Blue Moons Honeymoon

While I wait for my professional photos to come back, so I can start recaps, I thought it might be fun to share some of my favorite moments from the Blue Moon honeymoon!

Even though I'm a control freak, I gratefully accepted Mr. Blue Moons' parents' offer to plan our honeymoon for us as their wedding gift to us. Lots of ideas were tossed around, from Iceland to the Dominican Republic, but ultimately Mama Blue (my mother-in-law) wanted to keep the honeymoon a big surprise until after she booked it!



She settled on a week-long stay in Cozumel, Mexico, and when we found out, we could not have been more excited. Mr. Blue Moon has traveled extensively, and we have taken several trips together to the mountains and beach, but we've never traveled internationally together before.

We stayed at the beautiful El Cozumeleño Beach Resort and got to enjoy this fantastic view from our suite's balcony.

We ordered omelettes, fruit, and sweet rolls (sort of like doughnuts, but not as sugary) from room service every morning, and also enjoyed some amazing meals at the resort's restaurant. I basically lived on fajitas and this roasted cheese for the entire week, and I'm not sorry. The swim-up bar and unlimited margaritas, strawberry daiquiris, and piña coladas kept Mr. Blue Moon and I well hydrated, too!

After such a busy few weeks leading up to the wedding, we spent a good bit of time snoozing in beach hammocks, reading (I finished A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness, and it was fabulous), and relaxing in the water. And it was such beautiful water! The sunsets were to die for.

Being the Blue Moons, though, we did want to spend at least one whole day exploring the island...and that, my friends, is how I ended up in the passenger side of a 25 year-old rental Jeep that had trouble starting every time we parked somewhere, cruising the island with Mr. Blue Moon at the wheel. We ended up starting the day at Punta Sur, an eco beach with a historic lighthouse, a museum, and some pretty extraordinary reefs.

Celrain Lighthouse at Punta Sur. Photo by Greg Johnston via AllPosters.com

Mr. Blue Moon and I were determined to climb to the top of this lighthouse, but it was not to be. I don't think I've mentioned this before, but I am deathly terrified of spiders. I was bitten on the neck by a brown recluse when I was in high school, had an infestation in one of my college apartments, and seeing a spider much bigger than a pencil eraser is enough to send me into a tailspin. Before we got to Punta Sur, this exact conversation happened.

Me: "Mr. Blue Moon, do you think tarantulas live in the wild here?"

Mr. BM: "I doubt it, this is an island."

Me: "If I see a tarantula in real life, you might have to carry me out of here. Because I will most definitely freak."

Mr. BM: "You won't see a tarantula."

Halfway up the lighthouse steps, someone shouts from the top, "please tell the Americans there's a tarantula on the middle landing!"

We were standing on the middle landing. I looked down. IT WAS RIGHT BY MY FOOT YA'LL! RIGHT BY MY FOOT. IT WAS BIG.

I'm super sorry I didn't snap a picture to share with you all, but I was too busy trying not to pass out in a 110 degree lighthouse with a giant hellspawn spider right next to my foot. The hyperventilating and tunnel vision began. Mr. Blue Moon is pouring his water bottle on me shouting "stay with me so we can get you down!" I realized just how much of a good one I married as he half-carried, half-dragged my pitiful self down ninety lighthouse steps. Though I was all for driving directly to the airport and getting a flight back to a tarantula-less place, Mr. Blue Moon sat me down, got me a Coke, kindly did not join the locals in raucous laughter (I'm sure I was acting beyond ridiculous, but my mind just totally shut down), and found people with parrots to cheer me up. He's the greatest.

I think I look pretty good for just surviving a near-death experience. 

He also sprung for snorkeling, because I just really needed to get off land for a hot minute (the park ranger assured me tarantulas don't swim, especially in salt water). I was a little nervous because I've never snorkeled and I'm not the best swimmer, but at that point I was sold on the fact that Mr. Blue Moon could probably save my life again if he needed to, and we did it. I'm so glad we did! We ended up swimming about a mile and a half, which I never would have believed I could do, and saw all kinds of reefs, colourful fish, and a massive stingray. That's what I love about Mr. Blue Moon- he brings out the best in me and makes me feel like I can do things I wouldn't normally do. 

We also visited the Mayan ruins at San Gervasio. This place was fascinating. It used to be a fertility temple that every Mayan woman had to travel to by canoe in order to have many children. Since we're both history buffs, we really enjoyed exploring this part of the island. And we made more animal friends! 

The Thursday before we left was Mr. Blue Moon's birthday, so we went out to dinner and explored Cozumel's nightlife. From shots to shopping, it was basically all my favorite things wrapped into one awesome package. I also made sure Mr. Blue Moon got an awesome birthday card! 

All in all, it was an amazing honeymoon and the perfect gift from my in-laws. I feel like we got a good mix of adventure and relaxation, and we would definitely travel back to Cozumel if we could! It was super hard to come back to our home in Mississippi and real life. Mr. Blue Moon immediately went back to work, and I've been getting ready for my school year to gear up starting this Monday. We both start graduate school at the end of August, so post-wedding has all been a whirlwind of work and getting ready for school. If it were up to me, I would just lay around on the beach forever! 

Is your dream trip to somewhere tropical, or some place different?

We Blue Moons Got Hitched!

It has been a whirlwind month of final wedding plans, but after two years of planning, our wedding day came and went...finally! No one told me how much RELIEF I would feel after it was all over. Mr. Blue Moon and I are back from our fabulous five days in Cozumel, and enjoying some time with our families in Tennessee before we head back to our permanent home and resume life as we know it.

Mr. Blue Moon and I directly after our ceremony. Guest Photo. 

