Welcome to our woodland wedding!

Many of you were able to enjoy this wonderful day with us and many were not able to be there to celebrate with us. This blog lets you enjoy the preparations and what led up to this wonderful day as well as that lovely day we were married. All of this goodness took place in one year. I met my wonderful husband, a few months later was engaged and shortly after started the wedding preparations{or maybe before}. I was able to have so much support and help from my family. Especially my parents and my sister Natalie. My sister Natalie was there every step of the way and was such a great help. My sister Natalie has been an amazing Wedding Planner for a handful of weddings and this wedding was no exception. Many of the creations, prep and executing was by me, because of course this is what I love and do too, but Natalie was a great help in creating, prepping and executing as well especially since I just couldn't do it all myself. It is always important to have that one person who will tell you when you don't need something, a person who you can run ideas by, a person to give you a second opinion, a person to talk out ideas with, someone who will make that garland you really don't feel like making, a person to narrow down all the MANY ideas, a person to make felt mustaches, a person who is good at all the wedding preparations and ordering that you are not good at, someone to go shopping with, and to call when shopping alone and when you just can't decide on something. I am a graphic designer and artist so I had a lot of fun creating this celebration. For many months all I ever did was wedding "stuff"... creating garlands, collecting items, shopping{my favorite}, designing/printing/putting together my invites, making yarn balls, so much spray painting, painting deer, cleaning glass, finding fabric, planning, thinking, making homemade peanut butter cups, scouting flowers, creating, stacking wedding stuff in my room and backyard shed, finding a venue and so, so much more. So much of my life was wedding prep, that I really miss it now.  I am really happy so many came to help that day to set it all up. I was even there for a while setting up part of the wedding before the reception began. Every bit has the essence of me and am so happy it all turned out how my mind had envisioned it.

The day before our wedding, my friends from out of town came into town and along with my friends in town, we all went down to Pike Place Market to enjoy the likes of the beautiful Seattle. After, my husband went to dinner and Mariners game with my dad, brother and brother- in- laws. While he was there, I had some girl time with some of my closest girlfriends. We chatted and went to Teriyaki. Would not have wished for it any different. The next morning, I was up by 530am to be ready to leave the house at 830am. Wowza. Our ceremony at the Seattle LDS Temple began at 10am. It was a lovely ceremony where I felt very loved not only by my husband, but by my small group of family and friends that were at the ceremony with us. After the ceremony, family and friends were waiting for us outside in the beautiful weather to welcome us, the new couple. Pictures were taken at the temple with family and friends and then they were all off to start the setting up of Floral Hall. Jachen and I took pictures at the temple, went to 7-11, ate burgers and ice cream at Dicks and spent time in Fremont taking pictures with our photographer. It was such a pleasant afternoon, we really had fun. It was such a beautiful day and we had so much fun taking pictures. Our photographer is my friend Kristen{who is for hire}, from college who has graduated in Photography. Her and I took a few photography classes together, what a hoot. It was so great to have a friend taking pictures, she was up for anything and all my "lets take a picture here". At about 230pm we left Fremont for Floral Hall, we took some more photos there and I was able to help some wedding set up. It was such a fun and relaxed day. The party began and we were so grateful for all who came and were a part of it. The dinner was prepared by my mother and a few lovely ladies who helped in the kitchen. We had a variety of gourmet sandwiches, couscous, fruit salad, and spinach salad. There was also kettle chips, multigrain chips and jalapeno Pringles {the Pringles are Jachen's favorite American treat which actually inspired the whole meal} The desserts were all homemade by friends and family. One friend made our lime coconut cupcakes, one friend made all the mini cheesecakes/chocolate sea salt caramels{he is for hire}, my aunt made the cayenne gingersnaps and sea salt chocolate chip cookies, Natalie and I made the peanut butter cups, and a lady we know made 4 out of the 5 cakes which were all beautifully frosted different with white frosting, and were different widths and heights. My cousin Meredith made a family favorite for the 5th cake...Chocolate Cherry Cake which was disguised in white frosting. (you know cus its chocolate so normally brown). And of course there was my favorite Limonata drinks and other tasty drinks. There was also a "Sweetserland" table filled with amazing Swiss chocolate and European Haribo candy. It was a delicious way to celebrate.

Last week, June 15th, we received our wedding photos in the mail. Over 600 photos we received and I was able to narrow it down for you to a bit over 400. So many, many photos are posted on here. I have been working on this blog since I received the photos. I wanted to be able to tell you about the big day as well as show you all my favorite pictures from the day. I hope you take the time to look at everything. It was a pretty magical time and there are many, I think at least, magical pictures.

