Jon dreams of owning a 21 window Volkswagen bus just like this one. Someday Santa is going to surprise him. I have faith in that. This post is for my Mom who requested “eye candy” for Christmas. And for Sal the lucky owner of this 21 window beauty, who has been dying to see photos of his baby up on Tantalus Drive. And it’s for sweet Leanne & Sasha who are away from their families this Christmas. They are wrapping up their mega honeymoon abroad, apparently it’s totally normal for Australians to take 6 weeks for their honeymoon. I think that makes them the smartest people on the planet. We ended our Christmas Eve with Jon’s family playing their ukuleles and singing completely off key to “Mele Kalikimaka” and “Jingle Bells”. That’s all I needed for Christmas. Well, that and another week on Kauai (I’ve been really good). Peace & Love & Be Merry!
But the horn didn’t win. We packed up their wedding pies and board games and had a tsunami slumber party on Jon’s grandparent’s lanai and the party continued the next day. We love two day weddings anyway. Plus now we finally have a good wedding story to tell the next time someone looks at us with huge eyes and asks “Do you have any wedding horror stories?!?” or “What’s the weirdest thing you have seen at a wedding?!?” You wouldn’t believe how often we get this.
Most important for us was to incorporate things Nevada and Washington at our wedding. Thomas is from Ely, a small town in Nevada where the majority of his family still lives. Washington is where my family resides and is in the place where Thomas and I met and fell in love. All colors reflecting the natural environments of Nevada and Washington were used as inspiration for the day. The big blue open skies and sagebrush of Nevada mixed with the overcast skies and evergreens of the Pacific Northwest. Ocean Chalcedony (color of the gem in my engagement ring), Grey, Juniper, and Sage.
We enlisted some crafty friends to make these origami geometric balls. It took a lot of rom-com watching and many swear words to get us through making what seemed like a million balls. It was worth it, they made up our backdrop during the ceremony and are now precariously placed all over our house.
My favorite place for wedding inspiration was this blog actually. I just drooled over your photographs of other couple’s weddings. I would just LIVE in their photos if I could, and it was through those other real couples that gave me the most inspiration. 
Our vows were written in “Field Notes” – these little notebooks Thomas and I use to sketch places we’ve been and ideas we have. These sketchbooks are also what we gave as a favor to our guests.
As I was walking down the aisle I noticed the string trio had transitioned from playing traditional classical music to Sigur Ros’ “Hoppipolla” – a favorite song of mine! Conspiring with Thomas without me knowing, the dear friend who set us up with the string trio also bought the sheet music as a wedding gift so the trio could learn it 2 weeks before the wedding. 
