the professional pictures are here! sort of ...

my photographer just sent me the link to our wedding pictures! YAY! Check them out. I will have my digital copy sometime next week and then I will share them on the blog! Until then ... click through until you have had your fill!

the family dug up a few more wedding photos

Thanks to my mother-in-law, we have a few more wedding photos to share while we patiently wait for the professional photos. Thanks Gennie!

one of our best!

Jonas reaching for my owl pendant I had attached to my flowers. How fun is that bouquet?!

Nate's oldest brother Joe and his wife Sara and their girls Libby and Jenna.

Sara made Libby and Jenna's dress - these girls are sooo super cute!

I throw this one in to illustrate my niece Brooklyn's great affection for Nate.
When we came out of the temple, her first question was:
"Uncle Nate, why did you marry Aunt B?"

Nathan, Grandma Soelberg, and my father-in-law Craig

The happy couple kneel down to talk to Jimmie and Jenna on the steps of the temple.

10 of our 13 nieces and nephews pictured here:
Hunter, Cameron, Libby, Jenna, Mikyla, Monica, Terrick, Joaquin, Jimmie, and Annabelle
(held by Kate - Nate's younger sister)

All 5 Soelberg kids!
(Ben, Joe, Nate, Kate, Steve)

Beautiful Temple, Beautiful Day

My sister-in-law Kate and her yummy 5 month old Annabelle

This girl is sooo smiley, I love it!


And our favorite picture of the bunch:

I love the attitude on my face (I was annoyed at the wind I think) and his discontent at the idea of holding back my veil all day ... hahahahaha! Also, check out the face on Nathan Soelberg ...
he makes it often ... I laugh everytime!

a few more pictures ... but not quite satisfying ... i know

18 days and counting

It has been 18 days since I gained a husband and became a wife and a Soelberg … sounds like a lot – right? But I must admit it feels really normal. Sure there are things to get used to – like sharing my bed and my bathroom with a boy, but generally it feels super natural for me. I am not sure Nate would agree … but maybe he would … I honestly don’t know.

I know you are all interested in seeing more pictures of the wedding … so am I … so hopefully we will get more photos from friends and family while waiting for the professional ones. I have sent out a plea to my family to share any pictures they may have snapped of the big day.

I also wanted to let you all know what we have been up to during our first few weeks of wedded bliss. Over 18 days we have been to the following cities:

- Newport Beach, CA
- Laguna Beach, CA
- Irvine, CA
- Bakersfield, CA
- Los Angeles, CA
- Miami, FL
- Cococay, Bahamas
- Nassau, Bahamas
- Eugene, OR
- Silverdale, WA
- Port Ludlow, WA
- Des Moines, WA
- Seattle, WA

NEWPORT BEACH, LAGUNA BEACH, IRVINE
Your tired just reading the list aren’t you? Yeah. So am I. How and why did we cover so much ground? Well, we were married in Newport Beach, then we stayed in Laguna Beach at a cute little hotel on Pacific Coast Highway and went to the beach and ate breakfast at the Cottage each morning! It was very relaxing to hang out at the beach after the excitement of the wedding. We then spent Labor Day with my entire family at my parent’s community pool and topped it off with a BBQ. My nieces and nephews LOVE to play with Uncle Nate – oh, and my two older brothers also enjoyed playing with Nate, including him in a little game of catch while in the pool.

BAKERSFIELD, MIAMI, BAHAMAS
It was off to Bakersfield for a few days with the Soelberg’s and our second reception – we had so much fun and received a warm welcome from family and friends. I loved wearing my wedding dress again and enjoyed the beautiful flowers and decorations arranged by my MIL (mother in law) Gennie. We then headed down to Los Angeles where we caught a plane to Miami, spending the night there before heading out on a three day cruise to the Bahamas, visiting Cococay and Nassau. The islands were beautiful and the people-watching on the boat was even better. While we don’t quite think we “cruise people,” we did enjoy ourselves since we didn’t have to worry much about anything while on the boat.

SILVERDALE, PORT LUDLOW
Flying back out of Miami and into LAX, we spent one more night back in Irvine and then one last night in Bakersfield – we expressed are sincere thanks and appreciation and said “so long until December” to our families and headed out on the 12 hour drive to Eugene. After only two nights in Eugene we got back in Ruby (our trusty Scion) and headed farther north to the Seattle area to visit Grandma Craig in Silverdale (Nate’s maternal grandmother) and Jim & Denise in Port Ludlow (Nate’s Aunt and Uncle.) Due to health and other constraints, many family members were unable to attend our wedding and so we decided to go visit and spend time with them. We are sooo glad we did! We had such a great time and got to spend more time talking with them at their homes than we would have at our wedding.

DES MOINES, SEATTLE
While in the area we also stayed with some family friends of the Soelbergs from Nate’s “home ward” in Des Moines, Washington (a suburb RIGHT outside of Seattle.) The Gleasons and the Pedersens received us warmly and they are now some of my favorite people. We talked extensively with each couple about the past, present, and future, as well as the gospel and the Lord’s plan for us. It was wonderful!

