Police Week 2013

Hope everyone's May is going well! This week is Police Week in DC and it's been fun, yet emotional as usual.

One of the fun parts was this past Saturday. The 7th annual (and my 3rd annual) Police Week 5K was held down by the memorial and even though the weather sucked because it drizzled, it was still a great run. Lots and lots of people ran, but I didn't feel like it was as big as it has been the last 2 years. Maybe because of the weather... This year we had a few more people we knew running and the course was a little different than the last 2 years (No running up Capitol Hill... YES!!!) My friend Dan from college ran and actually ended up winning 3rd place for Fundraising, as well as Christy, her husband and a few of her friends. My hubby ended up not getting off work until 3am, so he went but was "too tired to run" which I'm upset about because he's run the last 2 years and it's been our thing every year at Police Week. Oh well, he was still there to cheer me on!

When we got through registration, we went straight to the wall and visited Tommy's name and Adrian's name happened to be right under his, which was an awesome surprise considering there were 300 names added this year.

Kristelle had the hood of Tommy's cruiser memorialized for the 27 officers killed in the line of duty for Prince George's County and placed it down at the Memorial. I was seriously mesmerized by it and the sentiment of it almost had me in tears. I get so emotional about line of duty deaths because I just can't imagine going through any of it if something were to happen to my husband. It makes me appreciate having my husband come home every night, even if he works a 12 hour OT shift because of a homicide at 6pm and doesn't get in bed until 5am.

The race course was actually 3.35 miles long and my official time was 31:20, which put me at about a 9:35 mile which is back to my usual pace. A few races ago my pace time was 10:30 which is slower than normal for me, but that was also a 5 mile race and the first one of the season. One thing I actually liked about the race this year was the shirts we got. First of all, they weren't Verizon colors AND they actually had my size. They also put Roll Call on the back of the shirts, which is a first. The past two years I didn't even bother keeping the shirts because they were ugly and never had my size.

Dan and I after the race! Even with 2 torn ACL's he ran 3.35 miles under 30 minutes! LOL



The gang minus Dan!



I went down for the Candlelight Vigil, and I was almost in tears during one of the speeches. The national president of Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS) spoke about how she was only married for 6 weeks when she lost her husband to a line of duty death at the age of 22. She talked about how being introduced to COPS helped her grieve and learn that it's okay to move on because her husband will always be honored and never forgotten. It was hard to listen to, but boy was I squeezing onto Jason. We stayed for Roll Call to hear them announce Adrian's name, but I had to work the next day so I didn't go to the tents after which I am so bummed about! Luckily my first year at Police Week the vigil was on a Friday, so I was able to go to the tents and it was a lot of fun. Jason got me a new shirt! He has this shirt himself, but can't wear police shirts anymore because of his assignment so I guess he wanted me to represent ;)

Hope everyone is having a great week and I'll be updating soon on my Half marathon training!

xoxo
classy k

Alcohol Free April & May's Challenge Progress

I made it through April with only managing to have two beers! I could have completely done without alcohol, but something about the night I went to Jillian Michaels, I had to have a drink with the girls.

So, how did it go? Awesome! I felt so much better and it was tremendous how much I was able to get done on the weekends. Not only not drinking, but generally not being lazy on Sundays made a big difference in my motivation. I wasn't doing my normal Sunday routine where I get up at 7:30am and lay in the recliner and watch TV until it's an acceptable hour to start doing something (while usually nodding in and out of sleep) but instead I went to the gym, ran races, or worked on stuff around the house. Christy likes to tell me I went into "June Cleaver" mode because I kid you not I baked something every weekend! The only downfall was that my time around the house usually meant I was snacking and going over my calories for the day.

Running races helped me keep myself in line and avoid temptation to go out. That's one thing I definitely can't do is drink anything the night before a race. I'm a lazy, unmotivated person the day after I drink even if I only have 3 beers!

Suprisingly, I'm really not interested in constantly making plans that revolve around drinking. Nor have I had interest in mindlessly grabbing a beer at an event or party (ie: a co-ed baby shower or dinner at the house with the in-laws) other than the day of Hero Rush. Something about that race made me crave one beer and then a big ol' draft Miller Lite at dinner that night! I've been sort of anti-social to be honest and Jason has been a good sport about it. Unfortunately, we're going to Vegas soon so my liver will hate me! The real challenge is going to be the summer. There's always a cookout, party, birthday, wedding, bachelorette party, baseball game or SOMETHING to go to.

