Yesterday Brian and I celebrated our four-year anniversary. Yep, we got married on the 4th of July! It’s obviously not your typical anniversary date because most people don’t share their anniversary with America’s birthday. But when we were planning our big day, we were left with very few date options. We wanted something unique, casual and outdoors for our venue, and unfortunately there wasn’t much to pick from in the southwest PA area. At the last minute,  my mom thankfully found The Hayloft in Rockwood, PA and it was perfect! We could get married outside and have our reception in a barn! I was SOLD! I didn’t even visit the venue before the reservation was made. I simply looked at the pictures online, trusted my mom’s description and went with it! The Hayloft had one date left for 2008 and that was the 4th of July. The venue was just too good to pass up so Brian and I agreed and hoped our friends and family wouldn’t mind sharing their summer holiday with us. 🙂

Note: pictures were taken by Photographic Memories and Carole Vilella Photography (my mom!).

Four years doesn’t seem like a lot, especially when my parents just celebrated their 30th and my grandparents their 56th, but I feel like it’s a lot and I feel like we’re getting kinda old already! I guess that’s what kids will do to ya. 🙂 HA! Brian and I have actually been together for almost seven years. We started dating during my sophomore and his senior year of college. We had about seven months together at Bridgewater before we did long distance for over two years (I cried a lot…I hated being away from Brian). I graduated from college and less than two months later, we were married!

It was neat to remember our wedding day as I looked back through our pictures. Even though it was July, it wasn’t super hot that day and it rained for most of it. Despite the rain and disappointing fact that we couldn’t have an outdoor ceremony after all, we still had a wonderful time with our friends and family. We took lots of pictures, had lots of laughs, ate many delicious cookies and brought down the house on the dance floor! It was an awesome day and I’m still so thankful for everyone that helped us put it together and for everyone that skipped out on their 4th of July festivities to help us celebrate!

Guests relocating to the covered porch for the ceremony…

Brian’s parents

My family

I loved our wedding day and I love my honey! He’s an awesome dad and a caring husband. We’ve had a ton of fun in the past seven years as a couple…we’ve had a couple moves in three different states, we had a baby, we’ve changed jobs, I became a business owner…and I’m excited to see what the future will bring for us! Maybe one more move and at least one more baby!?! 😉

Ready! Oh my room was a mess!!! The result of moving out, packing up, getting ready for the wedding and hosting some bridesmaids all at the same time!

Silly me, I forgot to brush my teeth before getting dressed!

Make-shift studio in my parents’ bedroom…

One of my favorite pictures from the day! Just a clean and simple bridal portrait. 🙂

It stopped raining in the afternoon just in time for some outdoor pictures!

Loved my hydrangeas!!!

The Silver Bullet! This got my butt around during high school…such an embarrassing car. 🙂

Honey is a model. 😉

I LOVED our cupcake cake! We were able to have five different flavors!!!

Cookie tables are a big wedding tradition in the southwest PA area and I believe they originated with the Polish? We had about 2400 cookies at the wedding…thanks to my mom, my grandmas, our good friend Kim and a couple bakers. Each guest could eat at least a dozen!

I made fans that also doubled as programs! Too bad it wasn’t hot enough that day to actually need fanning…

The barn all ready to go for the reception! I was so happy with how everything turned out! The ambiance and decorations were beautiful.

We saw lots of umbrellas that day…

This was Brian’s idea…:)

Receiving line time! I usually dislike when my couples have a receiving line (because it cuts into picture time), but I can honestly say I really enjoyed having one at our wedding. It was so great greeting people right after one of the happiest moments of my life!

We were a fun yet discombobulated wedding party. 🙂

These were for our thank you cards. 🙂

We encouraged everyone in our wedding party to have fun with their introduction. We played some Jock Jams to let everyone know we were ready to party!

Oh Timmy. 🙂

Brian and I came into the Indiana Jones theme song. And in true Indiana Jones fashion, Brian hoisted me over his shoulders!

We had fun. 🙂

I just love this picture of the barn! So pretty!!!

Timmy’s speech has been called “epic” and “legendary.” It will never be forgotten!

A-10!

I believe this was taken during “Shout”…I told you we brought the house down!

Representin’ Bridgewater College!

Representin’ Geibel Catholic High School!

Bridal dance time! We had wayyyy too much fun with this!

Excuse my semi-scary face in this one…

And we couldn’t have a fourth of July wedding without some sort of fireworks! Well, we didn’t get fireworks because they were super expensive, so we went with sparklers instead.

What a fun day! Thanks for marrying me, honey!!! 🙂