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Long answer or short answer? It's going to be a novel.....perhaps that's selfish of me and I'm sorry! Congrats to the rest of the July 2011 bees too, it's all over!
The day of went well, it was really freaking amazing and I would talk about it all day long (and write long like I'm about to).....that being said -I'm really glad it's over.
No pro pics yet, just the four teasers, hopefully soon!
The week before was hell....redefines it, the week before our wedding needed a TLC show.
FI's (ok....he's not FI anymore, what is he now abbreviated? Can he be hubby?) family is from out East (Nova Scotia) and we offered to have them at our house as much as they wanted....BAD decision. We had a very DIY venue and as an event planner at work, leading up to my events, everything needs to be seen, visual, laid out and organized. I took the same plan for our wedding and when they arrived I had to put it all away....first part of stress for me. We hosted Hubby's bachelor party the Tuesday before, my bachelorette was the Wednesday, we hosted the rehearsal dinner/party (45 people or so) Thursday, wedding Saturday and just about 60 for brunch post-wedding on the Sunday....our house was a flipping zoo. I had a meltdown on the Wednesday I think, boys hungover in my house in the am, I need to get stuff done, boys finally leave for lunch, I start working, get into some work, then need to run errands (my sister/BM is with me) and we needed to get some stuff, drop off OOT bags at hotels, etc, and as we walk out the door, Hubby's parents and my two FSIL's pull up, it's like I couldn't escape them. They are all lovely, amazing people, and I am so lucky to have such great fam to marry into, but not being able to do what I want how I wanted (needed!) to that week was killer for me.
My maid of honour bailed on being in our wedding party and bailed on my life an hour before the rehearsal, I don't even want to type it all out because the day of was so amazing and she is now forgotten and as far as I'm concerned made a decision that was going to happen eventually, it's just too bad weddings can bring out the worst in people. Two weeks before she bailed on us using her Dad's large beautiful mansion house (it's empty and for sale right now) for my bachelorette and staying at the night before the wedding/getting ready the day of. She just said she couldn't do any of that and bailed, no replacement, no offer to do something different, so my BM's planned something, fine. She is from the other side of the country and was coming in for her Dad's (2nd) wedding the weekend before our wedding and wanted to know if I needed her for anything so she could plan to go visit other friends and family. Which of course, is fine....rather than saying if I could have her for a day, I didn't want to keep her from family especially her short time here, so I said I didn't need her. This was a week prior to the wedding? Anyways, she took it as me not wanting her to be involved, and honestly after bailing on the bachelorette thing I really did question how much she wanted to be there. We've been friends for a long time and I picked her because of that, but our connectivity has really lacked in recent years and true colours came out with this wedding stuff. So anwyays. Wednesday pre-wedding comes and she offers to pick me and a BM up to go to dinner/"bachelorette" thing and texts at 5:11 she would be 30 minutes. At 6:15 she still wasn't there and with resvervations for 6:30 we got my FBIL to drive us. She showed up late and pissed I left without her, wtf was I supposed to do, I had Mom's, FSIL's, grandmother's at this, I can't be late. End of night she says "call me later" and leaves. She's usually a social butterfly and did nothing to talk with anyone. Next day texts a 3 part text message and says someone else should be MOH and good luck at the wedding and all the best in the future. Decided not to deal with it rehearsal night with all the fam and so I said let's have fun and deal with it tomorrow. I call her first thing, leave a 2+ min voicemail saying there's been some miscommunications obviously, I want you at the wedding, let's figure this out, blah blah.....no word from her. Cut my losses, move on and enjoy this so so so special day.
FI & I spent Friday together, which wasn't the initial plan, I was just so stressed from the week, I said we're locking the doors and hanging out and that we did and it was amazing, such an awesome day. I left him around 6pm to head to my Mom's. Mom, sister and I went for ice cream, watched SYTTD-Bridesmaids premiere and had a great lazy night, I got about 8 hours sleep.
Wedding morning, perfect weather....going to be warm, but perfect!!! I head to Tim Horton's to buy 140 timbits for our timbit tower and then to the venue to get our flowers and check things out. BM's (now down to four!) come over to Mom's just after 10, we get into the bubbly and OJ and turn on American Wedding (the American Pie wedding movie!) and take turns getting hair done. I can't decide if I am nervous or hungry and start PIGGING out on the food my Mom prepared and had brought in....Just kept eating, it was amazing (ha!). Photographer arrived around noon and starts shooting my shoes, dress and ring! I am the last to have hair and make up done, it's all starting to come together! Just Mom, BM's (sister included) and I go to two locations in my hometown for photos pre-wedding, we have a blast, photog is amazing and we're feeling so dang pretty. 3:30-4 we stop back at Mom's and have a drink, have a pee (which wasn't all that hard in the dress!!) and prepare to leave for 4pm......it's all happening!!!
