Tag: wamieswedding

12 pieces of advice for newlyweds

Published on by Jamie Shugart1 Comment

Will and I are on the cusp of having been married for an entire year.  This basically means that we know all of the things!  (That’s a joke)

After five months of marriage we wrote about 5 things we learned in five months of marriage.  I figure it’s about time that we share our 12 tips for those of you about to embark on the adventure of marriage.  I reached out to my Instagram friends for help.  Peep their advice below!

Before I get ahead of myself though, if you want to follow along with our adventures of newlywed life, turning a house into a home, and all of the highs and lows of everyday life, click the subscribe button on the right (or at the bottom if you’re on mobile).  It doesn’t send you crazy stuff or give your information to anyone—it just sends blog updates directly to you!

Without further ado, sit down, grab a pen, your BFF (aka soon-to-be or brand new spouse) and take this advice to heart.  We obviously know what we’re talking about.

(DISCLAIMER: I feel like I will have to be married about ten million years before actually offering advice on big subjects.  Let’s just have some fun together today.)

#1. You WILL adjust.

Times of transition can be difficult, so don’t put too much pressure on yourself.  I’ve had girlfriends who cried their eyes out on their first night home from the honeymoon because they were afraid of change.  I’ve known couples who have gone to counseling in their first year of marriage.  I even once had a boyfriend exclaim that “marriage isn’t that hard!” to a couple struggling through their early years and a woman going through a divorce.

Embrace the transition.  Recognize things are going to change and try not to fight it.  

#2. You will find your own habits and routines as a couple.

This is a great thing!  But it does take time.  One of the biggest areas of adjustment in a new marriage can be learning that your time is shared now.  

#3. “Don’t compare.

“Don’t compare your relationship/marriage to anyone else’s.  Learn from others but never compare.”-Kristina

#4. “Always give your spouse the best of yourself.

“Don’t give your best to everyone else and then give your spouse the leftovers.” -Kristina

#5.  “Grow together and embrace the changes in one another.

“Love each other for who you are today, not who you were or who you could be.” -Phillip

Related post: 13 Things to do Unplugged with your Spouse

#6. “Laugh a lot!

“Don’t take life too seriously.”-Caroline

#7.  “Prioritize time together.” -Will

Thanks for the contribution, husband.  ❤  I absolutely agree!  Determine your marriage priorities together and then stick to them.  If you have your priorities in line, decisions become more clear.

#8. “Learn to communicate now, even over the smallest things!”-Marly

Amen, sister!  Communication is key.  

#9. Unmet expectations are a trap.

We often have expectations of each other, of ourselves, of our circumstances, etc.  Unmet expectations can create problems unless you realize what is happening and how to manage it.  

#10.  Be honest.

If you are upset, be honest.  Don’t be afraid to ask each other questions to understand wants, needs, and expectations.

#11.  Don’t expect your spouse to change overnight.

First of all, if you don’t express a need for change (in a loving way) but instead keep your feelings to yourself, everything will stay the same.  And once you do express a need for change, don’t expect your spouse to get everything right from then on out.  They’re still human.  Which brings me to my last piece of advice.

#12. Allow your spouse to be human.

Just as you give yourself grace on a bad day, or after a frustrating experience, you need to extend the same courtesy to your spouse.  Don’t hold them on a pedestal OR expect them to always fall short.  They have bad days, feelings of anxiety, and other human tendencies just like you.

BONUS!  Never stop being friends.

Congratulations on being a newlywed or an almost-newlywed!  Praying God’s blessings over your marriage, that you will have patience with one another, that you will LOVE each other in every season (even when you don’t like each other all that much), and that you embrace becoming one whole heartedly.

Until next time,
Jamie out.

my Instagram Top 9 2018

Published on by Jamie ShugartLeave a comment

This is my official “top nine.”  The one the app pulls up for you and says, “Here!  This was your year!”  And these were my most liked posts on mrsjamieshugart from 2018.

