It's hard to believe that it has been a full year since we finally tied the knot! This is an extra special anniversary because we're celebrating 5 years together (along with our 1 year of marriage). All of our special anniversaries fall on the same day which make it very easy to remember -- 321.

Since we were married in Mexico and didn't have a wedding cake, I picked up some spicy Mexican chocolate that we ate part of as soon as we were back home in Tahoe after the wedding. I've been saving the rest of the bar for the past year and so we'll finish that off tomorrow instead of the top of a cake. We also have some special wine from Ernst Hill, one of my favorite vineyards in Australia, and I believe we are down to our last two bottles! We picked up a case on our 1 year anniversary and have finally worked our way through it, mostly saving them for special occasions.

To celebrate this occasion, here are some photos of us from each year we've been together!

Our first vacation! Western Australia -- April 2009
Yes, this was only a few weeks after we started dating!

Hanging with some local wildlife in Sydney -- April 2010 

Soaring! Celebrating our 2 year anniversary a few months late. October 2011

We're engaged! Our 3 year anniversary at Heavenly March 21, 2012

We're married on our 4th anniversary -- March 21, 2013

Here's to many more anniversaries as a push-me-pull-you couple. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Time to celebrate!

Tahoe Wedding Reception

After a brief 2 week hiatus from the blog, I'm back, and with a recap of our wedding reception! We went the non-traditional route and split our ceremony and reception into two separate events about 4 months apart. This allowed tons of friends and family to attend and also allowed us to continue the celebration!

Since we were married in Mexico, we wanted to stay with the Mexican theme to help tie the two events together. I used a ton of bright colors, had a Mexican themed menu and desserts, and even a piñata! It was a casual and fun afternoon at the beach with lots of family and friends!

Wedding Reception

July 27, 2013

Save the Dates: Designed by Jess, Printed by Yellow Dog Printing

Invitations: Designed by Jess, Printed by VistaPrint

Venue: Burnt Cedar Beach, Incline Village

Photographer: Bent Water Studio

Caterer: The Yum Truck

Guest Book: Mixbook

Koozies: Custom Ink

Lake Tahoe Map: League to Save Lake Tahoe

Flowers: Safeway

Decorations: Michaels

Dave's shirt: Tommy Bahama (similar)

Jess' dress: ModCloth

Jess' hair: Kathy at Salon Be

I designed the save the invite postcard invitations myself (I am in marketing haha) and printed them via Yellow Dog Printing (Save the Dates) and Vistaprint (Invites). They turned out great and everyone loved the designs!  This was the second Save the Date that we sent out since our first plan to Ecuador was cancelled due to a volcano eruption. Apparently we were just not meant to get married in Ecuador haha.

Dave's shirt Tommy Bahama (similar) // Jess' Dress ModCloth 

We had to bring the paddle boards out for some photos on the lake!

For the party, we went pretty casual with the decorations since it was a beach BBQ. All of the flowers were actually from Safeway which I pre-ordered, and had two amazing girlfriends put all of the arrangements together for the party. They turned out amazing! The colorful buckets were on sale at Michaels and we borrowed the red/white checkered table clothes from the caterer.

The beach BBQ area at the beach had a large grill and serving table with all of the picnic tables surrounding it on the grass.  It was a great setup to have the buffet right in the middle and everything only steps from the lake.  The "D" and "J" are wooden letters from Michaels and the piñata was a custom made push me pull you piñata put together by one of our friends.

For a thank you gift, everyone took home a custom beer koozie with our push me pull you logo! They turned out great! These were ordered from Custom Ink. We also had bubbles for all of the kids to play with at the party.

I put together a guest album with a mix of photos from our ceremony and throughout previous few years of dating. It was really easy to make and I ordered it via Mixbook. We also had an awesome vintage map of Lake Tahoe for everyone to sign the mat in the frame. This piece turned out awesome and is in our bedroom. If you're looking for a similar map, I ordered it through the League to Save Lake Tahoe.

