Ladies....I am still on
Cloud Nine!!! I have been extra lazy since returning from our honeymoon, so I haven't made the time to check the board or put together my recap. But I got on today and saw that my Date Twin Yas posted hers, so I started feeling guilty. LOL!
I'll cover a few days (and I'll delete the pics after a while b/c they contain friends, etc. and I don't have their permission to post!)...and there is so much to tell, I think this will be long (sorry!).
Thursday: Our closest friends arrived in town and both of our immediate families were already here. My two best friends had spent the night, so we went out to breakfast and did a few errands and picked up one of my other girls at the airport. Then my mom and I did our bonding thing and got our manis/pedis done together at the same salon. We chatted and relaxed, it was so fun.
That night, DH and I had our "girls night out" and "guys night out" events. Mine consisted of about 10 of my girls and I going out for drinks/food at a nice restaurant downtown, then to listen to salsa music, to the hotel for a toy party, then out for more drinks/dancing at a club downtown. My party had an "All Black Everything" theme, so we all wore black dresses - we attracted a ton of attention...a lot of people were taking our picture wherever we went, so we felt like local celebrities - ha ha! Everything was awesome - my girls took care of everything and they even bought me big bag fulll of FUN STUFF at the toy party to be used with my DH!
I didn't really know what DH was doing for his night b/c he didn't know the plan - a friend was keeping all of the details from him, but DH had requested a "clean" event, so no strippers, etc. I was hoping that his friend would comply. And he did - his friend rented a double suite at the wedding hotel and the guys had a poker tournament in there then a chef came in and prepared stir fry made-to-order for everyone in the room. Then they came over to the same downtown club me and my girls were at, so starting around 10:30pm, we had a joint party with all of our friends! It was PERFECT and even though it wasn't in the official plans (DH decided to come to the same club that same afternoon), it couldn't have been better. Our friends got along so well and we had a ball - danced and acted like fools until 2am!
Friday:
I got up and worked out, then finished packing my wedding bag b/c I was going to stay in the hotel starting Friday night. I also sold a couple of last minute things on Craigs List in preparation for my move, so I had a few people coming over to purchase my stuff. Then it was time to check in at the hotel around 1pm, so my girl offered to go pick up DH's ring for me and get my engagement ring cleaned at the jewelers so I could get ready in peace.
Got to the hotel and my hairstylist had come up from ATL to help me and my BMs look fly (bless her!) and attend the wedding with her husband. I had washed/conditioned my hair and just put it up in a clip and once I was checked in she came to my room and blew it dry and flat ironed it bone straight. After my hair was done, my girlfriend took my cell phone from me and sent me to her hotel room to take a nap, uninterrupted. It was the best thing ever, I got some good sleep ya'll!
Right after the rehearsal was the rehearsal dinner across the street at a contemporary Mexican restaurant. It could not have gone better, we gave personal gifts to all the attendees, made speeches about each one individually and how they impacted our lives, and we enjoyed our food and red velvet cake from our bakery for dessert. I had put together a playlist for the night that was played in our private room over the sound system and we were getting compliments on my song choices all night! After the dinner, DH's family was hosting a welcome reception so we headed there to greet family/friends who were just making it in town. It was fun to see them, but I had to literally force DH to leave so he could sleep and my girls walked me back to the hotel so I could rest.
Oh by the way, both DH and I were losing our voices all day Friday b/c of the fun we'd had the night before. So when DH was making his speeches at the dinner, people could barely hear him - LOL. Poor thing. So we both were drinking tea with lemon/honey like crazy, trying to make sure we had voices for our vows the next day!
Saturday:
Woke up and my girls were immediately waiting on me hand and foot - I could get used to that way too easily!
I still had my sore throat thing going on, so my best friend brought me breakfast in bed - oatmeal with cinammon, raisins and honey; green tea; and fresh fruit. It was perfect. I was able to sit and talk with her for a while and just take everything in, it was so great to spend some alone time with her. Around 9am my hairstylist came and started doing everyone's hair - she was doing her thing! We headed over to the museum venue around noon to meet up with our makeup artist. Everyone looked so beautiful after their make up, we all got airbrushed makeup and false eyelashes....gorgeous! My mom and aunt stopped by to hang out with us for a while when we were getting ready. Then it started feeling like everything was happening really fast!
My girls helped me put on my dress and I was ready for our first look. I walked down the steps in the venue and DH has his back to me- our photographer and videographer were there getting all the shots. He turned around and looked amazed - we just stood staring at each other, it was such a sweet moment and I'm so glad we had that private time together before the ceremony. Directly after that, we went out to a few nearby locations to take pics (just the two of us) and then met up with the wedding party back at the museum and walked around and took group pics and family pics. It was sooo fun, but again everything was a whirlwind. Once we finished pictures, I had about 1.5 hours before the ceremony and I didn't know what to do with myself. I kept my dress on and just talked to my friends and the DOC and makeup artist. We took lots of pics and then my photographer brought my boudoir photo book and a card to DH as his surprise. She interrupted his getting ready time with his friends and took him outside the room for privacy. She gave him the card and book and then took pics of him looking at all the pages with looks of surprise on his face! It was so cool of her to do that for me. She came back and showed me pics of his reactions and I loved them - she said his exact words when looking at the book were "Uhhhhh, that's hot. Mmmmmm, wow. Oh my goodness." and then she told me he said at the end of the book "It's on!"....I rolled on that one!
