I was officially married June 18, 2010 in a court house in Oslo. However, we had a ceremony and party for friends over this 4th of July weekend.
I started the week with four trips out to the airport, working overtime at work, and taking a law exam on the 2nd.
On the 2nd we started the party with a firework baseball game for all the international guests (from Norway, Mexico, and Australia) and intermediate family. We had 45 seats together and had a blast. Our seats overlooked the Rocky Mountains and we had beautiful weather, a perfect sunset and a beautiful fireworks show after the game. We got a jumbo tron announcement which came on at the end of the 5th inning, which the whole group saw and cheered. After the game we went out to a sports bar, had a few drinks and had a great time.
The 3rd was a bit hectic. We had arranged a rehearsal picnic and frisbee golf in Winter Park at Snow Mountain Ranch. We were 3 hours late, due to sleeping in, disorganization and horrible 4th of July traffic. This was extremely stressful for me because I felt awful being 3 hours late to my own party and being so disorganized. However, everyone seemed to have a good time. Again we had perfect weather and really good food. It's only unfortunate that we were so late. If I did it again I would have just catered it. That would have saved the stress. I was stressed and exhausted, but I did my must not to show, relax and have a good time.
After the picnic, my bridesmaids went back to our bridal suite and helped me do the flowers. I ordered them from fiftyflowers.com. The flowers were stunning! Absolutely stunning, and it took us about an hour to make six bouquets. We used rose thorn strippers (a tool that you close around the rose stem and then pull) that really sped up the process. My bouquets were just stunning the day of the wedding. And it was a fun bonding process with the bridesmaids. The journey up in the warm car, however, had opened up the roses too much to make boutineers. (I should have cut some flowers before hand and put them on ice for the way up...but to be honest I thought the groom and groomsmen looked better without the boutinners. The groom was relieved not to wear his. The grooms were their own suites which were an assortment of gray and black. We had put them matching madras teal ties from tiebar.com and engraved flasks with cognac in the. They all looked dashingly hansom. And I'm glad I didn't make them rent similar suites. I think they looked much betterin there own suites.
The girls were different mori lee teal dresses which I though were stunning. The taffeta dresses shined in the sun. I am really glad they did not have the same dress. It was fun having different dresses in the same color. I wore justin alexander 8501 with a gray sash which was perfect. Donna Savoy was my seamstress and she did a great job fitting me to the dress. Although I had troubles with the busstle staying up all night. And I ripped the sleeve, dancing at the end of the night. But I wasn't worried about htat.
I didn't sleep well the night before the wedding, mainly from the stress of the day before and worrying that I had too much to do on the wedding day. But it really wasn't that much, I had to drop off the liquor and put rocks in the vases for the table decorations. With help from my dad, groom, and bridesmaid, it took less than an hour. Then I went back to my bridal suite where we had two hairstylists to all our hair. I stocked the room with bagels cream cheese, a vegetable plate, juice, champagne, sparking cider (I had two pregnant bms). I am so glad that we had the food. I invited my female cousins, mother and sister in law, mother to join us. They all stopped by at various points and I'm glad they did. Rene Topkins did my hair and make up. She did a fabolous job on all of us! I also paid for all the bm's hair as a thank you for coming out.
Rachel Stellar was my photographer. She was wonderful and easy to work with. She showed up a half an hour early and left probably a half an hour late. She was a lot of fun. (I haven't seen the pictures yet, but she had a lot of original ideas). WE had incidentally a cooler full of cold drinks from the night before in our car. We brought this out during pictures at the site, which everyone very much appreciated. Pictures were a lot of fun, we took most of them at an old homestead site.
Everyone left the picture site for the ceremony, Columbine point. Then my dad and I followed. The weather was perfect. We had two eagles fly over our heads during the ceremony with mountain peaks in the background. We had a trumpet player, play trumpet voluntary and I just loved it. The ceremony was relaxed and fun, my father in law read the places you will go from Dr. Suess. It was 5 pages, which was way too long for a Norwegian too read. He stumbled over some words, but everyone loved it. The ceremony lasted 10 mins.
Then we had a champagne toast with empanadas at the wedding site. This was really nice and I'm glad we used a little time at the ceremony cite because it was SO beautiful.
We went to the reception site (Legett building) just down the road a half an hour late, but I was not worried as why rush to a party when everyone at the party is with you and enjoying themselves? WE did a big announcement of the bridal party entering which I enjoyed (to a Goldfish song).
Dinner, provided, by Wild Horse Catering, was AMAZING. Terry is amazing to work at, and oh my god, dinner was good. I grabbed a mohito and a decent size dinner, a smaller portion, than I usually eat, but enough food. I ate all my food relaxed at the head table and then went to make rounds. I did rounds alone, and I only went to the tables of the guests I knew and wanted to see. (Perhaps some think this is rude, but I focused on spending quality time with the people I knew rather than the 50 or so strangers I had never met).
We had our first dance which was fun. We danced to I'd rather dance than talk with you and in the middle of the dance we made the whole bridal party join us.
I didn't do my father daughter dance until later in the night. Which was to jukebox hero (foreigner) a song my father and I danced the whole night. At some point we also held five speeches (two groomsmen, two bridesmaids, and my dad). Later I found out my father in law and my mom wanted to make speeches and didn't have the opportunity. I'm a little bit bummed by this but neither were too upset. My sister's speech made everyone cry, even some of the guys...it was very sweet.
The whole wedding was perfect. Everyone had a blast. People told me all night how beautiful I was and that this was the best wedding they ever went too.
WE had two times of cake, rasberry cheesecake from the caterer and a poppyseed sheet cake with freshberries and creamcheese frosting from King Soopers. The cake from KS was SO GOOD (and cheap)! Ijust had a bite of the cheese cake which was also good.
Afterwards we had an afterparty in a cabin. Hosted by my dad's friends with our remaining alochol from the wedding and remaining food from the picnic. This worked out perfect and I'm glad I went. We had a bridesmaid and groomsmen hook up (hehe). And I finally got a little buzzed. I drank during the wedding, but was really too busy to really drink (not that I woud have wanted to get drunk at the wedding). But it was perfect to be able to drink a bit before bed and have some more time with some of my good friends. I finally went to bed at around 4:30am.
It was an exhausting week, aside from these events mentioned, we had a lot of informal dinners and trips for all the international guests. (Last night was the final goodbye party for everyone). WIth work and an exam on top of the wedding, I am now writing this sick in bed after finally getting more than 4 hours of sleep in one night after 8 days.
It was the perfect wedding. Planning is important, having the right dress, food, and alcohol were important to me. But I think it was more important that we had an attitude that our wedding was going to be a party for everyone else, that we were going to do our best to show them a good time and not worry when things went wrong. And we didn't. Also we had GREAT people to celebrate with, which really made the party fun.
A special thanks to Rachel Terry our photographer, Snow Mountain Ranch's wedding coordinator, Danielle, our DJ Chris Huefle,and Terry from Wild Horse Catering Company. They all did a wonderful job. I'll check this in a few days incase anyone from CO wants more info on my vendors. I'll also try to post pictures when they come in.