Three. Trois. Drei. Tre. Tres. San. 3.

It has been 3 years since my wedding day. In reflection, it seems like just yesterday I was walking down the aisle and yet it feels as though Kyle and I have already spent a lifetime together. It's hard to remember a time before him. He has brought so much happiness, stability, and calm into my life, I honestly don't know where I'd be if he hadn't come along when he did. I know I can always count on him to make sure I have clean jeans or dark clothes to wear (because he never washes whites or brights), to say "I told you so" when my crazy schemes don't work out, and to always, always, always try to blame his farts on one of the kids. He's a predictable guy, that husband of mine, and I love him for it. He's everything that I'm not.

I spotted this Wedding A-Z post over on The Juice is Worth the Squeeze (their wedding was SERIOUSLY AMAZING - go check it out) a few weeks ago and thought it would be a great way to celebrate here on the blog. You have to understand, of course, that very little about our engagement and wedding was traditional, so I've had to change up the categories a bit as many of the original headings just don't apply to our wedding. So for now, here are A-L with the rest to follow tomorrow, enjoy!

ATTENDING

We kept it very small and intimate with only about 30 of our very closest friends and immediate family. We also asked everyone to wear blue. Weird, I know, but everyone cooperated without so much as a grumble (to our faces, anyway) and it looked AMAZING in the group pictures. Besides, these are the people who mean the very most to us and we wanted to to feel as if they were all members of the bridal party. Mission accomplished!

BRIDESMAIDS

This is one of the major areas where we broke from tradition, I had 5 bridesmaids but none of them walked down the aisle or even stood up at the front with me. They stood in the audience - for lack of a better word - with everyone else. Basically, our bridesmaids and groomsmen were the only friends we invited to the wedding so they got the title with none of the hassle. My "Maid of Honor" was Lauren, my best friend/roommate from college. "Bridesmaids" were Kati - my oldest friend and the best wedding planning helper EVER, Ashley - another friend from middle school, and Shannon - an amazing new friend.

CAKE

We went with cupcakes to stick with our laid back vibe, but also had a small cake to cut for pictures. To surprise my husband, I asked the baker to make a strawberry cake, since that's his favorite. He was so surprised  when we finally cut into it and it was BRIGHT PINK. For the cupcakes, we just went with a plain white cake with light blue frosting and decorated with white chocolate shells and starfish. They were beautiful. And delicious!

DRESS

Finding THE dress was a bit of a fiasco. I initially bought a white maxi dress at the BCBG outlet while Kyle and I were visiting my BFF/Maid of Honor in Atlantic City. Kyle even paid for it (as he still reminds me). A few weeks later, I just wasn't happy with it. It's a pretty dress, but it just wasn't "bridal" enough. So, I took to the internets to find THE dress. Luck of all lucks, I found this STUNNING and PERFECT Nicole Miller gown on ebay for something like $40, but it was not to be. I got an email a week later that when the dress had been retreived from the warehouse, it was damaged beyond repair. I was CRUSHED! Honestly, I still dream about that dress. I checked out a few local bridal shops, but everything they had was too dressy for a casual beach wedding, so I headed back to the internets and found a lovely dress in a casual white jersey fabric. It was beautiful even if it wasn't THE dress. (The best picture I have of it is the above shot of my bridesmaids peaking out from behind me.)

ENGAGEMENT PICTURES

Believe it or not, I found our photographers on Craigslist. We were working on a really tight budget but I still wanted amazing pictures. I didn't know where else to look so I headed to Craiglist where I found Gina and Tony. It turns out, Gina and I went to elementary school together. Considering the school was pre-k thru 8th grade and still only housed well under 100 people, it's pretty odd that we would run into each other again. It was fate. They are AMAZING photographers with the exact style that I was looking for. We did our engagement pictures on the beach on a rainy day at the end of May. Luckily the storm cleared literally MOMENTS before we pulled into the parking lot and the hazy sky made for perfect lighting. We even frolicked in the freezing ass ocean! The pictures were totally worth the hypothermia.

FOOD

We kept the reception very casual, more like a family get-together, really. Our guests all brought covered dishes and we ordered some bbq from the best bbq place EVER. The food was amazing - all our favorite things were present - unfortunately, I was too excited and busy talking to everyone to finish my plate but we ate the leftovers for days after, so that was fine.

GROOMSMEN

Kyle's "Groomsmen" - Dwayne, Tony, and Dave - have been his best friends forever. They've been raising hell together since Elementary School or something like that. They took Kyle out to play paintball and eat crabs for his bachelor party.

HONEYMOON

We rented a beautiful home in Fenwick Island for our wedding reception and spent the following week there for our honeymoon. We were a short drive from all the Delaware and Maryland beaches and spent a whole lot of time soaking up the sun, strolling on the boardwalk, and doing cheesy beach tourist things like mini golf and lazer tag. I also had "Mrs. Lynch" airbrushed onto a tank top - easily one of the highlights of my week. It was so relaxing and amazing. AND, we celebrated my birthday during our honeymoon. Best. Birthday. Ever. Given the chance, I wouldn't change a thing. We're thinking about renting the house again for our 5th anniversary.

Celebrating a righteous mini golf victory!

INVITATIONS

Our wedding happened exactly 5 months after our first date so there wasn't really a whole lot of time for invitations. We made a lot of phone calls and sent out a link to our wedding page for more details. It turns out our wedding page still exists. Check it out HERE if you feel so inclined.

JEWELRY

I wanted to give my bridesmaids charm bracelets but couldn't find any that I liked so I made them. I also made myself one as well as a matching necklace. I was really happy with how all the jewelry turned out and the girls loved their bracelets!

KEEPSAKES

We did a photo guestbook instead of the traditional. My amazing "bridesmaid" Kati made sure that everyone got their picture taken with my mom's old polaroid, then stuck the pictures in a scrabook where they could each write us a message next to their picture. Some people wrote us really beautiful notes and the book means so much to me. We gave out champagne flutes with blue stems as our favors. They were a great find at the Dollar Tree and I made these tags to tie onto them to fancy them up a bit.

LADIES NIGHT

For my bachelorette party, we loaded up a car full of girls and headed to Atlantic City to meet up with my "Maid of Honor" Lauren. We stayed at Lauren's Aunt's house in Ventnor because it was super close to everything and free. We started the night out at a GREAT Italian restuarant where we were seated next to a bachelor party. I sent the bachelor a beer and he sent us back a bottle of wine. They ended up following us to a club after dinner and paid for all of our drinks for the rest of the nice and were just generally a whole lot of fun! They really MADE the night.

Come on back tomorrow for M-Z!