Bridal Portraits...

Here are a few of my favorites from my bridal portrait shoot! We started out at the Hotel Boulderado in Boulder. This is a historic hotel and has some awesome lights and beautiful wooden staircases! After we left the hotel we went to a lookout at one of the mountains in Boulder. I LOVE the mountain pictures, especially since I hiked from the parking lot to the summit in my dress and shoes... Had to climb up between the rocks while holding my dress off the ground in my heels for the mountain shots!

A shot to show my shoes... yes they are 4 inch heels... on the rocks...

I love how the wind blew my dress up like a parachute!!!

This is too cute! I love the color of the sky and how I look like I am excited that it was over!

We found this bench on the way between the car and the hotel! I love it!!!

Outside of a BAPTIST church... the same church I wouldn't park in its parking lot because it was BAPTIST! At least that is what Ilene was convinced!!!

At the beginning of the photo shoot... one of the few pictures with my flowers! I love how my hair curled... too bad it wouldn't curl on our wedding day!

A picture for Ian... he LOVES orchids... unfortunately Eli broke the flower off the stem, that is how I ended up with orchids in my hair!

My dress in all it's glory!!!

Introducing Mr & Mrs Ian Stiller

On Sunday, July 10, 2011 at 7:00 pm, we started our wedding ceremony. A day that I don't think that we will forget anytime soon!!! Before I start telling the story of how our weekend went, I will post a link to our photographer's blog for a preview of our wedding pictures and my bridal portraits first!

So... my parents arrived with my nieces Wednesday afternoon from Oklahoma. We had a few errands to run that day before playing with my dress with Ilene. Thursday found my mom and nieces going to the caterer to get the vases/drop off alcohol, picking up pictures and having our nails done before having a spray tan! Friday we kicked my parents out and had the day with the girls! First we went to pick up flowers then we headed to Golden, Co to see the Geology Museum at the Colorado School of Mines. Unfortunately we got there about 10 minutes before it closed but we did see some great minerals! Then we drove home to hang out with Ian and survive another impressive thunderstorm! Ian decided that he was going to be the cool uncle and let the girls stay up late Friday night... yeah... Saturday I took the girls and our dogs to the kennel where the dogs were being boarded for the weekend and the girls left with mom and dad. Mark and Martha met me and we came home to my house to pack... Mark and Ian hit it off and Martha is amazing! Martha helped me get everything packed and loaded into the cars! We ended up not going to the Coors Brewery since it was after 3 when we got to the hotel and unloaded...

The evening was a blur! The rehearsal dinner was SUPPOSED to start at 6... BUT... I didn't get back to the hotel from my "lunch" (chips/salsa and a margarita) with M&M until a little after 4... I showered and got ready in 20 minutes flat and made it down to the banquet room just a few minutes after 6... not too shabby right? The evening was fun and what I was able to eat of the food was great! (Needed some cheese and salsa to make an amazing fajita!!!) We had a good time with our family and friends! Afterward I spent some much needed time in the hot tub with my Momma Liz and Daddy Bill while hanging out with my nieces and parents. Then I set out to finish the slideshow and playlists...

Sunday... oh what a day... Ian woke up at 3 am FREAKING out about all the details he JUST realized needed to be completed before 5:00 when we arrived at our wedding venue. This wasn't a good thing for him. Our hypothesis is that his immune system was very low and the stress didn't assist and he got a bug... on our wedding day... He spent the better part of the evening disappearing to get fresh air or lie down or throw up... :(

I didn't get started on my hair until a little after 3, which should have given me plenty of time, except for the fact that my hair wouldn't hold a curl, even though it was naturally wavy from the night before and had hairspray from the previous night. So... at 4:00 we started straightening my hair... at 5:00 we were still straightening my hair and defrizzing it... mom and I BOTH had straighteners going in my hair at one point while Kenzie was combing another section! We were supposed to be at the venue at 5 and I left for the venue at 5 after... yeah... off to a great start... Ian, his parents and the guys were already at the venue when I arrived. Ian wasn't looking to great, rather pale and clammy to be exact so I immediately became a teacher/drill sergeant barking nice orders on how to set up the centerpieces and etc while I got ready.