Onto "Cleaner Eating May" (I guess I will call it that.) I actually started this the day after the JM show the last week of April and I will tell you right now, it has made a HUGE difference. The biggest change was the microwave meals I clung onto so dearly. I knew there was a lot of sodium, but I didn't know how much they made me bloat! I'm not doing 100% clean eating, but I have been avoiding packaged crap during the week and other generally bad stuff. Every day I eat bananas, strawberries, pineapple and grapes or I switch it out with apples and oranges. I started pre-cooking my lunches and packaging them for the week as well. I'm not losing weight (or gaining) just maintaining, but my pants feel more loose and I don't feel my little pouch stick out as much as it usually does. Below is a screen shot of one of my better days of eating. Minus the hershey kisses :)

My biggest challenge has been avoiding fried food. I don't know if I have ever mentioned this but french fries are my biggest weakness. If I don't see you eating yours, there's a 98% chance I'm snatching them off your plate! Recently though, I have been back in the mindset from last year. That was when I was dedicated to hitting my goal weight and said to myself "NOTHING FRIED! NO FAST FOOD!" and even though I don't eat fast food (other than Chipotle occasionally) I still go out to eat with people who order french fries. Le sigh.

Has anyone else tried to "Cleaner Eating" challenge before? I've seen people do it with much more dedication than me and get amazing results.

Call me Crazy: I signed up for a HALF MARATHON!

I am officially bat sh*t crazy!

First off, I signed up for a 5K next weekend involving burpees. Every half mile through the 5K course is a "Burpee Station."

What's wrong with me?!

Well, I was feeling frisky and wanted to make sure I ran a race every weekend before summer hit and it gets way too hot to run. It gets pretty miserable here with the humidity in the summers and it's just not fun. Also, I wanted something challenging. Not that 5K's aren't challenging, but I've hit sort of a "rut" with my workouts lately and needless to say I've never done something like this!

Secondly, I signed up for a Half Marathon.

Wow.

Christy tried to talk some nonsense awhile ago about wanting to run the Disney Princess half, but I was always like "you are on your own with that, screw 13.1 miles!" Well, well, well, look who is interested now! Unfortunately, I can't make it to the race in January 2014 (so bummed!), but we're going to train (BOTH of us!) and aim for January 2015.

As for now, I did my research and a little birdie name Maria had put a buzz in my ear about this Diva run that she goes to Puerto Rico for every year. She mentioned to me a few months ago that there is now one in DC/VA.

Click, click, keyboard taps, scroll, scroll.... AH found it!

The Diva Half Marathon.

I did my research (because there are a lot of 'Diva' type runs) and this sounded like a wonderful way to run my first half marathon. I talked to Maria and asked if she would come with me and do the 5K like she does in Puerto Rico and she was on board! I talked to my friend Haley (who always reads my blog posts, love her!) and I asked her to help me out with a training program and not only did she agree, but she is signing up too! Last but not least, in true BFF fashion because our crazy asses always run most races together, I also invited Christy and in a heartbeat she was on board too! So, now I have 3 of my lovely ladies joining me that weekend for the fun.

I love the fact that there is also a 5K portion to this race. It makes it less intimidating for those not quite ready to tackle 13.1 miles. Not to mention I love all the super cute and awesome stuff we all get from running the race! Anything pink? YES PLEASE!

Pink Feather Boa and Tiara that you get while running? Count. Me. In.

I'm going to start a small series on my training hopefully early next week. Maria's husband is trying to help me create a header for the training posts by making me into a running cartoon character. Ha! I'm so bad with graphic design stuff and making my blog super pretty.

Last night I started my training and told myself "You're going to do 5 miles today, no matter what!" and I realized, I really need a GPS heart rate monitor now that I'm running longer distances. I don't take my phone with me, so I have to log into MapMyRun after and log how far I run. Luckily I know my neighborhood pretty well, so I was able to come thiiiiiiiiiiis close to 5 miles but I know I would have done the extra .15 had I been able to see my distance while I was running!

I finished at 53 minutes for 4.85 miles, which is about an 11 minute mile. Slower than my usual 5K times, but finishing is what matters to me at this point.

Anyone have any training tips or suggest any plans? I'm totally open to ideas and would love to chat with any first time half-ers! I hope you all stayed tuned for my Half Marathon Training Series.... now what to call it? I need something catchy!

Until next time,
xoxo
classy k

Hero Rush 2013: Awesome!

This past weekend a big group of people from the police department & friends participated in the Hero Rush obstacle course race at Highpoint Farm in Maryland.


