Our Pawfect Wedding: Ceremony, Pug Style

And there we were. At the altar. I couldn't believe it. And how hot it was up there. Seriously... holy lights.

Our church is so beautiful.

Our officiant started off the ceremony and then passed it off to lovely Lyd for our first reading.

She did such a great job!

It was a great way to kick off the ceremony.

I could probably tell you more of what was said, but 1) I'm too lazy to pull out the ceremony schedule and 2) I could barely keep with it during the ceremony myself. My mind was a combination of racing and focusing on Mr Pug.

And whattaya know, time for another reading.

SIL did her reading.

Mr P's dudes listened intently.

Our officiant gave an amazing homily. Not sure if this picture is of it, but we're listening to him, so why not!

Ohhh my church! LOVE! Still sad the church wasn't very full. Wonder if I can photoshop people in?

We were about to do ring stuff so I handed over my flowers to MOH M.

I'm smiling because in those hot hot lights, my ring was like BLING BLING BLING! Serious sparkle.

We prayed, which was very calming and focusing.

And then... HUSBAND AND WIFE Y'ALL!!!!! I basically attacked him.

Our kiss!

God, I love him.

And although it didn't make it on film, I did a Jersey fist pump with my flowers. We were finally MR & MRS!

Everyone walked back down the aisle smiling and laughing. M and A...

R and Best Man Dan...

H and Z...

L and S...

A, A, and J...

My HOT MOMMERS and wonderful Uncle...

Two of the three MIL's...

FIL and the third MIL...

And we were off! ...To the basement! For our everyone-included punch and appetizers "reception" (I still don't know what we should have called it) that everyone was invited to. That we pulled together pretty last minute. That I could NEVER have done without Aunt P. You'll all die when you see the food!

Our Pawfect Wedding: Walking Begins

Our ceremony beginneth! (I know that's not a word.)

Ushers H, R, and E ushed them like pros. First up: Usher H and Mr Pug's maternal grandmother. His paternal grandmother broke her hip and couldn't come. We are very close with her so it was sad not to have her there!

Usher R with my MILs.

Usher E with my step MIL and my FIL following behind.

Father in Law pug looked dashingly sharp!

Then came, in my opinion, the guest of honor... usher R escorted her, my mom!

I love their faces! I adore R and my mom is the hottest, cutest, nicest mom out there. I'm so lucky.

Then came the wedding party! BM A walked with my BILs A and J.

It was a (Mr P's last name) sandwich!

Then came BIL S and BM L.

At this point, seeing it all together, I was SO happy with their outfits. Came together great. PS don't S & L look great together? They were visually well-matched.

Then come the blondes... GM Z and BM H.

Z shaved his mohawk off for the wedding... yippee!

Next up was the hilarious pair of the crew... Best Man Dan and my sister, MOH R.

In every picture Dan looks mischievous and R is laughing.

Mr Pug waiting patiently...

The other "bests..." Best Man A and my sister MOH M.

M's boyfriend has the same name as Best Man A. Weird right?

Oh look! Everyone is waiting for me!

You ready for this, Mr P?

I was still stressed but when those doors opened and my Uncle started to walk me down the aisle, I almost lost it. All I saw was Mr P.

You can tell I'm trying hard to pull it together and smile. And not cry.

I got handed off by my Uncle... who is also my dad's biological brother, and my Godfather. My dad was so missed that day, by so many people.

After that... GAME TIME!

Recent Acquisitions

So remember when I said I had a ton of stuff to write about? Here it is. Don't you love the professional title? Well lots of things have changed since the wedding that I want to show ya!

We got back from our honeymoon on Sunday night (March 28) late. Too late. Sooo freaking late. And then had a full work day on Monday. Which led to an EARLY bedtime Monday. But then Tuesday night? Gloriousness. We took two gift cards we had from our wedding to Williams-Sonoma and used them for a new Kitchenaid Mixer!

