Wow. So, who knew those online contests where you can win trips and meet celebrities ever paid off?!?! It turns out, the grand prize is not a lie. Because I won it!! No joke.

Each day for two weeks, I submitted my basic contact information to the Ancestry.com 15 Days of Discovery sweepstakes hoping to win an iPad 2 or a camera or a 1-year subscription… any of those would have been nice. The contest ends, a few weeks go by, and I get that magical phone call: “You’ve won the grand prize of the Ancestry.com 15 Days of Discovery sweepstakes!”. Ummm…. what!?! No. Freaking. Way.

At the time, I honestly had no idea what the grand prize even was. LOL. So I was in a bit of disbelief. And then he told me what the prize was, and oh.my.god. …

• Airfare for two to Los Angeles
• Two nights stay at the luxurious Beverly Wilshire hotel
• Transportation to all locations
• A private tour of NBC Universal studios
• A tour of Shed Media, where Who Do You Think You Are? is produced
• Lunch with Lisa Kudrow and the producers of Who Do You Think You Are?
• VIP tickets to the Tonight Show with Jay Leno

Wow. Very cool. And it turned out to be even cooler than I expected.

Adam and I left for LA on Tuesday morning and got in with enough time to see some of the city. Our car picked us up from the hotel and took us to the swanky Beverly Wilshire where we checked in and met up with Marvin, who you may know as our awesome wedding officiant.

First stop was Santa Monica Pier where they happened to be filming for the show Private Practice. We made it just in time for sunset which was beautiful. It was a lot chillier than expected though!

Next it was off to dinner at Umami Burger. It took us quite a while to get there since we hit the legendary LA rush hour traffic, but it was definitely worth it. I had the Earth Burger which was excellent – a mushroom and edamame patty, white soy aioli, truffle ricotta, cipollini onions, lettuce, and slow-roasted tomato. Yum! We also got an order of truffle cheese fries which were just as good as they sound!!

After dinner, we headed to the famed Hollywood Boulevard to stroll the Walk of Fame, Kodak Theater (where the Academy Awards are held), and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (where you can find the hand and foot prints of the stars).

Lastly, we decided to stop for a drink at Blue Palms Brew House, a specialty bar that rotates craft brews in every few weeks. I had a pretty solid Beachwood BBQ Breaker Pale Ale. The whole time we were there, I kept noticing a man in athletic wear and a ball cap who bared a striking resemblance to Nick Lachey, formerly of the boy band 98 Degrees and married to Jessica Simpson. Turns out, it really was him. Woot! My first celebrity sighting in Hollywood!!

—

The Big Day

Early wake up. $80 breakfast room service. Limo pick up.

First stop, NBC Universal for a private tour. No photos allowed unfortunately, but we got a pretty cool inside look at the studios and how things work. Things of note: the set of the Tonight Show, the set of Access Hollywood, the set of Days of Our Lives, the set warehouse, old costumes. Cool stuff.

Second stop, Shed Media – where Who Do You Think You Are? is researched and produced. This was really awesome. We got to meet all the shows producers and researchers. Everyone was really nice and happy to be there. It seemed like a really fun work environment where everyone loves what they’re doing. After a bit of chatting about what goes into producing an episode, Lisa Kudrow and the other producers showed up! Lisa seemed pretty surprised that Adam and I were so young. We talked about where my genealogy research has gotten me and some of the road blocks that I’ve hit. She encouraged me to ask the researchers for their thoughts, which I did and to which I received some great suggestions.

Alex Graham, Jennifer O’Connell, Me, Lisa Kudrow, Adam, Dan Bucatinski

From Shed Media it was off to lunch with Lisa and the producers at the restaurant: Ammo. I got the orecchiette with rapini, radicchio, Picholine olives, breadcrumbs and crushed red pepper . It was absolutely excellent. While we ate, we discussed everything from the shows we watch, to ideas for celebs on WDYTYA, to SOPA and copyright infringement. Everybody was really down to earth and nice. It was an awesome experience to say the least.

Finally, we said our goodbyes and nice-to-meet-you’s and it was off to our final stop – a taping of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. I was probably the least excited about this part of the prize as I’m not a huge fan of Jay, but it was certainly cool to get a behind the scenes look at how those late night shows are filmed. The guests were Jennifer Garner, Ross Matthews and the band Parachute. Ross Matthews was my favorite guest, he was pretty hilarious. The whole episode is available online if you’d like to try and spot us in the crowd – we had pretty good seats – fourth row and center.