While I actually think this Top 9 did a pretty dang good job, I still stare at it and think, “How on earth can my 2018 ever fit into nine little photographs?”  

According to this photo, 2018 was our Golden Retriever Blue (who is quite important, don’t get me wrong), our new furniture, our NEW HOUSE (first time home buyers—holla!), us, and adventures.  Not a bad representation, but probably not exactly what I would choose.

2018 in a nutshell:

  • Will and I spent the first three months apart.  We took our engagement photos and then he was whisked away.  
  • Just as soon as he got back, we got married, honeymooned in Maine, lived a few more weeks in North Carolina, and then packed all of our possessions into a storage unit for safe keeping.  
  • We drove over two thousand miles away to Arizona to spend four months with each other, with work, and with the desert.  
  • I launched my blog, we road tripped to Utah, explored several national parks (including the Grand Canyon), spent a weekend in San Diego, and ate all of the tacos we could stand.
  • After four months of desert living, we began our trek back to North Carolina and I got rear ended on the first day of our drive.  My trusty little car was a total loss.
  • Just a few days later we arrived in North Carolina and closed on our house.  
  • The next day we emptied our storage unit (that had flooded in our absence) and discovered that basically all of our furniture was toast.
  • Within 5 days, we bought a house, lost all of our furniture, picked out our puppy, and bought a new (to us) Toyota.  
  • Just two weeks later we brought our Golden girl Blue home.  The first month was extremely overwhelming and all of the emotions of the car accident and storage flood caught up with us during our lack of sleep during puppy and potty training.
  • Will started his new job with a much busier schedule that will demand a lot from us in 2019.
  • I started working almost full time as a photographer, being self employed and working a lot from home.

WHAT.  A.  CRAZY.  YEAR.  WE.  HAD.  If I could choose my own top nine for this crazy year, these photos would be it.

#1

My baby nephew was born and adopted in February.  This is what I had to say at the time:

For this child I have prayed.

Little baby Harkni, how we have prayed. And we know now, why it all happened the way it did. Because you were absolutely always His plan, and without the years of waiting and praying and sadness, we wouldn’t get to love you the way we get to love you. We wouldn’t have YOU, and what a beautiful and miraculous thing that there is now this precious new person in the world. And that precious new person is ours to love.

We are so blessed. We are so happy. We are so in love. Our family is growing this year, and 2018 is The Best Year Ever.

With all of our hearts, baby Harkni.

#2

My bridal shower!

This was a crazy season for me.  I was stressed beyond measure (planning is NOT my thing) with the wedding, Will was far far away from me, and I was working all hours of the night and day with my full time job, photography on the side, and worship team shenanigans.  My amazing work family threw me a surprise bridal shower that was extremely generous and made me feel so loved.  My bridesmaid/bestie and her mama also threw me this shower on the day I got my hair done for the wedding (conveniently) at this adorable and delicious restaurant downtown with some of my very favorite ladies.

May you all feel loved the way I was blessed to feel so loved.

#3

#4

#wamieswedding

In April, we got married in my parents’ backyard under sunny blue skies.  I wore lace and tule and we didn’t have a first look.  I watched all the guests arrive through a slit in the blinds of my parents’ master bedroom and ogled my fiancé in his tux from afar.  Will cried when he saw me and we said sweet simple vows.  We snapped a couple pictures and then spent the reception with our loved ones before we jumped in a very decorated car that told passersby to honk, JUST MARRIED! and drove to Raleigh to stay the night in a fancy hotel before setting off the next morning for our honeymoon.