We leave at 4, we're about 15 minutes away, and with a 4:30 ceremony we drive super, super slow down some country roads and enjoy the sunshine. I arrive, videographer and DJ greet me with some last minute questions, step-Dad brings over our dog as he is walking with Mom and I for the long walk to the ceremony area and then down the aisle! One of my girlfriends is running late and dashing along the parking lot (field!!) trying to get ahead of us, I call her over for a big hug, quick chat and away she goes! My BM's take off for their walk together to the top of the aisle, then their individual walks down the aisle. They're down.....the music changes (live fiddlers, to my acoustic song from The Princess Bride) and it's GO time for Mom, Fin and ME...the Bride!!!
Down we go, videographer is stalking us as we walk, I really remember deciding where I should look, lol.... I am waiting for Hubby to turn to look at me, smiling at everyone, just wanting to say hi in every direction but focus on Hubby too! I am holding two dog cookies between my palm and bouquet as backup incase Fin misbehaves. We get to the officiant and to hubby, hand off and away we go through the ceremony -my hands are grimey with dog cookie crumbs....only me....hilarious -what can you do? The sun is shining, we're getting married, dog crumbs I can handle!
The ceremony was great, one of my BM's who I was MOH for last summer played "MOH" fixing my train, holding my bouquet and signing for us. My sister did a wonderful reading and in 15 minutes we were up the aisle! Hubby and I walked up, Finlay was off leash and with no instructions ran up the aisle in perfect time ahead of us, it was so cute.
Photographer got everyone (176 guests) in one big group photo immediately following the ceremony, then we jumped into a receiving line that I desperately wanted to do just to get a chance to see everyone at least once. I honestly loved it, loved quick chit chat and it was so fun! Venue (farm) owners then pull up with a big tractor and wagon in tow, and had a cooler packed for us and took us, parents, and entire wedding party to back of property for photos. The ride back was relaxing, great time to mingle and sip beer, take pics and enjoy the moment! As people were "done" in photos they were taken back in the wagon, they took us further back to an amazing wheat field, we had a drink, took more pics and hung out with each other and the bridal party, I loved that. Got our pics done in a jiffy (we just had an hour and 45 minutes to do the group pic, receiving line, and all pics!). We rode back in the wagon with just the photographer, more down time to enjoy a moment chit chatting and the gorgeous day! We arrived back at the reception area (barn!) and some family and friends took some pics with us before being asked to take seats for dinner. We lined up and in we went to our table! We didn't do a head table, we did a king's table with 27 people, us, parents, grandparents, MC (and his date), bridal party and their dates!
Our kissing game was that if you wanted us to kiss you had to answer a question, the answer being me, FI or both. We got to question 12 and no one got anything right! They were not trick questions (or so we thought!) and so when you got a question wrong you had to kiss someone else! Too funny, we had a lot of fun with that. Buffet went so well, quick, lots of warm, yummy food, I loved sitting and enjoying it (and again eating like a pig!) Speeches followed as we ate our ice cream crepes for dessert. My BM's surprised me with a speech, my Mom's was amazing, FI's parents was so sweet, Best man's speech was hilarious (nothing written, omg we died laughing!) and the way FI spoke to me was so amazing for his part of the speech to me. Our table had to be torn down for the rest of the reception so while that was done we went out for more photos, boys had cigars and mingling as the sun went down! We went back in for our first dance, our slideshow played at the same time as our dance too. FI danced with his Mom, then I had a dance with my step-Dad and totally unplanned we ended up doing the bouquet toss and garter toss right afterwards! We forgot to cut the cake! I didn't see FI for an hour after our dances, we were mingling and back and forth to the dance floor and really mingled a lot until late, made the rounds as much as we could, did some shots with our bartenders (some girls I work with, everyone loved them!) did some crazy dancing and scream-yell-singing on the dancefloor, it was too, too fun!
Almost done, oh man! We were supposed to end at 1. Ha....yah right! I sent my work friends home (bartenders) and we kept going until 2:30 or so! Bar went self-serve and we just kept at it! It was so funny to see who stayed late, there was a core group of about 40 still on the dancefloor at 2, like cousins I have seen twice in the last 5 years......still there, we had a blast with everyone and oh man....I don't know how I had the energy! I only went pee in our expensive washroom trailer once (it was our "splurge" so everyone was ok with the bathroom situation!) and it was wonderful, lol. We left the barn around 3:30 after helping clean up a bit with the venue owners, they didn't care if we cleaned up right away, but we wanted to help a little! I drove us home in my wedding dress in my step-Dad truck, I felt so hick, lol.
