A little over 11 years ago, my wife and I started dating and we went to our high school proms together. Fast forward 9 years to my engagement proposal and then 2 more years to this summer, and we've finally tied the knot! Together, we made it through the end of high school and all of our college programs, and now we're adulting together

We got married on June 3rd, at a gorgeous venue in New Jersey (called The Park Savoy). The weather was perfect, the ceremony and reception were amazing, the vendors were great, and the guests had an incredible time! I also managed to surprise my wife with a secret dance that I had choreographed and taught to my two younger brothers (they were my best men and my back-up dancers).

You know it's a good ceremony when there's a mixture of laughter and tears, and the guests who insist they never cry end up needing tissues.

And you know it's a good reception when the guests who insist they don't dance end up spending all their time rocking out on the dance floor.

Here are a few wedding pictures and a wedding teaser video:

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We had decided to wait a few weeks before going on our honeymoon; there's usually a ton of wedding stuff to put away, reflect on, and thank guests for, and as a teacher I wanted to finish the school year before vacationing. The decompression after the wedding turned out to be much needed, considering wedding planning was somewhat stressful and we had such a high from the actual wedding. Also, we had to finish planning all our honeymoon activities!

For our honeymoon, we decided to travel to Italy for one week and then travel to Bora Bora for a second week. They're on opposite sides of the world, but we splurged for business class (free food and drinks and super-comfortable recliner seats) and got to relax in all of the international lounges at the airports of London (layover), Rome, LAX (layover), and Tahiti, so flying wasn't bad at all!

The first week of our honeymoon was in Italy, where we stacked a ton of tours together (although, of course, we left plenty of time for pasta, pizza, wine, and gelato). We traveled to Venice, Rome, and the Tuscany/ Florence region, all of which were amazing!

Our Italy itinerary included...
Venice: St. Mark’s Basilica, gondola ride, Grand Canal, Rialto Bridge, Marco Polo’s house;
Rome: Colosseum, Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, Raphael’s rooms, Galleries of Maps/ Tapestries, St. Peter’s Basilica/ Square, underground catacombs, Basilica of San Clemente, Capuchin Crypt and Museum;
Tuscany/ Florence: Tons of wine, olive oil, and food tasting/ tours.
And, of course, there were plenty of vendors who made amazing trinkets and souvenirs!

Here are a few Italy pictures:

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We were pretty burnt out after the week in Italy, but our suite in Rome was amazing! As a wedding present, my mom paid for the places we would be staying at, in both Italy and Bora Bora.
Here's a short video my wife took of our Rome suite:

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Then we flew to Bora Bora to relax for a whole week, which was a perfect contrast to the busy week in Italy. Reading and tanning on the beach, swimming and snorkeling in the ocean, and drinking and eating fresh fruit and fish... it was all incredible! We also took some boats out on the water, spent some time at the bottom of the ocean in an underwater vehicle, and got some really great massages

We stayed in a bungalow that was right above the water; it had a glass floor so we could see the fish swimming underneath us, and a step ladder right off our balcony so we could swim by our room. The sunrises and sunsets were gorgeous too

Here are a few Bora Bora pictures, as well as a video of our bungalow:

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And now we're home, but damn has this been a memorable two months

~DPB

QuanticHawk

United States32157 Posts

August 04 2017 15:31 GMT

congrats!! nice pics!

Park Savoy is really nice. I'm also way jealous of your honeymoon destinations. I've at least been to Italy, but i would love to go to Bora Bora and stay in those bungalos

Cauld

United States350 Posts

August 04 2017 15:37 GMT

Congrats! That's an awesome sounding wedding and honeymoon!

Trainrunnef

United States601 Posts

August 04 2017 16:29 GMT

Park Savoy, Bora Bora, First Class.... all on a teacher's salary??? who is your supplier and how many kilos do you sell per week?? LOL

Congrats! I'm tying the knot and buying a house within the next three weeks so i hear you on the stress levels!!!

