2012: A year in review

January was the beginning of balls-to-the-wall wedding planning mode. I spent the holiday season of 2011 flashing my new bling and fawning over my dress which lived at my parent’s house so that Husbie wouldn’t see it. When January 2012 hit, I realized that our “big day” was 7 months away. I thought for sure that my extreme organization and pre-engagement secret wedding planning (Has anyone else ever tried on and ordered their wedding dress before they got engaged? No?…Anyone?) would lead to having the entire wedding planned by the beginning of July, leaving me with several weeks during which we could just relax…how delusional I was!

I continued pinning up a storm. I ordered accessories online and got them delivered to work – yay shoes, bowties, jewelry, hairpieces…any reason for mail presents! My bridesmaids ordered their dresses. The crafting of my insane DIY list began with boutonnieres and corsages. I also started treasure hunting at my mom’s house and my MIL’s house for anything and everything that would make my vision come to life, such as the vintage pins pictured above from Nathan’s mother and grandmother that we ended up pinning to our bouquets.

In February Husbie and I celebrated our 6th Valentines day together with handmade decorations (by me) and a nice dinner out to Bistro Praha where we indulged in wine, fried breaded cheese, schnitzel and streusel.

We saw the first picture ever of our niece! I started to pay attention to little people clothing in stores because I had a reason to, but the wedding budget prevented me from stocking up her wardrobe single-handed!

My mom hosted the first wedding gathering and craft-a-thon with my bridesmaids, my mom and MIL where we made flags for the kids parade and started folding what seemed like a million tissue paper pom poms!

We also took a fabulous winter trip with my family to the chalet in Big White over reading week and relaxed, hot-tubbed, ate our faces off and skiied/snowboarded to work off said face-stuffing.

In March we celebrated the return of one of our favorite shows, Mad Men, with a retro-themed costume party at my friend Nicole’s house, complete with my discovery of Pimms and Husbie’s continued love affair with stiff manly drinks like the Manhattan (which I always compare to nail polish remover or paint thinner).

I took Husbie to see our wedding venue – The Big Red Barn – and we had a lovely afternoon taking pictures, dreaming and planning “the big day” in more detail.

I started using Instagram, and despite a short breakup only a few weeks ago with the introduction of the new Terms of Use and then the renouncement of said terms, we’ve been going strong ever since!

I turned 25! We had dinner at The Melting Pot with a close group of friends, shoved our faces full of fondue, and I was given many type-errific gifts including a collection of woodblock letterpress “N’s” from my bestie Jenn, hand sewn pillows made out of the most fun type fabric from Amie and a few books from Husbie full of type! From other close friends and family I also received jewelry which is always a safe bet with me since I love shiny, some bird-themed artwork (our condo is full of birds of the fake variety because real birds are the worst), some games and heirloom jewelry from my Mom that belonged to my Oma. All in all, I was spoiled rotten with both gifts and love for my quarter century birthday!

May was full of craft madness including paper pinwheels, embroidery hoops with burlap and hand-stitched letters spelling “Nic & Nate”, dip-dyed candles to go into lanterns galore at the altar, burlap and twine wrapped mason jars to hold babies breath and other florals and the collection of props for the photobooth. Weekend visits at my parents house turned into craft-a-thons!

Husbie bought his wedding suit at Henry Singer after a suit fiasco at The Bay (word to the wise – don’t buy your wedding suit at The Bay where “alterations” consist of hemming the pants and moving the jacket button over so that the jacket “fits” better – just buy an amazing form fitted Hugo Boss suit right off the bat and save yourself the trouble, though not the money!).

In my small amount of downtime I had a few evenings with Jenn on my balcony with hookahs, wine, 90’s R&B and Yahtzee, which were MUCH NEEDED in order to maintain any semblance/level of sanity!

//middle photo by Diamond Cake Photography

June was BUSY! I designed our invites, asked my bridesmaids to help me assemble them into handmade kraft paper envelopes with custom monogrammed stickers and we sent them off in the mail just in time!

After I pinned some inspiration, we had an amazing engagement photo session at Fort Edmonton Park with the lovely Diamond Cake Photography, a team composed of two close friends that we’ve known since college and decided right from the beginning would be a big part of capturing our big day.

We attended the wedding of my cousin Danielle to her love Matt and started to get even more excited about our big day. What fun to have two weddings in the family over one summer! I had such fun planning alongside Danielle and going to bridal shows with her…and also to have someone with which to discuss Bride Fridays on TLC every Friday night for months, without fail.

In June I also had both of my bridal showers – the first a tea party hosted by my lovely bridesmaids and my mom at my mom’s house where we ate delicate treats, sipped tea and decorated our own teacups! The second shower was hosted by a few of my fabulous aunties at my Aunt Trish’s house where there was a smorgasbord of delectable food, a bunch of supplies to make our own fascinators which was a blast and we ended the evening with a toasty bonfire outside. Both showers were so wonderful and Husbie and I were spoiled rotten with many beautiful things for our home together and a Home Sense gift card which we promptly spent!

