marriage on my mind: Jessi

today we have the lovely Jessi from this camera tells my story
to share a bit about her wedding and some tips for newly weds.

here is a bit about me:

i love Jesus
i live in texas with my husband, our son and our big fat orange cat
we used to live in Oceanside, CA and we miss it like nobody's business!
we hope to have a lot more children (like, a. lot.)
my favorite past time has to be creating, anything
my first car was a white 1991 mazda miata.. and i really miss that car
i love fruit
my favorite kind of paint is spray paint.. i mean, paint in a can? genius!
one dream i have is to visit ireland for christmas
i spent the past 4 years of my life in san diego.. ya i miss it, who wouldn't?
i'm a work in progress

what was your favorite part of your wedding day?

There isn't one particular moment that was my favorite. It was being able to say that I was now Ben's wife. It was finally being married to the man I had been dying to marry. My favorite part was that what I had been waiting for had finally come!

what made your wedding uniquely you?

It was frugal and thrifty. If I were to pick 2 words to describe me as a person, I would also choose those words. Our wedding cost $5000. How in the world did we do it?:

-I bought my wedding dress "off the rack" on a sale weekend

-My mom made my veil, garters and a clutch. I borrowed a tiara

-A friend of mine, who was a Mary Kay consultant did my make up.

-My flowers were done by a grocery store floral department. (You can also buy your own flowers bulk and make arrangements yourself. I've done this for several people.)

-Our venue was the neighborhood church

-Our reception was in the club house at a trailer park for free (It was a retirement community/trailer park. Yep, I'm pretty proud of that!)

-We did not serve dinner, only appetizers and cake. My mom bought all the food from a bulk food store. A friend made my cake for $150 (fondant and all!)

-We did not have a bar, only a couple kegs, wine and champagne (after all, neither I nor the groom were even old enough to drink!)

-Instead of party favors, Ben and I donated money to our favorite local charity in honor of our guests

if you could plan your wedding again what would you do/not do over again?

The #1 thing I tell everyone I would do differently is pay more for a photographer! I went with someone who was cheaper than many others and we got what we paid for. I only received prints, no images and she wasn't nearly as creative as I look back and wish she had been. I think in the future, Ben and I will get dressed up again and take new "wedding" photos with a photographer who I know I like! I honestly would have paid as much for the photographer as I did the whole wedding had I known!

what advice do you have for a bride planning her wedding?

Relax and have fun! There's absolutely no reason to stress about it. What matters more than your wedding day is your marriage. Focus on that. Enjoy your wedding day and your husband, but remember what really matters. Don't go overboard and please, please, please don't go into debt for it! The last thing you want is to enter into marriage with debt from one single day.

Enjoy each other! Let the little things go. You'll find out things about each other that you didn't know before. Embrace the differences and learn to compromise. Learn each other's love language and learn to speak it.

And my #1 piece of advice for any married couple is: learn to communicate. Talk about everything! Keep no secrets. Bottle in nothing. The more you discuss, the more that's on the table, the less likely either of you is to explode and turn a simple argument into something major.
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thanks for sharing Jessi.
these are all great things to keep in mind.

blessings,
amber