enJOY it by Elise Blaha Cripe

thanks!

Thank you for your sweet words on our wedding photos for the past few days. I loved seeing the pictures and I'm glad I got my memories of the day down "on paper." I think I will be making a book through Blurb of our photos. I hope to get that started in early June.

I can't thank Lisa and Geoff enough. They are such great people and photographers. Take a look at Lisa's post about the wedding.

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Today we are moving in to our new apartment! We signed a lease on a great place on Thursday. Our stuff from Maryland arrives on Monday so we are going to camp out on the carpet for the next few days. I'll be sharing photos as we start getting settled.

I'm totally excited about it. And I'm so excited about the neighborhood we'll be living in. 

Good stuff. Happy weekend!

wedding photos & words : the reception part 2.

I always thought I wasn’t going to be able to enjoy the reception as much as I wanted. I figured I would be busy. I’d be mingling. I wouldn’t have time to dance. That was the dumbest thing I have ever thought.

I had a blast at my wedding. The greatest time ever.

And Paul danced so much. We are both pretty bad dancers, but our obsession with each other sort of made up for it.

I have never been to a wedding with so much dancing. But that makes sense, I have never been to a wedding with so many young people. There were about 65 people between 25 and 33 at our party. That’s enough to fill three dance floors and we only had one small one.

And our DJ. Oh man, he was so cool. He kept us all going without gimmicks or games or DJ chatter. Just great music and a good attitude.

And our friends are so cool. I can’t wait to marry them all off with huge parties.

And that's the end.

We met. And about 12 years later we fell in love. We threw a big party to celebrate our love. We hope to stay together and keep celebrating forever.

all photography by Lisa Welge

wedding photos & words : the reception part 1.

Our dinner was on a terrace on the seventh floor of The Citizen Hotel. The weather was lovely so the windows were open and we had a pretty great view of the state capital.

We sat at our own table in front of the dance floor. I loved that we had a chance to talk just us. I also loved that our friends got to sit with their groups of extended friends as well as their dates.

To kick off the night, while people were eating their salads, we received toasts from Kristen and Steve our maid of honor and best man. Both were so sweet and made us blush. I wish I had them on video.

While the guests ate dinner, we made our rounds to most of the tables to say hi and thank people for coming. Then we quickly ate dinner. I remember being too excited to eat.

Robbie, my brother, put together a sweet slide show of E&P growing up. It quickly turned into "who's friends can be louder when a photo of USC or Cal comes on the screen?"

We played the coolest “who knows each other better” game hosted by my aunts from Minnesota. Paul and I sat back to back and answered questions like “who’s smarter?” “who’s a better kisser?” “Who’s more organized?” We each held up signs I had made and tried to get the same answers. We did except for one.

We broke a cupcake in half and fed it to each other. No smashing. No mess. Just eat. Our cupcakes were from Ettore’s and though I only tried half of one, I heard rave reviews.

And then there were the dances. P and I just sort of drifted in circles; we never took lessons like we hoped. But my dad is sort of a dance pro and we twisted and turned to Frank Sinatra. And then P and his mom.

And finally, the floor was opened up to everyone.

to be continued…and it's the final wedding post, I promise...

all photography by Lisa Welge

wedding photos & words : cocktail hour.

After photos, we were able to get down to the main floor of the hotel for the last part of our cocktail hour.

We decided not to do a receiving line (takes too much time and is still so impersonal) so Paul and I split up a little bit and joined up a little bit to work the room and mingle with our guests.

At one point, a girlfriend asked what I wanted from the bar. I said “champagne if they have it, water if they don’t.” She returned with a glass of ice water and I am so thankful that she did.*

We met the DJ for the first time in person. He was so rad.

I got to try one of each of our passed appetizers. I don’t think Paul was as lucky.

I carried my little orange j.crew bag and my bouquet around the whole time. That clutch was such a good idea and I loved my bouquet to bits.

Our "welcome table" had a photo of us from our engagement shoot, mugs from Anthropologie and the guest book I made last summer with our engagement photos.

After an hour or so, guests started taking the elevator up to the 7th floor for dinner.

To be continued…

*from day one, I said I was going to just drink a glass or two of champagne at my wedding and I am thrilled that I stuck with that plan. I remember every second (except who brought me the water, apparently - Michelle? Bill? AshKiss?) and felt wonderful the entire night. Best decision ever to “stay sober” all evening. Paul did the same (+ a beer or two) and was glad he did too.

all photography by Lisa Welge

wedding photos & words : e & p.

We had checked into our honeymoon suite at the hotel earlier in the day and used it and it's huge balcony as a location for most of our bride and groom shots.

The striped wall paper is my favorite. It's reason #1 for picking this hotel.

I love Geoff and Lisa for getting these shots and I love them even more for getting them in half an hour so we could still make it to our cocktail hour.

to be continued...

all photography by Lisa Welge