Our 2014 Holiday Photos

If you know me at all, you know that I love sending mail, specifically greetings cards. I send birthday cards, thank you cards, Valentine’s Day cards– you name it, I send it. In fact, I’m so on top of sending greeting cards that some of my friends refer to me as “The Queen of Cards.” So it should be no surprise to anyone who knows this about me that I started thinking about what I was going to do for our Christmas card around the end of October. I’m sure that sounds obnoxiously early, but that’s just how Christmas Card Crazies think.

I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do for our Christmas card, all I knew was that I wanted to use Minted this year instead of Shutterfly and I wanted to make sure we had a nice picture for the card as well. Last year, I put our cards together last minute and ended up using some crappy picture we had taken with my old Android phone. Even though I put our cards together last minute, I was still able to get them sent out before Christmas, but I wasn’t 100% happy with them.

This year, I started planning early and it paid off. I have a few photographer friends here in Sac and in the Bay Area, and I noticed via social media that they were all offering mini portrait sessions for couples/families in early November so said couples/families could have photos to use specifically for their holiday greeting cards. I price shopped and compared the photographers’ availability to our own, and I ended up choosing Lisa Bardot from The Goodness to take our holiday photos, and it was a great choice indeed! Not only do I love Lisa’s style of photography, but we have been acquantainces for a while because we have a lot of mutual friends. Scheduling a mini portrait session with her was a great way to get to know her better and finally call her a friend, while also walking away with some awesome portraits!

We got our portraits back yesterday and I am so happy with them! We got them taken on a Sunday afternoon at Capitol Park in Downtown Sacramento. I love all the greenery surrounding us in the photos and how the colors really pop. And of course, I love any photo of me with my husband (good or bad). In addition to using these photos for our Christmas card, I plan to print and frame a few for our apartment. I also plan to use the headshots taken of me for my blog and my social media sites.

Now that we have more than enough pictures to choose from to use for our Christmas card, I need to start working on choosing a design from Minted, buy some holiday stamps, and maybe even order a custom holiday return address label. Yes, I know I spend way too much time and money on our Christmas cards, but I told you I’m the Queen of Cards, and that’s just how I roll.

Marriage Advice for Newlyweds: What I’ve Learned About Marriage In Two Years

Photo by Emily Takes Photos

Chris and I celebrated two years of marriage on October 26th. Two years! I can’t believe we’re officially not newlyweds anymore. It seems like just yesterday we were saying “I do” at San Francisco City Hall.

The reason it’s taken me over two weeks to crank out this post is because I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want/have to say about two short years of marriage. Should I recap what we did on our anniversary? Nah, I did that last year. Should I talk about how much I love Chris? Nah, I’ve done that before, too. (Many times!) So this year, I thought I’d share some good ol’ marriage advice– stuff I’ve learned about love and commitment in the last two years that can be applied to not only a new marriage, but any long-term serious relationship.

I’ve learned a lot about marriage in the last couple years, but I decided to stick with the top six pieces of advice I would give to anyone who is about to get hitched or any newlyweds who don’t have kids yet:

Make Date Night a Priority

You may or may not know this already, but I’m all about date nights. I’m a firm believer that date nights are an important part of any relationship because it gives the couple a chance to do something fun together, and more importantly, spend quality time together. Chris and I try to have a date night once a week; that may seem like a lot, but when you you’re married-without-kids, it’s easier to carve out time for just the two of you. You might also be thinking, “Doesn’t four dates a month get kind of expensive?” Well, we’re actually pretty good about keeping our date nights cheap. I get weekly emails from Groupon, and whenever I see a good deal for a local restaurant, I’ll buy it and save it for a date night. There have also been times when I’ve won a restaurant gift card in a contest or one of us gets a giftcard as a birthday/Christmas present. BOOM. Cheap date night.

*One more note on this whole date night thing: take turns planning the dates, or plan them together. It’s no fun to feel like you’re the only one in the marriage who’s always doing all the planning.

Go On Double Dates with Other Married Couples

Not only should you continue to date your spouse after you’re married, you two should make an effort to go on double dates with other married couples. This is important for many reasons: it’s healthy for you and your spouse to have mutual friends and hang out with other people rather than just the two of you all the time. Plus, hanging out with other married couples is fun. Chris and I have become friends with some other newlywed couples these last couple years and we love hanging out with them because we all have so much in common thanks to the fact we’re all in the same life stage: in our late 20’s/early 30’s, married-without-kids, and career-focused.