In July we celebrated the birth of Mina Marilyn Krikke, who quickly wrapped us all around her delicate little pinkie and became the center of all of our family gatherings (she still is!). She almost derailed wedding preparations because of her sweetness, cuteness and intoxicating new baby smell – if they could bottle that smell I’d buy it by the gallon.

When I wasn’t hogging niece snuggles I was hand painting weathered fence boards with my mom for wedding signs, pinning custom N&N buttons on luggage tags to tie onto our favors and then hand stamping them with “thank-you”, hand-crafting a birdcage veil complete with polka dot lace from mom’s wedding dress, tying strips of fabric in multi-hued blues to a piece of rope for our wedding and photo booth backdrop, hand lettering a chalkboard sign for the dessert table, hand stitching burlap satchels to hold my bridesmaid gifts and Husbie was building the photo booth itself from scratch! When I start listing all the DIY projects in one place it really starts to sound insane…

July was also the beginning of an incredible circumstance that stopped my mom and I dead in our tracks in awe and wonder and had us looking up to Heaven and feeling my Oma’s love pouring down on us. In a random moment before seam ripping my mother’s wedding dress apart so that I might use some of the polka dot lace in my birdcage veil and wrapped around my bouquet, I tried on her dress for fun. After a few silly poses and pictures, we saw this:

We realized that mom’s wedding dress could easily become a reception dress for me with a few alterations. What followed were a bunch of tears in what can only be described as a “meant-to-be” moment as my Oma had hand-sewn this dress for my mom on her wedding day, and my mom would alter it for me to wear on my wedding day. Were we crazy to add this to the list of things to accomplish so late in the game? Maybe! With only a few weeks left to go before the big day, my mom took on the task as a challenge and the result is one of my fondest memories of the entire day.

//photo by Diamond Cake Photography

//left and middle photos by Diamond Cake Photography

We said “I do” on possibly the most whimsical, magical, love-filled, hot and rain free, mosquito infested summer day on August 18 surrounded by everyone we love. We danced under a tent of string lights and a canopy of stars until 2am. We paused for a moment in time overlooking the entire party while standing on a balcony and felt blessed. We realized how special it is to find “the one” and how lucky we are to have each other.

We spent nine days in New York City in a rented SOHO apartment for our honeymoon and crammed our days full of adventure, good food and relaxation. We created fond memories and reasons to return.

August, you were my favorite month of 2012 and I will always remember you with gratitude and a smile.

September was the month of niece snuggles galore as I was no longer distracted by wedding or honeymoon shenanigans. I was deemed “the baby whisperer” for my ability to put Mina to sleep!

Husbie, my MIL and I visited the Muttart Conservatory, which was my first visit! We went during Edmonton’s “Free Attraction Admission” weekend and enjoyed wandering around the glass pyramids and taking pictures, all for FREE!

Jenn and I used some leftover supplies from my bridal shower and decorated some more teacups while the boys watched UFC. This was a nice balm for my craft withdrawal once the wedding was over! I’m a serious fan of mismatched tea sets and tea parties. And a reason to eat sweet things while drinking tea. Or just eating sweet things in general. I have a sweets problem.

My bridesmaids spoiled me rotten with a belated stagette and hired a personal stylist at Anthropologie to choose a few outfits for me! I had a ton of fun with my ladies at dinner at the Red Piano and ended the night at Local with the guys.

I attended my first ever Comic Con at the Expo and go figure, all I brought home to show for it were a few pieces of awesome steam punk inspired jewelry. Husbie however, came home with a boatload of comics and a wooden sword (an extremely sarcastic thanks to Husbie’s man friends for convincing him it was a genius idea), which is now residing under the bed collecting dust.

For Halloween I dressed up as Britta from the TV show Community, dressed up as Michael Jackson, and Husbie went as the Greendale Human Being, also from Community. We went to a house party with Jenn and Danny who stole the show with their Day of the Dead costumes. I drank waaaaay too much Pimms and regretted it the next morning!

November was all about concerts and Christmas! Husbie and I went to see the RHCP which was a wicked show full of all my favorite songs. We also got to see Sir Paul McCartney with Jenn which was absolutely spellbinding and definitely one that I was happy to be able to cross off the bucket list.

I decorated the house for Christmas mid-month and proceeded to light the tree up every. single. night. which gave the condo such a warm atmosphere! The tree looked extra awesome once my gift to Husbie – an advent calendar of beer – was wrapped and underneath it.

Husbie turned 25 and we celebrated with an evening of cooking an abundance of fresh pasta with 4 of our close friends and Get Cooking!

Jenn and I had a baking day which was super fun and a reason to eat cookie dough, use my mixer, and wear cute aprons.

Husbie and I started a new tradition and celebrated Christmas morning just the two of us while sporting our matching adult-sized onesies.

The rest of the holidays was a whirlwind of family and friends gathering together and spreading good cheer and also germs – I was quite sick for the last four days of 2012 and rang in the new year in my housecoat on the couch with Husbie while watching The League!

Also, my brother Ryan and his lovely lady Kyra got engaged!! We celebrated with a toast and were told to start saving for a 2014 beach wedding somewhere warm…EXCITED!