Team PGPD!

We had SOOOO much fun! I worked my butt off to recruit people to run with us and join our team and luckily they told us ahead of time that there was an area to set up tents and chairs which made it that much better than your typical race. Although I am kind of mad that one team had 3 more people than us at the last second, so we didn't win the "Third Alarm Award" for the largest team. Bummer!

There were a ton of obstacles, from easy to hard. Not to mention the race was about 5 miles long up and down, through the mud and woods, so it was a challenge. Our group had a lot of different levels of experience and suprisingly I was up towards the front of that group. This was my first race outside of your typical road/trail 5k/10k that I'm used to, but after finding out my time I felt pretty accomplished. I ran by myself for 80% of the race, until the last parts of the race where we were held up, so I ended up finishing the race with my cousin and her husband.

The only gripe I had about the race was the wait lines at 3 of the obstacles. The first major line was the tubes with running water that you had to climb up. So many people were scared to do this and held up the line, which was really frustrating especially since there really wasn't anyone monitoring the tubes. There were two people telling you when you could go down the slide afterwards, but I felt like someone should have been keeping at eye on everyone coming up. I know I freaked myself out on the very last step up because they don't make these things for short people! I had to carefully hoist one leg awkwardly up while trying to not fall, so I was shaking by the time I got onto the platform! Other than the hold up, that was most definitely my favorite obstacle. The challenge and fear involved made me love it because I am not a fan of heights and the fact that I was being timed made me push harder.

The other two obstacles where we were held up were the "Hoarder's Hell" and that was only because people were being RIDICULOUS about only going down the net one at a time (and SLOW as hell!) when two people could go down one net at the same time. I had someone give me an attitude and try to tell me to give his friend some time to go down before I got on (Uh, no! Sorry! This is a RACE, not play time on the monkey bars!) and I went anyway because people were starting to huddle into this little contraption of a mock apartment (which was very small, remember me not liking heights). The other one was the rope thing (which I can't remember the name of) where you had to climb a rope and walk across (I think, I don't remember) That was literally the only obstacle that Erin, Mark and I skipped because our "fast people" in the group that were at least 15 minutes ahead of us weren't even to the front of the line yet, so we said screw it and kept running.

My LEAST favorite obstacle was the one where you either had a partner and had to go over walls and under barbed wire with the board and a mock victim (aka a 60 lb sack of sand) or you were given the sack to put over your shoulder on your own. Well, let's just say that I'm an idiot. I wasn't running with a partner, so the girl with the bad back (aka me), running a race and not focusing on picking up the sack of sand correctly was hurting WAY early in the race after this obstacle. There wasn't anything wrong with the obstacle itself, but let's just say I spent the rest of the day with an ice pack on my granny back.

With this being said, my time was 1:16, so I imagine it probably would have been about 1:30 or so if we had gone through with that rope obstacle. Even still, that was amazing! I checked my results and I was 75th out of 1,000 women and 46th out of my age group!! I wish we could have gone through with no wait times and have seen what my time really was. I had lots of bruises after and sun burn on my forehead and back of my neck as well. Nothing like one of these things to make you feel old! :)

The first wave from our group to finish! Looking like drowned rats lol

That beer was glorious! I inhaled it :)

Afterwards we sat around and waited for everyone to finish. It was a great atmosphere and the food was actually really good. In typical fashion, Jason and I brought a cooler of beer so it was a party! I haven't had more than two beers since March, so I was seriously craving one after I was done running. I wish we could have hung out longer, but since our wave was at 12 and they shut down at 3:30, we had to cut the party short. Still had a blast though and I will definitely be doing that again next year!

May's Challenge - Cleaner Eating

It looks like I've been inspired for a challenge in May!

Last week, my friends Christy and Brittany joined me for Jillian Michael's 'Maximize Your Life' Tour at Warner Theatre in DC! Brittany found a Groupon and since Christy and I work in DC, we figured we'd all go for dinner after work and see the show.

I didn't expect to hear anything new, but figured that maybe it would inspire me to get back into gear. Don't worry, I never fell off the wagon. I am a super impulsive person sometimes and lately it's reflected onto my eating habits. That night was my breaking point (coincidentally) when I pre-planned what I was going to order before we even got to the restaurant, but then snacked on everyone else's food and ordered cheesecake for dessert. I literally felt full to the point that I felt like I was going to throw up and I had to pace outside for 20 minutes to keep myself from actually doing it. I'm embarassed to even admit that because I HATE being out of control like that. (side note: I don't have an eating disorder as much as this sounds like I do.) This has been happening a lot lately. I binge because my brain tells me that I'm starving (when I'm not) and I don't listen to my stomach. Today, this is going to change. For good.

