Wedding & Honeymoon

I can't seem to remember to update this thing regularly. Lack of time lately, I suppose. Just for posterity's sake, I'll update the world on what's been going on...

We got married! I can't believe I haven't written about it yet. We left for Vegas on April 18th, and got married at the Excalibur wedding chapel on April 19th at noon-ish. It was great! It was relatively stress-free and easy. Matt really enjoyed his first plane ride, and kept his forehead glued to the window looking at everything :). I planned everything as much as I could from home, so things went pretty smoothly. The hotel room was great, it was a huge suite with a gigantic marble bathroom and hot tub (which we LOVED using after a long day of walking) and a nice view of the Hooter's hotel (ok, that was the only bad part, but at night, the sunset was amazing, and the mountains were beautiful to look at!). We stayed at the MGM Grand, and really enjoyed it. It was an absolutely huge hotel, with dozens of restaurants and shops, and a huge, smoky casino area that of course you had to walk through to get anywhere. We didn't do much gambling, but I did play some slots, and we played a hand of blackjack. The slot machines were much more complicated than was necessary - why can't i just put a quarter in and pull the lever?? What's with all the buttons? Heh. Matt was disappointed that we couldn't find him a "real" poker game to sit in, but he had a great time anyways.

As for the actual ceremony...it was both super short and took forever at the same time :p. We actually got there too early, so we sat outside the chapel to have a soda before we went in, and I'm sure we looked amusing in our wedding gear. We were able to go in ahead of time and take some pictures, but my camera didn't cooperate well, and the pics didn't turn out as well as I'd like. The pastor dude was kind of funny, like a game show announcer. The whole time he was performing the ceremony, I kept trying not to giggle. Funny enough, everyone who watched the ceremony on the internet thought he was amaaaaa-zing. I suppose if you weren't there he came off a little less um, pompous? Hehe. Anyways, it was over before I knew it, and there! Poof! Married! We had to take some pro pics after, which turned out AWFUL (!!!!), but then we were free to enjoy our honeymoon! It felt very surreal to be married. I think I just kep looking at him and giggling, and calling him my husband. It still feels unreal sometimes, even two months later.

Anyways, we tried to do WAY too much in the time we had, so every night we were exhausted, but we really did enjoy ourselves. We both loved how the Paris casino looked, and had a good time going up their replica Eiffel Tower. Matt had the biggest and best burger of his life at Hash House a Go-Go, and we had the strongest and most expensive drinks of our life at the MGM Casino. The NYNY Casino was great to hang out in and had less expensive grub, and the Bellagio had some beautiful gardens right in the middle, and of course an awesome fountain show! We brought home all sorts of souvenirs, and about 400 pics on my camera (heh). Oh! We also decided that Vegas is not a kid-friendly place, no matter what the tourism department says lol. There were cars that drove by plastered with pictures of strippers, and panhandlers that would hand out pamphlets of um, questionable places to visit. And Fremont St reminded me of Bourbon St, all sorts of strippers dancing on tables, beer carts everywhere, and just general trashiness. That was probably my least favorite area that we went to, by FAR.

Overall, I'm really thrilled we got married the way we did. At times in the month immediately following the wedding, I would have pangs of jealousy that my newly-engaged friens would have such a bigger bash than I, but now that things have calmed down, I've realized that had we tried to do a "real" wedding, we would still be in the planning phase, with no idea when we would actually be wedded! We managed to get married without any debt, and our out of pocket expenses were probably around 1500$. My dad helped out with the hotel, food, and air miles, and I think his portion ran about 1000$ or so. So, really, not a bad deal for a wedding & honeymoon!

Oh, and we had a party! It was held at J&V's house, and we invited about 30 people, of which maybe 20-25 showed up? We had Fuddrucker's cater, which was delicious, and put out some snacks, had some beers, and a really great cupcake tower and mini cake made by VeLisa! It was nice to see Matt's family again, although I was disappointed that only my immediate family could come, and that many of my friends were unable to make it. It felt a little lopsided. My dad made a sweet toast that I can't really remember, and then we put Matt's dad on the spot for a toast, which was nice as well. Got some great presents, and a big chunk of cash that went straight to the house fund, and that was it! Wedding, honeymoon, and ceremony complete!

This was much longer than I expected, so I'll post another one with the rest of our lives' updates later...