If you've been reading this blog for any time, you probably see that Victoria comes on a lot of my adventures. We met in June 2015 and our first date brought us to the Alamo. It was there, two-and-a-half years later in December 2017, that I proposed. I gave her the ring that I custom made with an amethyst that I got from the amethyst mine up in Canada. I'm definitely glad she said yes.
Fast forward to January 19, 2019. That was the day we planned for the wedding. We thought 1-19-19 had a good ring to it. The wedding would be held at the Inn at Salado. Just like the ring and proposal, the Inn at Salado had special sentimental value to Victoria. Before it was converted into a bed and breakfast, it was owned by her great grandparents. They were married at the house and it was her grandmother's childhood home. Her grandparents had their wedding reception in the living room of this house. It was only fitting that we were also married there.
There was plenty of preparation for our wedding. The venue did the majority of the work, so that took a lot off our shoulders. It made it very easy to plan everything. Victoria and I also took a wedding preparation class through St. Louis King of France Catholic Church in Austin, where I belong. It was a seven week class every Thursday. We definitely learned a ton from this class.
I am Catholic and Victoria is Methodist. In order for our wedding to be outside of the Catholic Church, we had to get a dispensation (special approval) from the Bishop of the Dioceses of Austin. Victoria wrote a letter to the Bishop and we were granted this dispensation. Victoria's aunt Caroline is an ordained Lutheran minister and was our wedding officiant.
As you can see, we tried to make everything as sentimental as possible. I was not worried about blogging and was trying to live in the moment as much as possible and be ready to coordinate when needed. I did take a few pictures along the way and we had professional photographers take pictures. Those pictures are still being worked on and I'll post some of them when I get them. I definitely want to do a shoutout to them, as they did a great job from the preview pictures I have seen.
Our first task before the wedding was to get alcohol. This was one thing that wasn't included with the venue. We went to Costco and loaded up the back of Victoria's Escape.
We headed to Salado, with a pit stop at Popeye's along the way.
We finally made it to Salado!
We did the rehearsal and then had the rehearsal dinner at Clem Mikeska's BBQ in Temple. We then went back to Salado, hung out a bit, and then went to bed. The next day I took my groomsmen to Whataburger. It was cold by Texas standards, but they all came from Wisconsin so they were loving the weather.
The wedding mostly went off without a hitch. The Inn at Salado executed everything perfectly. The only hiccups we had were with Victoria's dress and an issue with her ring. Other than that, it was perfect! The next morning I checked the weather and it was 29. That's cold for Texas but if you put a minus in front of that, that's what it was in Thunder Bay. It was also cold in Marshfield.
We ate breakfast and I took a few pictures in between packing the car.
Before you know it, we were on the way back to Austin. It was a nice and sunny.
My parents came into Austin to help return the tuxes. We then said goodbye to them and headed out to Lago Vista, where we planned a mini-honeymoon. We got an AirBnB at some condos on Lake Travis.
It was a fancy place with a big parking garage. Being that it was offseason, it felt like a ghost town. This would be perfect for a place to relax, unwind, and celebrate just getting married.
We decided to grab drinks and watch the sunset. It was a bit chilly so we got a blanket, but the views were phenomenal!
Once it got dark, we went inside and listened to the music channels on the cable box. This was a good chunk of our trip. We mainly just sat and talked while enjoying the music.
The next morning was a bit chilly. We did decide to venture outside to check out the indoor pool, which was down a level. We swam a bit and then headed back to the room. We didn't want to go anywhere, so we ordered Domino's.
I caught the sunset outside, but it wasn't as nice as the night before.
The next morning it was cloudy and a little chilly. It wasn't as bad as Marshfield though, so I'm happy there. We took a last glance outside and then packed everything up and headed back to Austin.
When we got back to the apartment, we realized we had a lot of extra alcohol sitting there.
We didn't want to waste time so we headed to the Social Security office so Victoria could change her name. We then ate and headed to the driver's license office. The Social Security office took us about 45 minutes. The driver's license office took us over 2 hours. It's kind of crazy when the federal government is much more efficient than the state driver's license office!
The whole wedding and mini-honeymoon went great. I tried to live in the moment as much as possible and I had a great time. I'm happy that everything went almost perfectly and we had very few hiccups. It was great to see family and friends and I'm glad I'm now married to my best friend, Victoria.
