IT HAPPENED!!

Guess what??? IT HAPPENED!! Deek and I got MARRIED!! <happy dance> In fact, we got our marriage certificate just yesterday, so it's all official now!

Remember how we told you we decided to get married twice--once in the Pacific Northwest and once in the South? Well, we knew the Southern wedding would require a bit more formality, so we decided to keep the PNW one quite casual. We got married in our beautiful Victorian home, surrounded by our friends and family. We even had a few surprise guests, which made the day that much more special.

A few weeks before, Deek had strung Christmas lights around our living room since there is no ceiling light in that room. The two lights in the adjoining rooms are on rheostats, so they dim. We were able to create a very romantic ambiance for the wedding that way. Combined with the stained glass and architectural beauty of the home, we could not have asked for a better location. And best of all, it's OUR home (well, it is for now since we rent--haha).

Here are the Christmas lights Deek strung a few weeks before the wedding

My parents were able to fly in from across the country, which was super important to me. I am so thankful they made the trip and participated in our special day. His parents went ALL out with a lovely food spread for after the wedding. It totally looked catered. Deek and I elected to have our parents sign the marriage certificate as witnesses. There is a nice symmetry there. :) We are truly blessed with amazing parents!!

We wrote our own vows, which turned out to be pretty long (go figure with two authors). Doing so gave us the ability to say what we really wanted to say, to promise one another the things nearest and dearest to our hearts. Remember we told you we made lists about what we did and didn't want in a future spouse? Guess what comprised a good portion of our vows? Haha!

Now, we couldn't completely abandon my Southern roots here in the Pacific Northwest, so we had our photographer (Deek's friend and co-worker who used to be a documentary filmmaker and photographer) do an homage to Gone With The Wind or North and South. ROFL! I turned out to be really awesome and fun!

We asked our photographer to send us a picture we could officially use on social media (since we will have to wait weeks for the whole batch to be processed), and he sent this one. WUT? WUT? I am blown away by how amazeballs it is!!

This picture was taken in the first carriage house on the Victorian's property. 

We decided to open our gifts before we left, in case we received some items we could use on our honeymoon. Lo and behold...we did. Check out this major score!!

A Powell's Books gift card! The perfect gift for two authors getting married! Thanks, Becky and Christie! 

After that, we climbed in the car and headed to our honeymoon destination--Portland! (We did a weekend honeymoon for our PNW wedding since we will do a week-long one when we get married in the South). We pulled up at Portland's White House around 11:30pm and gawked at the beautiful sight before us. I am SO happy we decided to stay there--it's perfect for a honeymoon! 

Isn't it STUNNING?

In keeping with our "joining the Pacific Northwest to the South" theme, we chose to stay in the Carolina Room of Portland's White House. See how we did that? Hahaha! While the room was simply gorgeous, we found this strange little diddy above the bed. We pondered the thing all weekend, so please weigh in your guesses. The thing at the top right of the basket--flower or Pomeranian?

Homemade cookies, Moonstruck chocolate, fluffy robes, and a sweet note of congratulations awaited us in our room. The staff really went above and beyond to make our stay special. I can't say enough about how much we enjoyed being there. Except for one thing...the bed. I'm 5'2", and that sucker was about 5' tall! I had to get a running start just to get onto it. Haha! Apparently we Southerners like tall beds since this room supposedly mimicked the South. But being short has always come with challenges, so I finally worked out a way to balance on my toes on the bed frame and hoist myself up (kinda like getting on a horse). Getting down off the bed felt like a slide. Confession: Each time I slipped off the side, I had a momentary panic because the floor was just so darn far away. 

The next morning, we slept until 11:45am! Tired much? When we woke, we had to scurry to prepare for our couple's massage. We traveled the short distance to the massage place and met two of the most zen people I have ever met in my whole life. They used words like "peace, man" and "groovy" but not in a "trying to hard" kind of way. It seemed natural and organic and fitting for them. 