Trev and I got home (4 minutes from venue!) and cracked a drink and sat on our front porch, I was hell bent on reading the guestbook and FI had a cigar. We sat out until 4:30 or so and finally headed to bed, where we didn't sleep until the sun was up and went right into hosting a massive brunch a few hours later! What a day!
The feedback we've gotten is insane, so flattering and makes me so happy. I plan events for work and get good feedback, but it meant a lot to hear all that we did. I tried so desperately to not miss anything and make sure everyone was happy. I think what was also a big factor is when you tell people you're getting married at a barn that doesn't "do" weddings on a normal basis their expectations are going to be pretty low and I think we blew it out of the water pretty good. Had the weather been bad, the day would have been a lot different, we won a few luck lotteries (and someone won $100 on our scratch ticket favours!) and we're lucky everything turned out how we had hoped.
Here are a few pictures :)
Table assignments on window frames with old desk and guestbook (photobook with E-pics): http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/263568_10150253990887141_665682140_7295595_1087987_n.jpg
King's Table: http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/270728_10150253990972141_665682140_7295598_2188950_n.jpg
Wagon ride, lol http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/264108_10150253991372141_665682140_7295601_3912191_n.jpg
http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=2259580728326&set=t.189200127&type=1&theater
Pup (Finlay) in action! http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/264248_10150254045992141_665682140_7296367_7388856_n.jpg
http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/270201_554397597503_189200127_32035153_1572623_n.jpg
Scratch ticket favours! http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/268248_10150254024162141_665682140_7296080_8310224_n.jpg
Bakerella made our cake toppers!! http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/264625_556693676523_227200268_1938351_4757432_n.jpg
I will shut it now!!! I think this belongs in recaps, but it's here instead......
This is fun! I've been floating all week! Waiting for pictures is killing me! Being married is wonderful and I'm more grateful for my husband every day (all 7 of them that he's been my husband). I'm not going to lie, a lot of things went wrong. I was even going to write a long post about it all, but as I've had time to reflect and take in all the compliments, the day was MAGICAL and that's how I want to remember it.
My favorite memories were (I could go on and on but I'll leave it at the top 7)
1) seeing my groom at the first look
2) spending time with my honored guests in the brides room right before walking down the aisle
3) Actually looking at all my favorite people smiling back at me as I walked down the aisle
4) Looking deep into his eyes during our vows
5) A very good family friend picked us up in his beautiful, fully restored 1932 Model A Ford. It was taking us from the hotel to the church and BROKE DOWN one block away from the hotel. We jumped into the photographers Corolla and went along our merry way to get to the church and I just figured we'd need to ride with family to the reception since the getaway car was non functioning. But when we walked out the church as husband and wife, my mother had already arranged for another fabulous car to take us away. It was nice to see that even married, Mama still takes care of us. :-) and the A/C on the new car was waaaay better!
6) My grooms touching welcome speech at our reception
7) THE CAKE! guests are still talking about how great it tasted
I only have facebook pics, but these are my favorites.
@RingPup: I stayed up to read the guest book too! I freakin love your pup! your teasers are great!
It was perfect!! All my girls would ask me all day...nervous yet? and I wasn't for one second. it was crazy.
We are on our honeymoon still..so I'm slowly getting to see peoples photos of the day and I love it. I can't wait to get back to check out the guest book and see if there was any cake frozen for us so I can eat it :)
I hope every July Bride had a perfect day!
Our day was absolutely AMAZING! It literally was one of the best days of our lives. We've seen a few photos that people have posted and one of our guests even made a small 3 minute video of our day which brought us to tears. We just returned from our honeymoon on Saturday so still trying to get settled in. Absolutely can't wait to get our pics back. Congrats to all the fellow July brides! Still can't believe I"m a MRS. now! :)
Our day was awesome as well! We had such a good time, and really, nothing went wrong!
Getting ready with my girls that morning was so fun, but I was SUPER nervous. I couldn't eat at all. Once we made it to the ceremony and the doors of the church opened I wasn't nervous at all anymore. We had a beautiful and meaningful (albeit HOT) ceremony. The receiving line after was planned perfectly, and we made it though 140 guests in like 15 minutes, so we didn't waste any time getting to the reception.