On of our MUST-HAVE photos was the first sighting... So Ian was standing on the boardwalk with his back to the lakehouse. I came "sneaking up" with my entourage in our heels to surprise him. After he turned around, saw me in my dress and veil for the first time, as he was taking it all in, he had another round of being sick... It is kinda humorous to think that his initial reaction wasn't shedding a tear at the sight of his bride for the first time, it was throwing up over the railing... :) We finished up those shots, he excused himself, and we finished some shots with the girls. The evening went kind of like that. Set up a series of shots, Ian feel ill, Ian disappear, continue taking pictures with my family, Ian return set up next series of shots.

Fast forward to the ceremony. Ian escorted his mom down the aisle then the procession started. I was shaking while waiting and my dad in typical fashion

Big News!

Well this weekend and week have been busy for us! Over the weekend we got the BRILLIANT idea to have our rehearsal dinner at our house instead of at a restaurant. Why, you might ask, would we want to have everyone at OUR house just before our wedding????? Well, we are getting married in a remote location and there are only a few restaurants in the area that are nice, only problem is they all end up being too expensive or out of the way from the hotel. So... we thought we would just host the dinner at our house so we can show off our beautiful home as well as save money! This way everyone we love gets to see our house and what we have done with it and meet our children (Kodi and Buddy) as well as hang out in a comfortable setting. No worries about dress code, no worries about closing time, nothing, nada... We talked it over with Ian's parents and they seemed to like the idea, so now we need to get some catering quotes together and sent to his parents and this portion of the wedding will be complete! Ba-da-bing...

Other wedding related news. The Tulsa reception is coming together. I ordered the post-card invites on Saturday. My dad is getting too excitable about the plans, he has already arranged to have cakes made for the reception (he didn't like the idea of getting a cake from Sam's...) and wants to have food catered in. I don't know what has gotten into him, but alright! I got the cool customized cocktail napkins in the other day for the reception and book 2 (volume 3) of our photo books last week! I am working on making book 3 (volume 2- 2010) now so all I have left to do is our engagement book. I am planning on having the engagement book be our guest book so people can write whatever they want instead of signing on the line of a book that will never be looked at. We have decided on a caterer, we just need to call them back to confirm everything! We are still deciding what we want to do about flowers- order them from Costco and make our own bouquets/boutonnieres/corsages/centerpieces or have a florist do the bouquets, etc and us just make the centerpieces. My final dress fitting is this Thursday and then I will have my entire wardrobe together in one place minus the veil which Ian's mom will receive in May.

We have started working on details for two different bridal showers and I can only hope that Ian can go home with me in June so he can be apart of those (also so we can have a couples event too)... I am extremely excited about seeing everyone in June! We have received quite a few reply cards back in the last month and are up to 39 attendees I think. And of course, me being lil' Miss O.C.D. I have made a master copy of the guest list for all events... Ba-da-boom!

Since is it Spring Break and we are broke, we decided to spend the week together working on projects in the house. We have purchased the wood to put together a desk for me (using our pre-existing file cabinets as base support) so I can not only have my filing cabinets for organization but also organize and store my scrapbooking supplies in one spot! This will also free up a bookcase for books... and unload several more boxes! We set up our DVD shelves the other night and that made a huge dent in the room! Ian has also drawn up plans to fix our dining room table (stain the top piece of wood before adding the glass over it) and has that project going... with any luck we will have the table finished this week, my desk together and organized as well as our gardens started!

Gardens... yea... we are growing up... we bought a lawn mower and a tiller attachment for the weed-eater this week along with flower bulbs and seeds, soil conditioner and fencing... Ian worked like a crazy man yesterday raking all the "decorative" rocks from the border garden between the garage and sidewalk as well as in the bed beside the house... weather permitting we are going to till these areas, put up the border around them, mix in the soil conditioner and plant some flowers! I am super excited about this! We bought colorful decorative Indian corn, miniature pumpkins, miniature gourds, colorful cacti, along with an assortment of colorful flowers in the last two days!

