first New Year’s kiss.

-We met some amazing friends, and watched those amazing friends move away.

- I got a gig contributing to one of my favorite blogs.

- One of our good friends got engaged.

- Said friend became a dad for a second time.

- WE RELEASED A SEA TURTLE.

- And we’ve grown closer, day by day.

There have been adventures, some good, some bad, that have arisen in our journey together in the last six months. I hope every day will hold the promise and opportunity of us building our bond and enjoying every minute together.

Happy Half-iversary, love.

Top photo: Persimmon Images.

Happy anniversary, you two. xoxo

Name: Kimberley

Age: Currently 27, but age 21 on wedding day

Occupation: Predominantly a housewife and stay at home mother to three children, but studying to become a high school teacher.

Wedding location: St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Subiaco, Western Australia
Reception at Observation City, Scarborough WA

Wedding Date: 18th December 2005

Length of engagement: 1 year (to the day)

Tell me about your wedding: We had a traditional Sunday Catholic mass complete with the Sunday readings. Initially when we were planning this we thought the gospel reading might have been the one where Joseph finds out Mary was pregnant and decides to call off the engagement, which we thought would be slightly ironic, but turns out they were different. We had standard Catholic vows that I was frantically practicing the morning of, as I knew Rob had already memorized his and I didn’t want to be the one who made a mistake! Our wedding mass was performed in a beautiful old church and many of our friends and family actively participated which we are eternally grateful for. We had two priests celebrate mass for us and were blessed
with a beautiful homily, as they knew us well.

We had friends and family ushering, reading, bringing up the gifts, photographing, videoing, alter serving, singing and as our pianist. One of my aunts made my veil and another two aunts made my jewelry; my tiara has now been converted into a bracelet, which I love; and we had friends help with hair, nails and makeup. A family friend made our cake and the flowers decorating it were made by my aunt in Trinidad and were posted over especially for us. We still have those flowers and they’ve adorned the baptismal cakes of our children. Another friend of ours put together our wedding booklets. And our bridal party was filled with family and friends. My youngest cousin was our flower girl and she actually wore my first communion dress on the day.
I loved my wedding dress and it made me feel like a princess for the day. It took four hoops to make it sit properly, and it was very hot under all that material on such a warm day, but I loved every minute in it.

What was your favorite part of your wedding? It’s so hard to sum it up into one little bit, but I think it would be completing our vows and receiving the Eucharist as husband and wife. Rob also organised to have the bells at the church rung as we walked out as they do in all those movies, which was a highlight for me. At our reception I was surprised to see an ice carving of two swans, which was my brother’s wedding present to us and another special memory.

What disasters did you avert … or not avert and how did you deal with it?
As Rob mentioned, the wedding photo location was left to chance, but we have beautiful wedding photos and were lucky enough to have them on the “big screen” at our reception later. I remember walking down the aisle and thinking Rob’s jacket was too big for him, but that wasn’t a disaster. I think the biggest thing was that it was just a really hot day, especially in the church, which was uncontrollable and something we weathered with lots of water. At the reception, I think some of our CDs got mixed up, and our after dinner dance music was put on prior to dinner. With my family, you can’t put dance music on and expect people to sit down, so my sister and brother got up onto the dance floor first, and we just HAD to follow (or at least I did, and dragged Rob along!). We had dancing before dinner, which although wasn’t planned, was great fun.

Was there anything you would have done differently, or do you have any regrets about how something went? No regrets. At the end of the day, some things don’t turn out exactly as you planned, but that’s life and no big deal.

What was your biggest challenge in planning? Trying to do it all whilst completing our final year of university together and writing my thesis for my honours program. I was in Melbourne the weekend before the wedding as part of my honours presentation and Rob was left to complete all the place cards by himself, though I must say he did a really good job.

What lessons did you learn from planning or from the wedding itself?
I think the most important lesson I took away from the process is that after it’s all said and done, a wedding is about two people and their family and friends coming together to celebrate their bond of love and all the trappings end up being far less significant although it’s easy to get caught up in them.

