I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad

                He is one of my favorite things. Seriously guys, look how handsome he is!

You may be wondering about this title of this post. If you don't recognize it, it's from the Sound of Music when she sings the "Favorite Things" songs to the kids during the rainstorm. Have you ever realized how random that song is? Brown paper packages wrapped up in string....Hey, everyone's got their own 'thing' that makes them happy. You enjoy those brown packages, Julie Andrews.

Anyway, today is day two of being all but a talking vegetable for me, and I'm having a hard time with it considering it's two weeks before finals and I'm missing school. Don't worry, I'll explain: I've struggled with back problems because of dance for about two years now. My dad's side of the family has seen this a lot, so I guess I just inherited it. My back has been doing progressively better over time, but this week in particular it hasn't been doing so well. To make an extremely long story short, yesterday my back began to have muscle spasms, causing me to collapse to the floor multiple times (aka any time I tried to walk or stand straight up), and leaving me unable to stand, walk, or do practically anything by myself. Luckily, I have the cutest husband ever who has been taking good care of me...which is what this blog post is really about--Taylor...and the day that I married him. Which is one of my favorite things.

On March 13th I received my endowments, which is an essential ordinance in The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and it is necessary to be done before you get married in the temple, which is where Taylor and I got married. I can't say much about the endowment session, not because it is secret, but because it is sacred. However, I absolutely loved it, and it made me even more excited to marry Taylor in the Provo temple :).

On the night of March 14th, we had a "rehearsal dinner" with our families and the bridal party. It was super fun to hear Madie, my made of honor, Josh, Taylor's best man, and our parents speak. Taylor and I also spoke of our experience dating each other and of our ultimate decision to marry each other. Unfortunately, I didn't get to bed super early because I wanted to get anything and everything that would/could cause me stress the next day finished before I went to bed. However, it was the night before my wedding, who can really sleep that night anyway?

On March 15th, 2012 I woke up at 5: 40 am, and my amazing maid of honor, Madie, picked me up at 6am so that we could grab breakfast at Einstein bagels (you have to try their breakfast sandwiches!) and then be in A.F. by 7 for me to get my hair and makeup done.


The rest of the day went exactly as planned and it was perfect. I know that a lot of people say their wedding day was perfect.....aside from this, that, or the other. However, literally nothing went wrong on our wedding day. The days leading up to it were not so enjoyable because of school, stress, etc., so I felt like we deserved the perfect day. The weather, by the way, was AMAZING. I even noticed a small sunburn later that day that I'd gotten just from taking pictures outside. I have to give credit to my mom, the busiest person in the world, for helping my day to be perfect. She even last minute surprised me with getting an ice sculpture for our reception! All of our families and friends were so supportive and helpful. I'll never be able to thank them all enough. Now, enough of the talking, here's some photos of our wedding day (all photo rights go to Elizabeth Taylor Frandsen):

                                                    Guys, look at that blue sky:

This bouquet was SOOOO heavy. But I loved it! 

Our bridal party was SO much fun. 

Don't worry, we had practiced this dip in advance, just so we could get a cute dip picture. 

I had never been a huge yellow gold fan until my sister Nicole got a yellow gold wedding ring. I love it so much now it was one of my colors! 

I loved my wedding shoes. I also bought them before we were officially engaged. I had to just watch them sit in my closet for months until I could finally wear them! 

I wanted a very girly wedding, which I was able to do very well with with the bridesmaids attire. I wanted them to all have the same dress, but to wear whatever gold shoes and jewelry they wanted to so that they could show a little personality. 

As I mentioned before, I wanted to go all out--sparkles, bows, etc. So when my florist suggest a triple bow bouquet for the bridesmaids I did not hesitate. 

All of the bridesmaids had a sash with a cute rhinestone/pearl flower on the front, and it was tied in a bow in the back. I also wrote a message on the bottom of each of their shoes (thanks, Pinterest!)

Again, with the girliness. When I found this ivory tulle-tiered dresses with the gold sequins on top, I just couldn't say no. By the way, Costco has AWESOME little girl dresses. Taylor's family did a great job finding the cute pink cardigans and pink sparkle bow shoes for the girls. 

Nicole wasn't quite feeling going all out being a bridesmaid since she's married, so I found this cute lace dress at Downeast. I had her wear the same sashes as the bridesmaids, and put this cute "belt" on top to match with the girly theme. P.s. the "belt" was originally a necklace. 

Our bridal party was sneaky and put together a fun dance for us using my favorite song (yes, one was a Backstreet Boys song). 

I tried to add detail to everything, so I used every girly, cute thing I could find. 

Brown Brothers Catering---amazing! I made sure to have people sneak me these drinks and some food while we greeted people in line. 

My dad passed away almost five years ago. I decided to dance with his dad, my grandpa Nielsen, in his place. It was hard to not have him there physically, but I know for sure that he was there in spirit. 