#5

On our honeymoon, we went to the beach, but in coats.  We didn’t get tan, or drink cocktails, or go snorkeling.  We flew to Maine—my dream vacation—and stayed in a little cottage outside Bar Harbor on an island called Mount Desert.  We drank wine and ate blueberry preserves.  Our first little breakfast, I got crepes with Maine blueberries and we drank our way through the island’s coffee supply that week.  We wore activewear and fleece and hiked up mountains to see the views.  We looked off into the distance of the Atlantic on a very clear day and had lobster multiple times at fancy restaurants on the bay.  Will tried a glass of twenty dollar scotch and we did a Marvel marathon to prepare for the release of Infinity War.

We even went to see a lighthouse that I had been ogling pictures of for years.  I had saved a photo of the very lighthouse to my phone exactly two years prior.  To the day.

#6

Our Arizona adventures!

After packing up and moving, discovering hotel and desert life, and launching our blog, we began to realize our dream of visiting as many National Parks as possible, beginning with the Coronado National Memorial.  We love hiking, camping, and exploring.  We were stoked when we found out that Coronado has a cave that you can explore without a guide!  We hiked the half mile trail up the mountainside and then spent a long time exploring the depths of the cave with one headlamp and one sort of okay flashlight.

We then drove up a windy, dirt road to a view point.  If you turn around, you can see well into Mexico.  It was beautiful and green because of monsoon season, and we were so blessed to experience it.

#7

The Grand Canyon

Another dream of mine!  And a culmination of all of my goals and aspirations in Arizona.  I did a work out program called 80 Day Obsession specifically to be able to keep up with my super fit husband on all of our adventuring in the desert.  At the Grand Canyon, we got up around 3am to make it to the rim in time to watch the sun rise.  We then hiked the rim trail for over twelve miles and spent over 13 hours in the presence of the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life.

#8

A Cacti Goodbye to Arizona

This photo is a great representation of our Arizona adventure.  On our last weekend, we drove up to Saguaro National Park to catch the sunset among some of the biggest cacti I have ever laid eyes on.  We had a mini photo shoot with my camera on a tripod and the remote in my hand.  It gave us a moment to slow down and cherish every adventure we had been on, the four months we had gone through just the two of us, and this incredible way to start our marriage.  It was a bitter sweet last adventure in the desert, but it was probably one of the best ideas we have had to date.

#9

All of our last two months of 2018 wrapped into one photo, with our new house and our new furniture and our new pup.  What a whirlwind the last 70 days of 2018 were!  I’ll be honest, I hope we don’t go through any more of those, but WHEN we do I will be grateful to do it with Will by my side.

Last year was a blast!  (Most of it!)  I was a little sad to see it go, to be honest.  2018 was very very good for my soul.  For our marriage.  For our future as the Shugarts.  We are so blessed to have had 2018.  

Now here we head into the unknown of a new year.  Our bags are unpacked.  We are setting down roots.  We have plans and adventures and explorations to do.  The world is a big place, so let’s hop to it, shall we?

Until next time,
Jamie out.

5 things I learned in 5 months of marriage

Published on by Jamie Shugart1 Comment

Will and I just recently celebrated five months of being married!  We’re basically experts on the topic now.

Joking.

We were blessed to go through very little long distance time during dating and a lot of one on one time to get to know one another.  We asked each other a lot of hard questions, ranging from politics and religion, to hopes and dreams.  We were very intentional from the beginning about getting to know one another in a safe and healthy way, and to see if this could be the real thing.

Obviously, we got married, so we feel pretty strongly about one another.  We still continue to learn and grow in our relationship, and we’re not here to offer advice.  This is just us sharing us, and the five things we have learned in our five months of marriage.

I am not a morning person!

I do not want to see or hear another human being in the morning.  If I have to speak, it’s even worse.  Text?  Heck to the no.  Give me a shower in peace.  Let me get ready without interrupting my train of thought.  Give me coffee and back away slowly.

I gave Will fair warning on this one.  We even asked some advice from a couple of our good friends who are also opposites in this area.  The husband is the morning person while the wife is not.  He said that it took him a long time to realize that it was nothing personal—that they were just different and it wasn’t a bad thing.  They even get ready in different bathrooms in the morning!

