The Wedding & Honeymoon

One month ago today we said "I do"! It was a crazy busy weekend, but everything turned out amazing.

The day of started bright and early with some very un-fun stomach issues and terrible allergies (constant sneezing, runny nose, etc.). Not exactly how you want to start your wedding day. Luckily, after a pretty bland breakfast and a lot of immodium, my stomach issues subsided and by the time we got to the hall, I was done sneezing.

We had a beautiful, slightly-chilly, overcast day which explains the allergies. Our pictures really turned out amazing though, and it was better than being over 100 degrees!

Photo by my beautiful sister

My beautiful sister. Taken by our photographer on my sister's phone 

My daddy walking me down the aisle <3 Photo by Amy Rush

My aunts decorated the gazebo for us and it looked so beautiful! Photo by Amy Rush

Yay we're married! Photo by Amy Rush

Cheers! We drank whiskey instead of champagne ;) Photo by Amy Rush

First dance. Photo by Amy Rush

The next day we opened our gifts and then drove 12-ish hours to Pensacola, Florida for our honeymoon. It was a very long and exhausting drive...we didn't get there until around 2am. But man, when we woke up the next morning and looked out our balcony, it was totally worth it:

View of the bay from our balcony.

Another view from our balcony.

Down at the board walk

On the beach <3

We went to the beach every day while we were down there and we took a nap every afternoon. That's the life, my friends. We had such a relaxing week and we're so grateful that we were able to go.

Dinner at Casino Beach Bar & Grille--fish tacos with plantain chips! So delicious! 

Yes, I read Anna Karenina on the beach.

Sunset from our balcony <3

McGuire's is just the best.

I didn't worry too much about my food sensitivities while we were down there--I just wanted to enjoy myself. So I ate gluten and dairy basically whenever I felt like it. And I actually felt pretty good all week long. I think travel has a pretty big affect on my digestion (in a good way!), so that helped too. But more on that later.

Boxties! They were so delicious!

We wrote on a dollar and hung it up, so he had to kiss the moose! Which of course I couldn't get a picture of. :(

Our dollar is now hanging in McGuire's.

So we accidentally ordered crabs instead of crab legs. Those are whole crabs...eyes and all. Creepy. But delicious. Also not worth all the extra work. 

Footprints in the sand <3

I tried oysters for the first time! I won't do raw ones...those totally gross me out. But these were pretty damn good! 

We ate at a restaurant on the beach called Hemingway's. It was awesome (I had red snapper and it was delicious) and they had lots of cool stuff in there and, naturally, I bought a t-shirt from them.

We woke up super early Saturday morning to make the 13-hour drive up to Chicago to see the game on Sunday. Another long drive. We attempted to listen to an audio book, but it made me really sleepy, so we listened to my awesome road trip playlist instead. :)

On our way to the Cards-Cubs game in Chicago!

Oh yeah, we won! The only game the Cards won that weekend and we got to be there to see it!

We can't go to Chicago without stopping for pizza! Giordano's is our absolute favorite! Plus they have chicken sausage so yay for me!

On Monday we made our way back home after driving up to Wisconsin to buy beer (Spotted Cow is delicious guys). I was sad our trip was over. I went an entire week without being stressed, without having constant stomach issues, and without worrying about our financial situation. It was incredible.

While we were on our honeymoon, we did a ton of walking. Pretty much after every meal we did at least a small amount of walking. And I think that, combined with the travel, really helped my digestion. So I've been experimenting with that since I got home. I'll do a full post on that later. 

Since we've been back, we've been busy writing thank you notes, getting our house back in order, and putting away wedding gifts. We've still got a few sitting around that we have to make room for, but we're almost done! Things are starting to get back to normal and it's extremely nice to not have the stress of wedding planning. 

It's good to be back!