I better run, I hear that it is time to start putting the shelves together for my desk! Pictures to follow sooner than later I hope!

Love and hugs!

March Fun

So far March has been a fun month! We have had one catering tasting, and two flower consults. We have one more caterer tasting this weekend... then to contact our original caterer to get a similar proposal to the other two and make our decision! The florists both said that they would email us the proposals within a week to ten days...

In other wedding news, we finished our invitations last weekend and have already gotten five response cards back!!!! So far only four people are going to attend... should lead to a fun night! :) I am sure we will get more cards this week from other family members... the wedding isn't for 125 days. I realized after we got our first response card back that I totally forgot to put the ribbon on the card to coordinate with the invitation! Oops! Guess I can always add the ribbon now right?

Yesterday we drove to Colorado Springs to spend the afternoon with Jen. It was good to see her after not having the chance to see her for almost a year! Sight seeing in Manitou Springs was fun, even with the horrible wine tasting that we attended...

In other news, Ian has had an in-person interview and a follow up with one company, hoping to hear back from them soon on whether or not he got the job... he has another in person interview tomorrow with another company... Keep the prayers coming that he is able to find a job. Lord knows he wants to find one!

I have also been hired by a home health company based in Denver. I need to contact the other speech therapists to shadow them before I get my first clients since it has been 7 years since I have dabbled in the medical side of my profession, mainly swallowing and some of the more cognitive therapies for post-CVA patients.

CSAP season is officially in full swing and once we are finished with CSAP, we will have SPRING BREAK!!! THEN... 100 days!!!

What a week!!!

What a week I have had! Monday, on my day off, we spent the day Spring Cleaning... vacuuming, shampooing carpets, moving furniture from one floor to the another... only to end up beaten, bruised and incredibly sore... BUT...

It all paid off... the house looks great AND the even bigger news...

MY BOOK arrived yesterday! I made a book, totally eleventh hour, on mypublisher.com that was filled with pictures of Ian and me from 2009 when we first started to date... the book took me about 4 hours to create from uploading pictures from multiple cds/computers/and places to downloading the 276 pictures and 61 page book to the website! I created the book on Feb 9 and received it Feb 23! Not bad at all!!!

http://bookshelf.mypublisher.com/?e=OHm3Q8zJl3TFCSldL124LXSEKhrSgo3r&s=fb

THEN... after a full day at school, I went to South Denver for the beginning of my training for home health services, got home at 7pm... to... a box in my mailbox... a box of what you might ask...

MY WEDDING STATIONARY!!!!!!! They are AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL!!! Thanks so much to Regina Banks with Arjaybi's Stationary in Oklahoma City! (www.arjaybis.com )

My girls at the wedding

Day 3 - the Jamaican Wedding...

My wakeup call came a little too early for me this morning! It is really hard to get out of bed when it is pitch black in the room!!!! I managed to get up, and clear the fuzz from my head before heading around the corner to Belinda's mom's room where they were attempting to clear the fuzz from their heads... I went to get Val and off we went to get some breakfast before starting on my hair. On the way back to my room we checked on Belinda. Her hair was started... whew... what a relief, it was going to take a while to get her hair all curled!!! I should have left well enough alone with my hair. It actually looked good straight, but alas... I thought it would be a good idea to curl it... as if humidity and strong winds would not knock the curl out in mere minutes!

We had been told that we needed to be down in the lounge at 10:45 precisely with EVERYTHING that we needed for the wedding. At 10:45 I was in the process of lacing up Belinda's dress, her mom was attempting to do something to her hair, and Val realized that she didn't have a second form of ID to get back on the ship. Oh yeah, the only way to get her second form of ID was to have RT's credit card to get into the safe. Where was RT you are probably asking yourself??? He was with Trevor and Jason in the lobby with Jason's parents... We got Belinda in an elevator with her mom and Val and I took off running to the other end of the ship since we realized that the elevator that we were on would not take us to where we needed. We tore down the hall at full speed (as fast as I could go in a long formal gown, flip flops, and both hands full of dress shoes) to try to make it to the lobby (on the 3rd floor, we were on the 2nd at this point) before Belinda and Marti (her mom) appeared. We made it in time to tell RT to go back to get Val's license when I realized that MY license was not in my camera bag where I had placed it! Apparently during our race down the hallway my license fell out!!!! So Trevor and Jason go retrace my steps to try to find my license. They came back without my license, but with my passport! So, now at 11:15 we are actually off for the wedding... until someone stops us as we were getting on the elevator with my license!!! They were awesome!!!

