Good Morning everyone. Thought I'd start a new post so I could give you all the story from our wedding day (taking the opportunity while my husband is still sleeping). I'm including a couple teaser pics that one of my friends took. We should have the professional pics in a couple weeks or so and I promise to post a ton of pictures once we get them. So this post will be a bit long, but you're all used to that from me, huh? And again will probably be a post and run, we have a lot to do today.
We had our 1st bit of comedy on Thursday morning when my dad went to pick up his tux. My mom went with him. The shirt was way too small, the pants were tight around the waist, but baggy in the legs and way too long and there was no vest. Turns out they gave him my brother's tux - dad's tux fit just fine, but we were thankful he did try my brother's on so they could get the missing vest ordered and delivered in time for my brother to pick it up on Friday.
My bridal bruncheon was on Friday morning - my BMs, my mom and my MOH's mom, DH's step-mom and aunt and an old friend of mine from college that I've now only seen 2x in the past 15 years. We went to Mimi's Cafe and had such a wonderful time. Since DH's family lives in FL, we hadn't met yet. My mom and I were stopped at the red light just down the street from the restaurant and I turned my head to the car next to us and rolled down the window to meet my in-laws for the 1st time stopped at a traffic light.
The rehearsal on Friday night provided us with a little bit more humor. Well, DH wasn't laughing at the time. DH and I attend different churches (I go to a smaller more traditional church and he attends a very large mega church - it works for us) and the wedding was at my church. We gave the best man and one GM the address for my church, but they decided not to mapquest it and instead decided because DH had pointed out his church as they were driving around before the bachelor party that they'd just show up at that church instead. We had to wait about 20 min for the guys to show up - we forgave them, though. The rest of the rehearsal went well. My FG was concentrating so hard to make sure she dropped the flower petals perfectly.
Rehearsal dinner went so well. We had the dinner in our church's community room and had a strict dress code of jeans and t-shirts (or something else equally casual) and everyone loved us for it. The menu consisted of a build your own taco bar, home-made enchiladas and brownie sundaes for dessert. Our attendants all loved their gifts. We decided since there were a lot of people from out of state and several of our friends hadn't seen it yet, we thought we would show the proposal video. Everyone loved it, but I ended up bawling my head off and didn't stop crying till I went to bed that night. DH and I decided we didn't want to exchange gifts, so we wrote each other letters that we read before we went to bed that night and ended up talking on the phone while we each read our letters, so that made me cry more.
I woke up way too early on Saturday. Our ceremony was at 11 and the plan was to do my hair and everyone get ready at the church. The friend doing my hair met me there at 8:30 and got to work curling my massively thick hair. It was so much fun having my mom and my BMs there to get ready with me - they kept me laughing and smiling all morning. My dad brought me an egg mcmuffin to eat just before I got dressed (couldn't have me passing out from low blood sugar). Because my dress was a lace up corset type top, it took 3 people to get me into the dress (every time they pulled on the laces to tighten me up, I almost fell, so 2 of my BMs had to hold me up).
I discovered after the ceremony that there had been a boutonniere emergency of sorts...guests were already being seated when the guys realized they didn't have their bouts and a frantic search began...the WC had them and she just forgot to put them on the guys...they got them and all was well (except for the fact that we had to keep pinning DH's bout on all day long).
I held it together until my dad offered me his arm and kissed my cheek, but pulled myself back together when I saw DH and watched him as I was walking down the aisle - it looked like he was trying to land a plane doing the come on down hands, but he said he was fanning his face 'cause he was crying - whatever he was doing it had me laughing the whole way down the aisle. Our pastor was great and tried to keep us smiling the whole time. When our pastor said repeat after me, DH did (said repeat after me, or something like that) 'cause he was so nervous. Our pastor just laughed and said, ok, let's start again but wait until I give you something to repeat. My brother gave one of our readings and he decided to do an impromptu story before the readings - we had no idea he was going to do that and there wasn't a dry eye in the house (our pastor was the keeper of the tissues for me and DH & I both needed one at that point). We got a lot of compliments on how beautiful and meaningful our ceremony was.
When it was time to head over to the reception venue, the plan was for my brother to drive us in our car. We started to head out and they stopped us - there was a limo waiting for us (a gift from one of my BMs), our chins both dropped.
We made our grand entrance at the reception to Celebrate by Kool and the Gang and everyone had a good time with it. We got to eat pretty soon after we got there and the food was amazing. We saw everyone's plates full and many people going back for seconds (it was a roast beef carving station, a chicken in white wine & lemon pepper sauce, garlic mashed taters, steamed veggies, rolls and a salad bar). The toasts from our best man and MOH were so sweet. Our 1st dance was to We've Only Just Begun by the Carpenter's - we sang to each other and laughed and cried and I don't remember anyone else being in the room during that dance.
The DJ had been told how big of a NASCAR fan I am and that we had decided (before we got engaged) that we weren't going to the races this year and actually thought the Vegas race would be the following weekend until the schedule came out 2 weeks after we booked everything. So the DJ provided updates on the race throughout the reception for me and announced the race winner (he had been told I would be happy with the results). My very favorite driver won and my reaction was automatic - fists straight into the air and let out the biggest cheering scream I could, then realized I was standing in the middle of the dance floor in my wedding gown and DH gave me a huge hug and everyone laughed - it's one of those priceless memories I will have from my wedding.
We did good on the cake cutting - it was a chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting, DH had been warned he was not to be messy with the cake - he put a little bit on my nose, but other than that it was a clean cake cutting. I know some people find it tacky, but we did do the money dance. We had our best man and one of my BMs helping us out with it - they each had a basket of Hershey's Kisses to provide to each person who came to dance with us. Everyone who came up to dance loved the idea of the kisses and they all had a good time. DH had a line out the door of ladies wanting to dance with him - I danced with several men, but didn't have nearly the line that he did, so my BMs all came up to dance with me and then my brother came up and picked me up and swung me around.
When everyone had left (except my family and my one OOT BM who wanted to stay till the last possible second so we could say good-bye), our amazing photographer took us onto the golf course to get some fun pictures - I can't wait to see them. Another of my BM's had gotten us a hotel room for the night and my parents paid for us to have room service for dinner and breakfast. We checked into our room and decided to go to the casino first - had to play Megabucks (still dressed in our wedding attire) - we didn't win, but we broke even, so that was good. We paraded around the casino floor (hey, you only get to wear the dress once and I decided I wanted to be the center of attention for a little bit longer) - we got some crazy looks, but for the most part people came up to congratulate us. The hotel upgraded us to a suite and the room service people brought us "extras" when they heard it was our wedding night (they brought chocolate covered strawberries decorated with little tuxes).
Thanks for letting me go on so long...it was all beautiful and went so well. There's no way I could have scripted a better day.
This pic was from my friend's camera...me walking down the aisle with my dad.
this was just after we finished the sand ceremony, we turned to watch my MOH's mom finish singing "Through the Eyes of Love"