The Royal Wedding

The royal wedding....was beautiful, Kate looked great. 

But that's kind of old news. So check out our wedding. Lol 

I learned A LOT planning my wedding. I (with a some lovely help) planned this wedding in just about 3 months. We had random help from family pitching financially in which was SO appreciated, but mostly we bank rolled the operation ourselves.

I cannot WAIT to break down my wedding for you guys. I am going to tell you EVERY PENNY we spent. I will answer any questions and tell you the cost of anything and everything.
Usually, money questions can be awkward or rude. Not anymore!!!
I have SO MUCH to tell you and I CANNOT FREAKING WAIT. I'm typing as fast as I can,
but everyone is waiting for these pictures (I have showed NO ONE).

I broke down the post into sections so that you can skip if you wanna move on. 

There are SO MANY PHOTOS!

Temple Pictures

Wedding Venue / Ring Ceremony 

Reception 

Dance Party 

Sparkler Send Off 

I want to thank Alyssa Ence for capturing our day. She is a true professional and her guidance made our engagements and wedding photos the stunning photos they were. She exceeded my expectations more than I can even express. I could not recommend her more, she was worth every penny. I linked her so you can check out more of her work. 

So without further ado, one of my favorite days on planet earth. 
I'm going to let the pictures do the talking for this post.

TEMPLE PICTURES

 

 

WEDDING VENUE & RING CEREMONY

RECEPTION !!!

DANCE PARTY 

(Everything below is from my family friend who is a photographer, once my wedding photographer left...so thankful for these pictures!!!) 

 SPARKLER SEND OFF

The man lights up my whole world. This was my favorite wedding ever...I'm not biased. 

Xo Kelsie Buhl 

I never planned

I have so much to celebrate & I am excited to bring this blog back from the dead! Dating a hunk, getting engaged and getting married sure sucks up your time. But I love this blog and I love talking real with the people in my life. I am excited to share with you my wedding (just got the pictures back!!) and all that is new in my life. But I've had something on my heart I want to share first. 
It's embarrassing for me to admit this, but I think there is something good in showing your weaknesses sometimes. 

I follow a really popular blog about a young wife with 5 children. Last year, she tragically lost her husband to cancer. The diagnosis was sudden and readers followed along as her husbands health slowly declined. I speak for probably every reader of her blog as I say, post after post was heartbreaking, watching their lives forever change through the posts of instagram. I weeped as I found out her sweet young husband had passed and left her a widow of 5 children. Within the course of a few years, her entire world was different. 

And my heart broke for her. 

A few months after her husband passed, she reconnected with a important person from her past & she was married to him. She continues to share her journey through indescribable pain and finding joy and love after heartache. 

Before I share my epic blunder, I start out with this. My thoughts were my own and I never shared with anyone how I felt. This woman doesn't know me and really, what does my opinion matter? 

But as I go throughout my life, I am trying to become like Christ. 

He didn't just not say a judgment, he didn't think one.
I am working on refining my heart and private accountability matters. 

Now, it's the next part of the story I am ashamed to admit. 

I placed judgement on her decision. I thought to myself, "How after only a few months she could move on?"

How she could bring a new person into those babies lives after such little time? 

She she wrote a post I'll never forget. It shook to me the core and changed my heart forever.
I looked for it for hours and I can't find it. Did I make this all up in my head? 

I don't remember everything, but what I remember reading said "I never planned on losing my husband..."

And that was it. I stopped all my other thoughts and thought about all the decisions I have made. I thought of all the things in my life I never intending on happening. All the tragedies that left me without words, without action.
Then I thought of all the tragedies I haven't been through. How many lives I HAVEN'T lived.
My thoughts were silenced.  

To look from the outside in, on a life that you are not living, and decide YOU know best. It's not right.
People don't need judgement. They need love. They don't need need your opinions. They need your empathy.

"Opinion is really the lowest form of knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. 

The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and to live in anothers' world." 