Another reason for heading up North was to attend Nate’s 10-year High School Reunion at Kell’s Irish Pub in West Seattle. It was really fun to see and talk with old friends of Nate’s. There was a good turn out and he really had a good time, even though the bar was crowded and loud. Nate’s voice was gone by the time we left!

EUGENE
It has been a journey. We are currently house-sitting in Eugene at our single’s ward Bishop’s house while him and his wife are in Hawaii! We are so very grateful for their generosity in letting us live in their beautiful and spacious house out in the country! It has been really fun for us and has helped give us some more time to apartment-hunt and find the right place for us. We know that the Lord is leading and guiding us to the right place and continually blesses us as we strive to be like our Savior. We feel blessed and are filled with gratitude for the love and support we have and continue to receive from all we come in contact with. We pray that it will continue as we work to finish school and find temporary employment and make plans to live abroad.

More Updates to Come!

bliss

A sneak peak into the wedding day ... more pictures to come when we get settled ... all I can say is that it was wonderful ... beautiful ... perfect ... in a word - BLISS.

Photos courtesy of Kelly - thank you!

seven days ... and counting

While its been a blast being in the same city, and the same house even,
for the past two and a half weeks ...
its going to be great not living down the hall from each other.

It will also be nice to not be living with my parents (as much as we have loved hanging out with them) and sharing my mom's kitchen.

I can't wait for us to have our own place!

I am also super excited to not be sleeping alone anymore ...
seriously, its one of the things I disliked most about being single.
Going to bed alone and making decisions alone are the things I will miss least (at least at first ;\)

These past few weeks with finalizing the wedding plans, it is all sinking in.
I. AM. GETTING. MARRIED.

In all honesty I have thought a lot about how I would feel when this time came.

To be married in the TEMPLE is something I have always wanted
and I have often wondered what it would be like.

How would I know? What would I feel like?

I can't really describe either, except like this:

I have never loved anyone like I love Nate.
I love him in a complete way ... in a way that makes me want to be better
and I am excited to meet the challenges of life with him.

Each day (even when we fight) I feel like we grow a little closer ... he finds a new way to make me laugh (even without trying) and I feel my love and appreciation for him deepen.

I could not be happier!

guess who's coming to town??

but who's counting?

5 days until Nate is in Irvine!
YAY!

28 days until we are married!
Double YAY!

For TIME & ALL ETERNITY!
(whoa - right?)

I like us ... I hope you do too!

sneak peaks ... 31 days out

Since most of the people who read my sparse (as of late) posts are old friends that unfortunately will not be attending the wedding celebration, I thought I would give you a sneak peak into what I have been busy working on. I feel like our wedding reception will be fairly low-key ... with basically all the decorations done by me. I have some very distinct ideas of what I like and its my first real opportunity to try out some my decorating ideas. As many of you know - I like very flowery, swirly, "baroque" (if you will), heavy decorations. Clean and simple lines are not really my thing. So naturally our wedding will reflect this. I do however subscribe to the philosophy that less is more ... so that translates to not a lot of things but the things that are in the room are very busy and ornate. Enough talk ... now for the pictures! Remember this is a sneak peak ... which means that these are process photos ... showing you the work I have been doing which includes, painting, printing and planting mostly.

Before:
Ikea frames I have been wanting for years now but never could justify more than one since I don't really have a real home to decorate. Now they are mine! YAY!

During: Priming the original black ... lots of nooks & crannies!

After: Ta-Da! Navy blue with a little antique white dry-brushing ...
we had to trim the canvas to fit the oval because of course Ikea can't make a standard oval dimension ... sheesh. Had fun picking the font (trying to match the invitation font) and trying to get it to look just right. Also had fun (read the sarcasm here) printing the individual letters as large as I could ... then ironed on the letters one at a time so they would overlap!

Before: My dad had these sweet gilted frames up in the attack that he had rescued from the dumpster at work. Can you believe people were just throwing these away?! The red and gold was not working for us though ... so I got to priming again.

During: Primer ... again.

After: Two frames done in the same way as the Ikea frames. They turned out really well!

After (again): This is how one of the frames will be used. Printed the sign at OfficeMax for $3! That of course is without mounting, which I will do myself. I will mount it to foamcore that my dad also rescued from the dumpster at work! YAY!

My beautiful map ... I don't want to give away all the fun ... so I will tell you about this after the wedding (for those that won't be there)

Succulent Lovelies: I potted all these succulents (they are desert plants in the cactus family) in vintage milkglass that I had scouted out in thrift stores. I really like how they turned out. No two are the same really ... different plants in different arrangements in different vases or bowls. These are the table center pieces which will have navy table cloths.

SO THERE IS YOUR SNEAK PEAK! HOPE YOU ARE AS EXCITED AS I AM TO SHARE OUR WEDDING ... EITHER ON SEPTEMBER 5TH OR AFTER ON MY BLOG!