Let’s be honest, we aren’t always on our best behavior, and our spouse sees that side more than others.  This will probably be a constant area of growth for us as a couple, and for me especially once we have kids.  I would love to love the morning time so if you have any recommendations, I would love to hear them!

 

PooPourri is no joke.

I thought it was, but boy was I wrong.  In amongst all of our wedding gifts, we came across a bottle of “PooPourri” in a lavender scent.  I laughed, “Haha!  What a great gift!  Newlyweds can’t poop around each other.  In fact, women don’t poop at all!”  

If you don’t know, PooPourri comes in multiple scents, in a little spray bottle that you are supposed to spray into a toilet before… well, you know.  It uses essential oils to trap odors.

I set the gift aside and it became an anecdote that I shared with friends and family during wedding week.  I secretly thought it would be great in a guest bathroom, just in case.  

Friends, you don’t need details, but let’s just say that after a bad experience with Mexican food and a very long night to follow, PooPourri will be a staple in our household.  In every bathroom.  Until the end of time.

 

He might want to order his own fries.

“Joey doesn’t share food!”

From a guy who had never seen Friends before we started dating, Will took to this quote like a fat kid on cake.  I’m ashamed to say that the first time Will insisted I order my own fries, I got a little hurt.  

Okay, maybe more than just a little.  I sat and sulked through the entire meal and continued to bring it up even weeks afterwards.

Just because we expect things to go one way, doesn’t mean that they will.  I realized that my parents always share their french fries.  They order a bigger size to share and I’ve always found it super adorable.  Will, on the other hand, didn’t find me wanting to eat his french fries all that endearing.  

Some issues in relationships can arise from unmet expectations.  If I find myself getting upset, I try to evaluate where it’s coming from, and if I realize I had an expectation that isn’t being met, I know where the emotion is coming from.  I also find it important to communicate with Will when that happens.  

“I can’t eat a small thing of french fries by myself most of the time,” I explained.  “So I feel like I’m wasting money for just a couple fries.”  

We’ve decided that springing for a large to share is a good idea for us.

 

Laundry becomes a huge thing.

Like… there’s only two of us.  How can washing clothes, drying clothes, and folding clothes become so much of an  exponentially larger chore than it was for just one person?  We don’t even have kids or pets!  

Also, I have never owned my own washer and dryer.  I have been trespassing on the hospitality of my family since I moved out in 2012.  Now that Will and I have been at a hotel for the past three months, I have been using the hotel’s (very inexpensive and stubborn) washer and dryer that work about half of the time.  I often have an explosion of clothing hanging up to dry in our bedroom.  And because it takes about three or four hours to dry three loads of laundry, folding everything gets put on the back-burner and… you get the idea.  

 

Sleeping in the same bed is my favorite thing ever.

Also, not having to say goodbye at the end of the day is fantastic.

Will and I did not live together before we got married.  He never slept over at my apartment.  Not even once.  And because I lived alone and there was no built-in accountability roommate, we avoided ever being in my bedroom together like the plague. 

Our number one, very favorite thing about being married is getting to sleep in the same bed.  It’s kind of like having a sleepover with your best friend every single night.  

So, for any newlyweds or engaged couples, I guess the only advice I would dare to give at this point is that if you can swing going to bed at the same time as one another, you should absolutely do it.  The pillow talk is great and it is a super special time for just the two of you.  It also gets you on the same sleeping schedule, and that has been helpful for me and Will out here in Arizona.  

 

Like I said, I feel like I need to have been married for about a decade before I can give solid marriage advice, so I’m not about that life on this blog just yet.  I think marriage advice from me would be the same as me trying to give a mom parenting advice—just bad news.  But I AM here to share our lives and experiences.  

If you dig it, give this post a like!  Have any advice for us, other newlyweds, or engaged couples?  Leave it in the comments below!  Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button and join our family.

Until next time,
Jamie out.