What was your biggest “holyamazeballzI’mfreakininlove!” moment? It would probably be having completed our vows and realizing we were husband and wife, no matter what.

What were your top 5 favorite things about your wedding?
1. My husband
2. Our family and friends that made the day so special and the outpouring of emotion that accompanies weddings.

Brotherly love.

3. The wedding bells
4. Our ice swans
5. My princess dress.
6. The dance floor

Top 5 least favorite?
1. Not getting to the dessert buffet! We’d gone outside for some sunset photos and all the profiteroles had disappeared by the time we got back (although I managed to steal one from my bridesmaid!)
2. The heat
3. It all being over so quickly

What was the worst piece of wedding advice you received?
We came back to our room to find some notes left on our bed by our helpful bridal party! We were asked a few times if we were sure, mainly due to our age.

The best?
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8

This was our wedding speech and I think it sums up everything one needs in marriage. We were also told that we would grow and learn together and find ourselves at a stage where we’d be able to understand one another with a shared glance across the room. We’re getting there!

If you’ve been married for more than a few years, what have been some challenges?
Having three children together, being a housewife, having a student for a husband, moving, living in a country town, more moving, studying myself, having a husband who works long hours, having children who miss their dad, having children who have personalities of their own to add to the mix, finding time to spend with on another and not taking the little things for granted. The list goes on. It’s challenging to make all the sacrifices that go along with marriage and family, but all of them are worth it.

What from your wedding vows/ceremony still holds the truest?
“I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”

Any other bits of wisdom?
You know that “holyamazeballzI’mfreakininlove!” moment? I look back now after six years of marriage and marvel at how much our love has changed and grown. The love I had for Rob on our wedding day was miniscule compared to the love we share now, yet there we were vowing to spend our lives together. We’ve both grown and changed over the years and had to accommodate one another’s growth. I’ve learnt that the wedding day is just the first day of marriage and it’s the actions and decisions you make in those coming days, weeks, months and years that shape and strengthen your marriage. It’s not one “holyamazeballzI’mfreakininlove!” moment; it’s a multitude of moments that build on one another over the years.

With their youngest.

It’s been the look on Rob’s face at the birth of each of our children. It’s been my pride in him when he joined the Royal Australian Navy to serve his country and provide for our family. It’s watching him put the time and effort into becoming a medical practitioner and being able to celebrate these milestones with him. It’s watching our children grow into intelligent, strong-willed, creative individuals and knowing that we’ve done this together. It’s been weathering our challenges together and having our love mature over the years.

At our wedding.

I also think it’s vitally important to ensure you learn how to communicate effectively with one another. Not just talking about how your day was, but your hopes, dreams and aspirations. The difficulties you’re experiencing, the fears you have. You need to learn how to actively listen and respond to your spouse. Communication is key to marital happiness. I’d also suggest that you have “date nights” or something similar. Although the “romantic” love tends to fade over the years and mature into something much more significant, it’s important not to take one another for granted, particularly when children come along. Setting aside “date nights” helps to remind you of this.

Wedding photos: Paul Bui
Photo at our wedding: Persimmon Images
Others: Personal

Kat put our wedding up on Persimmon Images‘ blog today.

CHECK IT.

I think you do. So, you should jump on over to Amazon and pick up Meg of A Practical Wedding’s book.

Meg’s been working on it for a while. And it’s only $9.60 for the paperback and $9.99 for the kindle. Hey, even if you aren’t engaged, it’s worth a read. Because she talks about life AFTER the wedding. I know. Awesome.

Get it here.

Also … I think you’ll recognize a couple others in these pics.

Name: Robert

Age: Currently 27, but age 21 on wedding day

Occupation: Medical practitioner

Wedding location: St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Subiaco, Western Australia
Reception at Observation City, Scarborough WA

Wedding Date: 18th December 2005

Length of engagement: 1 year (to the day)

Tell me about your wedding: We had a traditional Catholic Mass, so most things were standardized (I’m not complaining – I would have sucked at writing vows).

