Honeymoons

Today is Sunday and Nicole comes home from her honeymoon. It has been two weeks since she got married and left for France; it has gone by so fast!

I got to thinking about honeymoons the other day and I thought doing a blog post might be a fun idea, so I did and now I have a list of places that I want to go! Below I compiled a small list and some links of place that you can consider visiting if you’re planning a honeymoon or just want a fun and romantic getaway.

Samantha’s Top 10 Honeymoon Spots

1.      I may be a bit impartial here, but many of the honeymoon lists I have seen have listed British Columbia, especially here on Vancouver Island as a top spot to honeymoon. It is easy to get to and if you love nature and good weather, this is the place for you. You can go skiing in Whistler, watch the waves in Tofino, or enjoy romantic walks on the beaches. It’s easy to go back and forth to the mainland with the ferry so you can see lots of sights. 

2.      Ok, so this is something that I have always wanted to do and it would be an awesome honeymoon. I’ve always wanted to go on an African Safari and I don’t think I would go on one at any other point in my life. It’s romantic and exciting and reminds me of an old movie. Serengeti National Park in Tanzania seems to be a top spot. You can wake up looking at animals and go out for a drive on the plains. 

3.      A very romantic spot to head to on your honeymoon is where Nicole went, France. Everyone always thinks about Paris when they think of romance and honeymoons. Lately it has been a place that people may be a bit hesitant to visit with all of the horrible things taking place there. I know Nicole went to the countryside so her and her new husband could spend some quality couple time together which I think is a good idea. You can avoid the big city and escape to the country for a bit to just be together; you will want to make sure and rent a car and look for some nice places that you can rent ahead of time. Being out in the country, you can take romantic walks and go for picnics.

4.      A top romantic spot that I want to visit is Italy. I was reading about this place called San Pelligrino Treme. It’s a quiet quaint town where there are some beautiful spas and the best mineral water. If you want to see more of the sights and culture, try Venice and have a romantic gondola ride. 

5.      I have always heard about Bora Bora, but looking at some of the pictures makes me want to go there right now. The water looks so clear and it seems like the perfect place to go and relax. I like the idea of sightseeing, but on a honeymoon, it may just be nice to go and lay on the beach and sip cool drinks and go for dips in the ocean. This is the place to do that!

6.      There are so many movies that show how beautiful and romantic Ireland is and I have always wanted to go there. Unfortunately when I went to England, I didn’t have enough time to head over to Ireland but I would want to go with that someone special for a honeymoon. You could go see so many sights and go on a mini road trip through the country and look at and stay in castles! Awesome.

7.       The Bahamas has a beach with pink sand! You can walk for hours with your sweetie on the beach and have open air lunches at one of the restaurant along the beach. If you want to venture through town there are lots of souvenirs shops that you can stop at. 

8.      Ever since I saw Mamma Mia, I wanted to go to Greece. Santorini is a popular volcanic island to stay on. Apparently the sunsets are amazing and you can relax on the many beaches and explore the ancient sights. There is so much that you can do but you can do it at your own pace. There are many villas that you can stay in so you can have quality time with your new spouse. 

9.      Hawaii was the spot to vacation and honeymoon back in the day (that’s where my parents went) but over the years there have been so many other beach/tropical spots that have become popular that it seems like Hawaii isn’t the top romantic beach spot anymore. I have always wanted to go to Hawaii and still do. The beaches look amazing and there are lots of sights that you can see. You can jump from island to island depending what kinds of mood you are in. If you want to shop and be among the tourists you can do that on one island, if you want to explore away from people you can do that on another island. There are so many options and you don’t have to travel too far away to get there either! You can go to a luau and eat fresh pineapple and go for a hula lesson and have Kona coffee and see volcanos, the list goes on and on. 

10.  Kyoto Japan is supposed to be slow paced and peaceful. It would be a nice place to go for stroll and to look at the gardens and all the beautiful landscapes and shrines. Go at a time when the cherry blossom trees are in bloom and take advantage of the the romantic quiet river boat rides too.

So there you have some of my top honeymoon spots. I’m sure there are so many other places that you can go and visit with your sweetie but the main things is that you are spending quality quiet time together before reality hits and you start your lives together for real. Your ideal romantic honeymoon spot will be different I’m sure from other couples, so go to a place that you are passionate about seeing and that has special meaning to you.

http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/travel-dining/g6715/thelist-the-new-places-to-honeymoon-in-2016/

https://www.theknot.com/content/best-honeymoon-destinations

http://www.fodors.com/news/photos/worlds-best-honeymoon-destinations-for-2015

Just Married...