Since there is a lot to be found on the blog, you can navigate easiest using the sidebar called "Quick Find" that will take you to each section. How easy, right? I created the blog in order of events, so you can use the quick find in order...or you can hop around to where you want to visit, but make sure to not miss a thing. Or see it all in order by scrolling all the way down each page till you find "older posts".


ENJOY! 
Just look around, leave comments or ask questions. Please don't use photos unless given permission by moi. THANKS.

Our story

I need to add, I was living in Switzerland for 3months being an Au pair when I met him my last month there. Jachen is Swiss and was living in Switzerland while I lived in Seattle during most of our dating. I was with him for a few weeks when we first met, he came for a month to America/Seattle in June/July, I went 2 weeks to Switzerland in October and this past Christmas I was surprised by a week visit from him, which him and my father planned. Viola, we are married and live in Switzerland now.

Engagement Pictures

I went to switzerland in October 2010 to visit my then boyfriend {but of course I knew I was getting engaged this trip}. There was a tad bit of drama getting the ring in time. We were worrying that it wouldn't arrive before I left. I had found the ring on Etsy and we had a few custom aspects to it as well as the border stopped the package and had to take a look of it because of the price of the item inside. The ring was just hanging out at the Border, luckily I convinced Jachen to call the border where they found the ring and had it sent to us the next morning which was 3 days before my flight home. THEN of course we had to pay a big tax for it. Silly. The ring arrived the morning we were headed to Geneva to visit the family I nannied for, so I went with Jachen to pick it up at the Post Office on our way out. So not much surprise, the ring was in the car. Our drive was a few hours and of course Jachen couldn't wait to finally get that ring on my finger so he pulled over at the Bern LDS Temple and proposed to me back in the woods at the temple. I totally knew it was happening because I saw him take the ring out of the car, but what can you do? I was just happy to be finally engaged and have that beautiful Aquamarine ring on my finger.

The day after we were engaged, we took our engagement pictures...and I really mean "we" took them. I set up a tripod and he stood in front of the camera while I set it up and focused the camera everytime and then I would push the timer and run into the shot. Haha. It was tricky business. Jachen was cold, we only had a little mound to stand on, I could only take horizontals{my lens was too heavy to stay up right on verticals} and I was feeling opposite of my inspired self, but it turned out to be a pretty good success. Below are some of our favorites. The top picture, our favorite, is what we sent out in our wedding announcements.

Wedding Invitation

I made the announcement and each additional insert using Adobe Illustrator. I photographed us, as explained here, in our engagement photo. I wanted the announcement to be relaxed, simple, personalized, and sounding like the words came out of my mouth. They were fun creating and putting together. I learned a lot about the printing process and it felt great getting them out in the mail. I remember on my way to the post office, I couldn't believe I was on my way to invite people to our celebration. It felt like such a big moment and so "this is officially happening".

Confetti Bridal Shower

For my Bridal Shower, we celebrated confetti, brunch and craft style. The bridal shower was confetti themed after my love for throwing imaginary confetti in celebration...oh yes, hand jesters and all with that imaginary confetti throwing. It was a great time and I enjoyed spending time with some of the women in my life. It was at my sister natalie's condo cabana, where we have hosted many a parties, and confetti filled the room. Everyone wore a piece of confetti jewelry/accessories I made for the party. We ate delicious food, I told everyone how I met Jachen, I received generous gifts and then enjoyed crafting with them. The whole time I couldn't believe I was at my own bridal shower.

for the brunch we had coffee cake that my friend kerianne made, individual mini quiches that my sister alicia made and a yogurt parfait. such yummy food. i only had a little and wish i was able to have more.

my mom with my nieces and nephew. glad those kiddos where a part of my party.

i doNOT like bridal shower games and so i knew that wasn't an option. i have sooo many little projects and big projects for my wedding and it seemed like such a great idea to have a craft bridal shower party. people ask me all the time if they can help me and i never know how they can because i am always working on random things and at random times. so it felt nice to finally be able to let people help. natalie and i planned these simple projects to get help for at the bridal shower.

the finished products!

so glad people i love came.

Our Wedding Video

monica + jachen // 4.23.11 from rob nyland on Vimeo.

My brother in law Rob{who is for hire} filmed and put together this amazing video of our wedding day. You can see his many amazing films, here. Check them out, no really, check them out.

Our Wedding