1 year

We celebrated our first year of marriage by going right back to where it all started! The Manor offers a year round Sunday buffet brunch that is packed to the gills with the most amazing spread of food you would ever lay your eyes on!

The snowy entrance

I made some reservations to surprise Kevin with a nice date right back where we said "I do." It was the perfect day as large flakes of snow slowly fell through the entire meal, and the beautiful Manor property  was covered in fresh white snow. It was surprisingly warm and still outside. We walked around and looked down on the gazebo that we shot so many beautiful pictures in.

This is the view that closed the deal for us! Perfect!

It was odd being back there with all these people we didn't know. The last time I looked around a room at The Manor, it was filled with happy friends and family sharing in our celebration of love.

We walked around just taking it all in. We had stuffed ourselves on an amazing spread of food, but I didn't want to leave. I wanted to be right back there in the happiest moments of my life. I wanted my family and my friends to be there, but we have such great memories to hold onto and I wouldn't trade that for the world.

Us with our tummies very full!!

After we were full and tired, we walked waddled back to the car and went home. We wanted to have a quiet day, just us, and thats what we had. We cuddled in our pyjamas and watched movies on TV. It was perfect, and totally us. Just near the end of the movie we were watching Kevin disappeared for a little bit. I didn't even realize he had been gone for as long as he was, when he appeared again and asked me to close my eyes. I heard him walk close to me and when he gave me the cue to open my eyes I saw the most amazing gift. He had framed the speech that he said at the wedding in a beautiful oversized frame. He wrote it all out and added his favourite pictures all around the outside. I was speechless! (No pun intended). It was beautiful and so very thoughtful. Not even a week before, I was thinking to myself about how I wanted to get everyones speeches for a keepsake and he comes home with this amazing gift! I couldn't thank him enough.

Kevin's gift to me. 

His thoughtful words that still bring a tear to my eyes. 

I teared up a little but managed to pull myself together enough to give him the gift that I made. Kevin loves my handmade crafts so I knew he would appreciate this. I brainstormed a while ago about the 6 most memorable moments of our lives together and decided to make a keepsake for him. I wrote them down and tried as best as I could to remember the exact locations of each of these memories. I had seen so many variations of this on craft sites and knew he would love it. I printed out the maps from a search in google, and made labels for each moment to put under them. It was cute and meaningful and I knew he would love it! He is always talking about how we need to put more things up on the wall so I thought this was perfect. It cost me no money as I found the frame in my craft room, and I printed everything else off on our printer. (I knew he would love that I saved money... for once) He absolutely LOVED it!

My gift to my Hubby on our 1 year anniversary

It was wonderful! We both gave each other thoughtful, hand made gifts! And the bonus was that they both were made of paper which is the traditional gift for a first anniversary.

We later went over to our parents for an Oscar party and were surprised with some super adorable balloons!

Thanks Mom & Dad!

We received so many amazing wishes, cards in the mail, emails and messages from the family and friends that attended our wedding! It was truly touching that all these people remembered and were thoughtful enough to send us their wishes. And just when I thought it was all over, I had a delivery at work! Our good friends had sent us a bouquet of the most beautiful flowers I had ever seen! I truly felt so touched!

Thank you Giulia and Steve! 

It was a great day! It wasn't too fancy, we didn't go over the top, and we did everything we wanted to... And it was just perfect!