Our wedding day was HOT. It felt like it was about 105 degrees outside, and the Tennessee humidity was miserable. I was a bride hoping for rain, if only to cool things off, but we made do. Despite the hellish weather, our wedding was the intimate, family-oriented day I always dreamed of, and to us, it was perfect! 

With Mama Blue, my brand new mother-in-law, right before our ceremony. Guest Photo. 

As we got our festivities under way on the Friday before our wedding and started welcoming all our friends and extended family into town, I commented to Mr. Blue Moon that the best part of having a wedding is getting to have all the people we love in one place at one time. The celebrating with our friends was truly amazing. I have never felt so loved! It was a truly incredible feeling.

Walking down the aisle with Daddy. Guest Photo. 

My side of the family is not big on dancing, so I was pleased that our dancefloor stayed full most of the night, anyway. Guest Photo. 

Our venue still had construction going on when my bridesmaids and I ARRIVED that morning. They really worked hard to ensure that everything was picture-perfect, from the outdoor lights, to cleaning the dirt off the parking lot, by the time our guests arrived. It came together beautifully and Mr. Blue Moon and I could not have been more pleased. 

Guest Photos. 

It could be 6-8 weeks before we get our professional photographs back, but in the meantime, I plan to share photos from our honeymoon adventures and talk about the frenzy of DIY activities we worked on in the days leading up to our wedding. Until then, Mr. Blue Moon and I are holding ourselves over with guest photos like these, working on getting our video footage edited and set to music, and gushing over the sneak-peak photograph provided by our incredible photographer, Amilia James, that's keeping us eagerly waiting for more! 

Photograph by Amilia Photography, planning by Adriel Nutter Events, flowers by Forget Me Not Designs

Can't wait to be back in the loop soon! Thanks for staying along for the ride!

Becoming Mrs. Blue Moon

Ya'll, I can't believe how the weeks have flown by and how quickly our wedding day has snuck up on us. We are getting married THIS Saturday. It's crazy to think that this time next week, I'll be Mr. Blue Moon's wife. The final weeks have been a blur of finalizing all the little details, from favors to the signs we'll need around our venue. We have been thoroughly showered with everything we'll need to start our married life by our family and friends, we have finished purchasing gifts for our bridal party, and tomorrow night, we're completing our favors with the help of my awesome MOH K. All that's left now is to sit back and relax!

Our haggard faces after waiting in line for our marriage license in Memphis. Personal Photo. 

One huge to-do that we completed within the last few weeks was getting our marriage license. This seemed trickier at first than it really was, because we are currently living in a different state than the one we're getting married in, and Mr. Blue Moon can't ask for any time away from his new job since they're being nice enough to let him have next week off for our honeymoon. Thankfully, Tennessee has this great law where a marriage license from any county is good to marry in any other county, and we live about thirty minutes away from our home state's border. So yep, we drove right over after work one day to get our license from a county different from the one we're marrying in (which is 3.5 hours away from our home in Mississippi) and created a genealogy nightmare for all of our future posterity who might research us a hundred years from now. 

Sorry, not sorry. Via Riffsy.com.

We also finally got the HUGE news from Mama Blue, my almost-mother-in-law, who has been diligently planning our honeymoon for the past several months: we're going to Cozumel, Mexico!!!

YES, YES, SO MUCH YES. Via TripAdvisor

This is our wedding gift from Mr. Blue Moon's parents, and I'm just so freaking excited to be on a white, sandy beach in Mexico. I've never been privileged enough to travel internationally before now, so I am pumped to spend a week relaxing in this beautiful place with Mr. Blue Moon and hopefully getting some snorkeling in, too! 

If you're wondering what all a bride does in the final week before the wedding, it's a lot of running around completing random errands. Crazily enough, I was spending the entirety of last week in yet another city in another state running a debate camp for high schoolers, not getting enough sleep and putting all things wedding on my back burner, so I am really playing catch-up this week. I imagine that for brides who have the entire two weeks before the wedding free, things are a lot more relaxed.

Yep, this bride was back in the classroom during her summer break less than two weeks out from her wedding. Photo by Lauren D., Personal Photo

In the past few days this week alone, Mr. Blue Moon and I have attended one wedding shower, Mr. Blue Moon had his bachelor party, I had an extended meeting with our wedding planner, did walkthroughs of both our ceremony and reception venues, met with our officiant, and have been running random errands for a guest book, stuff to stock our emergency day-of kit, and items I want to take on the honeymoon. I wish I could say I am a totally serene and relaxed bride, but that is just not my personality. I wish I were more organized, but part of me knows I would find a way to complicate things no matter what. I tend to get really stressed before big events in my life, and then wake up totally fine the day-of. I hope that's the same situation this time around! 

Thankfully, our family has been wonderful! Even though Mr. Blue Moon is still in Mississippi until tomorrow night for work, MOH K and I spent the last evening with his family drinking wine, eating delicious strawberry cake, and laughing it up. That really helped take my mind off of the to-do list I've created for myself. Today, I'm going with some of my bridesmaids for a spa day, so I'm really looking forwards to that. Then we have the rehearsal and dinner, and our wedding! 

Many people keep asking how I feel, and it's hard to describe. Nervous isn't the right word, but I'm definitely not totally relaxed, either. My maid of honor asked me on the way back to my place if I'm happy, and to that at least, I can give a resounding "yes!" Knowing that Mr. Blue Moon and I are about to become our own tiny family is just the greatest feeling in the world. My best advice as you reach your own final countdown is to give in to enough of your personal level of crazy to feel in control and sane about the whole wedding part, but also to remember the big picture. There's a person you love waiting for you at the end of that aisle, and that is just an incredible thing!