Here are some pics from the wedding:

Lacing Belinda up in her corset gown... Starting to think that a zipper would be easier and more time efficient... mental note for when I actually get married!

Me and Belinda before leaving the ship... this is while the guys were out searching for my license and retrieving Val's!

Isn't this just an amazing picture of the groom!?! And he says that I am the immature one!!!

Me after the wedding. It was a little windy, and a little humid! But it was B-E-A-U-TIFUL!

I took this picture all by myself... Not bad for an amature!!!

So after the wedding we drove back to the ship to take formal pictures with backdrops. These were some awesome pictures! I will post a few, but not all of them as I will have them in a photo album that I will send out...

Here is a picture of me and Trevor inside the ship with the backdrop. These are pics that we took ourselves, not the ones that the photographer took... :)



More details and pictures from Jamaica are to follow... as well as the story of driving in Jamaica! Congrats Jason and Belinda! It was a beautiful wedding and I was so honored to be apart of the ceremony!!! Even if I tried to keep the wedding ring!!!!

Going to the chapel and she's...

We are going to the chapel and she's gonna get married... but the she isn't me... sorry to get your hopes up! June 24, 2006 was a very special day for Valerie Reynolds, we went to the chapel and SHE got married! These are a few of the pictures from her big day, or week shall we say! (Note to reader, I haven't mastered the art of uploading pictures on here in the correct order, so pictures are kinda crazy!)

This is me at her parents house before going to the church to get ready. I decided to get dressed a little early so that I could have my picture taken before the fireplace, which is a Reynolds family tradition!

Me and Trevor at the reception... it was almost midnight and the poor baby had been up since about 4:30 in the morning! He had a rough weekend! He spent most of the afternoon Friday checking the radar and weather place to get clearance to fly up to Tulsa in his little Cessna 150... no luck as the weather between Tulsa and Ft. Worth was horrible with storms! So he woke up EARLY Saturday morning to get clearance to fly up to Tulsa before the storms built up and before I had to be at the wedding prep activities!

My mugshot that Dad Reynolds took after my hair (redo) and makeup were finished... for the time being... more makeup was added at the church to "finish" the job... I have worn more makeup in my life... but Trevor has never seen me wearing "real" makeup... which would explain why he thought I looked like I was wearing a mask!

Me and Valerie at the Bridal Attendants luncheon! We were both looking good and were sooo happy!

Someone snapped a picture of me as I was putting my camera away at the Bridal Attendants Luncheon. I like the picture...

We had an action filled week that is for sure! I arrived back in Tulsa on Tuesday evening, spent Wednesday with my mom shopping and getting my last minute stuff for the wedding... then Thursday was the Bridal Luncheon at Green Onion (yummy) and between the luncheon and the bachelorette party I managed to spend a little quality time with my AnaRae. AnaRae didn't quite understand the concept that I was going to a party and needed to look pretty, even though I was going with girls. She kept asking me if I was going to get me a "fancy boyfriend" in Tulsa so that I could come home more often... Thursday evening we met at Val's brother/sister 'n law's house for predinner cocktails and some fun before going to dinner at the Bistro and then to Brookside for some dancing at Suede. Friday, after getting a few hours of sleep we all had stuff to do before meeting for the rehearsal and dinner. Then finally, Saturday, the big day! I had a hair appointment at 8 am then picked Trevor up at the airport and he dropped me off at Val's parents house so that we could get ready! I have no clue as to what he did all day, I think he just crashed at Val's brother's house... then off to the chapel to get her married!!!! I was ready for a few days of sleep after that weekend!

I have pictures from my trip to Nevada that I will post in the next day or so... check back...