Taylor has the sweetest mom ever. I'm glad he got to share a dance with her on our wedding day. 

(look how cute my mom is in the corner) I know a lot of people think having a little fun while feeding each other wedding cake is tacky, and that's fine. But personally, I don't think we look tacky at all! We enjoyed it.

I absolutely love this photo of my beautiful mom and cute sister. 

 The best part about our wedding day was that it was just the beginning of awesome days. Sure, I looked a lot better on that day than I do today (rocking the "mowgli" look while I sit like a vegetable), but my love for Taylor has only grown since that day 20 days ago. So today and yesterday have been rough, but that's why "I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad". And that's all.

Quit hatin' on the love

Hello all,

First of all, Happy Valentine's Day! So today after seeing so many anti-love/Valentine's Day posts on FB, and after being SOOOO tempted to give a rebuttal on those people's, I have decided to write more appropriately and less controversially, on my own blog, about why Valentine's Day is not "single awareness day". Yes, you may say, "well of course you think that--you're engaged." Well what I say to that is, I have been engaged for only 3 months (as of yesterday :), not my whole life, and I have never had a problem with Valentine's day. So here's what I have to say (because it's my blog, so I can):

FB Status: Happy Single Awareness Day!
Rebuttal: Valentine's Day is NOT all about couples. It's about LOVE. Last I heard, you don't have to only love your boyfriend, girlfriend, fiance, husband, wife, or make-out buddy. You can love your family and friends (duh). Seriously. I've had my share of lonely Valentine's Day, but I've always enjoyed the holiday. You have an excuse to eat candy, treats, make cute notes, and wear pink (if you like. it happens to be my favorite color :). Instead of thinking about how you don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever, why don't you take a treat to that cute boy or girl in your ward just for fun, have a girls night, have a guys night, whatever. It's a holiday--enjoy it. I'm not trying to be insensitive, I just want to help people see another side to this. I've had so much fun on Valentine's day with my friends in past years, even when I didn't have a significant other. Try it. It's fun.

FB Status: My guess is if you have to go big on this day...you are failing 364 days of the year....
Rebuttal: There is nothing wrong with having a day set aside specifically for showing love for those whom you love. I read my school newspaper, The Daily Universe, today, and so many people talked about how you shouldn't have to only show love today. People, did anyone ever say that you can only show love on this day? I wasn't present if that did happen. People are so busy and have so much going on in life that I think it's great we have a day set aside especially for those whom we love. It's like birthdays, for example. Should we not celebrate birthdays because we should just ALWAYS be celebrating everyone's existence? No, birthdays, like Valentine's Day, are a time for us to pay special attention to that one person. Does that mean we treat them like we don't give a crap that they came into the world on all other 364 days of the year? No. So that's what I think. I see people doing nice things and showing love for friends, family, significant others, etc., all year round. Do they do as extravagant things all those times, maybe not. However, it's nice to have an excuse to do something a little extra special for those we love.

FB status: This isn't the real holiday. It's actually the eve of the holiday when all the candy is half-off.
Rebuttal: Okay, nothing is really that wrong with this. But all I have to say is, it's not ALL about the treats. Go out and love people! Haha :)

Okay, so hopefully I don't seem like too much of a hater. But I just see people, such as my mom, who don't have a significant other here to celebrate with (my dad's passed away), who still are positive on this fourteenth day of February. Those people don't mope on  Facebook about how bad today is, they just love and are grateful for those they have. They don't hate people who do happen to have a "significant" other that they choose to celebrate today with. All I've gotta say is, for the love people. For the love....go love people. Don't hate today.

And on that note I need to mention my future husband, Taylor. He's the best. He puts a smile on my face and is always trying to make me happy. Love him to death! We are getting married in 30 days :) And even if we weren't, I still wouldn't hate Valentine's Day.

The people behind the scenes of the "I Do"

Hello all! I've turned into a slacker of a blogger....As my friend Audrey put it on her blog, "Pinterest has stolen my heart". Hate to say it but it's true. Anyway, this post is just for fun and, for those planning weddings, those who might be planning a wedding in the future (aka those, like my previous self, who have wedding pinterest boards "just for fun" but really you're secretly about to get engaged), and for those who (also like my previous self) really do just like looking at wedding stuff and getting ideas for when that time comes, I wanted to post about the awesome people whom I have been working with who are the real people who are going to make all the small but important! details come together for my big day. 