I think the world has way too many opinions right now.
So many people think they "know best" or they would've done better.
It's so easy to say what we "would have done" if we were in someone else's shoes.
The shoes of a woman who has lost her husband. The shoes of a African American man. The shoes of the president. The shoes of the homeless. The shoes of an addict.

But were not in their shoes.
We probably don't want to be.
And these people probably never planned, some never chose.
I really think at the end of the day, we are all just doing the best we know how to do. 

We need more love. We need more compassion. We need more generosity in our thoughts toward other people. We need stop thinking that we know the whole story, when we only know a sliver.
Because Jesus didn't need ask us to go around giving our opinions. He just asked us to love people.

"We make loving people a lot more complicated than Jesus did." 

I'm going to do better because I think that is what will make a difference in this world.
Thanks for loving me through it all. 

Xo Kelsie Buhl

Picking your person.

You guys, I'm engaged. 
Anyone who has been on this journey with me knows that this is a miracle from Heaven & please don't tell Justin that I am actually a crazy person because he has already been tricked into loving me. (This is a joke because he is VERY aware.)

I have spent so many moments pinching myself because I feel so very blessed. Justin is truly handpicked by Heavenly Father for me, boy it was worth the wait! Isn't that funny how that works? I want to tell you all the things I love about Justin but this is a blog post, not a novel. & I'll mention more later all the great things about this stud VVV

I have dated a lot I think and the funny thing is, I don't have any bad things to say about anyone that I have gotten to know! I have never dated a "bad person", but I have dated BAD FITS. Let's say that again for the people in the back. GOOD people, BAD fit. 

A lot of people ask me, how I knew. How did I know that Justin is the man I should marry?
Marriage is a big decision! The BIGGEST decision. 

If you are dating around, if you're in a relationship, or even if you're hopelessly single (I've spent 24 years in this state, I know it well), even if the perfect person comes around, 
if you don't know what you're looking for, YOU WON'T FIND what you're looking for! 

I'm no expert on this.....or an expert on anything in my life. lol 
But I want to share what I have learned, in the hopes that it may help. 

FOREVER IS A LONG TIME.
So let's gather all the information you can before you take the plunge.
Here is what I have learned about what matters, and what doesn't. 

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You don't really need to have things in common. 

I have realized this throughout my life, but you don't really need to have tons of things in common. Obviously I'm not talking BIG stuff, but you don't need to marry someone who is interested in all the same things as you. 

BUT BUT BUT you should have ONE good thing in common. Justin & I? Games. 
We loveeeeeeee games. We love to play games & we love to win. It is no holds bar when it comes to games. It's the one time when we aren't only not on each others side, but we are out for TOTAL ANNIHILATION. We play games at least twice a week (his families play games too). 

It's okay to have different interests. Justin mountain bikes. I... watch a lot of tv? LOL
We're into different stuff & that is okay. 
Which brings me to my next point. 

Opposites attract is a REAL thing...and sometimes the best thing. 

I am stubborn as a mule. I can have a temper at times. I am social and if I'm in a room I want to know every person in there and their life story. 
Justin is an observer. He would much rather be with 3 close friends than a room full of people. Small talk kills him. 

Justin & I are very different and I am very grateful. I think we are a great complement to one another. 
Pick a person who is able to complement your weaknesses.

Another example is finances. I am a spender & I am the worst at saving. 
Justin has not a penny of debt & is a SAVER.
I have become so much better because he has taught me and rubbed off on me. 
ALSO, I want to impress him and make him proud of my decisions. 

I think the right person will do that to you. They don't berate you for your weakness, they are consistent in their strengths and you look up to them and they make you want to be more like them. Justin has done that for me. 


Choose someone who adores you. 
I never realized how important this is.
You guys. Marriage, the never ending, eternity type stuff, seems like a heck of a long time to me. 
I don't want to marry someone who looks at me weird when I'm white girl dancing, or yelling during a game of Secret Hitler. I don't want a man who thinks I'm just "alright". 

