Playin' in Playa: The Resort

One of my friends (proof that SOMEONE reads this blog!) brought it to my attention yesterday that I had yet to post about our honeymoon. So...

>>After starting this post, I realized it was too long to do it all in one post.  So it will be in installments!  Here's part 1<<

We spent the day after the wedding cleaning up the venue, transporting everything from Lawrence to KC, and opening gifts/cards (we needed some spending money for our honeymoon!).  After a few trips to Wal-Mart and Target for some last-minute supplies, LOTS of laundry (remember, Jason has been living out of a hotel for the last month), and packing, Jason went to bed about midnight and I went to bed around 1.

We started out by waking up at 3:30 am to make it to the airport by 4:30/5 for our 6:00 flight.  GAWH!  Bad decision on the early flight.  NO ONE should have to wake up at 3:30 in the morning.  That's just not natural!  It was still dark as our plan was taking off.  We flew to Atlanta, had a 4 hour layover, and flew to Cancun. 

After a 45 minute ride on a small charter bus, we arrived at our resort: The Royal at Playa Del Carmen!  Here's the view from the open-air lobby:

After checking in, they showed us our room:

Bigger than a King-sized bed!

Love Swans on our bed

Beautiful bathroom

The in-suite jacuzzi!

Our Happy Honeymoon Welcome!

Close-up of our dessert

View from our balcony

 
It was such an AMAZING resort!  Although Jason claims to not be a "beach-person," he agreed that we need to go back (either to that resort or one of their sister properties).

More to come later!

One Down...

We've been married for ONE MONTH today. :o) Not that anyone's counting...

31 Days.

And I've spent 10 of those days with my husband. :o(  It totally sucks living in different states.  At least I've spent most of the last month at home.  Jason's been home for 3 days during that month.  He's spent the rest in hotels (during our honeymoon in Mexico, a business trip to Minnesota, at the extended stay place in Texas).  Thank goodness for those 3 days so Jason could do laundry!  I miss my husband!

Okay... whine over.

I haven't sorted through all of our wedding pictures yet (I got the flash drive of them yesterday!), but I wanted to share a couple of quick pictures.  I just love them!!!




So sweet...



Love the sun spot!



All photos from Design and Capture Studios.

Picture PERFECT!

My wedding pictures are available for online viewing!  I've looked through all of them (be prepared... there's a LOT!).  I won't get the DVD (and the ability to blog them) until next week when I go in to choose the pictures for my wedding album, but you can see all of the pictures here:

http://www.designandcapture.com/html_ver/proof_sec.php
password: casey

I just love them!  Angie and Stephanie did such a great job!  Enjoy!

Another Teaser...

I'm excited to say our photographer is working on editing our wedding now, so I should have the pictures very soon!

Until then, here's one fun picture to hold you over...

Instead of the traditional garter toss, we decided to put it on a football and have the guys catch it that way... sort of "500" style!  Made for a great picture!

Can't wait to see more!!!  Thanks to Angie Weston at Design and Capture Studios for this teaser!

Leaning to the Left...

Three years ago today, one of my bridesmaids (and a math friend from college) got married!  Congrats to Erin and Zane!

This also means that three years ago today was Jason and I's first date!  For those that don't know the story...

I had just had my 25th birthday the previous week, and it wasn't a good one!  I had gone though an emotional day realizing I wasn't married, didn't have kids, didn't own a house... all of which my mom had at 25.  I felt like such a failure at life.  The day after my birthday, I decided that things were going to change.  Instead of trying to force my life to be the way I wanted it to be, I was just going to "let it happen when it's supposed to happen."

So that weekend I drove down to Pitt for Erin's wedding (I was one of her bridesmaids as well).  I stayed with another bridesmaid, Liz, and her wonderful (and dog-sitter) parents.  On Friday, we had the rehearsal (and rehearsal dinner).  Of course we weren't ready to call it a night after the dinner, so we went out to one of the local bars, Fifth Street.  As we were getting a drink, Liz noticed a group of guys she knew from high school.  We ended up joining their group. 

Funny thing was, Jason didn't talk to me at first.  One of his friends (and future groomsmen) was VERY friendly and welcoming that night (I believe the phrase, "I love you" was thrown around A LOT). :o)  As the night wore on (and the drinks kept coming), I got slightly intoxicated.  For those that don't know, I'm a left-leaner after drinking.  Jason happened to end up on my left side, and I'm pretty sure my first words to him were something like, "Hi, I'm Casey.  I lean to the left when I'm drunk!"

So yes, I was the one that made the first move!  Eventually we got to talking and figured out that we were both going to Erin's wedding the next night, so we agreed to be each other's "date" to the wedding!  We exchanged phone numbers before the end of the night.

So the next day I wake up thinking, "There's no way this guy is actually going to be my wedding date tonight.  It was just some drunken words."