Cocktail hour took place in the gardens of a hoticultural society. The guests all loved my little touches like the custom water bottles and parasols, and it seemed like everyone really had fun wandering the gardens instead of being stuck in a banquet hall.
Once our portraits were done and cocktail hour was wrapping up we headed into the carriage house for dinner, toasts, and dancing. Everything was set up BEAUTIFULLY and EXACTLY as I had explained to the coordinator. The food was superb, the toasts were mostly unprepared and silly, but that added to the fun factor, and the dancing was by far my favorite part. My Irish family tried all the Greek dances, and my husband's Greek family danced to everything too, so everyone was on the dancefloor the whole night. It was perfect! I couldn't have asked for a better day.
Firstly off congrats to all the July 2011 bees!
As for how the day went? Well there was a brutal heat wave for two weeks mid July. Due to the intense heat and drought-like conditions, our flowers did not bloom on time (thank goodness for back up plans), & I was freaking about guests passing out from the heat.
Two days prior to the wedding the heat wave broke (I was actually outside gardening when the final downpour came), the day of our wedding was COLD, and incredibly windy.
In the the hectic rush of getting ready my husband lost our ipod, which had our ceremony music on it. But it was BIL to the rescue with his iphone! He downloaded our music in under 2 minutes and we were good to go.
It was so windy that we couldn't use any of the tables outside (even under a tent with wind breaks) or any of the paper decorations I had slaved over because they simply would have been blown away. In fact throughout at least half of the ceremony my hair kept getting blown in my face. It was so cold that by the end of our ceremony I was shivering so badly I was pretty well convulsing. I probably looked like I was having a very happy seizure.
So everyone crowded into the small club house, where there wasn't nearly enough seating for everyone (though by default grandparents and older relations got the most chairs). We didn't get to play any of the lawn games we had set up because it was just too cold. The kids table was never set up the way we thought because of a lack of space.
Sounds like a disaster right?
But you know what?
None of that mattered. It was perfect.
It was loud (buzzing!) with chatter, everyone was mingling and talking with each other -- Just like at every family gathering I or my husband have ever been to (which is what we really wanted).
There was a TON of delicious food, and EVERYONE had more than enough to eat & was happy with the options.
Our guest book (duo thumbprint tree and 'polaroid' photo string deal) were a HIT. Everyone had a lot of fun with those.
The only other hiccup was that the groom was the last person to make it to the after party (on an island) in his hurry to get everyone ferried across, he got left behind. Thanks to groomsman S, he made it and we all had an amazing time.
Some brides/grooms would have been absolutely devastated by what happened that day (no decorations, no dream bouquet, no seating, missing music), but I could care less. I got married to my partner, everyone was happy with the food, and we had an absolutely amazing, absolutely perfectly relaxing after party, and it is finally over.
(Boy am I ever glad it is over).
It was perfect!
I didn't sleep much the night before because I was worrying about details about the ceremony and music. Once I work up, I saw that we were under a heavy rainfall warning. I got up, showered and then worked my way to the salon. My girls met me there and we were armed with umbrellas.
We got to mom's house with our hair done and started getting make up on. Our videographer and photographer both met us there and suddenly we realized the rain was slowing down. The warning was over!
We went to the church for 2pm and when we got out, the rain had completely stopped. The ceremony was perfect, and it was such a beautiful moment in time. We got our pictures done in a covered bridge (Plan B but better than Plan A in retrospect!) and between two fire calls, we got our pictures done on the fire truck. DH is a volunteer firefighter and always wanted to have it done.
The reception was beautiful. Everyone was happy, the meal came fast, servings were huge and everyone said it was the best meal they had had during a wedding. We had our guests donate money to the Heart and Stroke foundation to make use kiss, which meant a lot of my aunt who is in her 50s and recovering from a big stroke. We got almost $200! We played the newlywed shoe game and that was a hit. We ended up staying until almost after midnight when my FIL had to drive us to the hotel since we had a few glasses of wine.
Here are our pro pics, before edit: http://morris-photographics.com/becky-chris/
It was the most amazing day of my life and I would do anything to live it all over again. Our video is due this week and it will be so much fun to see it!
Ahhhh the dreaded wedding day turned out to be pretty amazing. Three days before the wedding, we found out we couldn't get my theme flower :( which really bummed me out. But oh well, no one will notice except for me. The weather was perfect. Everything went so smoothly and I was not a bridezilla.... at least not the day of. We ended up surprising our guests with a fire hulu hooping show... amazing. Plus, we also have a snow cone trailer (like at the fair) come out during the reception. I am surprised that it went as well as it did. And I tell you what, I never want to do it again. As much as it was fun, it caused some major stress in my life. Not to mention, I got a new job and had to start during our honeymoon that we planned a year in advance. So we had to cancel our honeymoon, but now we have something to look forward to in Jan. If anybody wants to take a look, here is a slideshow that our photographer made for us.