Rings: Wilson Diamonds I absolutely loved Wilson Diamonds. I initially had interest in them because of my job at Allyse's. I have helped so many different brides in the past few years and couldn't even try to count. However, the thing I haven't seen that was different than others was rings. I can't tell you how many times I've seen the same or similar style ring on multiple girls' finger. However, there were two rings (funny timing, I saw them both on the same day at work) that I had never seen before. I asked both girls where they went and they both told me then went to Wilson's. I decided right then that I would go to Wilson. I have been in that store many times (last year my roommates and I went to Zupa's a lot so we would go look at Wilson's a lot, too). When Taylor and I started looking at rings we went to Wilson Diamonds first, but we were planning on looking many other places. However, we went in, found some things I liked, and we worked with Shane (funny that he doesn't work at The Shane Co., huh?). When we left Taylor told me he thought we were "good" just sticking with Wilson's. I promise if you go there you won't be let down. And you get a discount on the groom's ring when you buy the girl's there. They do free cleanings all the time, and they remember who you are every time you go in. Okay, I'm done ranting, but really, I was soooo happy we went here. 

Catering: Brown Brothers Catering Taylor, my mom, and I met with them for maybe half an hour and everything was all set. Their food and customer service is amazing! They catered my work party this year and last year and I loved everything about it. 

Decorations: Design Elite I'm super excited about my decorations! My wedding is basically going to be one big girly, sparkly, pink, fancy celebration, and these are the best people I could be working with for this. They're very creative and give you lots of options. I'm having my reception at the Provo City Library, which is a pretty clean slate for decorations, so they're going to be doing a lot and I'm so excited for you all to see! 


DJ: Blake Leszczynski. Blake has done a LOT of DJ-ing so I'm very happy to be able to work with him. We're not having too crazy of an event, but we do want some background music, and there will be, of course, the "first dances" and of course dancing in general. Blake is super chill, and he's a fun DJ. 

Flowers: White Willow Ahhhh I'm super excited about this. Even though I've been in the wedding industry for about 4 years, really all I know about is dresses. When I went to work with White Willow, they were super nice and VERY knowledgeable. That is one thing that makes me scared is when you ask a lot of questions and don't get questions to every single question. Really, I feel like you should be able to trust your wedding vendors, and I've been so happy to find people I can trust and work with very well. My wedding flowers are going to have all the elements that represent my wedding and, of course, me: pink, sparkles, and (my favorite part!) bows. I'm so excited about this.

Hair & Makeup: Versa Artistry Oh my goodness (sorry I sound like a little giddy person on each of these, but I'm excited ok??). Flavia at Versa Artistry is amazing. She is so talented. I met her when I did a photoshoot with my sisters and Liz (whom I will mention next!) Flavia's work is flawless, down to gluing on fake lashes perfectly. Actually, the photo at the top of my blog (where I am looking down) is from the shoot I did. Those are fake lashes but you can't see all the glue now, can ya? Yep, she's that good. Flavia will be doing my hair and makeup for both my bridal session and my wedding day. Her work is amazing. Here is the photos from the shoot I did with Flavia and Liz. Each of us were supposed to have a different look, and as you can see, we did. If you want more information about her let me know!

Photography: Stacy Christian (Engagements in Hawaii) & Elizabeth Taylor Frandsen (Bridals and Wedding)
You guys. I'm in love with both of these ladies' work!

Engagements: Now, most of you are not from or in Hawaii, but I do owe a lot of credit to this wonderful woman! Taylor's sister Tiffany referred us to Stacy since we needed to find a photographer in Hawaii for our engagements. Stacy was wonderful to work with. She was so easy going, and very friendly. We wanted some pretty simple, but classy shots, and I believe we got them. Go check out our wedding website if you want to see our engagements!

Bridals and wedding: Liz is an absolutely stunning photographer! My sister Nicole found out about Liz when Nicole and Glen got an wedding invitation from one of Glen's old companions. My whole entire family enjoyed working with Liz on Nicole's wedding day. Liz is not just someone who decided one day to be a photographer because she has a nice camera. The lady's got talent. She tries to shoot in a new location every time she shoots because she says it helps her be even more creative. I don't have my bridals done yet, but you can look here to see my sister's bridal photos, or click here to see Nicole and Glen's wedding photos. I told my mom that my dress and photography were most important to me, and I'm sooooo happy to be able to work with Liz again, but this time I'll be in a wedding dress for real purposes!

Dress: My dress, of course, is from Allyse's Bridal & Formal. I did not just get my dress there because I work there, I got my dress there because I absolutely love it and I feel like a bride in it. I am getting married in the temple, so it has to be modest, which is nice because I don't have to add sleeves or a jacket to it. My bridesmaids dresses are also from Allyse's, and they are going to be unique because I special ordered them (which anyone can do if you have a few months---they come from China :). I am changing the neckline a little and possibly adding some buttons down the back, which is also nice about Allyse's because they have amazing seamstresses on site that can help you make your dress yours. To be honest, I didn't think I'd be super excited about my dress because I'm surrounded by dresses all the time anyway, but when I found my dress, I got sooo excited and I felt beautiful. I'm so excited for you all to see.