Wedding Mania

So the past few years have been crazy busy with weddings!!! It has been a BLAST!! I personally love weddings and all that they symbolize. I love the joy and excitement that takes place, and to see two people become one in Christ. Sam and I have been truly blessed with so many great friends, and getting to be apart of the biggest day of their lives is an amazing opportunity. Since I just posted the latest wedding (Chance and Josey) I thought it would be fun to put up pictures from all the weddings that we have been apart of. I think the best part of being involved in each of these weddings is that we got to see each of these relationships start from the begin and grow into something so wonderful and lasting. Watching your friends find their best friend and fall is love is such a special experience. So we'll start from the beginning....

Ingram Wedding - May 7, 2005

Carter Wedding - May 14, 2005

Master Wedding - July 2, 2005

Jackson Wedding - August 1, 2006

Cherry Wedding - August 5, 2007

I am going to have to come back and finish this; it was quite the task!!! Still to come (if I can find the pictures)

Thomas wedding

Wilson wedding - August 2004

Black Wedding

Blanford Wedding

**Please let me know if I am missing someone or if I got the date wrong...my memory is going blank!

Congratulations to the Douglass'

We Went home this weekend because Sam was in Chance and Josey's wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and ceremony and Josey made an amazing bride. I wasn't involved in much of the wedding festivities (I could not make it into town in time), but Sam had a great weekend spending time with some of his closest friends. Chance has always been an amazing friend, so Sam was honored to be apart of his biggest day. One of my favorite parts about the wedding was that they gave out baseball cards that they had made with their pictures on them as their wedding favors. I wish I had a picture of them b/c they were so much fun!!! Since Chance plays baseball professionally of course they had to keep the baseball theme alive!!! Here are a few pictures of the wedding.

All Caught up...

So that was the short version and we are now all caught up!! We are currently still living in Irving, but have been house shopping for 4 months! We were really excited about shopping for a new home, but four months later I can honestly say that I am not having as much fun as I would have hoped! We want to stay some what close to the city since Sam works downtown, but since I work in Southlake (far west of downtown) we are slightly limited. So we are still in the process of finding our first home and will be so excited when we finally find the right one! (we thought that happened twice now, and have lost on two offers so far!)
We are really enjoying living in the metroplex and are beginning to make a life here. We started attending Irving Bible Church almost a year ago. We are really beginning to get involved and have been meeting some amazing people. We also both have jobs that we really enjoy and they have helped us to go and learn in so many ways.
Sam gets the great opportunity to travel some with work. Although we don't really like for him to travel too much, about once a month or so is what he has been doing. He has had the chance to see some great places that he wouldn't otherwise ever get to see. This week he actually got back from his favorite so far. He got to spend some time in Princeton, NJ. I thought this was especially cool because my grandfather (and many of his siblings) went to Princeton to for Seminary. That is also where my dad was born. So we definitely put this on our list of places that we must go back to. Here are some of the amazing pictures of the Princeton Campus. Since its fall I think it makes it look just amazing and so much more than what I pictured.

Anniversary

On our first anniversary we decided we wanted to have a "second honeymoon". We couldn't afford to go back to Hawaii and we hadn't been to Mexico together, so we decided to go to Playa del Carmen. It was so nice to get away from work and life and to just go relax and enjoy each other for a whole week. We stayed at an awesome resort and really took advantage of sleeping under the palm trees every afternoon, tanning, playing sand volleyball, and eating (it was an all inclusive)!! Here's a few pictures:

The 1st year

A year and almost 5 months later we can truly say that the Lord has blessed us beyond belief in our marriage. This first year has been amazing. Since we had a 4 year long distance relationship leading up to getting married, just being together everyday has been amazing. Of course there have been some hard times, but for the most part if they say the first year of marriage is the hardest, then we did pretty good!!!

We have probably spent a good portion of our free time this year traveling to places on weekends to see friends or family or have had them here to see us. We have amazing people in our lives, so it is always such a joy to get to see them.

So to continue to catch you up, here is a glimpse of the first year:

First married Christmas (Sammy Christmas)

4th of July in Amarillo

Hanging out at the Sessler Home First & our first DMB Concert together

The Capital of Texas & Downtown Fort Worth with friends

Where are we going???

So Sam decided to surprise me for our honeymoon. Usually I would not really like that because I seem to have to have my hands in everything, but since I was so busy with all the other wedding planning stuff I thought, why not! (Ok, he actually didn't even give me a choice!) So he asked me throughout the months the places that I would want to go and I gave him my top three places; whether he took that into consideration was up to him. He used an incredible travel agent (we have since used again) and they got it all planned out.

On the day of the wedding when I walked into the hair salon his sister, Steph, brought me a package. In it was a letter and on the top said where we were going - St. Lucia. I was so excited!!! One of my top places was the Virgin Islands, so I showed everyone and got myself pumped to go. Then later on in the day when I arrived at the church there was another package. Again it had a letter, but this time it said that we were going to the Bahamas!! What in the world was going on!!! So at this point I was confused and not sure if I should believe him or not. So I just decided that I would be totally excited if it was the Bahamas, but that I was not going to hold my breath! I think the funniest part was that my bridesmaids and his groomsmen were more anxious about where we were going than I was. He probably got asked a thousand times where we were going, but he was NOT telling!!! (my own mother didn't even know where her daughter was going on her honeymoon!)

So it finally came time for us to leave the reception and I got into the limo only to find yet another bag. Of course I got so excited and opened it up, yet this time there was not only a letter but travel books, envelops with tickets, etc. It said that we were going to Maui!!! I was so excited because that was my number one place that I wanted to go!!! So Sam stuck his head out the door and FINALLY told his big secret!!!

The next morning we were up at 4:00 and heading to the airport to the most romantic place ever! It was amazing!!! Here are a few pictures.... (you can read our honeymoon journal here: http://www.samandmandy.com/)

Getting Caught Up...

Since we have started this blog late, we thought we would catch you up!! You will soon learn that I am in LOVE with pictures!!! Pictures bring so much joy to my life. Since so many of my favorite people are not close to me, pictures keep me connected! So we thought we would start from the beginning....


Our Wedding Day

The Bridesmaids

The Groomsmen