Happy 1st Anniversary

It's hard to believe that our first wedding anniversary has come and gone but here I sit, ready to share with you highlights of our anniversary getaway. Where did the year go?! :) Initially, we had hoped to plan our re-do honeymoon vacation to Ireland and Scotland since the volcano in Ireland ruined our initial plans. But alas, bedroom furniture took precedence, so after lots of Googling and Internet searches, we had a thought. Why not visit the place where it all started ~ Bethany Beach.

As you all know, Ed proposed to me while we were on vacation in Bethany. So it seemed appropriate that we spend our first anniversary in a place that holds so many wonderful memories. My Mom's good friend Shelia and her family graciously offered for us to use their GORGEOUS beach house for our trip and we gladly accepted. Since it is impossible to explain how adorable this house is, here is a quick tour:

As I said in the video, my family has been lucky enough to stay in this house for close to 5 years and hopefully will continue the tradition in years to come. Thank you Doyle family!!

After our scenic drive over the Bay Bridge and through rural MD and DE, we made it to the house and settled in. I forgot how much I love this drive - lots of open land and farms.


After a quick trip to the grocery and liquor stores (a must!), we cleaned up and headed to Rehobeth Beach for some dinner. If you are not familiar with the MD/DE beaches, here is a look at how they are laid out. Rehobeth is about a 20 minute drive north along the beautiful Coastal Highway. It was a beautiful night so we walked around town and on the boardwalk a bit before settling in at Dos Locos for some margaritas and burritos.


Day 2 brought us sunshine but a ridiculous amount of wind. But that didn't matter, because we were headed to Milton, DE to visit the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. We are big fans of their beer so thought it was appropriate that we see where it was made. Throw in a free tasting and we were on board! The historic town of Milton was adorable - completely quintessential with small streets and big houses with wrap around porches.



When we arrived, we were greeted by a HUGE tree house and a friendly face who offered us some fancy schmancy protective goggles and our beer tasting coupons.


Our lively tour guide John took us through the brewery and taught us all about how they make their micro brews and how a guy named Sam started the business with a 10 gallon brew tank and $30,000. Fifteen years later, they are the 13th largest micro-brewery in the country. Not too shabby!



Next it was onto the tasting. We enjoyed 4 different beers: Midas Touch, Palo Santo Marron, Black and Blue (our fav!) and Raison D'Etre. Cheers!


The tasting at Dogfish Brewery was a great time, but it was time to get down to business and go to the Outlets!!! It's amazing what you will buy when you have a small beer buzz! Since my wardrobe is much to be desired these days, I went a little nuts, but got some really good stuff. After hitting 1 of 3 outlet areas, we decided to grab some food at none other than the Dogfish Head Brew Pub in town and ended the evening with a good old movie - the Lincoln Lawyer (good flick btw).

Day 3 was our actual Anniversary and like our wedding day, it was gray and gloomy. No worries - we had no problem having a good time. After a delicious Cracker Barrel breakfast, we continued our shopping extravaganza at the remaining 2 outlets and in the small town of Bethany. We relaxed in the HUGE jacuzzi tub before heading out to our Anniversary dinner at Bluecoast Grill. Mom and Dad Q. surprised us with a gift card to this place so we indulged ~ the night ended with cupcakes and champagne back at the house and a very drunk Laura. :)



Day 4 (also known as Laura's hangover day) was VERY low key. We took a drive south to Fenwick Island and realized that Fenwick does not have a small town like I thought. It did have a Lighthouse, a Country Store and some really cute housing. The remainder of the day was spent in Rehobeth again now that the stores were open and then dinner close to home. The drive back was un-eventful, but we did have a sighting of Ed's favorite local college ~ University of Maryland University College. He loves that the college not only has the word "college", but "university" twice! :)



All in all, it was a wonderful anniversary. We had a great time at the beach and I was able to cross "go to the beach during the off-season" off my bucket list. :) Now that we are home, re-united with Lucy, we are looking forward to the summer and the many, many home projects we have ahead of us. Happy Anniversary!!!

