6 Months and a Wedding...

I cannot believe it has been 6 months since I walked down the aisle to the man of my dreams... he is so much more today than I could have imagined just 6 months ago! He is my best friend, protector, pillar of strength, he loves me when I am a mess, he pursues me when I want to run away and be alone, he holds me when I cry, he laughs at me when I am grumpy in the morning, he teases me about singing all the time, he hugs me when I get home from work, he makes me food, he dances with me at weddings, he holds my hand in hard situations where I feel uncertain and fearful, he reminds me that I am strong and capable and doing life well, he is proof of God's immense love for me! I am more in love with my husband now than I was 6 months ago and can't imagine how much more in love with him I will be in another 6 months.

I feel like Mr. Mertz and I have been through more than we bargained for in our first six months. I feel like we have been forced to have conversations about our marriage and future family that most people don't breach until a decade into their marriage. That's us, I guess... we talk and are not afraid to wrestle through the difficult topics. However, because of this, 6 months feels both longer and shorter than I expected! in many ways I feel like we have been married for forever and in other ways I feel like we just got married a couple weeks ago and everything is still a novelty!

I actually have thought about my wedding a lot lately! Friends of ours just got married this last weekend (the day after our 6 month anniversary) and we got to be front and center for all the excitement!! Aaron was a groomsmen, so he had his fair share of wedding activities to participate in. I was in charge of the bride and her sister's hair on the big day! I love doing my friends hair for their wedding! I get the bride all to myself for an hour of her wedding day. She is just sitting and relaxing and is surrounded by her friends... it is my favorite time of the wedding - the excitement and preparation of getting ready! Love it! I kept remembering my wedding day and how my bridesmaids were machines! They anticipated my every need and before the thought "I'm thirsty" or "I'm hungry" was even fully formed in my brain their was a drink and a snack in my hand. I couldn't get over how well they loved and cared for and protected me!
Josh and Kate's wedding was in a beautiful church and their reception was in the same location as our wedding! It was so fun to be back where I said "I do" just 6 months before. Many of the same people were there and we got the question "how's marriage?" and I loved being able to honestly answer - AMAZINGLY FUN!

Alright, a little about Josh & Kate - I have known Josh my whole life! We grew up at the same church and were in the same Sunday school class and even went to prom together as friends for my Jr year of High School! He is such a good man!! His friendship with Aaron is beyond valuable and I am so thankful for Josh's presence and wisdom in my husband's life and vice versa. Kate is one of the most bright, fun, beautiful, playful, and strong women I have ever met. When she and Josh began dating, it was pretty evident right away that they were amazing together! They were so fun and playful and comfortable together. I love this couple so much and am so thankful they are in our tiny club of married w/o kids group right now! So excited to hang out with them!

Mr. Mertz and I with the happy couple at their rehearsal dinner!

this picture does not do the stain glass window in the background justice... such a beautiful wedding!

The beautiful canopy of lights of The Hearn House

We are lookin' good!

First dance

Send off!! (my phone doesn't take great night pics)

LOVE this picture of Aaron and I with sparklers sending off the happy couple! (Thanks Erica!)

It was such a fun reception! Good food, dancing, good friends, being a married couple, all of it was awesome!

This was our first wedding as a married couple and I will be honest and say that weddings are WAY FUN with my husband! We kept laughing about how little stress we felt and how much more present we were in all the festivities cause we didn't have to talk to everyone and smile if we didn't want to... haha. We can't wait for our next wedding!! Gotta find some friends to marry off pronto!



So in honor of our 6 months we got a hotel room in Phoenix at one of the resorts and went their after the wedding! We told them it was our 6 month anniversary and they had strawberries and champagne waiting for us in the room! So nice :)

Good job Point Tapatio Cliffs!

The next day we ordered room service for breakfast and spent the whole  day just laying by the pool and relaxing!!! Oh glorious sun! I need a beach vacation ASAP!

Remember that one time...

I dyed my hair red?

It was short lived and only last about 6 weeks, but it was my wonderful post-wedding hair experiment!