After that it was back to the Beverly Wilshire in the last limo ride. Since Adam’s grandma lives in the LA region, she came out to the BW with some cousins and we all headed out for a tasty dinner at a nice little Persian restaurant. The food wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. The company was the best part! Finally, we were back at the hotel and decided to use our $100 dinner credit on a lovely dessert spread – cookies and ice cream and strawberries with balsamic, oh! and a $22 glass of Cabernet Sauvignon!

—

And that was pretty much it, the next morning we had another $80 room service breakfast and made our way to the airport, travelled ALL day long, and finally made it home.

What a trip! And there were so many things I left out of this already lengthy blog post! So here’s a few of my favorite photos from the journey to help fill the gaps for you! Best viewed in fullscreen!

After spending a week in Israel eating nothing but the best, I came back feeling inspired and motivated to eat better and work towards being healthier overall. So, I stopped shopping for food at Meijer and started shopping at the local Westborne Market. I picked up a few cooking magazines (the books would come a little later). And I was off to the races. It started out pretty simple – basic chicken and veggie recipes, steak and potatoes, etc. – but it didn’t take long before I was trying new things and getting creative.

Now, eight months later, I have a growing collection of over 20 cookbooks and magazines. And in the last few months, I’ve been getting more and more into international cuisine – as you all know by now. With the new year comes new resolutions, and so it was decided:

My goal for 2012: One international cuisine week per month for twelve months.

As you may have guessed, this first cuisine week is Vietnamese – a cuisine I was entirely unfamiliar with. It turned out pretty well, with a few particularly awesome dishes. Read on for the deets… (and to find out what cuisine weeks are coming up next!)

Dinner No. 1: Thịt Bò Xào Bông Cải
Beef Stir-fried with Cauliflower

Not a bad first dish, pretty basic – flank steak and cauliflower stir-fried in garlic and fish sauce with a bit of onion. I served this up with kasmati rice and some lightly dressed spinach. Solid flavors overall.

Rating: 4/5

Dinner No. 2: Canh Riêu Cá và Chả Bắp Rán
Salmon with Tomato, Dill & Garlic Soup and Corn & Coconut Fritters

In this case, I’m going to have to rate the two parts of the dinner separately because the soup was okay, but the fritters were pretty freaking awesome! The soup probably would have been better if I had used fresh dill, however the market was out that day. Oh well, it was good for what it was – very salmony.

The fritters though, wow. Tasty fried sweet corn bundles of joy. And dipped in a sweetened Sriracha sauce for some serious kick. SOOOO good. I will be making these again – and will probably double the batch!

Soup Rating: 3.5/5
Fritter Rating: 5/5

Dinner No. 3: Gà Kho Gừng
Chicken and Ginger Simmered in Caramel Sauce

If you recall, I said Vietnamese week had some particularly awesome victories – the fritters were the first, and this chicken was the second. First of all, I made the caramel sauce myself – just a) boiled sugar in water until it smoked, b) took it off the heat and swirled it around until it blacked, c) submerged the bottom of the pot in cold water to stop it from cooking, d) poured additional cold water into the caramel (this extra water is what made it into a liquid sauce), e) returned it to the heat and stirred until the water was mixed in well with the caramel. Bam. Caramel sauce.

The rest was pretty straight forward – place boneless, skinless chicken thighs chopped up with some ginger in a sauce pan, add the caramel sauce and some fish sauce and simmer for 15~ minutes. Viola, you have the most amazingly tasty chicken ever.

Rating: 5/5

Dinner No. 4: Bí Đỏ Hầm Dừa
Winter Squash Simmered in Coconut Milk

This one turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. I used acorn squash instead of the recipes banana squash or butternut squash. I don’t think that was the problem. It really just lacked strong flavor.

The recipe called for raw peanuts, winter squash, sweet potato, a bit of sugar, and of course the coconut milk – simmered until the veggies had cooked and the coconut milk had thickened into a sauce. The best part in my opinion was the peanuts! If the recipe had has some kick to it, maybe a bit of curry, more of a Thai spice flavor – it probably would have been pretty good.

Rating: 3/5

Dinner No. 5: Trứng Chiên Tôm
Egg, Shrimp, and Scallion Pancakes

These were sort of like an egg foo young, but better. They were also extremely simple to make – just mix a few beaten eggs with shrimp and scallions and ladle about 2 tbsp. at a time into a 1/4″ of oil. Flip when the edges start to brown. On their own, they were pretty good – but dipped in a tiny bit of fish sauce, they were epic.