I love her so much. So, so much. We got a fancy schmancy one but it was worth it. It has a splatter guard! SQUEEE! Mr Pug wants to make doughs and other manly things. I'm into the baked goods. Oh and mashed potatoes. We together decided on chrome finish... we both didn't like white or black but couldn't decide on another actual color, since we know our decor will change over the years. Chrome = timeless.

Isn't she gorg??? Love! We relocated our George Foreman grill for it, since we have a real grill now and don't use the Foreman at all.

Sidenote: I used the mixer to make a recipe from scratch today! Oreo cupcakes for Easter!

The recipe can be found here on Tasty Kitchen. It's the best recipe site I've found... you need to check it out if you haven't! The cupcakes were great, I needed to add more milk to the frosting and cook them a minute less but they still were amazing.

Anyways, back to our week. So we did that Tuesday, and then Wednesday went to change our phones. It was a hard decision but we left Verizon. I wanted a phone with email capability, but because my contract with Verizon wasn't up, they wanted $559 for the Droid!! HECK no. We decided to go to AT&T and both get iPhones. We ended up paying $4oo for two iPhones... way less than the cost to get me a Droid, and Mr Pug is happier since he had just an OK phone before. Plus monthly is the same as it would be for me to have a plan for the Droid. Also, my job gets me a percentage off our monthly AT&T bill, which is great. I can already tell the service isn't as good, but we rarely use the phone for calls. It's nice not coming home to 2937483 emails since I can check them at lunch now!

Then Thursday... April Fool's Day. I get a text from Mr P. "My car broke down." (Sidenote: his car has like 175,000 miles on it and he drives 6-10 hours a day in the warm months for his job. It doesn't do well when it's driven that much! And it's broken down many a time before.) I realize it's April Fool's day so I'm all "ha ha ha you almost got me." And he's all... "I'm serious." And I'm all "You're so MEANNNN what a mean joke!" Then he called me and I realized he was serious. Another part to replace, another few hundred dollars. We realized his car wouldn't make it through half the summer with him working his job. Unfortunately, due to a bad dealer and his credit out of college, he's majorly upside down on his Jeep Liberty. So selling isn't an option. That leads me to my baby... Bruce the '99 Corolla. Here I am when my parents drove him home in September 2002 (I had gotten out of the shower right before, thus the towel.)

I paid him off and have just been putting off getting him maintained in the past few months. I put $1,400 into him about a year and a half ago, and got a letter in the past year saying that my Toyota dealership wanted to buy him (I guess people are buying more used cars.) So after much talking, Mr P and I realized that we needed a new car. Selling his upside down car and adding that major debt to another car would be like paying off a credit card with a credit card, so we decided to keep his Jeep and sell Bruce. I'll drive the Jeep (now named Barney, since it's a maroon-y color) into the sunset until it dies or is paid off. And that means we traded in Bruce:

(Yes, I cried. Almost 8 years with him... it was sad! PS they found a can of soup in there, which was awkward.)

We used him towards a new 2010 Camry. We got 0% financing and returning customer loyalty, meaning we have 2 years or 25,000 miles of free maintenance. Since Mr Pug drives 30-35 thousand miles a year it won't last him long, but we'll take what we can get! We got a great deal on the new one, which I have named Finnegan:

It looks black or gray, but he's actually a dark, metallic hunter green. LOVE!

Yea, I'm a little sad that I gave up my car for a worn down Jeep. But it was what we had to do to get out of debt, and since I love my husband, I was willing to use the Jeep for the short 10 to 15 minute drive to work each day for the next two years. I know I hear all the time about how marriage is two people looking out for one another as a unit. Naturally I thought I'd trade in Bruce for a super awesome new car eventually. But US is more important than WE because I love my husband and want US to succeed. It feels good to be on the same team!

Oh and that would be team POOR since we didn't have two car payments in the budget. Ugh. Ramen, here we come!