Be Together, But Also Apart

While it’s definitely important in a marriage to spend a lot of quality time together and have mutual friends, it’s equally important to remember that you’re still your own person, and even though your spouse is your best friend, you two don’t HAVE to do EVERYTHING together. As hard as it might be, remember that you once had a life before your spouse came into the picture, and keep living that life. Make time to meet your single girlfriends for brunch. Keep up with your girly hobbies, like yoga and blogging. Accomplish your goal of running a half marathon. Continuing to live your own life after you’re married will help you to maintain a certain independence that many people lose touch with after they tie the knot. Added bonus: doing this also gives you and your spouse more to talk about over dinner or on the phone.

Learn Your Spouse’s Primary Love Language and Speak It to Him/Her Fluently

A few months ago, a friend of mine (who recently got divorced) advised me to read The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. She had me convinced I needed to read it when she mentioned that she wished that she had read it before she got divorced and had even sent a copy to her ex-husband. So I read the book, and it really opened up my eyes on how Chris and I currently show love for each other vs how we should show love for each other. Now that we understand each other’s primary love language (mine is receiving gifts, his is physical touch), we are both working on speaking those languages to each other fluently.

Your Spouse > Your Smart Phone

This is a big one for us Millennials. We are a generation that can’t seem to put down our smart phones, but just because we’re addicted to our phones doesn’t mean our spouses should suffer. When you’re out to dinner with your husband, put your phone away and have dinner with your husband. When your wife is trying to talk to you about her day, put your phone down and listen to her. Be present, especially around your spouse.

Don’t Get Lazy

I think anyone who is married or has been in a long-term relationship can agree that after a while, you start to get comfortable– sometimes a little too comfortable. Ladies, maybe you stop dressing up for him and start resorting to yoga pants and messy buns 75% of the time. Maybe you stop initiating sex. Maybe you gain some weight. Guys, maybe you stop taking her out on dates. Maybe you don’t do anything special for her birthday. Maybe you resort to only buying her flowers on your anniversary and Valentine’s Day. All of the above is called, “getting lazy” in a marriage/relationship and I highly advise against it. If you’re married without kids, you have no excuse to be lazy. Keep pursuing each other. Keep romancing each other. Keep getting dressed up for one another, because once kids come along, it’s going to be a whole lot harder to look good for your spouse, plan date nights, and get it on.

What marriage or relationship advice would you add to this list?

On Combining Finances After Marriage

Since this blog is partly about my experience with being a newlywed and now partly about personal finance, today I chose to write about how Chris and I decided to merge our finances after we got married.

A few weeks before Chris and I got married, we started to discuss how we wanted to combine our finances once we were hitched, if at all. I had never shared my money with a partner before, so this was very new for me, and to be honest, I wasn’t super excited about the thought of sharing “my” hard-earned money. As for Chris, he had a bad experience with combining finances in his previous relationship, so he knew for sure he wanted to try a different method of combining finances with me. It’s not that we didn’t trust each other, we just wanted to make sure we figured out a good, solid method for combining our finances to avoid any fights or issues pertaining to money. Because after all, financial problems are a very frequent cause of divorce.

Chris threw out an idea that he had heard on the radio: each spouse keep their own individual bank accounts, but in addition, create a joint account that’s used for the couple’s joint bills (e.g. rent, utilities, groceries, etc.). Each spouse contributes a certain amount of money to the joint account each month, while still using their own individual account for personal purchases.

So for example, every other Friday (payday), Chris and I each transfer $500 into our joint account totaling $2,000 a month, which is more than enough to cover our joint expenses. Chris makes a little more than I do, but we contribute the same amount of money every other week because Chris has me on his insurance benefits (it costs $200 to add a spouse), so it evens out. Any other money we receive as a couple goes into our joint account (e.g. money we received when we got married). If we plan a date night out or want to buy something new for our apartment, we use our joint account to pay for it. Since I’ve gotten good at tracking spending and creating budgets, I created a budget for our joint account and track our purchases from that account to make sure we don’t ever go over. At the end of the month, I’ll update Chris on our joint budget.

As for our own individual accounts, we use those to pay for our personal bills. So for me, that means my credit cards, student loans, and car payment. I can also use my personal account for buying whatever the heck I want, but Chris can’t say anything about it because the purchase was made with money from my account and vice versa. Having personal accounts is also good for when we want to buy each other gifts because the only transaction history we both have access to is for our joint account.

Finally, if one of us ever needs help financially, we of course have each other’s backs. For instance, when I was unemployed and only receiving skimpy unemployment checks as my source of income, Chris contributed $1,500 a month to our joint account and I contributed $500. There was also the time when I supported him financially while he was unemployed and receiving NO unemployment benefits at all.

