Our Wedding Day

On December 4th 2016 I married the love of my life. I don't think the day could have gone any more perfect. December weather in Seattle is nothing special but on our day the sun was shining bright when rain had been predicted which made it even more perfect.

I barely slept the night before, not because I was stressed or had cold feet. I think there were just a lot of overwhelming feelings and I forgot to pack some melatonin to take to the hotel. I woke up excited to start the day and finally get to put on my dress and get all dolled up.

I was calm and in the moment pretty much the whole day, which is SOOO not me. I'm normally full of anxiety and overthink everything.

The morning went by fast and getting ready was fun but I was so ready to see Michael!

Michael isn't an emotional person so I knew our first look would be quick and fun but I'm still glad we did it. 

We had the BEST photographers EVER and had so much fun exploring downtown Tacoma for fun photo ops. I don't know if you can tell but I felt so pretty and took advantage of every opportunity to get my photo taken. 

Wedding Planning

I'm writing this post after the wedding because I have been a Horrible blogger this year. The last time I blogged was after me and Michael got engaged....which was a long time ago. Anyway...on to wedding planning.....

Oh My Gosh....you guys I am a planner, I love to be the host so naturally I assumed I would LOVE planning a wedding...WRONG, I hated it! Everything about it was not so fun. I had so many unique ideas and wanted every center piece to be different and that required a lot more work then I realized. My mom was a huge help running around to Marshalls, hobby lobby, target, Walmart. Joanns, etc for months looking for the perfect pieces to decorate our wedding. And we would try and buy everything on sale as much as we could.

This will be a short post.....the moral of the story is....I'm NOT a wedding planner nor will I ever be!

Engaged!

Its safe to say that getting engaged wasn't going to be a storybook fairy tale. I knew Michael wasn't the type of guy to plan some huge romantic surprise, which I was completely fine with. Then things got a little more nontraditional when we set a wedding date before getting engaged....Let me explain.

I am a planner and I wanted to be prepared for the day I got engaged so I could set a date and book things pretty quickly. Me and Michael have been together for about 6 years now so a long engagement is unnecessary for us. Without a doubt in my mind I knew I wanted to get married at Historic 1625 in Tacoma WA. I'm not unrealistic of the fact I don't have $50,000 to plan a wedding. I love how beautiful Historic is, its local, not super expensive and I don't know a million people who have gotten married there. They were having a open house in February with different vendors, so naturally I RSVP'd to the event. I knew they were doing a bunch of drawings for catering gift certificates and other things but the main raffle was winning a free venue date in 2016. Me and Michael talked about what we would do if we won a date and we both agreed we would look at their calendar and book a date regardless of winning. Getting married wasn't a question, the formal proposal just hadn't happened yet.

We got to the event, tried some food, talked to vendors and checked out their available dates. I was SO upset to find out they had no Saturdays available in 2016 and the next Saturday was in February 2017. Me my mom and Michael talked about it and decided to book the February date because apparently they book up quickly! We kind of just waited around for the rest of the raffles and of course the main raffle which was a free date in 2016. Never in a million years did I think my name was going to get called...BUT it did! I WON! I won the free wedding venue in 2016....about a $4000 value and I could not believe it! Neither could Michael or my mom. We were hugging each other and couldn't stop smiling, that kind of stuff doesn't happen...but it did to me that night!

We immediately went and sat down with the owner and had to sign a contract and pick a date. This was the tough part...I was working with no available Saturdays. I was pro Friday and Michael and my mom were pro Sunday. we weighed the pros and cons and ultimately decided on a Sunday Winter wedding.

I had already gone ring shopping and picked out "the one" and just had to wait for Michael to propose...which took about a month. It was simple and perfect and just in our home. I think people are a little disappointed to hear we don't have an elaborate engagement story but I'm not. I like that our story is nontraditional and I can't even begin to describe to you how excited we were that night we won the venue. we were in disbelief and pure joy for the next few days. I almost feel like that was our engagement.


SO in about 7 short months I will Marry Michael on 12.04.16. I couldn't be more excited!

Company Christmas Party

I cant believe this was my 4th Christmas Party at Johansen. Its only been a little over three years that I have been at my job but I started in October. Anyway I am so lucky to work for the most giving and appreciative company. Our Christmas parties are hard to beat... full of delicious food, fun games/giveaways, Open bar and good people.

Thanksgiving 2015

We hosted Thanksgiving this year again, I hope this becomes an annual thing because I love having everyone come to me instead of deciding which family we go to.

I'v wanted new floors since the first day we moved into our house and what better time to take on that task then the weekend before thanksgiving! I'm so thankful for Michael and his willingness to always take on my project ideas! It was a lot of work(for Michael, my brother and stepdad) but they got it done and the new floors look so good!

Back to Thanksgiving, the day was filled with cleaning, cooking, visiting, and of course eating and drinking! Oh and then some midnight Target shopping.

Taking out the guts!

Boys being helpful while mom irons the table cloths

hand made place settings by yours truly 

wine, beer, and some caramel apple sangria mmmm

Kids table

Jalen adding boobs to my turkey 

One of them popped through the skin but it still turned out good!

Thanksgiving shots!

Year two of Michael and Rachael's Thanksgiving was a success!