Despite what people think of her based on what they see on Biggest Loser and her workout DVD's, Jillian Michaels is actually really funny and down to earth. She explained to us the BMR calculation for how many calories we burn if we were never to move out of bed and then the equation of how many calories we should eat to maintain if we weren't to exercise and I was actually surprised. My number is between 1430 and 1525 calories (each one varies, I used MFP and Biggest Loser's website) without exercise to maintain my current weight, which floored me. For some reason I had it in my head that my maintainence number was 1800 without exercise and that eating 1500 calories a day, like I have been, would always leave room for a little bit of loss here and there.

She did talk to us about eating organic versions of certain foods, which foods to avoid if organic wasn't an option, and what ingredients to avoid when looking at food labels. She provides this list on her website here, and this is what inspired today's post.

May's challenge (and hopefully permanently) is a promise to myself to try cleaner eating. I'm not talking about cutting out all processed foods, doing Paleo, or those crazy fad diets. This is just a promise to myself to make better decisions and eat more natural foods. More fruits with my lunches at work, more vegetables with dinner. Cutting out foods with additives that I'm unable to pronounce and eating foods that will make me feel better. Jason and I also agreed to only eat out once a week for the month of May (and hopefully in the long run), which will help us save money and eat more at home.

Some things we've already done for a year or more, or even just recently, which include:

• Buying whole wheat pasta, breads, grains
• Cutting down on foods with refined sugars (prepackaged cookies and snacks, no sodas, gatorades, teas in the house)
• Buying more fresh fruits

Now, we need to focus on what I mentioned above. The hardest part is probably going to be the food I take to work. I'm embarassingly addicted to convienance and anything that is super low in calories. I usually eat Smart Ones, Lean Cuisines and Healthy Choice frozen meals for lunch when I'm working and take things like sugar free jello and 80 calorie fiber one brownies or granola thins, all which have lots of additives.

Let me give you an example of the crap that's in what you eat. Take this low calorie cookie:

Doesn't seem too bad right? Out of similar products, this one is actually not-so-bad, but take a look at these ingredients that you want to avoid.

• Soy Lecithin: Soybean oil used to keep ingredients together. Not neccesarily that bad, but is an additive that's only used to keep products like these packaged for longer periods of time without going bad.
• Fructose: aka sugar that gives you the sweet you're craving, but still leaves you hungry.
• Sodium Aluminum Phosphate: This is going to sound really scary, but this is classified as a pesticide. It's used in baking powders because it's slow to release (aka convienant) when not baking a dough right away.

That happened to be the first label I looked at after going to Jillian's show. I will be looking at every label now for the bad sugars and harmful chemicals they add! Unfortunately, I still have quite a few items in my cabinet that I'll be eating first since they are already there. I started this weekend at the grocery store buying better and more natural foods, so I'm hoping I will feel better in the long run!

Recently a friend told me about a free app that you can scan products with (especially convienant at the grocery store!) called Fooducate! You can search by product name or scan the bar code and it tells you if it has GMO's (genetically modified organisms, aka modified or fake ingredients!), has an unusual amount of sugar, artificial sweetners, and other ingredients that are considered "not clean." It also gives each item a grade from A to F and gives alternative brands that received a better grade. I have used it a few times and I love it! It is extremely eye opening because food I "thought" was clean, really isn't! Take my yogurt that I eat every day:

This is going pretty good so far, especially now that I have a great tool to help me out. Feel free to join me in this challenge! We can support each other and chat about the good and bad :)

xoxo,
classy k

Did, Done, Loved: What I WOULDN'T Have Done Differently!

OK, so maybe I wouldn't have made that face.

So, my last post went into the things about my wedding day that I would have done different if I had the chance.

Well, this post I am going to talk about the things I wouldn't have changed in a million years! I'll try to keep it short and sweet because honestly there were way more things I wouldn't have done differently.

1. Waiting to see Jason until I walked down the aisle. Everyone has their preferences and some brides like to see their grooms alone right before the ceremony or do their couple session beforehand. I knew I wanted no part of that. We stayed in the same hotel the night before, in different rooms, and I wouldn't even let him see me as we ate breakfast the next day! It was actually a funny story because I practically dove in another direction and ran across the restaurant so he wouldn't see me!