What was your favorite part of your wedding?
There were a few (in no particular order):
1. Seeing Kim at the top of the aisle.
2. Getting her dad to choke up
3. The help and support of so many of our friends and family in most aspects of planning and execution.

What disasters did you avert … or not avert and how did you deal with it?

The biggest one I can think of was not having anywhere planned to do photos between the ceremony and reception. It had been thought of and then forgotten somewhere in the planning process. Luckily we had an awesome photographer who used what we had to come up with some really nice photos.

I also wore the wrong jacket through the ceremony, which was a size too big. By the time I realized, it was too late to swap back, so I was stuck with it. Oops!

Was there anything you would have done differently, or do you have any regrets about how something went?
No regrets, and I can’t think of anything I would have done differently. Not everything was 100% perfect, but it never is, and it doesn’t matter!

What was your biggest challenge in planning?

1. Trying to do it all while studying full-time.
2. We tried to minimize costs wherever possible by doing stuff ourselves. This is great in theory but takes a lot more time.

What lessons did you learn from planning or from the wedding itself?

Don’t take it too seriously. When you spend so much time preparing for something this big it’s easy to get caught up trying to make sure everything goes perfectly. I don’t think you can properly enjoy yourself if you’re worrying about that stuff the whole day.

What was your biggest “holyamazeballzI’mfreakininlove!” moment?
That’s tough because I’m not really the type of person that thinks that way. But seeing Kim walk down the aisle is probably as close to choking up as I’ve been. Since then, the birth of our three kids and the way she deals with being a mum day-to-day takes the cake.

What were your top 5 favorite things about your wedding?

1. Our unconventional Elvis-impersonator DJ.
2. At the reception we had a projector screen, on which were photos from earlier in the day for everyone to see. That was impromptu, but pretty cool.
3. NOT being burned during the best man speech

4. The dine-in McDonald’s cheeseburger meal 10 minutes before the ceremony started really hit the spot.
5. The bride (not in that order of course!)

Top 5 least favorite?

1. Missing out on the dessert buffet!
2. A couple of little things about the reception didn’t work out how I had planned which annoyed me a bit. I don’t think anyone else noticed though.
3. It went too quickly!

What was the worst piece of wedding advice you received?
That one is easy – “Are you sure you’re old enough/ready?”

The best?
Someone reminded me that our wedding was about us and to try and enjoy ourselves rather than spend the day trying to please everyone else. I still don’t believe them, but it sounds like good advice!

If you’ve been married for more than a few years, what have been some challenges?

For me the biggest challenges have been learning not to be selfish and so stubbornly independent (I’m still learning).
Also, studying full time and having kids is a bitch, but I wouldn’t change it.

What from your wedding vows/ceremony still holds the truest?

“In good times and in bad”

Any other bits of wisdom? not really

Photos: Paul Bui

It’s turkey week. And I suck at doing any extraneous writing/blogging/socializing that’s not putting together a papes or being eyebrows deep in rewriting website copy.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t still love y’all.

So, in the spirit of all that is meant to be family/friends/love/cheesetasticness, take a little lurves. Hang on to it for when you feel like I’m neglecting you.

Via Pinterest via Offbeat Home.

When they say the staff at the Mauna Lani becomes your ohana, they truly mean it.

Glass elevator. Open-air.

Oh, a few fish ponds? Sure. Why not.

View from the top.

Not bad for a little beach ceremony action.

Nice place to be a fish.

Beachy keen.

I like turtles.

How's the serenity?

Venue: Mauna Lani Bay Hotel & Bungalows
Photos: Persimmon Images

Vows.

The predecessor.

Smiley Rusty.

Good thing there's a doctor in the crew.

Gresh.

Brace yo self.

Cool.

Proud Mama.

See how easy and painless it was for them? Well, painless except for Gresham’s leg, that is. And don’t they look so handsome?

Aussie’s Shirt: Express for Men
His Shorts: Volcom on Dogfunk.com
Pocketwatches: Amazon.com

All photographs by Persimmon Images.