{unwrapped}

{forever begins today...}

"In your eyes I see forever
It makes me wish
That my life never knew
The day before you.

Oh, but heaven knows those years without you
Were shaping my heart for the day that I found you.
And if you're the reason for all I've been through,
then I'm thankful for the day before you.

Cause now you're here and everything's changing
And suddenly life means so much
And I can't wait to wake up tomorrow
And find out this promise is true.

I will never have to go back to ...
The day before you."

-Matthew West-

{the announcements}

In the early planning of our wedding, Jeff and I decided only to send announcements to close friends and family. However, I love our announcements so much, that I simply had to share them here. I was so completely busy designing wedding announcements for OTHER brides and shooting OTHER weddings, that I didn't have a single moment to spare to design my own. Thank HEAVENS for my dear friend Melissa, who offered to help take that off my hands.

Prior to the designing, I sent her a link to a song by Easton Corbin that both Jeff and I loved. I hadn't heard the song until a few weeks before. I always had the hardest time adequately describing how truly HAPPY I was....until I heard this song. The words...."My heart's never SMILED SO HARD..." said it all!!!!!! It was more than just a SMILE on the outside (which had been the case for so very long).....but a "smile" all the way through to my very soul. My HEART truly has NEVER smiled so hard. LOVE LOVE LOVE. Below, is the song I am referring to. It is SO "US" in every way!! Listen to it before reading the rest of this post.... :-)

At any rate.....we decided that we wanted this song to be the main inspiration - both in word and also in the FEELING of the invite. I could not have come up with anything more perfect than the design that Melissa came up with. We were SO THRILLED with the outcome. The main photo on the front is one of my all-time favorites of us. Oddly, it isn't my favorite picture of ME....because my face is so squishy and wrinkly. However.....it is BECAUSE of that, that I also LOVE IT. My face is squishy and wrinkly because of how BIG and genuine my smile is. This picture so PERFECTLY illustrates the happiness we both feel in our LOVE. Awesome.

And now....we'd like to share the final result, with YOU (the main accouncement and two inserts - one that went to EVERYONE about our "honeymoon to Israel in lieu of a reception" and another, for those invited to our temple sealing).....





Perfectly happy. Perfectly US!

{one week}

Every day, Jeff and I both marvel at the amazingness of US. In 7 days, this amazingness will be for Eternity. I can't even wrap my head around that miracle. We both feel so richly blessed and are so anxious to seal this very Divine deal!!