A lot of women post wedding chop their hair short after having grown it out for probably the duration of the relationship in preparation for the wedding up-do. I on the other hand chopped my hair off soon after starting to date Aaron and so come wedding time, my hair was BARELY long enough for my up-do... I regret ever cutting it, so I wasn't going to do that now. I did, however, long for a change and so dying it a drastic color like red seemed like fun...

... who knew it would be such a process????

To give you an idea... this is what I was going for:

 

Thus began my quest...

I started by trying to just dye it with a box over my black hair... that was a stupid idea and resulted in no change at all except at my roots where my natural hair was growing out. Next I tryed a color lifter... DON'T EVER USE A COLOR LIFT!!! It smells like a rotting egg and leave your bathroom with that smell no matter now long you air it out... plus my hair smelled like that for over a week... needless to say it didn't work :(

Next step was bleach!

This picture actually makes it look descent, but in reality it was slightly more mustard than this

 I had to leave it bleached for 24 hours before dying it again, so for a whole 24 hours I was a brassy blonde.

Next came the hair dye!

This was a horrible orange color :(

What I got was ORANGE!!! I had to leave this in for another 24 hours... yuck!

Third time was indeed a charm... almost... I got the right color, but within a week it was faded again to nearly orange... I finally bit the bullet and bought a Groupon to Dolce Salon and Spa and had them professionally do it to the right color!

After 6 weeks from the beginning of the process I was done with the grand experiment and ready to be myself again... I dyed it back to dark brown and there it shall stay :)

... you'll see my red hair throughout all of the pictures with Phoebe and Liam, so it was immortalized!

Details...

Because I have nowhere else to put pictures like this, here is a post about some of the details of our wedding...

The Centerpieces

Above is our lovely centerpieces! They absolutely turned out PERFECT! I got the general idea from Pinterest and combines several centerpieces I saw to get this look. I don't like centerpieces that leave little room on the table for you plate or obstruct your view of other people at the table... how are people supposed to talk with a centerpiece in the way. So I wanted simple and elegant. First off, I LOVE antique books! and guess what? Aaron does too... so that was a must! We pulled together books from our own bookshelves, thrift stores, and our parents' bookshelves. Some of my favorites were from my dad's library. So many old books from when he studied bible and history in college. We of course also had some old copies of Jane Austen, Peter Pan by JM Barrie, and Mark Twain. We tied 2 to 3 books together on each table with jute and at the knot put a skeleton key (skeleton keys were bought in bulk from Etsy for super cheap!). 

I liked the country/backyard feel of mason jars. Well of course when I brought the idea up to my mom, she told me she had like 30 in her house alone. We supplemented with some from thrift stores and we had our flower vases.

We then took jam jars (again from my mom) and put a candles in then to add a soft glow for when the sun went down.

We finished off the look with the beautiful flowers designed by Kendra and executed by Chris and Bailey at the reception!

When the reception started, we also added a wine bottle on to the table (either red or white from Trader Joes).

Bride & Groom table

This was also a Pinterest inspiration! My mom (ha!) of course already had all the pieces in her back yard... the wooden pieces were sanded and treated by my dad and then I hand painted them. My mom and dad re-upholstered the old chairs for Aaron and I to sit in and they were so lovely!

The Guestbook Table

The guestbook table was also fun to put together like the centerpieces. My mom painted the little mailbox for people to put our cards in. It turned out great!

We also gathered pictures from our grandparents and parents' weddings and placed those of the table. A way to display our heritage of beautiful marriages.

Our guestbook was a photo album of our engagement photos that people got to sign. I love that it is not just a list of names, but pictures of Aaron and I with words of love and encouragement from people we love and respect.

As people entered the wedding and signed the guestbook, they also had a chance to take our wedding favor, which was a CD of music from our wedding! The CDs were in brown paper bags with our Monogram (designed by my brother) stamped on the front.

People also picked up a wedding program (also masterfully designed by Shawn).