Happy Saturday. Yes, I know I am a day behind on the blog post, but it was a very busy and tired post wedding week. We have a long weekend here in B.C. so I can catch up on my sleep and relax a bit. It is weird not having wedding related tasks to help my best friend with; I’m gonna miss it.

Anyways, let’s talk wedding day! It was a beautiful and perfect wedding day. I can’t believe that it has come and gone already a week ago. The bride was stunningly beautiful and both bride and groom were so happy and so in love. Her dress, made especially for her by a family friend was perfect and looked amazing. The day started out bright and sunny and very very early, at least for a Saturday. We had a girl’s breakfast and I did the hair and makeup which went very well. We stayed on schedule and there was no stress. The photographer was there to take pictures of our morning and she helped as much as she could as well, so that was nice. It was a very relaxing morning; I know it can be sometimes very overwhelming and stressful. The flowers came and they were gorgeous! It was so cool to hold a bouquet all day long that I didn’t want to put it down at all. The ceremony went smoothly also and so did the pictures. Then we had a little rest and enjoyed a delicious dinner at the reception. Now the bride and groom are off on a romantic honeymoon. Lucky!

All of the planning, practice, and prep paid off. I hope you enjoyed all of the wedding prep posts. They were so much fun to do especially since they were for an actual wedding.

P.S. We got our nails done a few days before the wedding. All of us chose shades of purple for our toes and Nicole and I got gel nails polish on our finger nails. We both opted for light colours; she went with a very sheer natural peachy colour and I went with sparkly pink of course. Ladies, the gel nail polish is still going strong. This stuff is amazing. I use my hands a lot and chip my finger nail polish on the first day and get smudges, but not with the gel polish. I have done so many things with my hands and not one chip, smudge, or imperfection and it has been over a week and a half. I highly recommend getting the gel polish done for your wedding or anytime really. It is worth it and it looks so nice. There were 300 colours to pick from so I’m sure there is a colour for everyone out there. I can’t wait to try it again!

Perfecting the Wedding Day Look

Happy Friday!

We are getting close to Nicole’s wedding...it’s tomorrow! We didn’t have time to post last week but we made a post about hair and makeup so I thought I would share that with you today. We have been so busy with last minute prep work for the wedding and last Friday we perfected the hair and makeup. This is what we did…

From last Friday…We have been practicing the hair and makeup lots and tonight is our last night of perfecting the hair.

The makeup is pretty much decided for all of us. We just have to time it all (it’ll take roughly 20-30min per face) The bridesmaids are going with sparkly browns and golds for the eyes and the bride, as you would have seen in one of our recent posts, will be having a brown/light pink look for her eyes.

We are all going to have our hair in curls. Nicole and the other bridesmaid have thicker hair so it can hold the curls longer which is nice because I have the opposite, very fine hair that doesn’t hold curls very long at all.

For the bride’s hair, we have put some styling product in it before we begin because we noticed that it really helps with the curls. Then I separated her hair with lots of clips and start curling away. I’ve basically separated her hair in half and then separated the top from the bottom, hopefully that makes sense. We tried different sized barrels when it came to the curling irons and decided on this one inch one.

Too little was giving her intense curls and too big was giving her too loose curls that weren’t lasting. I’m going to curl her hair the night before the wedding with tighter curls and no hairspray because she likes the curl the next day after it has been slept on, so that makes my wedding day job so much easier because her hair takes about an hour to curl! The next morning I will pull it back and then add in the hairspray and the veil.

I think I’ll do the same half up half down for the other bridesmaid’s hair, but for me and my fine hair, I may have to clip it on one side or just leave it down because when it’s pulled back it can start looking really thin and straggly as the day goes on and I don’t want to ruin the pictures! From our practice last week it looks like if I use a smaller barrel curling iron and curl it tight, it’ll hold as long as I put some styling product in it first. I may not want as much hairspray as I thought either because that will weigh down my hair a bit and it’ll come loose too quick.

Also, we tried out earrings during our hair practice, your hairstyle can actually make a difference to what earrings look good. For me I’m sticking to sparkly studs and Nicole will have drop longer earrings which suit her dress, hair, and style the best.

Finishing off our wedding day look, was that we all went to have pedicures (all three of us ended up with different shades of light purple). Nicole and I get gel polish on our nails as well. It is amazing. It’s so durable.

Enjoy our last wedding day prep tutorial. It’s game day tomorrow and I will let you all know how it goes!

Our Prince Card

We ran a little bit behind this week with practicing hair and makeup for the wedding and all, so I'm posting our Friday post on Tuesday instead.

We wanted to share with you our Prince card that we made for a couple's wedding this past year. They love Prince, so we created this Prince purple card which also incorporated Australia, an element with special importance that was requested to be included. Enjoy it!