Another year is coming to an end and we’re all looking forward to a bright future ahead. I always love this time of year and the hope and positivity that it instills in our hearts– wouldn’t it be beautiful if we could keep that spirit up all year? While we’re busy looking ahead and planning our busy lives–whether our plans include starting a new career, getting into new relationships, ending toxic ones, building a family or creating new content for your creative outlet, let us not forget the memories that built us to who we are today as we dive into new beginnings.

2016 has been the most exciting year of my life and because I don’t often spare enough time to get personal through social media, I wanted to not only share my year with my readers but also have this post to look back on myself. My husband and I began dating when I was 14 and he was 15. I told him numerous times that my worst fear was not being able to remember my life and having our special moments drift away with time. On our first anniversary, he gave me a leather-bound journal. Inside it, I found all of our first year together beautifully written out. Pretty special gift for a 15 year old to give right? I think that’s when I knew he was it. 😉 Over the years, we continued to write our story but it no longer fits in that journal. Today, I wanted to journal electronically. 

As 2016 began, I was already in the most exciting time of my life at that point. I had just moved out of my joyous dorm room (that lacked air conditioning but didn’t lack heat as I sweated my way through winter with my windows open and snow pouring in) into my first apartment. I started out with a blank slate and it was SO exciting for a design enthusiast like myself to create whatever I wanted my space to be. 

Shortly after moving in, Christmas break ended and I started my last semester of college. In February, I celebrated my 21st birthday and Andrew had his 22nd. I didn’t have too much time to celebrate though as I was working towards completing 24 semester hours. Because of this, I was able to graduate a year early which meant that I caught up to my (at that time) fiancé. We had our wedding planning finished and that’s what I kept my eye on every time my motivation lacked. I knew that in May, we’d both be finished with school and would be relaxing on the beach as husband and wife. 

On April 2, my mom and sister planned out the most beautiful bridal shower. It was the perfect theme for our future lighthouse wedding. 

At this point, we were about a month and a half away from our wedding. I was able to use my senior psychology capstone research as a blinder to the time I was waiting. There were so many long, sleepless nights but finally, we did it. 

Although we were thrilled to be finished, the memories and personal growth that we made at Georgetown would be missed and never forgotten. The 3am trips to Sonic with our friends and long walks around campus were finished  because we all knew that it was unlikely we would be in the same place at the same time again in life– except for Andrew and I who were now only FOUR days from our wedding date. We graduated on a Saturday and our wedding was the following Wednesday (crazy I know.) As the graduation festivities ended, we left at 4am on Sunday for our destination wedding in Hilton Head, South Carolina. As many of you have heard, we had a bit of car trouble on the way there– the backseat of my car caught on fire at a gas station about 3 hours into the trip. We had went through a terrible stretch of road in Tennessee and a rock had gotten stuck in the car’s exhaust. To make a VERY long story short, we finally made it to HHI in a rental car and were able to feast on the beach in a truly ‘us’ fashion. (When you lose over a grand in one day due to rental car and taxi expenses, Lunchables taste even more delish ;))

I had never been so sure that Andrew was the man for me as I was on this day. He not only rescued my wedding dress from the car fire (I definitely did NOT tell him to do this) but he also kept me calm as we sat in the back of a police cruiser on the side of the interstate while fire fighters ripped out my seats. 

“In car fires and in health, for richer and for poorer.”

We spent the next few days in Hilton Head relaxing and hoping that the predicted rain on our wedding day would stay away– Our prayers were answered and we had the wedding of our dreams. 

May 18, 2016 at 8:05 pm: At the top of the Harbour Town Lighthouse 

As far as wedding days go, ours was majorly stress free and calm just as we try to keep our lives. We had a morning walk on the beach and then decided on Dairy Queen for lunch with our family. I then went to my hair appointment followed by taking photos and finally, our ceremony. We ended the night watching dolphins jump behind us and then a reception at Topside.

The rest of our trip was equally perfect. We stayed at Sonesta Resort, enjoyed phenomenal food and even better sunsets.

After coming back to reality, Andrew immediately began working full time as an IT engineer and I still had a few months before I would begin my career. During this time, I took some online courses and decided that it was finally time for stylefromvictoria.com to launch. This was such a long awaited goal and I immediately began working on my posts and enjoying some pool time. 😉 I’ve had the opportunity to work with and meet some fantastic people through my blog and I’m so thankful for those relationships. I also began to thoroughly enjoy my wifey label during this time.

This was also the time that my sister and brother-in-law let us in on some BIG news that they had been hiding since my wedding! They had found out she was pregnant (on the way to my wedding!) and we were all ecstatic. She is due on January 1– Talk about a wonderful start to 2017!

As fall approached, we began to plan out all of the seasonal festivities that we always love so much. What we hadn’t planned on, was moving once again just 10 months after moving the first time. We ended up finding a new apartment that we fell in love with and moved in October 1.

Fall moved into winter and Christmas has come and gone. Andrew and I enjoyed our first Christmas as a married couple more than I could’ve ever imagined! From buying our first tree to endless amounts of Christmas movie watching, we thoroughly enjoyed the season.

Though this year has ended so quickly, I will treasure all of the milestones forever. I hope that 2016 has positively impacted you but that 2017 brings you even more joy and contentment. Don’t forget to take it slow and enjoy the little moments. Thank you for following along with me throughout the year and I can’t wait to see what 2017 has in store for us!