Rating: 4.5/5

–

And so that was Vietnamese Week! Pretty good, I’d say! There are definitely a few things I’ll be cooking again. Now it’s time to prepare for next month – FRENCH!! And what better cookbook to refer to for French cuisine than Mastering the Art of French Cooking?! So if you have any favorite recipes from the book that I should consider for next month – let me know in the comments!!

1. Vietnamese – DONE!
2. French – NEXT!
3. Irish
4. Indian
5. Jamaican
6. Ethiopian
7. Greek
8. Cuban
9. Moroccan
10. Thai
11. Polish
12. Japanese

Well, I should have posted about this way back in September, but life has continued to be busy – so here it is, three months later… an overview of our honeymoon in Toronto, Canada!

We were married on Saturday, September 10, and after a nice family and friend brunch on Sunday morning, we hopped in the car and headed to the good ‘ol Canadian border. Of course, we got caught up in customs and had to sit in the immigrations office for a whole hour. That was sweet. It also turns out highways in Canada are freaking helicopter patrolled!?! WTF? So we didn’t speed on the way to Toronto. So we arrived at our adorable B&B a little later than expected.

The owner, Geoffrey, was lovely though and welcomed us warmly. He also gave us an awesome late night dinner suggestion – House on Parliament. Adam got a burger and I got a beef and mushroom pie and a tasty Spearhead Hawaiian Style Pale Ale!

Day 1: Exploring the City

Our first full day! We headed out to the Lawrence Market to catch the City Sight Seeing tour bus. Not a bad deal, by the way. Thirty bucks for a guided ~two hour tour around the city and a bonus boat tour of the Toronto islands!! We stepped off the bus for lunch around Dundas Square and picked up some Magic cards at the pretty serious card shop that we passed by. Stopped for some tea and coffee and then grabbed the next bus that passed by!

Finally, it was time for the boat tour! This was one of my favorite parts of the trip – a nice relaxing boat ride around the islands. Spectacular views, great weather, and my new husband! <3

Day 2: Casa Loma & the Royal Ontario Museum

Day 2 was rather pleasant. We headed out to Casa Loma after breakfast and explored the castle and gardens. Lots of cool old stuff all over the place! After a few hours of exploration here, we headed downtown to grab some lunch and then to the Royal Ontario Museum.

The museum was pretty sweet – some of the cool stuff: the crystal room, the gem room, DINOSAURS!!, taxidermy, and all sorts of art.

Day 3: Niagara Falls

This was probably my favorite day. The falls were beautifal and mind-blowingly awesome. Of course, we had to take the Maid of the Mist out to the bottom of the falls – which was crazy!!

After a few hours, we hopped in the car and took the scenic wine-trail drive up to Niagara-on-the-Falls. We grabbed a great lunch and then strolled along the streets and did a bit of souvenier shopping, grabbed some coffee and tea, and then headed out to the lake. Soooo relaxing :)

Day 4: Science Center, CN Tower, Chinatown

Well the Science Center turned out to be pretty weak. I only took one photo while we were there. The place was practically empty, maybe because the school year had just started and it was too early for field trips. Everything was really old, a lot of the interactive displays were broken. They clearly haven’t gotten much funding in the last 20 years. Oh, and food options = zip.

So we headed back downtown to the CN Tower and took the elevator to the top for some awesome views. And afterwards it was off to Chinatown for an amazing dinner.

Day 5: Toronto Zoo

The zoo was pretty awesome, and not crowded at all, which was good except that it meant that none of the food stands were open. So we kinda starved ourselves through lunch. But there were a lot of cool animals out and the indoor animal environments were pretty cool since all the animals could move around us freely.

—

And that was just about it!! Lots of good sights and scenes, tasty treats and drinks, relaxation and great company.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the week, and below that is the complete photo book I made to remember the week by. Hope you enjoy checking them out!

Best viewed in Full Screen!

Again – best viewed in Full Screen!

2011 was phenomenal. Insane. Exhilarating. Awesome. Joyful. Busy. Just all around generally incredible.

Probably my favorite year in my <27 years of existence.