The Jewelry & Accessories

For my bridal accessories I chose pearls... very elegant, simple, and understated. The necklace is from Mykonos, Greece and I bought it on my trip there. Soon after I got home the necklace broke and needed to be re-strung. My parents surprised me with getting fixed and even a new antique clasp put on it! Since my dress had such a pretty neckline, I decided to wear the necklace as a bracelet. It was my something old. The earrings were from my mom. Simple drop pear earrings.

The hair clip was my something borrowed. It was my friend Tara's from her wedding a couple years ago. I always thought it was beautiful and when I bought my dress I knew I wanted something in my hair like a flower. Tara was so gracious to let me use her flower! (Which reminds me, I need to return that to her... ha!)

The bridesmaids dresses and shoes. My girls did an amazing job finding such pretty and interesting bridesmaids dresses to display their personality and style. Their shoes were also an awesome example of their awesome style! My favorite were Ashley's with the spikes on the back! So fun and creative!

My gift to my bridesmaids was a burlap and lace clutch with wedding day essentials in it. They got some Chapstick, tissues, breath mints, and a note of thankful words from me. They also got this bracelet from 31bits. It was so pretty with my wedding colors. They each wore it for the wedding :)

A picture of my gorgeous bouquet!! Kendra did an incredible job arranging it! I loved it and it was exactly what I pictured :) It is now dried and on display in mine and Aaron's bedroom in a vase. I did not toss the bouquet at the wedding... I hate that tradition. As a woman who was single for most of my twenties as all my friends were getting married, I grew to resent the tradition. So I would have been a hypocrite if I had one at my own wedding... so I got to keep my bouquet.

Our pretty rings... enough said :) love this picture!

The Communion table

For our ceremony, Aaron and I got married under a traditional Jewish Chuppah and Aaron broke the glass and everything. We also decided because of our own convictions we wanted the first act as a married couple would be to take communion and remember Christ as the focus of our lives and marriage. On our communion table was Aaron's grandpa's prayer shawl. It was so sweet to have it there on our table.

The Dessert and Snack Table

After the ceremony as everyone waited for the reception to be set up and the tables arranged, everyone snacked on popcorn and M&Ms. My mom put together this basket for the popcorn, even topped off with her Cath Kidston oilcloth she bought when she came to visit me in England with my dad.

The beverage table! Mark and Joni (parents of some of my best friends and like second parents to me growing up in high school) were in charge of the drinks table. They took all the pieces and made it so pretty! Lemonade (strawberry & regular), paper straws, and chalkboard labels adorned the station.

Next to the drinks table were two galvanized buckets on a stand filled with bottles of water and beer. We had a limited supply of beer, so it was first come first serve :)

For dessert we had a drink table of hot beverages from hot chocolate, apple cider, coffee (regular & decaf) and a different assortment of teas.

um... I love paper straws! enough said :)

The Dessert Table

One of the most beautiful spots of our entire wedding was the dessert table! Nancy took this under her wing and from decoration to food, made it gorgeous! It was so nice to completely trust her to make the dessert section a beautiful part of our reception!
She hung paper lanterns and twinkle lights above the table to create a soft glow... just like a Pinterest picture I sent her!

Our wedding cake was made by non-other than Joanne Stern. She has been making wedding cakes for year, but her last wedding cake she made professionally was for my brother and sister-in-law at their wedding 8.5 years before.When Aaron and I got engaged she offered to make our wedding cake as a gift!!!!!!!! Since we were having such an assortment of desserts, the cake was mainly for a centerpiece and to cut! So she made a gorgeous cake that would serve about 75-100 people. We ordered extra flowers for her to arrange on the cake and it turned out spectacular! Delicious too! I only got the one bite from Aaron, but it was so yummy!

Lastly this banner was from my mom... you might remember it from my Prayer Shower decorations and it also adorned the dessert table as well!

Next post will be about food :) So excited to tell you about our amazing caterers!!

Getting Ready

How do I even begin to retell my wedding day? Does anyone have any ideas?

