You Make My Dreams Come True: Our Entrance

After realizing we had no money for drinks at McDonalds, (read my last recap if you aren’t sure what I’m talking about) we decided to go ahead and drive to the reception. The majority of our guests were there already, so we just waited for a few minutes near the entrance for everyone to get drinks and for our bridal party members to arrive.

After everyone was there, we got lined up and ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’ by Black Eyed Peas started. Cliche? Yes. Perfect for us? Also yes. We love that song and sang it to each other all the time. Unfortunately, I have a total of ONE picture of our grand entrance even though we had two photographers there. I’m really not sure how that happens, but here it is!

{Stamp of Life Photography}

I don’t think my smile could get any bigger. I just couldn’t contain my happiness when we entered the room and I saw that everything I worked so hard on had come together and everyone (almost) we love was gathered together to support US joining as husband and wife.

{Brandi Coldwell of Lola Jo Photo Design}

We headed to the head table to find our seats and get a drink! I was still dying of thirst, and you can see me chugging my cup of tea in the second picture – ha!

{Stamp of Life Photography}

Next up? A delicious meal and some sweet toasts! 

Need to catch up?

We started on Thursday.

We decorated Friday morning.

We rehearsed.

We got pretty!

I put on my dress. 

We had our first look!

The guys had their turn.

The girls stole the show. 

We got some fun bridal party pictures. 

We took bride & groom portraits.

We took care of the formal portraits.

We took pictures with the kiddos.

We spent time hanging out waiting for the ceremony to start.

The grandparents and parents were seated.

It was finally time for the processional.

A step back to the playing of the slideshow.

The ceremony started. (Part 1)

The ceremony continued. (Part 2)

The ceremony ended. (Part 3)

We had a little fun with our recessional. 

I shared our ceremony details. 

We made our grand exit.

They’re Here!!

I FINALLY have the CD with the majority of our reception photos! Some are unedited, some have the photographer’s logo, and they’re not very organized yet, but I HAVE THEM. For awhile there I thought this day might never come. I’m so excited to finally finish my recaps! 

Here’s a sneak peek of our fabulous reception (no thanks to the awful venue) with MUCH more to come:

{These first five pictures are from Brandi of Lola Jo Photo Design}

{The remaining pictures are from Becky of Stamp of Life Photography}

Eeee, exciting, right?! Recaps will be finished up soon, although I can’t promise I’ll be able to post every day – Things are a bit crazy with the holidays and everything. I want to get them written as soon as possible, though, before I forget any more than I already have!

I’m officially BACK! :)

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Somewhat of an Update

Well, I really don't have much of an update for you regarding the status of our reception photos. If you could, PLEASE keep you fingers crossed that all of the images have been recovered (our friend/photographer's computer crashed and we weren't sure at first whether our images even still existed) and that they weren't corrupted when the computer crashed again. Oh, and that we'll get them sometime in the very near future. I'm SO excited to share everything with you guys - I just hope I'm able to using our professional pictures instead of our guests' images. 

I think I'll go ahead and give you a sneak peek of some of the details that we got pictures of from our main photographer and the few shots we've seen of the other photographer's work in an upcoming post. I feel so bad for leaving you all hanging, but believe me, I'm anxious to see them too! 

In the meantime, definitely go check out my newlywed/house/life blog here! I'm doing my best to update regularly and you can tour the rooms of our house, see what my sweet husband and I are up to, and look at pictures of our adorable puppy. There are even some recipes and house/home decor projects thrown in! I miss all of you a LOT so I'd love to see you over there!

Thanks for sticking with me through this - And I'll hopefully be back with another post soon! 

Guest Posting!

Still no reception photos. :( I know I keep saying this, but I'll hopefully have them soon! In the meantime, I had to share this post with you - I actually wrote it as a guest post for Amy over at Little Miss Wedding Planner who got married this past Saturday, but it's something I've been wanting to blog about for a loong time. You can read it here if you want, but make sure you still head over there and tell her congratulations! (I've successfully stalked her on facebook and she looked absolutely gorgeous!)

If you've followed this blog, it’s pretty obvious that I love weddings. I honestly enjoyed every part of our planning process and I especially loved blogging about it, reading other blogs and finding inspiration from them, and ‘meeting’ other brides. Unfortunately, I think there’s one downside to weddings today being all over the internet - Brides lose sight of the fact that each of those weddings is a celebration of two real people’s relationship. There’s so much judgment and forgetting that the point of a wedding isn’t the pretty pictures, the trendy details, or the hope of being blogged/featured in a magazine.