My favorite thing about Justin is the level of safe and LOVED I feel. He is so good at communicating it and he is so consistent. He tells me he loves me about 100 times a day, and means it everytime. When I am acting a fool or dancing like an idiot, he just watches and smiles... or acts like a fool and dances with me. 

I remember I had HORRIBLE food poisoning. He had come home from the snow to find me curled around the toilet, sweating bullets, hair in dreads pretty much. And he leans down and says "You're even beautiful when your sick." 
LOLOLOLOL You guys!!! I was not beautiful. I was a mess. But he loves me. 
He has never once once ONCE said an unkind word, even joking, about me. 
 So I believe his compliments and they mean the world to me. 

And most importantly, I literally can always be myself. 
He takes me as I am and he loves me for it. Despite all the unlovable traits I have. 


Pick a person who is actually a FIT. 
I'm gonna be bold here. Not that it will actually help in the moment, because at the end of the day, you're gonna do what you're gonna do. 
But you will realize I am right...just like I had to realize I was wrong in a lot of my previous situations. 

Like I mentioned before, sometimes you have good people, bad fit. 
I have had this occur a number of times. 

This is hard one because you normally realize it's a bad fit AFTER the person becomes something special to you. It happens at a time where if you were to lose that person, it feels like you're losing a part of you. 

The best example I have in my life is Justin. 
Since high school, my serious relationships (probably 1 or 2) have been contentious. I'm a bull headed person who isn't uncomfortable with confrontation in a dating relationship. It became a habit and I think I truly thought that every relationship had to have some form of yelling. I was attracting the same type of bull headed (a good trait at times but not in healthy communication) people and when it was a fight, it was war. 
Once again, good people, bad fits.

Then enter in Justin. 
I, still holding all my bull headed traits only slightly refined, expect eventually to have a disagreement that one day leads to the unhealthy habits of my past. 
 The man will not fight with me. Lol If I am unhappy, he will find his part in it and he will address and adjust whatever it may be that is bothering me. 

He will say sorry 17 times if that is what I need.
If I am having a moment of unnecessary attitude, he just loves on me. 
He makes me LAUGH and makes keeps molehill disagreements, molehills. 

He is so good at this you guys!!! Of course we don't see eye to eye of everything, we are different people, with different experiences, who SEE the WORLD differently! 
But we are able to talk things out, without saying things we'd regret or we don't mean. 

And like with his other strengths, he is teaching me, by actions instead of words, how to be like him and not sweat the small stuff. 


Don't over think it. 
When it comes to making your final decision on marriage, don't do what all humans have done since the dawn of time, and over think it. 
  
2 things helped me know I was going to make the choice to marry Justin. 

1. I never forgot what I had asked Heavenly Father for for all those years. 
2. I knew what it felt like when Heavenly Father was telling me NO on a person. 


I saw my friend get exactly what she had been praying for and suddenly it wasn't enough anymore. The world had warped her expectations and Satan had snuck in to tell her "the grass is greener". 
Remember what you prayed for. No one is perfect, no one has EVERYTHING. 
Work with people. LOVE people for who they are. 
Do they love you & think you hung the moon? Do they make you laugh? Do they love the Savior? Are they willing to change with His help? 

Then keep moving forward! Stick with it!
Justin doesn't have everything (he kinda does though). But I'm with him. He's my choice. 



With certain people, I just felt a feeling of dread. 
I'll say this one more time for emphasis... NOT BECAUSE THEY WERE BAD PEOPLE. 
Heavenly Father knows so much more than we do, He knows everything. He can see the trials we will go through and the hardships. He sees every fiber of our being. There is no better person to warn us or guide us when making a decision like marriage. 
For some time, I ignored the feelings of dread because I didn't have the faith that the Lord would bring me something better than I had chosen. 
But He can. & He WILL.

The coolest thing about that is He will provide better for everyone in the situation. I love that. 

And then when your meet your Justin, you will have a peace you've never felt and you will feel grateful to recognize it, because it will feel just like home. 





Xo Kelsie