6 years ago today I married the man of my dreams.
I remember the whole day like it was yesterday. That is probably due to the fact that I spent a year going over every detail in my head before I went to bed… Every night. LOL that was in a time before Pinterest but Ninja and I wanted the very best wedding without spending big dollars.
We had friends and family coming from Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, and even Texas! We wanted to make it worth their time and travels. We planned a whole weekend of wedding festivities!
We had the best bachelor/bachelorette parties ever! I had the most amazingly thoughtful shower on the rooftop of an amazing resort and Ninja got to go golfing with all of the men at a world-class golf course. I can’t fit all the details and pictures into this one post so you have something to look forward to next year 😉.
A lot of our friends had never been here before and we had just moved 11 months prior so we really wanted to showcase our new home. We used all of our old band T-shirts and made everybody bags out of them. We filled the bags with goodies from across the Valley. All of our pre-wedding celebrations deserve their very own post so I won’t tell you too much LOL.
We picked a fabulous vineyard resort and spa to have our wedding, Spirit Ridge. You can do it too, we got married on a Monday. If you don’t get married on the weekend apparently there isn’t a venue cost or at least a much less expensive cost! That is a fabulous way to keep the cost down. By having it at a resort all of our family and friends could stay together for the whole weekend and truly enjoy each others company.
We also made our cake out of paper. Neither one of us are huge cake fans and we had picked an amazing dessert with our dinner so we thought instead of having an actual cake we would give everybody a “cake” slice filled with one of our favourite things, coffee beans from a local roaster. Inside we made a little crossword that said Chris and Kristin the Perfect Blend. 💛 Ninja made 3 cake stands out of logs that he sanded and varnished. They are still in our garden today!
Another cost saver was our decorations. We made them all ourselves. We folded 1000 paper cranes! Every night before bed Ninja and I sat and folded paper. Not origami paper LOL we used only recycled scraps so it was not the easiest to bend and fold LOL.
My Sister handmade the guestbook and we put up pictures of all of our guests that were unable to be there with us. We made our table numbers out of memories LOL every table number had a topic and on 1 side it was how I remembered it and on the other side it was how he remembered it LOL it was fun for all of our guests to get to know us a bit better!
We made all of the menus out of wallpaper samples and I hand-painted each person’s name on the front. We made up little rhymes to introduce each of our wedding party members and added interesting facts to the menu.
Ninja and my Dad had made beer for all of our guests and we labelled them all. All of our flowers where arranged by a local florist from the Farmer’s Market. 2 days before our wedding my Sis, WpgBesty, Mom, HBear and myself went to her backyard gardens and hand-picked each flower. They were absolutely stunning.
I had a special Oilers garter belt made especially for our day.
HBear was only 18 months at the time. She was our Flower Girl but apparently getting dressed took up all of her energy and Ninja had to carry her down the aisle. She slept the entire ceremony and the rest of the evening LOL. We had paid a young lady that I knew to come out for the entire night. She looked after my Wxpgbesty’s daughter BBear and HBear while we were at the wedding.
The amazing Suzanne of Eyes of LeStage was our wedding photographer. She captured all of my emotions that day LOL.
We handpicked every single song. Every song for the ceremony, the reception, and the cocktail hour. Our Parents walk down to Randy Travis’s Forever and Ever Amen.
Our wedding party walked down to Ingrid Michaelson’s Way I Am.
Ninja, HBear and I walked down the aisle to my Brother singing Griffin House’s Better Than Love. It was 3 1/2 minutes that I will never forget.
As soon as I came through those doors and got to the top of the aisle the loudest crack of thunder boomed over our heads. I saw a Ninja and I didn’t care about the thunder I had a great big smile and with my Dad, I confidently walked down to be by his side. The weather held out for our entire ceremony. It was beautiful. We helped write the vows, actually we stole some parts from Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love LOL and we added a few things of our own like always putting the seat down after using the bathroom and always cheering on the Oilers even when they lose LOL.