Yup, pretty sure those are tears forming!

I tried to put into words in my last post (but failed miserably) how much emotion was in that moment that I walked down the aisle. I will never forget how I felt as I looked at Jason and saw the look on his face. Someone please kick me as I tear up writing about it right now! My point being that all the anticipation leading up to that moment was totally worth not seeing him all day before the ceremony.
2. Being super organized about getting ready. I had planned everything out down to the minute when it came to getting ready on my wedding day. I planned it so well that at one point we were sitting around an hour before the photographer and make up/hair girls showed up like "well, I guess we'll start drinking since we have nothing better to do." Nothing irks me more than running late for something super important like a wedding. Plus, we spent the money on the place and I wanted every second to count!

Exhibit A: Mimosa Bar. Yum.

3. Paying for Hair and Make-up. This is something I totally wouldn't change. I paid for all my girls to get their hair done and it made things quick and easy. Up Do's for I Do's rocked the house and made all of us look amazing. My bridesmaids were skeptical that Ashley and Steffanie would be able to do 7 people's hair and my mom and I's make-up in 2 hours, but they got it done with time to spare! It's a little expensive, but totally worth not having to deal with the headache of the girls deciding on their hairstyles. Not to mention, my mom not having that mullet of hers if she had the choice of doing her own hair.

4. The moment in the brides room with just my bridesmaids. Sure, we spent all Friday night and that morning together getting ready, but it all came together when we had 5 minutes totally to ourselves right before the ceremony started. It was THAT moment that all of the emotion of the day finally poured into me. My cousin Erin gathered us all up and said something to me that I'll never forget (OMG WHY AM I ALMOST CRYING AGAIN?!)

She grabbed me and said "Someone said this to me on my wedding day and I'll say it to you because it's true. You've spent so much time and energy focusing on pleasing everyone else planning this wedding, but what you need to do is when you get to the end of the aisle, just focus on Jason. This day is about you guys and the love you all have for each other." (cue the tissues because she had all of us in tears!)

This was probably my second favorite moment of the night.

5. Not writing our own vows. Point blank: I was a blubbering fool and there's no way I would have been able to keep my make-up in tact had I written my own vows or had to listen to Jason's vows. Instead, we picked pre-written vows from the pastor with some bible verses that meant just as much. I know my photographer hated me because he seriously couldn't get anything other than "not-so-pretty ugly cry face" from me throughout most of the ceremony.

Example A

Example B. Seriously, get it together Krystle!

 
and last but certainly not least:

6. Married this guy. Seriously, what a hunk.

I'm so happy that I was able to get inspired to write these two blog posts about my wedding! I hope you all enjoyed reading them and seeing a few more pictures from our big day.

xoxo,

classy k

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda: What I Would Have Done Over

As of March 15th, my hubby and I were married for 6 months. I had been meaning to get a post together of information that every girl thinks about after the big day and I finally got around to it!

Every girl dreams about the day they get married and how perfect things would be, but most of the time how you envision the day is not actually how it turns out. Now, that's not a bad thing, it's just that certain circumstances and things can get in the way.

I had a pretty darn good day and I can tell you everything about my ceremony was all I ever dreamed about. I'm not sure if it was just how in awe I was walking down the aisle to my husband and how real the moment was that made me ignore everything else, but I wouldn't have changed anything.

With that being said, here are a few things that I would have done over if I had the chance.

1. Videographer. I know every single girl that doesn't have a videographer says this. But, let me side note and say that the only thing I wanted a videographer for was our ceremony. I knew that I would not be able to find someone to only do that part of it, so I didn't even entertain the idea. I relive the moment I walked down the aisle and when we exchanged vows all the time and it's the part I remember the most out of anything on our wedding day. I wish I had a video so I could see the emotion on Jason's face and my own (even if I had the not-so-pretty cry face). See below (lol)

Honestly, I think the whole concept of a videographer is cheesy. Every wedding I've been to has the videographer going around during cocktail hour asking guests to say something to the bride and groom. gag. I thought that the photographs of the reception were plenty good enough. I had fun and it shows in the pictures, so I knew before and after the wedding that a videographer for the reception wasn't necessary. Plus, why spend all that money to have a DVD that we'd only watch once or twice? I guess I should have settled with asking someone to use a personal video camera to capture the ceremony because I would watch it over and over. I can't describe the feeling I get when I think about walking down the aisle and nothing but the real thing could display the emotion of those few moments.