Oh my gosh, we just got back from honeymoon last night and I am still on an incredible high. Wedding day surpassed my wildest dreams. No pro pics yet :( but here are a few from our photobooth and some from facebook friends until I get better ones.
It was amazing. I can't beleive its over. I loved seeing how well my vision came together and was greatly relieved that people were OK and ended up really enjoying the chair lift ride up to the ceremony.
I was adamant that our wedding ceremony be outside, and I thought hey, in July what are the chances its going to rain?
Turns out this year, where I live has had the second coldest July on record and more than double the amount of precipitation.
It POURED on our outdoor ceremony. We had no back-up.
It was raining so hard that our guests couldn't hear us over the rain hitting the tent.
The rain stopped the minute the ceremony was over.
The day after the wedding and the forecast henceforth? All sun. Go figure.
It is hard to accept what cannot be changed and I can tell you, I'm having a difficult time with it. I keep having to remind myself that it was a wedding, not a performance and the important thing is that I took that step and married the person I love.
That being said, the reception was fantastic!
It was a nice small wedding and the venue was perfect. The food was delicious. I convinced my husband to do a first dance after he swore he wouldn't. My bridal speech couldn't have gone better.
Everyone loves the little quirky touches I put in.
I danced the night away.
Now... I patiently await photos.
it was great! there were some things that went wrong
And..barely anyone signed our guest book. I was so bummed. I spent hours making it on shutterfly.
But all in all, I'm married to my best friend, and newlywed life has been fantastic..aside from when I discovered he cut some "extras" off our dog's bum with my new kitchen shears!!!!!!
congrats to my fellow July bees! i hope you all had the wedding of yoru dreams!
i'm still on a high from it all, and anxiously awaiting all of our photos! fortunately our photog. posted some teasers on Facebook to whet our appetite :)
we had a mini-destination wedding in the hudson valley, NY, so it was a weekend of awesome, but it flew by way way way too fast! it's funny that as a guest at a destination wedding, it always seems like a normal weekend in terms of time passing. but as a bride, it seemed to go twice as fast!
the day itself was perfect (well, near perfect)! it started off with eveything going according to schedule - hair & makeup showed up on time, as did me & mom. the only snafus that i knew of/witnessed were pretty minor:
- after getting into my dress - a process that took like 15 mins, my zipper popped open in the middle, and i eventually had to be sown into it!
- despite the fact that neither me nor my now-hubs are jewish, we agreed to do the hora at the request of our jewish friends. well my chair was not being supported enough in the front so i fell out! fortunately i fell with my legs straight out and i was caught just before i hit the ground... it was soooooo freakin' scary!
otherwise, it was soooo much fun! all of our music was fantastic, and our coordinator and venue set up everything perfectly - everything looked gorgeous and exactly how i envisioned it! my guests totally noticed all the little details and everyone loved our venue and our ceremony! i surprised my groom with a Dungeons & Dragons groom's cake, and i hadn't seen what it would look like beforehand, and my friend, who gifted it to me, did the most amazing job!
diappointments/regrets:
- flowers were a big disappointment. i had made very specific requests of my florist, based on a centerpiece sample she did for me, and i feel like she ignored them all, rahter than tell me what she could and could not get or make happen (she literally said "no problem - i can take care of it all!"). i did not really like my bouquet at all, but fortunately, the colors all worked out and it looked great. it just wasnt at all what i wanted.
- we didnt get to listen to our (super amazing) cocktail hr music as much as we wanted to, and we didn't dance as much as I had hoped.
- since we running late because of the dress snafu, we didn't get to take all the photos i wanted to take. primarily the ones in our ceremony garden, because its so beautiful.
- i didn't get to say goodbye to everyone before they left. its so hard to balance time on your wedding day! i wanted to enjoy everything personally, but also tried to talk to our guests as much as possible too!
overall, everything was great, and i totally wish i could get married again to go through the whole experience again! here some pics, which are phenomal!
It was amazing! The best day ever!!!
this is where it all happened!
my hubby fighting back the tears!
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Beekeeper
Congratulations to all of my fellow brides from July 2011! Can you believe we're finally married??? How did it go? I'd love to hear about your special days! :)