The Food

We had a local group, The Yum Truck, cater our event. Although they have a food truck, for this party they left it at home and did a more traditional service. They cooked all of the meat on site on the large BBQ grills -- so impressive! Everything turned out amazing!

MENU 

Chips, Salsa, and Guacamole

Zesty Lime Grilled Chicken with Pico de Gallo

Chipotle Grilled Tri-tip

Cliantro Lime Rice

Black Beans

Mexican Caesar Salad

Street Corn

For dessert, my mom and I took on the task of once again cooking everything. You would of thought we would have learned our lesson after the engagement party! Thanks to help from a few girlfriends and family friends, we finished making over 300 mini cupcakes and cookies! All of the serving trays were from the Dollar Store and the recipes are linked, so check them out!

DESSERT

Margarita Cookies with Tequila Icing

Gluten Free Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes

Churro Cupcakes

Margarita Cupcakes

Our favorite Tahoe family, Schue Love!

Fashion: Wedding Attire Options

As I was looking through our calendar for this coming summer, I realized that we've been invited to 5 weddings! Apparently 2014 is turning out to be a popular year.  The weddings are a complete range of styles/dress codes too. I figured I should start looking for some possible dresses to wear. Shopping is rather limited in Tahoe with the closest "real" mall an hour away in Reno or two hours away in Sacramento, so I usually buy online to save time. Here are some of my favorites that I've found so far.

ModCloth

This is my favorite dress so far -- it just looks so fun and fancy! I think it would fit for any of the ceremony types too!

ModCloth

I think this dress is so fun! This would be perfect for some of the dressier/evening weddings.

Nordstrom

This is a great dress for a more casual outdoor wedding. I also love the color!

Nordstrom

This is a fun dress and I like the subtle high/low hem. It is also one that I think would be perfect for either a day or nighttime wedding. Will keep you posted on what I end up finding! Open to suggestions too if you know of some cute new styles out there.

Our Engagement Party

Today marks 11 months of marriage for Dave and I, and looking back at our first year I can't believe how fast it went. Now with only 4 weeks until our big 1 year anniversary (and 5 years together!) I thought I'd be fun to recap our engagement, ceremony, and reception each week until our anniversary. So without further ado, we'll start with our engagement party!

ENGAGEMENT PARTY

August 4, 2012

Dress

Our engagement party was held about 4 months after we got engaged, and my parents were gracious enough to host the party at their house in Colorado! Over the years they have turned the backyard into a gorgeous setting complete with a Koi pond and small waterfall! The weather in August in Colorado is awesome with really warm evenings, so it was perfect for hosting the party in the backyard.

THE INVITATIONS

Invites: Wedding Paper Divas "Wine Bar"

For anyone that knows us, they know how much we love wine, so naturally, our engagement party needed to be wine themed! I was really excited when I found these invitations on Wedding Paper Divas and they matched the theme perfectly. 

WELCOME BAGS

We had quite a few friends and family fly in to town for the party, so my mom put together some welcome bags.  Inside we included some water bottles, sunscreen, and some special Colorado items like mints, chocolate, postcards, etc. They turned out really cute! The morning everyone arrived, I drove around and dropped off the bags at all of the hotels so they would be there when guests checked in.  These were a fun way to help kick off the weekend.

The Welcome Bags!

THE FOOD

Main food table

My mom and I decided to put the menu and all of the food together ourselves for the party -- from scratch. I am never doing that again haha. We were baking/prepping for 3 days! Luckily we had lots of help with aunts, girlfriends, etc to make everything come together but whew! That was a lot of hard work. We wanted to keep people mingling throughout the party, so we opted for a "small bites" type menu that would be easy to eat while standing. We also hired one of our family friends to manage the food/drinks during the party so that we could actually sit back and relax.

MENU

Assorted Cheese & Crackers Platter

Swedish Meatballs

Caprese Bites

Blue Cheese Stuffed Bacon Wrapped Dates

Parmesan & Sausage Stuffed Mushroom Caps

Lamb Sliders on a Brioche Bun

Pear & Walnut Spinach Salad

Champagne Cupcakes

Dark Chocolate Chili & Whiskey Brownies

Assorted Fruit Salad

Lamb Sliders!