Chris and I have been using this method since we got married and it’s working really well for us! I feel like we never fight about money and the bills are always covered, which is all we can really ask for. I think down the road once we’ve been married longer or start having kids, we’ll probably start transferring a larger amount into our joint account every payday or just merge everything into one account, but for now, we’ll stick to what we know works.

How did you and your spouse combine your finances after marriage? If you’re not married yet, how do you want to combine your finances with your future spouse someday?

Why I’m Waiting to Have Kids

Meeting a friend’s newborn baby for the first time

Babies. They’re everywhere.

There are sonograms all over Facebook announcing high school friends’ first, second, or even third baby on the way. There are blog posts showing the weekly progress of a blogger’s rapidly growing baby bump. And don’t even get me started on all the adorable little newborn, infant, and toddler faces all up in my Instagram feed.

Now that I am in my late twenties, it seems like half the people I know either have a bun in the oven, or have at least one kid. I’m telling you, babies really are everywhere these days, and so is the pressure to have one! Chris and I are constantly asked by friends, acquaintances, and even strangers “So, when are you two going to start having kids?” Oh, and let’s not forget about the pressure Chris and I get whenever we visit our parents; it seems like ever since we hit the one year wedding anniversary mark, their hints requests desperate pleas for grandchildren have significantly increased. I mean, it’s nice to know that our friends and family want us to procreate, but there is good reason why we’re waiting. Here’s why:

1) I’m unemployed – This one is kind of a no-brainer. In my mind, it takes two to provide. Sure, Chris has a job with a decent salary, so I could just be a stay-at-home mom, right? Nah, that’s not my style. I don’t even want to THINK about having kids until I have a job and can help provide for our future family.

2) I want to get all of my debt paid off first – I’ve recently developed a new big goal to accomplish, and that is to pay off all or most of my debt by the time I turn 30 years old in May 2015. (I plan to blog about this more in-depth in a later post.) Why 30? Because that’s the age I plan to seriously consider starting a family. Kids are expensive, so trying to start a family with a huge chunk of debt sounds like a recipe for lots of financial stress down the road.

3) Chris and I want to travel more – New York. Germany. Ireland. Mexico. These are all big trips we want to take, and hopefully sooner rather than later. I doubt we’ll get all four done by the time we start a family, but I’d like for us to at least check off New York and Mexico!

4) I can’t even keep a plant alive – Either I have no green thumb or I need some serious practice when it comes to taking care of a living thing. My guess is the latter. Chris and I plan to get a dog early next year, so hopefully that will help us get in the practice of taking care of something together.

5) We still want time for just the two of us – Chris and I weren’t together for very long before we got married: we did international long-distance for a year, got engaged, then got married seven months later. As of right now, we’ve barely been together for three years total. I would love another two years of just me and him before we bring some little ones into the picture.

Sure, whenever I see a Facebook friend’s sonogram, an expecting blogger’s baby bumb, or an Instagram pic of a ridiculously cute toddler, part of me gets excited for Chris and I to experience all of that someday. But for now, we’re going to keep waiting and doing what we’re doing, because while we do eventually want to do parenthood, we want to do it right and in the way that’s best for us.

Do you want to have kids someday? If so, why are you waiting?

On One Year of Marriage

Chris and I recently celebrated our one year wedding anniversary! Our anniversary was actually on October 26th, but we couldn’t do much because Chris was sick with the flu, so we ended up ordering a pizza (we both LOVE pizza), watching movies, and exchanging anniversary gifts. Chris got me flowers and an iPhone; I got him a fancy watch from Express and wrote him a poem about our first year of marriage.

On Sunday, Chris and I took a day trip to San Francisco to officially celebrate our first wedding anniversary. We chose to celebrate in San Francisco because that’s where we took our engagement pictures and had our wedding, so you can imagine how significant San Francisco is to the beginning of our marriage.

We started the day off with brunch at Mama’s on Washington Square. We had both heard that this place is one of SF’s most popular brunch spots, so we decided to give it a try. It turns out that Mama’s popularity is no lie– we ended up waiting TWO HOURS to order our food and get a table! To say that we were cranky and starving by the time we got our food would be an understatement. As for the food, we ordered a breakfast sandwich, Dungeness crab benedict, and the french toast sampler. Overall, we thought the food was really good, but not worth standing in line for two hours. Plus, I didn’t feel like I could really take my time to enjoy the food because there was a long line of hungry people waiting to get in the restaurant and I could tell the servers were trying to turn the tables. Would I go back to Mama’s? On a weekday, yes, but never again on the weekend.

After brunch, we headed over to the Golden Gate Bridge Pavillion. It had been years since we had both seen the Golden Gate Bridge, so we decided to check it out and get some good pictures in front of the famous San Francisco landmark.