I was debating whether or not to text him (I didn't want to be that needy girl).  Imagine my surprise when I get a text from him asking if I was still wanting to be his date to the wedding.  OF COURSE!

So we met up at the reception, and the rest is history!

Our first date!

As we were talking, Jason had a wedding the next weekend that he was in and invited me to go to that as his date.  I was ecstatic!  I already had a second date set up with this guy!

Later in the week, he canceled that wedding date on me.  His reason: he was in the wedding, I wouldn't know anyone, and I would just be bored the whole time.  Whatever... He was just blowing me off.  Honestly, I thought that was his way of saying he wasn't interested in me.  But he kept texting/calling me.  He drove to Lawrence to visit me.  I drove to Pitt to visit him... And finally on August 4th, we became "facebook official" (I made the date my iPhone password so Jason HAD to learn it!).  NOW the rest is history!

SWAK: Sealed With A KILLER?!?

Still waiting to get some pictures back, so I'll start the recaps soon... but in the mean time, I want to share with you a story that I can laugh at now, but was pretty FURIOUS at the USPS at the time...

I had taken a sample invite into the post office to get a price estimate before I ordered all of the paper to create the invites.  They told me that I was right on the edge of needing the 45 cent vs. 65 cent stamp.  So I went ahead and ordered and created the invites (thanks, Kristin for all your help with the invites!).  It was definitely a labor of love, but that's another blog post!

Just so you know, here's a sample of the invite:

Ignore the white-out... I didn't want to post someone's address. :o)

And there are MANY different stamp designs to choose from for 45 cents (a.k.a Forever Stamps), my favorites being these:

Bonsai Trees... pretty!

Cherry Blossoms on the National Mall... Pretty!

Flower painting... Pretty!

Love Ribbon (the red would clash, but still)... Pretty!

Pixar Movie Buddies... Cute and Fun!

Wedding Roses (the 45 cent stamp for invites)... VERY PRETTY!

And the 65 cent stamp is also known as the "wedding stamp":

I would be OK with any of those... really, I would!

So imagine my surprise when Jason and I took a final invite to the post office to find out if we needed to do the 45 cents or the 65 cents, only to be told we needed to do 85 cents because we "weren't just mailing paper" according to the (male) USPS worker.  I took the invite out and SHOWED him that it was only paper, and he still said we needed the 85 cent stamp.  Fine.  150 invites, 20 cents more per invite.  That's an extra $30.  Whatever.  I'll pay it just to get these dang things mailed.

Then he showed me the 85 cent stamp:
Yep, those would be Birds of Prey.  Nothing says "Love" and "Wedding Invite" like deadly birds.  According to Wikipedia, those lovely beaks you see in the stamps are for "tearing flesh."  Yep.  Our wedding invites were going to be stamped with some freakin' flesh-tearing, winged predetors.

Not only were they more expensive, but the brown birds clashed with the black/white/pink/gray color scheme of our invites.

I was on the verge of tears.  No, this couldn't be.  I asked the guy if he had any other prettier stamps.  When he asked why, I flat out told him, "Because those birds are ugly."

His response, "Well, I kinda like them."  Whatever.  Typical male.  They are ugly and definitely NOT meant to be put on ANYONE'S wedding invitation!

Thank goodness Jason was there.  He asked the guy to show us another option.  He came back with two of the red love ribbon stamps.  So now we are looking at 90 cents per invite.  That's almost as much as I spent to create them!

I was welling up with tears again.  Jason just took the invite back and told the man we would think about our options.  I was NOT going to ruin our beautiful invites with those ugly birds of prey, and I definitely didn't want to pay double our original estimate for freakin' stamps.

Jason said I looked like this as I drove home:

Cruella DeVil from 101 Dalmations

Don't worry, there's a happy ending to this story.  We went to another post office the next day where we had a lovely female USPS person to help us who said we could do the 65 cent wedding stamps.  When I asked her if it was too thick or stiff, she said it was fine, and we didn't need to go for the more expensive stamps.  We preceeded to buy the stamps, and our beautiful invites got put in the mail to all of our guests with the beautiful wedding cake stamp.

The moral of the story: 
Get a female USPS person to help you.  Men just don't understand you don't want people to associate your beautiful wedding (and the invites you spend days assembling) with those ugly Birds of Prey.

Mr. and Mrs. Becker - Proof!

I know, I know... I've definitely neglected the blog the last couple months.  Sorry!  I plan to recap the wedding with all of the things that I didn't get a chance to blog about before the wedding (plus, it also felt like I was ruining the surprise for our guests to blog about everything before the wedding!).

The whole point of this post???  WE ARE FINALLY MARRIED!

Need proof???

http://atozvideo.com/gallery_four.php

Click on that link.  You'll have to arrow/next over to get to it, but you can see the teaser video from our videographer!  ENJOY!!!

I also have one picture courtsey of our wonderful photographer Angie of Design and Capture Studios.  I JUST LOVE IT!!!