2. I wish I would have waited a little longer to decide on a dress. Now, do not get me wrong here. I LOVED my dress, but I also purchased it 9 months ahead of time. In those 9 months I managed to lose weight in all the areas I wanted to focus on, so when my final dress fittings came along I felt the dress looked a lot different on me.

I'll put it to you this way, I love my butt and my hips. I immediately knew I wanted a mermaid dress to accentuate that area of my body and when I lost 30 pounds, I also lost a lot of my toosh (sad face). I don't regret losing the weight, but I regret buying a dress months before I reached my goal weight. I wish I had the picture of me from the back in my dress when I purchased it, so that you all could see what I mean. Think Beyonce.

This is what I ended up with on the day of our wedding:

Doesn't look bad, but wasn't what I dreamed of when I bought the dress. Nobody noticed it the way I did and you all are probably thinking 'what are you talking about?!' but, these are the little things brides think about and wish they could have done differently.

Let me just get this out there too, I really wish wedding dresses weren't white. White is such an unforgiving color (aka makes even the teeniest girls look bigger than they are.) so, why can't we get married in black dresses? It's sleek and timeless and makes you look thinner. I get the whole "white is pure" and tradition and yadda, yadda but seriously, why hasn't anyone broke the mold yet? It's 2013, and you would think someone would push the idea of colored wedding dresses. I would have gotten married in a mermaid dress in the red my bridesmaids wore if I had the choice! But anyway.

3. Nix the Tattoo Make-up. I made the decision early on to get make-up to cover up my tattoos. I love my tattoos and had no intention of hiding them, but they hung out really awkwardly out of my dress. I have sparrows on my sides and the ribbon part of the tattoos were the only part to hang out as well as the flag pole from the one on my back. In a last minute panic I completely forgot about this part until 10 minutes before we had to leave the hotel to go to the ceremony. Luckily, my bridesmaid Brittany is a make-up guru so we did the very best with what we had, but it still turned out really light against my skin. I had it covered up enough for my photographer to photo shop them out for the ceremony pictures, but I immediately had the girls wipe it off after the ceremony.

Here's what I mean:

If I could have done it over, I wouldn't have covered them up period. It ended up looking way more awkward and noticeable.

4. Made an extended list of specific pictures. My grandma pointed out (in a pretty disappointing way) that she wished I had taken full length pictures of me by myself after the ceremony. As ironic as it sounds, I wasn't focused on the day being about me. We took a few shots in the hotel room of myself and we didn't get married in a church, so it didn't cross my mind to get those kind of pictures. Not to mention, I was SO over taking pictures that I wasn't even in the mood to take more formal pictures than we needed to. I was hungry and ready for a drink!

I had asked my photographer if I could make a list and he said the easiest thing to do was to grab him throughout the night if I wanted a picture. I should have known this wouldn't work the second we finished formal pictures because Jason and I were tugged in every direction for the rest of the night. I really wanted individual (unposed) pictures with each bridesmaid and a group picture of myself, my parents and my dad's best friend and his kids. We grew up together and getting us all in one picture was something I knew would be hard to get in the future with how busy everyone is. I totally regret not making it a point to tell my photographer that these pictures were a must.

5. Kept it simple with flowers. I went way overboard with the flowers. What I had envisioned ended up being a lot less than what I could have gotten for what was spent. Every other table had a giant vase of white hydrangea's (which were b-e-a-utiful!) but for some reason I was stuck on having orchids. I wanted a yellow flower that wasn't a rose and loved the idea of the flowers in water. For those who don't know, orchids are expensive.

I really wish I had just kept it simple and had white hydrangea's at every table in a smaller arrangement and maybe just a yellow ribbon or something small and cheaper to accent it. I had a ton of color at the tables, so having the red and yellow orchids wasn't even necessary. I also wish I could have taken a hydrangea arrangement home, but we went straight to the airport the next day for our mini honeymoon. Luckily, some of the guests took the hydrangea centerpieces home and enjoyed them. I received a lot of compliments for how pretty they were.

and last but not least...

6. Had a chance to say Hi to everyone (!!!) This was something I felt like we couldn't avoid. We only had 120 people at the wedding, but we literally ate and got up to start greeting our guests to thank them for coming. Unfortunately, we didn't even get half way through before we were summoned for the Father/Daughter and Mother/Son dances. From there, everyone was up and on the dance floor, or outside, at the bar, etc. We were pulled in a million directions the rest of the night.

I had way more "What I wouldn't have done over in a million years" and I'll keep the suspense going as you all wait for that post!

xoxo,
classy k