We had some more time to spare before dinner, so we headed over to SF City Hall which made us both nostalgic for our wedding day! We sat on the steps of the gorgeous building and reminisced over the last year.

We ended the day with dinner at Absinthe Brasserie and Bar, the restaurant where we had our wedding reception last year, and it was even better than we remembered: the ambiance was magical, the service was solid, and the food was amazing. Sharing a romantic dinner together at the restaurant where we had our wedding reception was the perfect way to end our anniversary celebration.

As for actually being married for one whole year and no longer being a newlywed?! It’s something I’m still trying to process. I can’t believe our first year of marriage is already over, but at the same time, it feels like we’ve been married for years. I think the reason why it feels like we’ve been together for so much longer is because we’ve come so far since we met two and a half years ago. We’ve gone from two crazy kids working their asses off to make an international long-distance relationship work, to two career-oriented adults who are married and living happily ever after.

All I really have left to say about this first year of marriage is that I’m proud of me and Chris. It felt like a lot of people doubted us from the beginning of our relationship for certain reasons (our international long-distance relationship, Chris’ unemployment situation, us getting engaged/married “too soon”). But here we are, happily married and our relationship is stronger than ever. We’ve come a long way since that first date way back when, and I have no doubt that our relationship–our marriage will continue to persevere, grow, and be successful.

On Six Months of Marriage

Last Friday marked six months since Chris and I got married.

I’ve been thinking a lot about our marriage lately now that we’ve reached the halfway point of our year as newlyweds. Throughout these last six months, many people have asked me, “So how’s married life?” A response I’ve heard for this question from others is “It’s the same as before we were married.” Well, my answer?

“It’s better.”

I say this because I feel like right now, at this point, our relationship is the strongest it’s ever been; things are so good, and we are so happy. We aren’t facing any rough patches like the hardships that come with long-distance relationships or the stress that comes with one spouse financially supporting the other. We aren’t adjusting to living together in a tiny, studio apartment and sharing a car. Instead, we’ve dug ourselves so far out of the hole we started out in a year ago and have ended up in a really good place.

We did it by believing in each other, believing in our relationship, and working together, which are important factors of any good marriage.

Here are some other areas we’re working on that are making our marriage stronger and more successful every day:

1) We’re making time for each other. I’ve heard that during the first year of marriage, it’s important to spend as much time together as possible. Right now, Chris and I are working completely opposite schedules. However, we are making it work by finding time in our work weeks to spend time together. Some days I’ll meet Chris on his lunch break, and some days, he’ll get off work early to come have lunch with me before I go to work. Also, we usually have Saturdays off together, so we’ll reserve Saturday nights for our weekly date night.

2) We are working on our finances. I’m not gonna lie. We are your typical poor newlyweds; Chris finally got a job about a month before we got married, so we’ve been recovering financially ever since. It’s taking us a while to get to where we want to be financially because we moved, I bought a car, and neither of us get paid very much to begin with. But the important thing is we’re paying our bills on time, we’re not fighting about money, and we’re both making a concerted effort to work on our credit scores and save money for our future together.

3) We are communicating. I have a bad habit of browsing on my phone or laptop instead of paying attention to people who are actually in front of me. (I think in a world of smart phones and social media, many people are guilty of this.) So I’ve been working on breaking this habit when someone is talking to me, especially when it’s Chris. When he is telling me about his day, his job, his family, his friends– anything, I put down my phone/turn away from my laptop and LISTEN. And I expect the same from him. I don’t ever want us to be one of those couples who go out to dinner and play on their phones the whole time instead of actually talking to each other.

So that’s how things are for us at the halfway point of newlywed life: a good place that’s getting better and better every day because of the work we’re putting in. I know that marriage isn’t always going to be all sunshine and rainbows; I’m sure we’ll go through more rough patches and adjustments in the future, like when we start having kids in a few years. But for now, everything is wonderful, and we couldn’t be happier.

The Best Two Years of My Life

“I belong with you, you belong with me, you’re my sweetheart.” – The Lumineers

Today marks two years since my and Chris’ first date. That might seem like an insignificant date now that we’re married and have wedding anniversaries to celebrate, but this day still holds a lot of importance to me: it was the day I stopped putting my guard up and started learning how to love and be loved. It’s the day I let go of all my bitterness toward men and dating. It’s the day I met my true love, my white knight, my someday husband. It’s a day that changed my life forever, for the better.

Happy two year anniversary to us. ❤

We’re Moving!

{Via}

Yup, that’s right. After eight long months of co-habitating in a tiny studio apartment, Chris and I are finally moving on up in the world and moving into a spacious two-bedroom apartment!