We left all jello-like and headed back to our room to change our shoes. Time to explore the city!! We stopped for lunch (at 3pm) and chowed down on some nachos. That's TOTALLY us. We super love nachos and try to get them whenever we can.

Once we finished our lunch, we bought tickets on the Max train and set out to investigate! We spent nearly 9 hours doing just that! Here are some pictures from our explorations...

OMG! SO pretty!

Best Places to Pee--it's an actual book. #JustSosYaKnow 

 Taking a break and resting our feet at World Market. My hubby is so hawt!

Home Alone anyone?? Love it!

How-dee! 

ROFL!

Needs no caption.

Neither does this. 

John Lennon--Bringing back the 70's! 

This man keeps me laughing!!

Before we realized it, 11:00pm rolled around. We had plans to grab Voodoo Doughnuts, so we headed that way. Um...that area is quite active later at night. I'm pretty sure I saw an illegal transaction or two taking place right there on the street. Deek had to tuck me under his arm and navigate me through the alleyway when some leery men started my way. Nothing like freaky people in a big city to get the old ticker pumping. The good news? We got Voodoo Doughnuts and made it out of there safely. And I got to try to the famous Maple Bacon Doughnut. Yummy!

As we approached the White House on our return trip, we realized we hadn't eaten since 3pm. Most places were closed, at nearly midnight, which limited our options. Soon, we heard some loud music emanating from a nearby restaurant, so we decided to check it out. Holy Salsa Dancing Batman! We'd managed to stumble upon a salsa dancing event! Deek and I weaved our way past the dancers to order up some dinner at the kitchen. Though we shouted at the top of our lungs, the poor man behind the counter had no idea what we were saying, so we resorted to hand gestures. He put together our meal (nachos again--haha) as we did "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" motions. Luckily for us, any meals ordered between 11pm and 2am are 1/2 price! Woot! The salsa dancing was interesting and entertaining (especially the partner selection process), but we elected to return to the hotel since we couldn't even hear ourselves think. Deek and I ended up eating cold nachos and Voodoo Doughnuts on the floor past midnight. But you know what? It's a memory I'll cherish forever...it was actually REALLY fun! :)

The next morning, we rose at 8:30 to make the 9:00 gourmet breakfast served by the White House staff. We talked to some pretty interesting people at the table and then headed back into the city for some more exploration. We stopped by the Saturday/Sunday Market and had a caricature drawn of us. We elected to go with the color one because of my purple hair. 

After taking in more of the beautiful city, we headed over to our next appointment--tattoos! Deek and I have been talking about getting tattoos for a long time, and we decided to make it part of our honeymoon. We call ourselves "Team Tenacious" because it took a lot of tenacity to get our books published, to be together, and to create the life we want. Given that, we chose to get the word "tenacious" tattooed on our wrists. I was so nervous because I didn't know what kind of pain would be involved. Thankfully, we ended up with possibly the sweetest tattoo artists around. And guess what? It didn't hurt very much! Win-win! 

Last look at our "naked" wrists--they'll never look like that again!

I went first so I didn't chicken out! LOL!

I am SHE-RA!! I did it!

My sexy inked husband!

Our new, inked wrists!

After our tattoos (which took about 3 hours from start to finish including waiting, designs, placement of the stencils, clean up between tattoos, and the actual tattooing itself), we headed back to the salsa restaurant for more nachos (do you see a theme)? The dancers had long packed up from the night before, so we enjoyed a new set of nachos (apparently, the order is different when the cook and customer can actually speak to one another) and talked. While there, we sported our superhero "I just got inked" bandages. 

To back up for a second, I want to close with this little story...As we packed up and prepared to check out of the White House, Deek went down to the car to drop off our bags. I got a text from him that said, "Look out the window." I did, and I found this...

This is the man I married, people. He's so amazing and romantic! I am more in love with him than ever, and I'm so proud to be his wife!!!

To check out Deek's version of events, click here!