I will start my saying that I woke up the morning of my wedding, not as a blissful, peaceful, worry free bride... because I didn't. Instead I woke up to a panic attack. I literally laid in my bed nearly hyperventilating over all the thoughts running through my head -
Do we have enough linens?
What if the music and sound doesn't work?
What if people are late?
What if something unforeseen goes wrong?

After allow each thought to come into focus in my head and quickly be replaced by the next crazy thought, I started to pray... really really hard. I tried to trust God that everything would be wonderful! I did this for probably 20 minutes until I was ready to sit up. I then grabbed my bible and started reading through it. I don't even remember what I read, but with each word, the stress melted away. This is how my mom found me, sitting on the guest bed, reading my bible. I guess I could boast that I started my morning as a Godly woman reading God's word, but since I just admitted I allowed myself an hour of a panic attack before the thought of prayer even entered my mind, I don't have a ton to boast about. ha!

I had stayed at my parents house for the night and it was nice having it just be me and my parents and younger brother. My parents left early to take a load of decorations over to the venue and start helping people set up. My younger brother Tyler left soon after them for the groomsmen breakfast at The Windsor. So I had the house to myself to sit and collect myself and then drive out to my friend Tara's house where we were all getting ready. I continued my quest for peace with listening to worship music on the way there and it hit me along the freeway that THIS WAS MY WEDDING DAY!!! I just kept saying to God How did I get here? How did I get so lucky to be marrying a man like Aaron? Why do You love me that much? It was pretty overwhelming. From that moment on, I stopped being worried and just kept reminding myself that this day was not about Aaron and I, it was about Something and Someone way bigger!

I got to Tara's house and was met with all of my friends already settling into getting their hair and make up done. Jessica and Meredith made awesome food and breakfast treats for us to snack on, and although I wasn't the least bit hungry, I was a diligent bride and ate all the same... no one wants to watch a bride faint at the end of the aisle.

My hairstylist was the impeccable Bethany Sitton! I starting going to her for my hair a year ago and she has consistently given me the best hair cuts ever! She is also one of  the sweetest and most upbeat people I have ever known! I was so excited to have her there to start my wedding day just to be excited with me! She also did my mom's hair... so the two most important ladies of the day were looking super gorgeous!

Note: this was my mom and mines first time wearing fake eyelashes, and I think I'm addicted!

Isn't Bethany the cutest! My hair and make up were PERFECT!

My mom getting her eyelashes on! She was so beautiful

My little nieces were there too with all the big girls being girly and getting their hair done. I love having Emolyn and Elsie to do girly things with. Elsie was fascinated by Ashley's make up kit and Emolyn loved getting her hair done too! Katie Hook was the other hair stylist with us that morning. She is also the sweetest thing ever. I know her from church and she offered to help with hair for no cost just because she loves doing wedding hair that much! All my bridesmaids looked INCREDIBLE!

Emolyn getting her hair done like a big girl!

My sis Nicole and Katie

Carla and Jeannette hanging out in the bathroom... this is the moment they met and became best friends!

Ashley showing Elsie the magic of make up

My mom putting on my veil

After hair and make up were complete, it was over to the venue to settle in and get my dress on!!

Can you tell I'm excited?

Kendra did all the flower ordering and arranging herself! They were beautiful!

a bite to eat before getting dressed

Aaron and I decided to write each other love letter for the morning of our wedding day. If I had to wait to see him for half the day, I at least wanted to read his words. The boys were just one floor below us getting ready, and yet he felt miles away and the anticipation of seeing him was killing me... but then I got his letter and my heart was overjoyed.

I asked my girls group to be there with me along with my bridesmaids and the moms. I had this deep desire to have all my best girls surrounding me in my last moments before seeing Aaron for the first time.

My dad also got to take a peek at me before I went to see Aaron. The look on his face when he saw me is printed in my brain. I love my dad :)

I was now ready to go see my man!

... wait... one last thing needed...

This picture is a sort of tradition with my friends... its not all glamour on your wedding day... sometimes a girl needs deodorant.