P.S. Don't panic if you have not received your invitation ... they haven't been sent yet (EEKKK - i know miss manners is shaking her finger at me ... we are having a printer issue ... should go out next week I hope!!)

check us out

The 4th of July was a blast! I have never been sooo close to fireworks in my whole life. I love love love fireworks and since last year I was in Europe for the holiday, I was super excited to see them this year. The added excitement of meeting Nate's family a few days after packing up my last apartment as a single woman (and there have been a lot of them ... so this is a big deal) made the fireworks show ever so much more exciting. All in all we had so much fun visiting with the Soelbergs and I am excited to be apart of that family in just a few months.

Two of his brothers were in town (we missed his oldest brother, sister-in-law, and the girls) and the four of us went rock climbing (my first time) and it was sooo fun! Nate's camera has the pictures we took with his family over the 4th of July ... and we left that at their house on accident ... so no cool rock climbing and fire work pictures just yet.

But we did have my sister-in-law take some fun photos of us while in Irvine.

The "Heisman" pose - it was Nate and my brother's idea ...
plus we wanted to do a P90X move.

Just getting comfortable with Korean culture ...
the peace-sign is big with asian girls... and my hippie father.

Trying to sit up straight without looking unnatural.

Nate showing me "the game plan" ... to what you might ask?
I have no idea.

This one is for all the sappy people ... who like the whole kissing thing.
(I'll admit it ... I like kissing pictures ... even if its hard to capture a good one)

the thesis is done ... the wedding is on

it is official, ladies and (lets be honest ... only ladies read this blog) ... i am officially a master. sigh. it feels ... well cool ... but not as cool as i had hoped. the last five days before my thesis was due were horrible (to put it mildly) and tainted my experience a little bit. my thesis adviser out of the blue just told me (through another person - not even to my face) that my thesis just wasn't what he was hoping it was going to be - it just wasn't quite there. yup ... he said that to someone else who was suppose to tell me that. awesome - right?

sigh. needless to say i freaked out and told them it was not an option to stick around and spend the money and the time to re-write my thesis and that i didn't understand why this hadn't come up MONTHS ago. why was he dropping this bomb on me FIVE DAYS before it was due to the graduate school?

so the whole thing was anti-climatic because i basically said "you know its good enough ... just pass me and let me get on my way please!" ... the problem was that he and my reader and myself for that matter knew that i could have written a better thesis. i have the ability to do better. but the reality is this: i didn't have enough guidance, time, or money. that is the hard truth. there are real constraints in the real world and i experienced the cold reality of it.

i have come to terms with it. i decided long ago that i would never bleed for my academic or professional career. i would never let it define me or validate me. and i stuck to that - so that i am okay with and proud of myself for not letting this all get to me too much.

i think this healthy perspective directly correlates with my upcoming sealing in the newport beach temple on september 5th.

The Ring:

Speaking of which ... I know you ladies are all dying to see the ring ... so here it is! It was my grandmothers (on my mom's side) and I have always loved it. As a child I would hold my grandmothers hand and stare at it ... I always thought it was so beautiful. My grandfather came home one day over forty years ago and told my grandmother to go pick out a new ring since hers had broken or had been lost. My mom was a little girl at the time and remembers going to the jewelery store in Los Angeles with her.

A few years ago my grandmother passed away and my mom has been wearing this ring on her right hand ever since. Every time I am in town or hanging out with my mom for a few days I would always ask to wear it for the duration of my stay (on my right hand of course.) Then, when our visit was over my mom would ask for it back. I once asked her if she might consider letting me have it as my wedding ring ... if that was ever a possibility one day. She said I could if I wanted it.

But of course that was all said very casually ... so about a month ago I asked her if that was really a possibility and she said of course! I gave Nate the option of the ring, since I had already sufficiently scared him by telling him that I wanted a vintage ring. He had no idea how to go about finding and picking out such a thing. He also was very concerned that I was trying to make it easy on him by suggesting my grandmother's ring and said very seriously: "Bethany, this is a big deal. If you want a new ring, lets get you one. I don't want you to compromise on this because you are worried about the cost." So I looked just to make everyone (and myself) feel better. I tried rings on and was very overwhelmed by the shinny and overly crazy bling that is out there in the jewelery world. Nothing, not even simple diamond bands, seemed right or seemed to fit what I was looking for. Flat out I just didn't like any of the rings I saw. It made me feel better about the decision to wear my grandmother's ring. I know I will always be happy I picked this ring as my engagement/wedding ring.

We have considered adding to it, but every time we talk to a jeweler about it I get worried and don't feel good about it. Its unique and hard to add to without changing the look too much. Maybe one day we will ... but for now I am super happy with it!

Ring Details:

It is white gold with a center round cut diamond that is flush with the band and is almost a 1/2 carat. There are five "leaves" on each side that have little diamond chips in them. There are a total of 11 diamonds in the ring. We had it cleaned, resized, and almost all of the diamonds repointed (or basically the prongs that hold the diamond in were redone to make sure that everything is good to go for another 40+ years!)