Lately

This past weekend, as I walked back towards our front door under live oak trees, the smell of autumn hit me. I remember one fall in particular in Portland, where my early morning drives to work were fog-draped and smelled like the smoke from burned leaf piles. This was that smell, despite the balmy daytime temps. I think autumn is my favorite season because it signals a winding down of the year, a slowing down of the world, darker evenings and cozy nights by a fire, seeking warmth inside a home that has been turned into a nest with blankets and pillows on the sofa.

I'm beginning to pull knit sweaters and cardigans out of one of our closets and move flowy blouses in to the wardrobe. The frenetic changes that happen here, from tornado watches to crisp blue skies in the span of a day, put me at a loss as to what I should wear. I find that I return to the same wardrobe staples every year: sleeveless shells in a jewel tone, Breton stripes, ballet flats that bite into my feet but look so cute before they are tossed across the room. One thing I have loved about the South so far is the unabashed embrace of color. I am drawn to neutrals and as a city girl owned every shade of black and gray possible... but I'm venturing into new territory with burnt orange and sapphire. This photo above is me saluting the direct order from my husband to eat lunch, something that can slip my mind and lead to an incredibly grumpy wife. 

The Knot

Our wedding was selected for a small slideshow on the Knot for Phoenix. There are only a few of our professional photos featured, but it is darling to see our wedding described as 'simple and romantic,' the two things I wanted to emphasize the most during our planning stage.

I've always liked those Q and A sessions that wedding sites do with a bride after the big day, and since I had some of my pre-wedding thoughts here on the blog (before my zen-aesthetic took over and I cleared out all of my previous entries), I thought I would include some of my answers that I provided to the lovely people at the Knot.

The Dress:
I never really pictured wedding dresses in my mind growing up, though I did used to wrap my mother's eyelet lace comforter around myself and swoon about in the living room. I was fortunate enough to go wedding dress shopping with my mother, one of my best friends who served as bridesmaid, and my best friend's sweet baby daughter. Baby girl slept through the whole appointment, which was the cutest thing ever. I ended up purchasing the very first dress I tried on (out of a whopping two total), and it was the only one I really had my eye on after looking through magazines. I loved the linen texture, it was so light and airy, and it had pockets which delighted me to no end. I had very few alterations made to the design: just removing a detail on the bodice that didn't suit my minimalistic taste.

Flowers:
Blooms are one of the more important luxuries in life for me, and I always try to have flowers around our home. I loved working with my florist, someone who I trusted implicitly to execute my vision of romantic, lush wildflower bouquets. I carried a bouquet of garden roses, lisianthus, ranunculus, veronica, seeded eucalyptus, and by special request, Queen Anne's lace (my absolute favorite 'weed'). The bridesmaids' bouquets were similar, with lots of pale cream and blush tones, with the girls' bouquets and men's boutonnieres also incorporating succulents. My favorite thing about my bouquet was that the stems were wrapped in a long piece of eyelet lace from my mother's wedding dress.

First look:
We decided to be traditional and wait until we saw each other at the ceremony site. I had two distinct moments of tearing up on the carriage ride from the bridal cottage to the ceremony site, and thought oh great, I'm really going to lose it. My dad was nervous in his own sweet way, and tried to lighten the mood by making me laugh. When I did finally start walking towards Mark, I felt so utterly calm. I loved hearing from Mark that when our minister told him to turn around because I was approaching, he saw me illuminated from behind by sunlight - Arizona sun coming through my veil. I will never forget the look on his face as I walked towards him.

Music:
We chose to choreograph our first dance to the song "Fresh Feeling" by the Eels. It's a song that has always been a favorite of mine, but came to be 'our song' when I played it on our fourth date which involved a fair amount of driving. My father daughter dance was to "La Vie en Rose" by Louis Armstrong, a favorite singer of my father's ever since he saw him perform live in 1960.

Favorite details:
We spent a few minutes immediately after the ceremony in a horse-drawn carriage, which was sweet alone time, and then purposely observed a few minutes of solitude in the bridal cottage. We got the idea from our dear friends who observed the Jewish tradition of yihud, and it was a time to reflect on the momentous step we had just taken. One of my favorite details was the chalkboard sign that Mark inscribed with a welcome message. He did a great job of lettering it by hand. It's the most 'liked' photo of ours on the Knot - well done my love!

Something borrowed, blue, old, and new:
My something borrowed was also my something blue: a handkerchief with a posy of blue violets embroidered on it from my mother's collection, and one that originally belonged to my Oma in Germany. My something old was something from my 'old' life, meaning before marriage: a pair of baroque pearl earrings I purchased while living in Holland. I also had my mother's lace on my bouquet as something old. My dress was my something new.

 All photos via Kalyn Ryll

Hello again

Hello friends!

I suppose today is as good a time as any to renew my little blog because the past year has been on my mind a lot. Mark and I have now celebrated our first wedding anniversary, and while we filled the past year with loads of happenings it still whirled by faster than I could have ever imagined. I've had the same thought before: that I wish I could have met and married Mark when I was younger so that we would have had so many more years together already... but I met him at the right time in both of our lives, a match made in heaven.

I have kept this relatively private - my organization of the Sunday cards M has been giving me over the past four years... He started giving these to me within the first month we started dating, so I estimate I have over 200. I sometimes open the older cards back up to reread his sweet words and think about where we were in our relationship at that time. There is so much negativity in the world and in the sharing of information on social media, but yet I tend to keep my relationship sacred and close to my heart. I talked with a friend recently about how we want to unabashedly proclaim our happiness to others without it seeming like bragging, so what is the balance to be struck?

Mark spends his Saturdays as of late in a blacksmithing class, bending white hot metal straight out of a 3,000 degree forge. His latest little project was on our anniversary proper, and yielded this perfectly rustic, very 'me' heart. 

My absolute favorite time of year is here... though in this Texas heat, we're ages away from my beloved flannel shirts and tall boots. I'm forcing the season with a pumpkin candle, but even that seems premature when the air conditioning is still blowing.

A snap from a quick little solo trip to the Oregon coast this past summer, just to refuel my soul by the water. I miss being in driving distance to the beach, and blustery gray days like this one above are my favorite. I have nothing but the best of memories on the coast, including my honeymoon with Mark on the Long Beach Peninsula. It's been seven years since I left Oregon for law school, and I think I'm just missing it more and more.

Under Construction!

So the blog is looking a bit sparse, isn't it?

I'm back to a blank slate here on Elegant Array, but I hope to populate it with sweet little images and updates again soon enough!