Lavender Kay

Kristen Marie Photography

I have a deep love for ribbon and twine.  Or string or anything of the sort.  I find all the colors, textures and sizes enchanting.  There is just so many things you can do with them.  You can make beautiful cards with ribbon.  A unique piece of ribbon can transform the wrapping of a birthday present.  You can hang different pieces of ribbon against a plain wall to make it fancy.

I find myself keeping ever scrap of ribbon from every present I have ever received.  Jonathan is always surprised to find new pieces of ribbon lying around our apartment.  But I just can’t help myself!  It is so useful. Without twine, my wedding bouquet wouldn’t have turned out as perfect as it was!  So to ribbon and twine, you are one of my favorite things.

PS Thank you to Allie and Kayla and Danielle and everyone who made the beautiful bouquets at my wedding!  They were superb.

I just finished up designing and packaging some wedding invitations for a friend of Holly’s.  I had SO much fun with these invitations and I am just loving paper bag brown right now!  Here are a few pictures I took of the invitations.  They kind of took over our living room for a few days!

Sometimes I forget what a walk through my neighborhood does for my happiness.  The long winter spell Spokane had this year took away all my desire to go on walks.  But with new neighborhoods to explore and glimpses of the sun, I have gained a new appreciation for walking. It calms my nerves and clears my mind.

Weddings bring about so much stress whether we want them to or not.  I plan weddings for a living and I am still amazed by all the little details involved.  Make reservations.  Call florists.  Set up appointments.  Make a thousand decisions.  To do lists!  The hope is that it is all worth it in the end and you can enjoy the big day.  I am going to commit to enjoying my wedding.  What a novel idea!  I am not going to let the day pass we by but instead I am going to try and soak up every moment.  I am going to enjoy all the wonderful people and dance the night away.  Hopefully 🙂

I was going through old photographs for our wedding slide show and found a few that I had to share.

World Fair

Sunglasses

Easter dresses

While in London I stumbled upon a fresh flower market similar to this picture.  The store was white and clean and fresh.  This is the inspiration for my wedding theme.  Market Fresh. (Jonathan came up with the name:)

So I haven’t written in a long time so if anyone reads this, I want to thank you in advance for being a dedicated follower to my blog!

I originally started this blog for my European adventure and now I have decided to extend it to the rest of my messy, thrilling life.

To start – I am getting married!  Jonathan and I have decided to spend the rest of our lives together and I couldn’t be happier.  For those of you who don’t know our journey together, here it is.  We grew up next door neighbors. His sister Joy Anna, was my best friend and Jonathan was just the older brother who gave me rides to school.  We became friends before I graduated high school but soon after we lost track of each other for almost 7 years.  Then last year found each other again.  We fell in love and it has been nothing but joy and laughter ever since.  I never believed people who said when they got engaged they just knew it was right.  Until now.  Saying yes to Jonathan was one of the easiest decision I have ever made.  Thank you Jonathan for being the most wonderful person I know.

So we picked a date, April 9th and will get married in the White Room in Spokane, WA.  I have never really wanted a conventional wedding and by the way we have planned this celebration, I think I will get my wish.

Stay tuned for more on our wedding plans and the exciting future ahead!

Muenster:

Three years ago I got the privilege of meeting Stefan and Andrea in Muenster, Germany and ever since I have been trying to find a way to make it back.  Last week I got to stay with them for a few days and explore their wonderful city.  They were willing to open their home to us and my time there was wonderful.  I am amazed by their hosipitality and friendship.  I left feeling like I had made two lifelong friends.

Muenster is a beautiful university town thriving with people and bikes!  There is a statistic that says for every one person in Muenster there are two bikes!  We rented bikes one of the days we were there and rode all around the city and along the lake.  So far, Muenster has had the best weather out of all the places we have been and we were able to enjoy the sun as we rode around the streets of city.  My time with Stefan and Andrea was rich with laughter and great conversation.  Two of our nights there were also spent meeting their friends and it was so wonderful to just take part in their lives for a few days.  I am lucky to have them as my friends and it is my hope that this meeting wasn’t our last. That one day I will make it back again.

Frankfurt:

We got the unique experience of attending a banquet for the ministry Justin and Heather Tillery run in Germany.  This banquet was a celebration for their trip to Romania and a time of affirmation for the people involved.  Justin and Heather picked us up at our train stop and drove a to a beautiful home outside the city.  We ment many wonderful people and helped them prepare for the banquet.  We all decided it was nice to take part in normal life activities for a change.  At the end of the banquet we watched a slide show illustrating the past year in Youth Compass.  Justin and Heather are doing such a wonderful job ministering to these students and their community.   I went to Germany with Justin and Heather 3 years ago and it is so exciting to see them back here again and making a difference in the lives of people here.

The day after the banquet we were able to spend some time with Justin and Heather.  They showed us around their wonderful city.  We had lunch at an outdoor cafe and enjoyed ice cream as we walked along the river.  It was so good to see them in their ministry and here about their lives.

London is full of daffodils.  They are everywhere.  We visited so many enchanting parks during our stay and the color yellow surrounded us.  We probably had an abnormal London experience because the weather was beautiful making it possible to be outside all the time and walk everywhere.  (Aside from using the wonderful underground tube!)

We rented a room in an old couple’s flat and were not prepared for what we experienced there!  The wife was away in Switzerland skiing and we were left with 77-year-old John for our entire stay.  I wish I could put into words what this man was like.  He is an self taught artist with art in the famous V and A museum which he reminded us about every 3 minutes.  He would walk into our room randomly just to chat if we didnt keep our door locked.  He gave us a 6am wake up call to remind us about breakfast at 9am AND supposedly his son is in the Russian Mafia One day at breakfast he was telling us his agent never paid him our deposit.  Here is his quote, “My son can contact his people and they will blow his head off.”  Very interesting man.  But dont worry, we made it out alive.

Here is my favorites list for London (in no particular order):

1. Wicked

2. Sitting in lawn chairs in St. James Park

3. Walking across all the bridges

4. Big Ben and the House of Parlament

5. Meeting up with friends we met earlier in our travels

6. Billy Elliot

7. Jogging through Hyde park with Laura

8. Platform 9 and 3/4 (of course)

9. The underground

10. Daffodils.  So many daffodils.

11. Getting a library card and feeling like we were home for a week

12. Sunday church at Westminster Abby

London was incredible.  All that I hoped it would be.