In case you’re wondering how we ended up in a studio apartment together in the first place, the studio is where Chris lived when he was in college. When I moved back from Korea, I moved in with him because not only did we want to live together, we weren’t sure what city he was going to find a job in. Well, fast-forward eight months later and we’re still in Sacramento, so Sacramento is where we’re going to stay for now. Especially since we just signed a one year lease.

I’m so excited for our new place. It’s a modern apartment with lots of space (a little over 800 square feet), a patio, and a DISHWASHER. You guys, I haven’t had a dishwasher in almost two years; there really aren’t enough words to express how happy I am to have one again! Also, the complex has a pool and a fitness center. Score!

Even though I’m stoked to move, a part of me is a little sad to leave our studio mainly because we have so many special memories here. This is the place where we had our first kiss. This is the place where Chris proposed to me. This is the place where our relationship has been challenged and strengthened for the last eight months. (Believe me when I tell you that sharing a studio apartment is a HUGE test to a relationship.) I am ecstatic to leave this tiny studio apartment, but it will always hold a special place in my heart as the first living space we ever shared.

Anyway, enough with the sappy nostalgia. Yay for having a dishwasher!

Married!

Our wedding weekend was absolutely perfect.

Chris and I arrived in San Francisco around 8pm Thursday night. After checking in at the front desk of the Mark Hopkins Hotel, we went upstairs to our room where we found a few surprises waiting for us!

The strawberries and chocolate were from the hotel, the bottle of champagne was from my boss, and the gift, gift basket, and flowers were from my dad’s girlfriend. So sweet! Chris and I immediately helped ourselves to the strawberries and champagne. Talk about a great way to start the weekend!

Once we were done snacking and drinking, Chris and I exchanged wedding gifts. I gave him four leaf clover cuff links (because he’s Irish) and a few pairs of socks with a tag that said “Just in case you get cold feet, with love from your bride”; he gave me a dress and a skirt from H&M that I’ve been eyeing for a while now. He also wrote me a letter that was so sweet it made me cry! That guy.

Friday morning was a relatively stressful and nerve-wracking. I was nervous about something going wrong to ruin our big day: running late, not being able to get our marriage license, traffic, etc. Despite my stress over everything running smoothly, I was able still able to enjoy the morning with Chris before all the family chaos ensued: we helped each other get ready while simultaneously enjoying a delicious room service breakfast.

Once we were ready, Chris and I took a taxi to San Francisco City Hall where we met Emily, our wedding photographer and one of my closest friends. Emily greeted us with the most beautiful handmade bouquet and boutinerre for me and Chris! This is the part where I mention that Emily is not just a wedding photographer, but a crazy-talented WEDDING FAIRY.

Photo by Emily Gutman

Photo by Emily Gutman

The process of applying for our marriage license was easier than I had anticipated; no problems arose and we were in and out in 30 minutes. We spent the next 45 minutes taking pre-wedding photos with Emily until it was time for the ceremony.

The ceremony was kind of a blur for me (it was only about 5-10 minutes long). What I remember most from the ceremony was being so excited for the marriage officiant to pronounce us as husband and wife. I remember feeling so grateful that our closest family members were there watching us say our vows and proclaim our life long love to one another. I remember crying tears of pure joy the entire 5-10 minutes. There really is nothing quite like the emotions and feelings you get right before you marry your lover, your best friend– your everything.

Photo by Emily Gutman

After I kissed my groom and everything was said and done, we shot the family photos and walked over to Absinthe Brasserie and Bar for our lunch reception. This is the part where I finally got to RELAX! Chris and I ate delicious food, drank wine, spent time with our families, and celebrated our new marriage. We smashed wedding cake in each other’s faces, had a champagne toast, and danced our first dance to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” It was perfect, and I can’t say that enough.

My wedding rings on the left, my mom’s on the right. She was there in spirit.

We didn’t go on a honeymoon right after the wedding because Chris just started a new job and wasn’t able to take time off right away because of training, so we just spent the rest of the weekend in San Francisco eating, drinking, shopping, dancing, sightseeing, and relaxing. We’re still planning on going on an official honeymoon sometime next year, so that’s something else to look forward to!

In a way, I’m happy the wedding is over because that means I don’t have to spend all of my free time planning it, working out details, coordinating, etc. (Planning a wedding for 20 people was relatively stressful and tiring– I don’t know how I could have planned one for 200 people!) But on the other hand, I’m sad it’s over and wish I could relive it: it was a small, intimate, amazing, fun day filled with so much love and happiness– exactly how Chris and I wanted it. Our wedding day was The Best Day, and we wouldn’t trade or change it for anything.