Here’s just a few reasons why:

• Marriage – Best day of my life. We did it!! And it was wonderful!! Everything was perfect and beautiful, and everyone had a wonderful time. It couldn’t possibly have been much better. Not to mention our awesome honeymoon in Toronto (blog post coming soon, seriously)!!!!
• Israel – Best week of my life. Adam’s family, the sites, the history, the people, the FOOD!!! Such an amazing experience and SO thankful to have had it!
• Cooking – After returning from Israel and the week long experience of exquisite cuisine, I came back yearning for a healthier, more enjoyable lifestyle. And for me, that started with the abandonment of frozen bag dinners and the purchase of several great cookbooks (which eventually lead to Cuisine Week)!
• Genealogy – In between wedding planning and traveling, I was able to break through a few brick walls, connect with some distant cousins, and I even managed to win the GRAND freaking PRIZE in the Ancestry.com 15 Days of Discovery sweepstakes!! The trip to LA is in just a few weeks!!
• RootsTech – And going along with the genealogy stuff, I had the opportunity to attend the first ever RootsTech conference in February which was an awesome mashup of genealogy and technology. I’m already all booked for the second conference in Feb. 2012!
• CodeMash & An Event Apart (San Francisco) – My first two real web / developer conferences – all thanks to my new(ish) work home – Quicken Loans! These were a lot of fun, a lot to take in, and certainly reinvigorated my profession.

So much awesomesauce in 2011. It’s actually pretty hard for me to imagine 2012 being better than that.

No big life events planned and no super huge crazy travel plans. Just the Ancestry.com trip in January and RootsTech in February – which will both be awesome. After that I’ll be able to actually start conserving my time-off. Maybe towards the end of the year we’ll plan a bigger vacation, who knows what 2012 will bring?!

Time to go work on my list of New Years resolutions!

SlickQuiz, simply put, is:

A jQuery plugin for creating pretty, dynamic quizzes.

I’ll let the demo speak for itself – check it out below!!

Check out the github page for all the technical details!

A good friend of mine is going through a very rough time and could use some help paying off her medical bills, please help if you can.

You can submit your donations to: GoFundMe

It would be the best Christmas gift she could ever receive.

For more on her story, visit: Living Incidentally

Mexican week was a huge success – just as successful as Middle Eastern week! Core ingredients included: garlic, onion, cilantro, chipotle chiles, and chorizo.

Dinner No. 1: Enchiladas Verdes de Espinacas y Hongos
Tomatillo Enchiladas with Spinach and Mushrooms

This was an awesome first dish – It set the tone for the whole week! It was vegetarian, but with the spinach and mushroom – very hearty! The tomatillo sauce was pretty easy to make with the help of my food processor.

Rating: 5/5

Dinner No. 2: Crema de Elote con Pollo y Poblano
Creamy Corn Soup with Chicken and Poblano Chile

A tasty soup indeed, but not too special. Roasting the poblano was my favorite part – I can’t wait to make something with poblanos again!

Rating: 3.5/5

Dinner No. 3: Ensalada de Hongos Asados con Espinacas y Chorizo
Roasted Mushroom Salad with Spinach and Chorizo

This was a pretty simple, yet filling salad. The flavors were surprising and perfectly matched. It was light and refreshing, and very tasty.

Rating: 4/5

Dinner No. 4: Camarones Enchipotlados y Arroz Blanco
Chipotle Shrimp and Rice Pilaf

Mmmmm, spicy! Lots of chipotle peppers, garlic and tomatoes. It had some serious kick! Nicely paired with the rice.

Rating: 4.5/5

Dinner No. 5: Tacos de Huevos Revueltos a la Mexicana
Mexican Scrambled Egg Tacos

One of our favorites for the week, even though I slightly botched the recipe! It called for food processed onion, garlic, and jalapeno… I accidentally over processed and thus had to go again, but being out of jalapeno, I used some leftover chipotle chiles instead! The recipe also suggested adding chorizo, which I did and it was wonderful!

Rating: 5/5

Dinner No. 6: Tacos de Chorizo y Frijoles Refritos
Chorizo and Fried Bean Tacos

I partially made this dish up, but followed a very basic recipe for beans and chorizo as a meal. I added onion and some more chipotle chiles to kick it up a notch!

