sand and souls

So happy I could die. Dramatic I know. I also keep saying phrases like “My heart is LITERALLY going to explode!!!!!” or “I’m so excited I feel like I could throw a hot ball of fire across the WORLD!!!!” as Candace just shakes her head and laughs at me. But how else can I possible describe this feeling!!!???  Of knowing I get to spend the rest of my life with my soulmate… my dream come true. A dream I never knew existed, that I never have to wake up from.  I am grateful because I know this love isn’t ordinary. That not many people find this type of soulmate. One week ago, on 12-11 I married my soulmate. I can not wait to spend the rest of my life making her happy, waking up next to her sweet face, laughing with her all day. Every day with her is an adventure… paradise… a fairytale.

Our wedding was magical.  It was a simple Courthouse wedding with just our families, and on a Friday in December, we were certainly not expecting such a beautiful day in the mid 60s… It felt like summer! We arrived at the courthouse at 1:11 in the afternoon (for those of you that have been following along, you know how important this number is to us, and how often it shows up in our lives!!) The ceremony was short and sweet and emotional. We laughed, we cried, and Candace accidentally hit the Officiant in the face as we excitedly walked out. LOL.

There were so many people that made our day special. Having the support of our families was the most important. It has been a crazy year… and having them stand by us meant everything. Our parents and Candace’s Aunt were TOO generous to us all weekend, treating us to dinners, documenting everything through photographs, showering us with presents, etc. My best friend Erica and her fiancé Joe also came all the way from Baltimore to celebrate with us after our family dinner. Huge, HUGE thank you to my good friend and insanely talented friend Marie Carmel for photographing our day for us… I can’t be more thankful for the images she captured of our love, for each other and for our families. We are bursting with happiness and it shows in each and every image she captured!

After the ceremony we had a champagne toast at the apartment and opened cards and presents from our families. My parents had my Aunt Kristen create a beautifl art piece for us with a poem my dad wrote about our love story… so special ❤

We then headed to dinner at Oovina in Hells Kitchen and they really went above and beyond to make it feel like a real wedding reception. The staff was friendly, accommodating and welcoming. They projected a slideshow of our images on the wall, let us pick our own music, gave us the most delicious dinner and wine pairing and were quite generous with the wine portions 😉

They also let us bring in our own cake. And OMG, that cake. The one we are still eating a week later. (Well, actually Candace cut us off last night… so the rest of it is now packed away in the freezer, and will not be seen again until December of 2016. Unless we come home on a night after too much wine and don’t have any snacks in the house… hehe.) Our friend Rita makes them for a hobby and wouldn’t even let us pay her for it. But I am convinced she needs to open her own shop because she is so damn talented. All I did was show her a picture of our restaurant and told her she could make whatever she wanted, and it was beyond what I would have ever expected.

After dinner we went to Howl at the Moon. Yes, there is a Howl at the Moon in NYC, it just opened, and its AMAZING. The dueling pianos were so much fun, they gave us a ton of free drinks, and  called us up on stage and properly embarrassed the shit out of us ;-p. It was so much fun  that we are going back for New Years Eve with Erica and Joe!!!

It was a perfect day. An epic week, really. We spent the rest of the week eating, drinking, and touring the city. We took our parents to a burlesque show that our amazingly talented friend Sophia Urista is the host of. She treated us like gold, gave us the best table, free champagne, and some extra attention LOL.

And I’m sure you’re all just dying to know why we chose this date 😉 You know how obsessed I’ve become with numbers, so 12-11 obviously has a big story behind it. It started out as just a conveniently placed “11” date, that fell on a Friday one month before our magical number 111, the day we met and the number that follows us everywhere. Our original plan was to elope on 1-11. But as it came closer we really wanted our families to be a part of our day. So we decided to make it a 2 part wedding, the courthouse for the family, and an intimate vow reading on the beach just for us (and a photographer, duh.) After deciding on 12-11, my family mentioned that Saturday the 12th might be easier for everyones schedules. I was kind of bummed about losing my “11” date until I realized the spiritual significance of the number 1212. (I know. Im crazy. It gets worse) 1212 is sort of the sister number to 1111, an represents partnership. So after getting all excited about 1212, we find out that the courts aren’t open on the weekends, what a rollercoaster 😉 Now heres the TRULY crazy part. A few weeks before our wedding we went to get our marriage license. We had no clue what time it was, we just showed up, got it, and left. As we are leaving we look down at our receipt and the time (to the SECOND) reads 12:12:12. You can.not.make.this.stuff.up.

So after getting this little nod from the heavens I felt better about our 12-11 date HA. I ended up reading all this crazy astrology stuff about how 12-11 is some sort of super spiritual 1111 portal because of the way the numbers line up. It also happens to be 11 months from the day Candace and I met, AND it happens to be my grandmas first birthday on the other side. She passed away earlier this year, and she never got to meet Candace. My parents went to a psychic reading a few weeks ago and my Grandma came through immediately and told my parents that she was happy for me, that she would be there, and then she described our cake LOL. I thought she was way off base until we cut into it. She went into detail about “red or pinks sprinkles.” Well, our cake was red velvet. So after cutting a few pieces, there were red flecks everywhere. 🙂

I am still on a high… I am so in love and I am so truly happy. This week was wonderful and I am so excited for what we have in store for us. Just a few weeks til our beach vows and after that a LIFETIME of adventure with my love.

Candace, I am so in love with you. Fireball throwing, heart exploding, so happy I could die kinda love. THANK YOU for coming in to my life, knocking me off my feet, trusting in what we have, and choosing me. I’ve loved you for 1000 years, I’ll love you for 1000 more ;-).