When the Minister pronounced us Husband-and-Wife we handed out chocolate shot glasses filled with The Flame from Silver Sage Winery and we all did a shot!
It was a night filled with love and funny, emotional, beautiful speeches. We had an amazing dinner! We served it family style, another huge cost saver but the food was to die for! We hand picked all of our wine. We went to all the wineries and selected our favorites. Where I come from in Winnipeg it’s always an open bar. Here in BC they don’t do it that way LOL so we went half-and-half we had an open wine bar with a local beer as well. We also had two punches offered and the rest was a cash bar.
I love you Ninja. I am so thankful for the life we’ve made together.
Sriracha Honey Chicken with Rice Noodles
Adapted from Carlsbad Cravings
4 chicken breasts, chopped into bite size pieces
1 package rice noodles, cooked according to package
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 green onions, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 bag coleslaw
1 carrot, diced
Honey Sriracha Sauce
1/3 cup honey
1 1/2 teaspoons Sriracha (I used 1/2 because we aren’t big on heat)
1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
3 garlic cloves, pressed
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons mirin
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons cornstarch
In a medium bowl, whisk together the Honey Sriracha Sauce ingredients.
Add 1/4 cup of this prepared Sauce to a large ziplock bag along with chicken and let marinate for 30 minutes, or while you prep your vegetables, or overnight.
Heat sesame oil over high heat. Drain chicken from excess marinade. Add chicken and saute just until no longer pink.
Add vegetables and saute 2 minutes.
Whisk Sauce to recombine and add to chicken/vegetables. Simmer until thickened and vegetables are crisp-tender.
Add noodles and stir until evenly combined.
Garnish with green onions.
We have been truly blessed with having so many visitors this summer. This week my Aunt, 2 of my cousins and their 3 kids were out here for PeachFest. Every summer growing up my Cousins, Sister and I spent the summer here enjoying PeachFest. It made me incredibly happy to be able to do that with their kids this year! I’m going to warn you, there are a lot of pictures LOL but as I use this blog as my journal I know that this post is going to be one that I look back on fondly.
We started off our week by celebrating BC day at Gyro park. HBear, SBean and I painted tiles that will be incorporated in a huge mural for Canada’s 150th birthday next year! Just knowing that our little tiles will be apart of something bigger gives me goosebumps LOL.
We left at lunchtime to get SBean home for a nap… When she fell asleep 30 seconds after putting her in her car seat we decided to just keep on driving LOL. We drove to Keremeos and we stopped to geocache. Our first stop was an EarthCache. We learned all about tephra formations! That is the white line in the rock behind HBear. When SBean finally woke up we stopped at a beautiful park to do some more geocaching. HBear ran through the field for what seemed like an hour LOL playing with a huge yellow butterfly! When I stood there trying to get a picture of it darting everywhere we were joined by 2 more! It was just us, the beauty of the day and 3 huge yellow butterflies flying all around us darting and playing with us. My heart melted and I knew my Mom was with us.
We went to the main stage and watched the marching band, had an amazing burger for dinner (although the girls had crepes), and watched the high divers!
Our second stop was the Hundred Grand candy bar or… $100 gift card for Buoy Clothing Company! Ninja got some awesome new outfits! We went to the sister store for women, Something Pretty but I didn’t have the same luck. That’s OK I still have my gift certificate for when all the fabulous fall fashions arrive!
We even bought each other the same card! LOL
Of course with the girls sleeping at Grandma and Grandpa’s that left us the whole morning to go test out our new clubs at the driving range!
When we were done there we headed over to my SBesty’s place. SBean was invited to her GBesty’s birthday in the morning and HBear was invited to SBesty’s birthday in the afternoon… Yes they are crazy LOL. However, she is a genius and hired a lifeguard to watch the kids in the pool while we all sat and had a glass of wine and chatted!