Then it was time and the venue coordinator and my DOC came to get the BMs to line up. About 10 minutes later, they came back to get me. I waited for a while at the top of this long flight of steps before my grand entrance. I was so nervous that I would fall, and I ALMOST stumbled one time on the way down b/c the back of my heel got stuck on the step, but luckily it happened before anyone could see me. Whew! I came down the steps and everyone was staring, it was surreal. My mom met me at the bottom of the steps and she was already crying - Lord, I was praying to not cry and mess up the beautiful make up job!
I walked down the aisle, remembered to smile and my mom and I laughed about something (who knows what). So it felt natural and fun - I noticed DH's mouth doing some weird, fidgity movements as I walked down the aisle and I realized he was starting to cry. It was soooo sweet ya'll my husband cried when I walked down the aisle and a few tears were still streaming down his face as my mom gave me away and we faced each other at the altar. I am so shocked I didn't cry! I felt like it, but held it together. We read our personal vows and that's when I saw the GMs start tearing up and heard my BMs boo-hooing behind me. Everyone at the wedding said there wasn't a dry eye in the house during our personal vows. The ceremony itself felt very fast but was also really special and we felt so blessed.
Right after the ceremony, guests went upstairs to the 6th floor for the cocktail hour. DH and I went to my dressing room and our caterer had stocked it with drinks, appetizers and plates, etc. We took 20 minutes to just talk about the ceremony, eat, appreciate each other and relax. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND DOING THIS. It really allowed us to take it all in and enjoy the moment! We then joined everyone at the cocktail hour and we took sooo many pictures with people, greeted everyone, and thanked them for coming.
Then the guests were ushered back downstairs for the reception and we went down last so we could make our grand entrance. As we were announced, each BM/GM couple danced out into the reception together and DH and I came out last. Of course he clowned and started doing the Re-Run, etc. and I had to just try and not laugh so hard so I could stay on beat. LOL!!! We did the first dance, mom-son, and dad-daughter dances first, then MOH and BM speeches. My mom and DH's dad both did welcome speeches also. After that, DH and I went back up to my dressing room and...........................................he helped me change into my reception dress. LOL! I had to pull a YasJas on ya'll - hahahaha! Anyway, we came back down and were served dinner at our sweetheart table while guests got their food at the buffet. We had two buffet tables and a captain's call buffet (each table called separately) so everything was orderly and people got their food really fast. Everyone was tearing that food up ya'll, the caterer said they actually went through all of the salmon, salads, vegetables and sweet potatoes by the end of dinner. People were up getting seconds and thirds and people were telling us it was the best wedding food they ever had!
We got the party started when the DJ started playing, DH and I were the first on the dance floor. A few other couples joined us right away and soon it was packed on the dance floor. A few fun things - DH and his frat brothers did their serenade and step show while I sat in the middle of the circle....then we had a Michael Jackson vs. Prince segment of the reception, which people loved.....and finally DH and his friends had a 90s dance off, so funny! At the end of the night, we were saying goodbye to the older folks (and some young) who left earlier and then had to write a few checks to vendors. Our DOC did a great job of keeping us on track. I couldn't believe it when our horse and carriage pulled up to pick us up - it seemed too soon!
We had our driver take us around downtown (quiet streets only) for about 30 minutes and we just talked about the night and how much we loved everything. Then we went back to the hotel and did what married people do! LOL!!!!!!
Got up the next morning and went home b/c we had to let our caterer in to set up for our famiily brunch at 9am. We had about 30 family members come, which was perfect. We had amazing brunch food that the caterers cooked onsite so it was hot and fresh. The food was GONE, people loved it all. We had another chance to connect with our relatives and for our families to get to know each other, since they live so far apart.
A few things that went wrong (keep these in mind!!):
1) Our DJ seemed to forget our last name when announcing us for the reception entrance. He said our first names, then paused for like 20 seconds before saying our last name....we were all like "for real???". I wanted to hurt him!
2) Our caterer left the leftover reception food and cake in the museum overnight and they DID NOT have a refrigerator large enough for it, so it all sat out and went bad. We were sooo hurt that we had no more reception food left to eat and DH's surprise groomscake could not be eaten b/c it was sitting out all night with nothing covering it.
3) We cannot find the nice metal baskets I bought for the bathroom baskets - we were actually going to use them in our house for storage and they are gone. Our DOC says she'll find them, but we already went to the museum to check and they had no idea where they were.
My lessons learned are to make sure to have a meeting with your DJ to go over (word by word) the script he needs to follow, and make sure to have a plan in place for where the reception food, gifts, etc. go after the wedding.
We left the following Thursday for Belize and had an INCREDIBLE time. That is another post, but we had such a good time we are planning to go again soon (possibly for our first anniversary!). If anyone is looking for a honeymoon destination still, please check out The Phoenix resort in San Pedro, Belize. It was 5-star service and accommodations....beyond our expectations!
Oh and here are a few pro pics from our big day!
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