I’m typically interested in looking forward, not back. What happened six months ago or even yesterday doesn’t have to effect what happens today or tomorrow. However, every now and then everyone needs to look back and figure out what worked and didn’t work. If you don’t take some moment for reflection then you’re going to repeat the same mistakes or maybe not appreciate your accomplishments fully. This year was filled with a lot more victories than failures.

There were a lot of great moments this past year. First and foremost, the highlight of the year was my wedding. Probably one of the best days and most stressful days of my life. Embarking on this new phase of my life with my best friend and with someone I care so much about is incredible. Even though we’ve lived together for years, there is something amazing about being able to say we are now husband and wife. 

This year Jake joined the LooseKeys team. It was a big step for me to take the business from basically a freelance endeavor to a full business. So far it’s been great and I can only see good things for the future; from bringing on more people to building the empire that is LooseKeys. 

Speaking of LooseKeys  it’s been a killer year. This was the first year I was fully employed on my own through LooseKeys  I hustled, we hustled. Creating around 40 explainer videos for a ton of amazing startups. We also started our podcast where we give you a behind the scenes look at our projects. 

40 videos for LooseKeys is pretty impressive but I was also able to put out 35 episodes of the Hop Cast, with the help of Maeve and Ken of course. We try to put out a video every week or at least every other week. Doing the Hop Cast is a blast and one of the best parts is all the wonderful people we’ve been able to meet and become friends with because of the show. 

Even with being focused on building LooseKeys and planning the wedding, Maeve and I still managed to travel a good amount. Our best trip of all was of course our honeymoon to South America. We love to travel and visiting countries and a continent we’d never been to before was fantastic. 

Talk about an awesome year, here’s hoping 2013 is just as good! 

We’ve all had those personal projects that never get finished because we keep finding one more thing to tweak or change. Personal projects are tough because you are your harshest critic. Now think about being your harshest critic on one of the most important days of your life; your wedding. Well I did just that, I designed all the invitations, place cards, table cards, buttons, programs, stickers, and a fabric print for our guests to sign. Quite an undertaking with everything else Maeve and I needed to be worried about on that day. We wanted something that was us and not just something anyone could order off etsy. I was either going to hire someone else to take it on or use my own skills to tackle it. And since weddings are expensive, especially here in Chicago, I decided to take it all on and do it myself.  

It was hard not to keep tweaking and nitpicking until I got it to look the way I wanted it; of course it helped that all the pieces had a goal and a deadline to have them completed by. The scope of the work wasn’t too broad that I didn’t know what to do or where I should take it. You have to make sure people understand what each element is and how it fits into the wedding; no matter how out of the box or non traditional your wedding day might be. I was really happy with how everything turned out and I’ll be sure to post images of all of them when I get the photos from the photographer. 

Would I recommend taking on this task for your big day? No. It’s a lot of extra stress that you probably don’t need. But you’ll love how it looks when it’s done but truthfully you and your partner are going to be the only ones that really notice all those special touches. Would I do it again, hell yes. I loved that I was able to make sure everything looked the way Maeve and I wanted it to and featured our style at every turn. 

Maeve and I will be married in just 14 days. I couldn’t be more excited and happy for what’s coming, out of 6 billion people I found my one. How lucky is that?  Our adventures are just getting started and if we can have as much fun and silliness that we had in that last eight years over the next 50 + years, it’s going to be an amazing life. 

I couldn’t be more excited about my upcoming wedding. After being engaged for six years, it’s hard to believe Maeve and I are now 33 days away from saying I do. There are few moments in your life where you’re counting down the days to something so exciting and frightening nail-biting at the same time. 

Maeve and I have done so much together already and have had many ups and downs but I can’t picture myself spending the rest of my life with anyone else. Over the eight years of being together we’ve become so much more then just boyfriend and girlfriend and soon to be husband and wife. We’ve been co-workers, business owners and best friends. There are few people who you are able to experience so many joys with and still feel as though you’ve only been together for a short time. The eight years together have flown by and our wedding is just around the corner. 

We’ve been planning the wedding for almost two years now and this last month has come up fast. It has definitely been a bit overwhelming, more so for Maeve and I thank her so much for putting so much of it together. It’s going to be a great night for us and hopefully all the friends and family who are able to come and celebrate with us. 

We are about 70 days away from the big day and the latest task that needed to be completed was the invitations. Maeve and I wanted to make sure our wedding shows off our personality. That’s why there is a lot we’ve been doing ourselves from the explainer save the date video, to the specifics of the dinner menu and now the invitations. I couldn’t be more happy with how the wedding invitations turned out. We wanted something simple and unique that played off the style of the save the date video and our website. 

The photos don’t really show these off, you really need to hold these yourself. For many of you they are on the way. Maeve and I started sending invitations out today so keep an eye out for them arriving in the next week or so.