THE WINE

The Wine Table

Since this was a wine themed party, it was only fitting to have a full table dedicated to it! Dave and I decided that we should serve wine that had a story behind it that fit with our lives and we somehow managed to narrow it down to 3 main wines.  Check back later this week for the stories that match with the wine! :)

Four Vines Naked Chardonnay

Loxton Zinfandel

Buena Vista Carneros Pinot Noir

THE DECORATIONS

Photo wall

For all of the decorations, I decided to go with the DIY route. Armed with my Pinterest inspiration board and Etsy favorites, I came up with quite a list of decorations to make! Living so close to the vineyards of Northern California made it quite easy to get TONS of corks for free. TSA probably thought I was nuts though with all of these decorations and extra corks in my carry on suitcase! 

My favorite piece!

THE GUESTBOOK

Instead of doing a traditional guest book for the party, we thought it would be fun (and fitting) to have everyone decorate a coaster! I ordered a bulk set of blank coasters through Etsy for people to decorate. We also had an empty wooden wine box for people to put the completed ones in. Armed with colorful sharpies and a custom push me-pull you stamp, our guests created some awesome masterpieces.  Can you tell which ones were designed by adults and which were by kids? :)

Some of the awesome coasters!

THANK YOU GIFTS

Custom Wine Glasses

I ordered custom wine glasses from The Tipsy Grape to commemorate the occasion and everyone got to take one home with them! The design was etched in so they hold up to the dishwasher. These are still our favorite wine glasses to use. :)

We had such a fun time celebrating with our friends and family that night and it was exciting to see all of the tiny touches come together for such a wonderful party! Thanks again to everyone who came and to my parents for hosting. And to one of my best friends, Jocelyn, for playing photographer and capturing all of the details.

2013 Year in Review

Happy New Year! 2014 has finally arrived and we're excited to see where this year will take us. This past year was definitely a roller coaster of extreme highs and lows. Here are some of our incredible high points from the past year.

We got married! We finally tied the knot on our 4 year anniversary, March 21st, in a small ceremony with friends and family in Mexico. It was an amazing week and the day itself could not have been more perfect.

 I started my own company! With a little pushing from Dave, I finally worked up the courage to quit my office job and start my own marketing consultancy. Zephyr Cove Consulting was born and has been an amazing adventure! I'm lucky to have found fantastic clients that have stood by and supported me during our lows this summer.

We had our wedding reception! Since we had such a small ceremony in Mexico, we decided to have a big beach BBQ reception a few months later here in Lake Tahoe. It was a great excuse to get all of our friends and family together for a great weekend, and to continue the wedding celebration!

I surprised Dave with a fun birthday weekend including a Moroccan cooking class and an intro flight lesson over Lake Tahoe!

We completed 4 remodel projects! We managed to complete and survive quite a few remodel projects on the house! It started with changing our 3 bedroom into a 4 bedroom with a remodel of our 2nd floor. We also did a complete makeover on our guest bath with dramatic changes! We expanded our deck and built a small patio for a new hot tub -- excellent investment. Finally, we wrapped up the year with a complete fireplace overhaul in our living room! Stay tuned for posts detailing our projects soon!

We competed in Vail Resorts' #EpicRace and skied 26 resorts across the US and Europe in 29 days! When we first heard about the race, we knew we had found the perfect honeymoon! The race took us not only from Tahoe to Utah and Colorado, but also to Minnesota, Michigan, Austria, Switzerland, and France! We skied some of the most diverse terrain around the world, made some incredible friends, and truly had a once in a lifetime experience! This trip definitely helped us end our crazy year on a high note.  To read more about out our trip, click the Epic Race tab on the right hand side of the page.

After such a crazy year, we are definitely excited to see what 2014 has in store for us!

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year!