Rating: 5/5

Dinner No. 7: Sémola de Maíz con Frijoles Pintos y Chorizo
Polenta with Fried Pintos and Chorizo

I totally made this one up and I’m pretty proud of myself! I had some leftover chorizo to finish up and found some other appropriate ingredients in the pantry. The polenta filling/topping included: garlic, shallots, pinto beans, frozen corn, chipotle peppers, chorizo, queso fresco, and cilantro. I also put a bit of queso fresco in the polenta to add some flavor. It worked out pretty well :)

Rating: 4.5/5

–

Victory overall! I’ve got to take a break again from theme week as I’ll be going out of town next weekend and won’t be able to invest myself as much. But I’m thinking, Cuisine Theme Week No. 4 might be something like Thai or Indian… hmmm!

While Italian week didn’t turn out quite as phenomenally as Middle Eastern week, it was still pretty tasty. I think part of the problem with Italian week was the cookbook I used. It was a cheap $4 Borders book. The recipes were all just somewhat bland and not the easiest to follow. I ended up adding a lot of spices.

But since I love Italian food so much, you can bet I’ll be trying this again with the help of a different cookbook!

Dinner No. 1: Polenta con Funghi e Fagiolini Verdi con Pomodori
Mushroom Polenta and Green Beans with Tomatoes

For the first dish of the week, this dish wasn’t too impressive. The combination of mushrooms and polenta was a little odd, but the green beans were rather good!

Rating: 3/5

Dinner No. 2: Scaloppine di Vitello con Marsala e Asparagi alla Milanese
Veal with Marsala and Asparagus with Eggs

We definitely liked the asparagus-egg combination of this dish, and the veal was definitely a nice change of pace. The Marsala sauce didn’t quite turn out though. But since I always love a good Marsala dish, I’ll certainly be trying it out again.

Rating: 4/5

Dinner No. 3: Pasta e Ceci
Pasta and Chickpea Soup

Well I almost botched this one up entirely. The recipe called for dried chickpeas soaked over night and then cooked for about 2 hours. Well, I decided to go exercise in the other room while the chickpeas cooked and when I came back the water had all boiled off and the chickpeas had started to burn. Fortunately, I had a can of chickpeas in the cupboard, so I got those cooking up instead.

The soup also contained a bit of bacon, onion, garlic, and of course pasta. Not too much as far as spice goes though. As I sampled the flavor while it cooked, the spice levels definitely left something to be desired, so I added quite a bit of extra salt, pepper, cayenne, and garlic power. It ended up having more of a mac-n-cheese consistency rather than a liquid soup. But the good news is that it was pretty tasty in the end.

Rating: 4/5

Dinner No. 4: Merluzzo al Forno e Brocoletti Saltati con Aglio
Baked Cod with Garlic Mayonnaise and Broccoli with Oil and Garlic

The cod came out pretty well considering that I substituted a caper spread for the recipe’s anchovy spread. I was a bit unsure of the homemade mayo, but it was a nice complement to the cod. The broccoli (I used broccolini) was pretty great, covered in bits of garlic.

Rating: 4/5

Dinner No. 5: Lasagne al Forno con Funghi e Pomodori
Baked Vegetable Lasagna with Mushrooms and Tomatoes

The lasagna though, was definitely the star of the week! It was quite a bit of work to put it all together, but it came out even better than I imagined. I even made my own “bechamel” sauce! I put bechamel in quotes because it probably wasn’t technically correct. ;)

Rating: 5/5

–

So what’s the plan for next week? I’m still deciding. I don’t have any more international cookbooks (though, I have a few on order!), so I will either be running to the bookstore later tonight or taking a short break from theme week. Follow me on Twitter or Facebook to find out soon!

All in all, Middle Eastern week was wonderfully successful! One dish might have even made the #1 spot on my husbands “Best Meals Made By Julie” list!

One of my favorite things about cooking an entire weeks worth of dinners from the same international menu was that shopping for ingredients and avoiding the waste of ingredients was incredibly easy – almost every dish contained a base of the same ingredients: garlic, onions, and cilantro! This week was probably the first time I made it through an entire bunch of cilantro! :)

So here’s the run down of what I made:

Dinner No. 1: Yakhnat Samak
Fish in Aromatic Red Sauce

This first dish was probably my least favorite of the week – it wasn’t bad, but it ended up being pretty bland overall. The sauce was tomato based with a few spices, but more spice would’ve been better.

Rating: 3/5

Dinner No. 2: Falafel and Tomato Salad

“Holy shit, I made falafel!” That about sums up how I feel about this one. It was awesome. I got to use my new fryer for the first time, and they came out like falafel! They were soooo good. I’ll definitely be making them again.