Everybody Loves Dogwood

We have made it home safely from our little anniversary get away and are ready to relax so I apologize for the short post. I promise to make it worth your while with an exciting play by play of the vacation, but for now, take a look at at this...our GORGEOUS tree! We can see now that it is a Flowering Dogwood which happens to be one of my favorite trees AND the official state tree of Virginia. Happy Spring!

Life's a Beach

It's our last night here in Bethany which is both sad and happy at the same time. We are sad that our vacation has come to a close, but we are happy to head home and see our baby Lucy girl. :) Since we are going to make the most out of our last night, we are going to leave you with some images we captured over the vacation. More to come soon!

Wedding Week: The Luckiest

So here we are ~ our First Wedding Anniversary ~ and the end of wedding week on the blog. I know, I know...it wasn't quite a week, but I am prepared to make it up to you with our 2nd blog video. It is very hard to capture the feeling of the day with words, so we thought the best way to do it would be with photos and music (our wedding song, The Luckiest by Ben Folds and our big entrance song, Ants Marching by Dave Matthews Band). So without further ado, I present to you the wedding of:

Edward James Mangiaracina and Laura Michele Quartuccio
April 16, 2010

And just as all good things must come to an end, our wedding week (well, 4 days if you are getting technical) must come to a close. We hope you guys enjoyed it as much as we did! :)

Wedding Week: The Written Word

Day 3 of Wedding week and today's post focuses on the loads and loads of paper that was designed, edited, printed, collated and quaffed for the big day. From the save the dates to the to the place cards, yours truly designed her little heart out to create an elegant and classy look for the wedding.

First up: Save the Dates. Since the wedding was happening in New York and half of our guest list did not have a NY mailing address, we thought it would be fun to create a vintage-style postcard to get them excited about visiting New York. It was totally fun and did the job of announcing our wedding date. What's even better is that all the photos included on the postcard were taken by Ed or I on one of our many ventures into the city.


Once the Save the Dates were out, it was time to focus on the invitations. I think we went through 35 renditions before we settled on the look. Then there were about 167 versions of each element of the invite which included not only the official invitation, but the response card, the reception card, the hotel information, the directions and both the inner and outer envelopes (don't even get me started on the Great Envelope Debate of 2009). That's a lot of paper, but in the end, they looked gorgeous and really expressed the chic, classy type wedding we were going for.


And they paved the way for the look of the rest of the paper goods including the church programs....


....and the escort cards. These puppies were one of the most labor intensive DIY projects. Not only did all the white paper have to be printed and cut, but also mounted on the black backing and folded. You would think that cutting a straight line with a paper cutter would be easy! Not so much.


Another paper item had to do with our Wish Jar. In lieu of a traditional guest book, we decided to go a different route and have our guests offer us wishes and advice on business card sized note cards. We personalized each card with our names and the date and provided purple and black pens so our guests can share their well wishes. One of my favorite post-wedding activities was reading these cards - we actually just did it again when deciding on which to include in our Wedding in a Box.


Once our guests shared their wish and picked up their escort card, they were greeted at their table by fabulous vintage looking frames with the table number (got the frames for a steal at Century 21), the custom menus outlining the 3-course meal, and their hand made party favor, a donation to the American Diabetes Association along with a uber-trendy ADA red rubber bracelet.


The paper trail followed our overnight guests all the way to their Four Points Hotel room. We put together a New York-themed bag inclusive of black and white cookies, Wise Deli potato chips, water with Advil, an I heart NY pencil, an NYC map, a City Walks walking tour card, and a welcome note on an actual vintage NY postcard. I loved the bag so much that I made one for our own hotel room!


Since we had so much going on post-wedding (uh moving to VA, finding a new job, buying a house, etc.), we took a break from our DIY paper projects for the Thank You note. Plus, the notes were part of our photographers' package so all we had to do was pick the photo and he would do the rest. Well...almost ~ if only they addressed and mailed each envelope! :)


So that is the paper-side of the wedding story. Only 1 day away from the 1 year Anniversary!!!