since being back in hawaii the past 2 weeks, i think i have seen more of the island than i have in the past several months! now that wedding planning is over (and not consuming my every spare minute!) and i have the luxury of making my own schedule, i am making it a point to get outside more. it’s easy to forget how beautiful this island is when you are trapped inside a cubicle all day and leave the office after dark! this past saturday we ventured over to makapu’u beach and hiked mariner’s ridge. it was so nice to be outdoors in the sunshine – especially in december! i am looking forward to many more adventures on this little island.
monday morning.
this is what my monday morning looked like. today is my self-established first day “back to work” since our wedding festivities officially ended last week. i already love working from home and really am the happiest i have ever been because 1) married life is AWESOME since it’s just a sleepover every night with your best friend!! and 2) pursuing design full time is a dream come true and i cannot wait to get my studio up and running! we are adjusting to newlywed life quite well and making our first home together as cozy as ever. lots of italy photos coming later this week!
p.s. thank you ALL so much for the sweet comments on our wedding video!!! i really was touched by all of them. and um, how sweet are reis’ dance moves? boy likes to groove.
our wedding video.
our wedding day really was the best day of our lives — so cliché, but so true. and we are so ecstatic that the entire day was captured on film by ryan mcduff of mcduff productions. he is a truly amazing videographer and we highly recommend him!! he made us feel really comfortable the entire day, is super professional (and not to mention extremely talented!!), and is just the nicest guy. he was so kind to have edited our video in less than 2 weeks so we could show it at our hawaii reception! we love everything about it. and i have definitely watched it in the triple digits by now…i can’t help but re-live that day over and over again!
we hope you enjoy!
we’re married and back from italy!
what. a. month. (the best month of my life!)
we had the most incredible wedding day on november 11 (i will be sharing our wedding video on thursday!!), spent an amazing 10 days on our honeymoon in italy (i am so in love with that beautiful country), got back to hawaii the night before thanksgiving (which we celebrated with my entire family that flew out here to the islands), and concluded our wedding celebrations with a beautiful north shore reception on saturday! we have been hanging out with my family for the past week and i am sad to say bye to my parents and grandparents who leave today. it has been such a sweet and exciting month for us newlyweds and we are overwhelmed with gratitude for all of the people in our lives who have made this time so very special. i am excited to share with you all that has been going on this past month via lots and lots of photos! and now that christmas is around the corner, the excitement really never ends!
branding our wedding (and i’m getting married THIS weekend!)
wedding weekend is finally here!!! oh my goodness. after 8 1/2 months of planning, i cannot believe this weekend has come! time flies when you are planning a wedding, i tell ya. we flew into california last weekend and [with lots of help] have spent this past week crafting, gluing, tape-gunning, eyeleting, cutting, arranging, creating mock-ups, and doing last minute designing. it’s been a blast and i am excited and ready to see everything come together (and to finally get some sleep…well, after the honeymoon anyways). my family arrived in santa barbara last night and the rehearsal dinner is in a few hours! weee!
my approach to planning was this: BRANDING OUR WEDDING. i love designing (hence, my new career path), so designing every. single. little. detail. for our big day was a dream come true. there are so many little details and i cannot wait to share all of them here on the blog! i have a whole slew of wedding posts in the queue when we get back so check back in a few weeks. my vision for the design aspect of our wedding was small, local coffeeshop branding meets wedding. does that even make sense? probably not. trust me, though, everything turned out exactly how i envisioned and looks really cool (to me, at least)!
we will probably be instagrammin’ lots this weekend, so you can follow the hashtag #jaymeeandreis for wedding weekend pics! (or follow me @jayadores)!
a big announcement.
i have some big news! i quit my full-time job as a tax accountant and am going to pursue my passion of freelance graphic design. wednesday was my last day [hopefully ever] in corporate america and i could not be more excited to start this next chapter in my life doing what i love. i have always loved design, but in the past two years my passion for it has grown exponentially. i tried doing it on the side for a little bit, but with public accounting, there really is no such thing as a side job. it’s impossible. i can’t wait to dive full force into this whole freelance thing once we get back from our honeymoon! i know it will be tough and extremely challenging (um, hello no steady income) — but in the best way possible and worth every bit of hard work. i have so many things i want to create and so many projects i want to pursue and i am thrilled to be able to do that now!
we leave saturday for california (our wedding is in 10 days!) and i am feeling incredibly blessed and joyful right now in this exciting time with so much to look forward to.
lots more to come soon (and so many things i can’t wait to share!). this whole freelance thing means more blogging too. hooray!
*i gave my blog a temporary facelift (much cleaner and simpler!) until the grand launch of my new site sometime in january! super excited about that too.