Weddingbee boards

(I picked up our wedding photos on friday, and found a few to post for you guys. I wrote the text for the recaps the week after the wedding, while it was all fresh in my mind. All pictures in this post were taken by Rachel Schultz of Madchen Studios)

I had a pretty good sleep the night before the wedding, I fell asleep right away, and other than waking up once because DH texted me, I slept through the night until 9am. I woke up, and jumped in the shower to shave my legs and such. Then I laid out all of my wedding day gear (wedding bands, accesories, bouquets, and corsages etc) on the desk, and coffee table in my room.

My dress and veil had been hanging off of the french doors in my suite overnight - it was wierd waking up to see  my dress and veil all laid out.

My mom and sisters arrived at my suite at 10 am, and we headed down for breakfast. We had a relaxed breakfast, then ran upstairs to pick up my hair flower, and the veil and went to out hair and makeup appointment for 11:30 am. 

We arrived to the salon at 11:30, and they got right to work on us - I got my hair done first, along with one of my sisters and my other sister went to makeup - the girls got a darker smokey eye with pink/nude shades everywhere else. My hair was perfect - we made a couple changes that we discusses at the trial and I was so happy with it. I then went for makeup and got a grey/brown smokey eye with pink/nude shades everywhere else similar to my sisters/bridesmaids.

Hair and makeup was crazy - there was 1 makeup artist and 2 stylists, and I was told we would be done by 1:30 - we were supposed to meet the photographer at the hotel at 2pm. We ran an hour over - not leaving the salon until almost 2:30!! Luckily - my photographer and DH arranged for the photographer to get a room key - so she took pictures of my dress and accessories and such while we were running behind.

We arrived back at the hotel just after 2:30 - really tight, because we needed the getting ready pics, and then wanted to be leaving for the first look at 3:00 - my sisters ran into the bathroom to dressed, while I touched up my powder, and then I gave them their bridesmaids gifts (clutches and custom jewellery). 

Then it was time for me to get going - I wedged myself into the spanx - and then got into my dress - my mom and sister ended up lacing me into the dress together - which went pretty well - then we slipped on my jewellery then headed out to the car.

Meanwhile the boys were also getting ready:

Once we got to the car realized we forgot my car keys in the suite (LOL). My mom raced up and got them and then drove us to the first look location to drop us off (the boys had our big rental SUV). We got a bit lost on the way to the first look, and I was fairly stressed. But was able to relax once we got there!

We ended up being 15 minutes late to the first look - which was probably for the best, because right after DH and the other photog arrived and got set up between 2 buildings, a huge deer got spooked and charged down the corrodor between the buildings and almost ran them over!

The first look was awesome, we pretty much forgot anyone else was there, it was really nice to have that semi-private moment together. All the stress of being late really melted away once we were together! After the first look we put on our wedding bands - it was crazy seeing a ring on his finger for the first time!

More to be continued! 

We did our photos in a couple locations over about 3 hours, and then headed to the venue for the wedding!

To be continued with the ceremony and reception!

It seemed like everyone was already at the venue when we arrived, and unfortunately I had to walk through the crowd to get to the bathroom (4 hours with no bathroom break, and 2 bottles of water made me pretty unconcerned about who saw me).

I changed into my “cermony look” and touched up makeup in the venue co-ordinators office, and waited to get going for the cermony. 

The ceremony got going, just as planned at 7pm - there was just one hitch that I didn’t even notice - our violinist blanked on my processional song, and ended up playing something else! But it was perfect, even though DH was staring into the sun for the entire ceremony. I only cried a little bit, right at the end of my vows. I created the ceremony myself from various sources, and I keep hearing how beautiful the ceremony was - so I am glad it was well received.

After the ceremony we left down the stairs, grabbed a glass of champagne, and headed out to take family pictures while the venue re-set our chairs for the reception. Family pics went pretty well, except we lost 2 family members and someone had to take one of our golf carts to go find them (LOL) so we ran about 15 minutes over on the family pictures.

After the family pictures, I snuck off again to change back into my bolero and take off the veil, and then me and DH waited to be introduced into the reception.

We had speeches (me and DH actually didn’t plan ours, instead we just made it up on the spot - and revealed that we met online, which about 2/3rds of our guests didn’t know until that moment). The other speeches (from our parents, best man, and bridesmaids/sisters) were perfect - a great combination of laughter and tears.

After the speeches we took a quick break to eat a few bites (literally all I ate all night was a meatball, a potstiker, some veggies, and a cupcake LOL) then had our first dance. We danced to an acoustic version of “Try by Blue Rodeo”. 

The rest of the reception was a blur of visiting tables, drinking wine and champagne, garter and bouquet toss, and dancing of course.

There was also some “lawn surfing” done by some of our guests (they stole garbage bags, stripped down, and ran and slid across the wet golf green in the sprinklers - there is minimal photo evidence of this but it was hilarious and no one will ever forget it!)

 I had a great time, and got out to dance a few times, as well, I was able to have at least a quick work with all of our guests - not an easy feat!! At the end of the night, I was chatting with someone - while the bridal party and some family members and friends tore down everything and packed the SUV and my dads truck in record time! A friend actually stayed to drive me and DH to the hotel. My DH’s co-workers/friends are amazing!

Honestly, even with the little hitches, running behind, the wrong processional song, and one nasty comment that I will not mention, the wedding was prefect, everything went just as I had planned, and it was a really memorable night!

GORGEOUS!!!! Thanks for sharing! Love love love your dress and shoes!!

@Nickynick: & @Baileyh: Thanks you guys! I loved everything about our wedding, and I myself loved going through recaps before I got married, so I thought I could add mine in!

Your wedding looked absolutely gorgeous! I love everything - bouquet, shoes, dress, rings, everything! Congratulations!

@gill84: Thanks! The violin was awesome, and free (she is a friend of the family who is a pro violin player - playing at our wedding was her gift to us!)

@MissHelen:, @crebre80:, & @mandb122: Thanks for your comments. Planning was a labour of love, that I am glad is over (LOL). I am just happy to see the pics and remember!

@Allyser:, @soonerpsych:, &@shushu1208: Thanks! The shoes were actually from 9 west, they were super reasonably priced, (under $100). Considering how much I searched for shoes, I was surprised to pretty much stumble onto them in a random mall trip! They were pretty comfy too (even though I had a broken toe).

So beautiful.  I like the picture of the guys on the tank - so fun! Thanks a lot for the recaps, it is so nice to hear the story of the day in addition to seeing the great pictures.

@bakerella: Thank you so much for your comment! I really credit our photographer, she really and truly captured the day, how we felt, how much fun we had, and she really has a gift for getting the best of everyone on film. I have 777 shots that are equally amazing, and it is so hard to pick between them!

@rachaelrobin: Thanks! It was funny, the boys booted a group of kids off of the tank for the pictures!

@tomboypink: I wrote the recap text within a week of the wedding, so I would remember it! I was very present in the day, which is hard to do!

Absolutely gorgeous. And your bouquet is amazing!

Thank you guys all so much for the comments! It means a lot that people (who don't even know us IRL) enjoy our pics, and can see how much fun we had.

I also really appreciate sharing the pics with other women who notice and value the details of our wedding, because so many people don't pick up on them!

Congrats!  I love your photos!

@gabrielleelise1981: The flowers are gauze material with feathers, they are from Hairbowswonderworld on Etsy. They were actually really tough, and withstood the day of abuse, and now they live on my dresser!