Rating: 4.5/5

Dinner No. 3: Chicken Shawarma Pitas

This one was pretty solid. Nothing super special, but a decent shawarma pita sandwich – complete with hummus, tomato, and cilantro.

Rating: 4/5

Dinner No. 4: Kabab bil Laban and Duqous
Meatballs in Yogurt Sauce and Spiced Tomatoes

These meatballs were pretty darn tasty – and the yogurt sauce was a great touch. The tomatoes were good too, but they came apart as soon as I tried to remove them from the pan – so next time I won’t cook ‘em as long.

Rating: 4.5/5

Dinner No. 5: Shawrabat Al-Nikhi with Pita Bread
Creamy Tomato and Chickpea Soup

A tasty soup to be sure. It had a great kick from the cayenne pepper and paired really well with the pita. But ultimately, wasn’t anything life altering.

Rating: 3.5/5

Dinner No. 6: Basal Mahshi with Spinach and Chickpeas
Onions Stuffed with Lamb and Rice

Oh man. This one was quite the star of the week. The stuffed onions were cooked in a pomegranate syrup sauce which infused the onion and lamb with sweet, savory flavor. The spinach and chickpea plate was a perfect complement with its salt and peppery touch. Total win!

Rating: 5/5

–

Totally can’t wait for the next Middle Easter week :)

And since Theme Week was such a success, we’re trying it again this week with Italian!! Check back next weekend to see how it went!

Exactly one month ago today, on 9.10.11, Adam and I were married at the lovely Misty Farms in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was by far the best day of my life! Everything (even the weather) turned out perfectly, everyone was happy, and all of our closest friends and family were there to celebrate with us.

And when I say that everything turned out perfectly, I’m sorta not kidding. I don’t mean to brag or anything (ok, maybe I want to brag a little), but we’ve received comments akin to “best wedding ever,” from multiple parties. One relative said that it was the most beautiful, fun and comfortable wedding that they’d ever attended – and these were exactly the things that Adam and I were aiming for all along!

Having visualized and planned nearly every aspect of the day myself, hearing these compliments has made me feel immensely successful and proud. I even have to wonder if maybe I should go into wedding planning one day.

Of course, none of the epic awesomeness that was could have been possible without our amazing team of family, friends, and vendors:

The Venue

Misty Farms was a beautiful location – the historic old barns provided the perfect atmosphere to ensure that everyone was able to relax and be themselves. Kelly, the owner, was a huge help in coordinating the event and offered a ton of great suggestions and services.

Cocktail hour!

Food & Drink

Katherine’s Catering had a wonderful selection of food options – all of which were excellently prepared. Our menu included tasty Michigan berry skewers, veggie lasagna, and pulled pork sandwiches. Katherine’s did a wonderful job coordinating with Whole Foods Market, who provided us with a great selection of Michigan pies and microbrews (Bell’s Amber and Bell’s Lager).

Whole Foods Market, as I just said, provided the drinks and dessert, as well as our absolutely beautiful flowers. We went with seasonally appropriate sunflowers for the bouquets, boutonnieres and corsages, and a mix of red, orange, yellow and green for the centerpieces.

Capturing & Creating the Moments

Kara Purtell Photography did an amazing job capturing the fun and joy of the day. We seriously couldn’t be happier with their work! Kara put together a beautiful selection of her favorite photos on her blog, and also created a lovely slideshow for us.

Wedit.com Videography is a sister company of Quicken Loans, where both Adam and I work, so we were thrilled to use their service. What do they do exactly? Well here’s our friend, Nate, explaining the dea:

DJ Lufru is the son of Misty Farm owner, Kelly Frutig. Luke kept the party going all night long, and maintained the awesome musical ambience throughout the rest of the day. He even played some dubstep (which was totally epic), and later spurred a dance off!

Dance off starts at 0:20

Want some more party footage? How’s 20 minutes of dancing? :)

The Details

Encore Studio did a great job of helping all of us ladies look our fabulous best! Their professionalism and calm nature kept us all staying chill and having fun!

Don Hare Transportation did a great job getting our guests to and from the ceremony and hotel. From what we heard, the shuttle ride back to the hotel at the end of the night was a pretty good time! They also chauffeured Adam and I back to the hotel in my convertible!

Etsy.com!! I got SO much of my inspiration and many of our supplies from various awesome Etsy sellers. [here's a bunch of that stuff]

A Few More Pics & Vids

And the whole ceremony:

OMG We’re married!!!

Honeymoon post coming soon!