BigFan

TLADT24920 Posts

August 04 2017 17:20 GMT

Grats!

ZerOCoolSC2

9064 Posts

August 04 2017 20:21 GMT

Congrats!

DarkPlasmaBall

United States46435 Posts

August 04 2017 21:04 GMT

Thanks everyone!

On August 05 2017 00:31 QuanticHawk wrote:
congrats!! nice pics!

Park Savoy is really nice. I'm also way jealous of your honeymoon destinations. I've at least been to Italy, but i would love to go to Bora Bora and stay in those bungalos

Yeah, Bora Bora was so gorgeous, but really, really expensive! My wife really wanted to go there, and there's not really any other time where we'd be able and willing to splurge on such a vacation. It was definitely a great place to go before we have kids.

On August 05 2017 01:29 Trainrunnef wrote:
Park Savoy, Bora Bora, First Class.... all on a teacher's salary??? who is your supplier and how many kilos do you sell per week?? LOL

Congrats! I'm tying the knot and buying a house within the next three weeks so i hear you on the stress levels!!!

Besides teaching high school, I'm an adjunct professor at NJIT, I teach tennis at country clubs in the summer, and I spend every other waking moment tutoring at public centers and private tutoring. I put a heavy focus on private tutoring (after my primary job of teaching high school) because it makes far more money than my other side-jobs.

And next up for us is buying a house too! Hopefully that'll be in 1-2 years. For now, however, we need to build our bank accounts back up

739

Bearded Elder29905 Posts

August 05 2017 10:30 GMT

Welcome to the group of married people <3

Best of luck to you and your wife !

Wish you more happy moments like this in the future

SoSexy

Italy3725 Posts

August 05 2017 13:45 GMT

You should have come visit me bro.

farvacola

United States18869 Posts

August 05 2017 14:23 GMT

#10

Grats DPB, you lame-o math teacher, you both look quite happy.

The fact that you work so many side-jobs seems as good an indication as any that we are not paying our teachers enough

MysteryMeat1

United States3292 Posts

August 06 2017 14:08 GMT

#11

Nice job tieing the not DPB. Good luck on the house hunting as well

DarkPlasmaBall

United States46435 Posts

August 07 2017 01:26 GMT

#12

Thanks 739!

On August 05 2017 22:45 SoSexy wrote:
You should have come visit me bro.

Sorry, our week in Italy was simply too jam-packed already! ^^;;

On August 05 2017 23:23 farvacola wrote:
Grats DPB, you lame-o math teacher, you both look quite happy.

The fact that you work so many side-jobs seems as good an indication as any that we are not paying our teachers enough

That's very true... teachers are severely underpaid, and I'm lucky that it's so easy to find tutoring jobs for math (and that I'm not yet burnt out working a total of 60-70 hours every week during the school year).

On August 06 2017 23:08 MysteryMeat1 wrote:
Nice job tieing the not DPB. Good luck on the house hunting as well

Thanks! As my wife and I casually look at houses that are available in the area, we cringe at how expensive properties are in New Jersey. Just for (masochistic) fun, we'll compare houses in New Jersey to houses elsewhere, and we've found that we'll end up paying about double (around $500-800K) for what we could get much cheaper in another state.

dravernor

Netherlands6192 Posts

August 07 2017 08:18 GMT

#13

Congrats! that looks amaaaaaazing!

Half the Sky

Germany9029 Posts

August 07 2017 14:14 GMT

#14

Congrats DPB. That wedding video nearly made me cry at work. Okay actually it did.

Now do you have a video of your choreographed dance?

Good luck with the house hunting as well.

Also that is one hell of an itinerary. Bora Bora is as expensive as all hell (know a few others that went there for their honeymoon and food prices from what they were saying made London and Iceland - of all places - look cheap by comparison) but if you enjoyed every second, that's all that counts. All the pictures look amazing.