Our First Christmas as Mr. and Mrs.

Christmas 2011 was our first Christmas as a married couple. We had our second annual Second Family Christmas at our house.

Then we did Christmas Eve at Meme's like normal.

Thanksgiving at the Doherty's

We had our 2nd family Thanksgiving at our house.

We had our family Thanksgiving at Kay and Baxter's in Houston.

Jennifer Getting Married

On November 13, my good friend Jennifer got married. It was such a nice ceremony and the reception was beautiful. And her dress! Oh wow did she look gorgeous!

Just another Sunday at the Dues house...

My mom had taken all the dresses we used at the wedding over to Meme's so that everyone could pick up their dresses to take home. Instead...

Thought these were too funny not to share!

Honeymoon in Vegas

After breakfast the next morning with family and bridesmaids, my new husband :) and I head to the airport to catch our flight to Vegas! Once there we had our limo driver waiting. So fancy!

And to keep up this fanciness...

Yep, In and Out Burger. We were hungry and I'd never been there. We had a great trip. We did so much and had a lot of fun.

OMG best pizza ever! I'm drooling just thinking about it. We ate there three times that week!

After the party, there was the After Party...

And then I was beyond ready for bed. I had been up since 4am and it was then going on about 2 am. I was exhausted! But it was all so worth it. I actually enjoyed the entire day and night which I was worried I wouldn't. Overall consensus of wedding guest feedback: Best. Wedding. Ever!

A Wedding to Remember

Hullaboo, Caneck, Caneck...

After the Aggie War Hymn, the party really got started! I was so glad to see such a full dance floor. Especially since they tried to tell me not have such a big dance floor.

But after all the dancing, toasting, eating, and other fun festivities... It was time for us to depart.

Our exit was through a crowd of everyone waving 12th man towels as went through!

Then we were off...well, for a drive around the block then back to the hotel.

And it's up....

Don't F*** it Up!

So after the cake cutting, the evening progressed to the toasts. My dad started the toasts. Welcoming everyone, teasing Brian a bit. And then he went on, as he does, for awhile. He told some embarrassing stories about my childhood...Stacy and the lipstick, me believing in Santa until I was like 15, and then he went on to Ducky...

And that man found me a new one! I couldn't believe it. They don't make them anymore and haven't for awhile! But just like him finding me an-impossible-to-get furby back in 5th grade, he found a brand new Ducky Doo.

In comparison to my 25 year old Duck, this one looks like a whole different plush toy! Mine has no hair, as I cut it off at some point, and is covered in stitches...he's like a Duckenstein at this point!

But he wrapped up his toast and again thanked everyone for coming. Then he made a mistake. He handed the mike over...

To Jill. And a drunk Jill at that!

There's a lot of things people will forget about my wedding. What my dress looked like, how the cake tasted, etc. But no one, and I mean no one, will forget Jill's toast. She started out ok, but ended with telling Brian: "Don't F*** it up!"

Luckily, most people there thought it was hilarious especially if you know her but I took the mike from her anyway and basically told her to sit her drunk ass down.

But instead of being embarrassed or angry.... I had T-Shirts made and put them in our Chinese Christmas!!

Brides dresses Revisited

A couple of years ago, I had helped Kelly with a wedding where the girl had put her mother's wedding dress on display. I thought that was such a great idea. So, being me, I took it to whole new level.

We had 9 or 10 dresses on display. Hence all the naked mannequins in one of the previous posts! We had the wedding dresses of my mom, my aunts Diane, Lori, Betsy, Marilyn, JoAnn, and Meme's Mother of the Bride dress (yes, the one she planned on wearing to the wedding), my great-grandma's dress she wore to Diane's wedding, and what was supposed to be the dress my other Grandma wore to my parents wedding...but it turned out to be a dress that my aunt wore to prom that just happened to look similar. Well they were both yellow.

We had the bridal portraits next to the dresses so that everyone knew what dress went with who.

And then my favorite bridal portrait was the last, next to my mom's dress.

Who Cut the Cake?

Before toasts, we did a quick cake cutting to the song "Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows!" Love that song!! The dessert table was the most amazing thing I have seen in my entire life! The cake turned out gorgeous. The cupcake tiers my dad fought with, luckily, turned out beautifully. And the little touches throughout were just splendid!!

Love this picture. This was exactly what I wanted the dessert table to look like.

These are all so cute and they look so tasty! However, we never got to eat any! The San Luis did make us a nice little plate of everything but, again, we had no time! I think for our anniversary, I'm going to just get a sampler of all this stuff!