I’ve always loved crafty things, but I’d never really had a reason to be crafty aside from scrapbooking or making gifts. My wedding was a chance for me to enjoy tons of DIY projects and craft until I was sick of it. I loved that those details reflected my personality and hobbies. My husband, David, and I also decided we wanted to put as little financial burden on my parents as possible and that we didn’t want to go into debt for our wedding. It was our decision as a couple to have a budget wedding for 250+ guests.

Did I love our wedding? You bet I did!! But do I love weddings that have absolutely no DIY projects and cost $30,000? You bet I do! I love that each wedding is a reflection of a loving relationship and exactly what the bride and groom wanted. No bride has any right or reason to think that some detail of another wedding is ‘tacky’ (PLEASE get rid of that word!) just because she chose not to do it. You hate the dollar dance? Don’t do it. You’re convinced a first look is the only way to go? Have one. And let everyone else choose what works for them.

I can’t say that I’ve never made a comment about a picture of someone’s wedding on facebook or one of the weddings on TV (Four Weddings, anyone?), but I’m seriously making an honest effort to get rid of that negativity. The wedding blog/bride blogger network is such a great one - The only thing that would make it better is a huge push to eliminate the judgmental attitude that’s become so popular.

Ok, stepping off my soap box now. Do you agree or disagree?

J+J’s Wedding

I still don’t have reception photos yet, so the break from recaps will continue. However, I realized I’ve talked multiple times about my friend J, who got married about a month and a half after David and I on July 31st, and I never mentioned anything about their wedding. 

J went to KU with me so we were both finishing school in 3 years, in long term (6+ years) long distance relationships, and hoping for a wedding shortly after graduation. David and I got engaged in March and they got engaged in October of 2009 and we got to spend our senior year planning our weddings together. We shared vases, paper lanterns, and some other decor and she actually ended up doing a boudoir shoot after hearing about it from me! She also used the same photography company we did, but had a different photographer.

I decided to share some of their pro pictures since they were recently posted on our photographers’ facebook page! 

 

 

 

{She had the cute pink bow shoes I wanted my bridesmaids to wear, but wasn’t mean enough to make them – They were 4” heels!}

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

{The father-daughter and mother-son dance – You can see my cute hubby and half of me on the far left side of the picture in the background!}

{My Dollar Tree paper lanterns!}

{All photos by Amy Stevens of Lola Jo Photo Design}

Their wedding was so pretty, fun, and them – I loved it! And I love even more that we’re now both wives and we live about 2 miles apart in cute little houses with our husbands. We love hanging out with them and we’ve introduced them to Channing and Zach, so we’ll have a little ‘married couple group’ after their wedding in April! :)

Did you/do you have any friends going through the planning process with you?

{Giveaway Winner!}

We have a winner of the $45 CSN Stores gift certificate!

Christina!

Christina, if you could contact me with your email address as soon as possible, that would be great! Congratulations!

Thank you to everyone who entered - Hopefully I'll have another giveaway for you in the near future. :) And for another way to brighten up your day, head on over to Life of Meg's Mingle Monday! I know I've posted about it before on my other blog, but I'm not sure if I have here - I just heart Meg. We went to high school together and she's sweet as can be and has an adorable blog! Go check it out!

You Make My Dreams Come True: Our Exit

I debated during our planning process about what type of ‘grand exit’ we’d have and when we’d do it. I would have loved sparklers when we left our reception, but we ended up staying until the very end of it (hey, I love to dance!) and the majority of the people who were left were in fact a bit intoxicated, which is what I was worried about. 

We decided to do bubbles when we left the ceremony, and I absolutely LOVE the pictures from our exit. Honestly, two of my favorite memories of the day were from our exit/our drive to the reception.

While we were signing the marriage license my bridesmaids were handing out bubbles to our guests as they walked out of the church. By the time we were finished, everyone was outside waiting for us, as was the incredible car we drove off in! 

 

 

One of my good friends (actually the same one whose dad is the pastor of the church we were married at and got us hooked up) drives a classic el Camino that she and her dad totally restored together. They go to all kinds of car shows and know tons of people around town with gorgeous classic cars. She asked about a month before our wedding if we knew what we were doing for our getaway car. We really hadn’t thought about it, so she said she’d take care of it. Uh yea, she definitely did! She gave us two options the week before the wedding, we picked one, and she had it at the church waiting for us with a just married sign on the back and a CD of songs she and her sister made for us. She took care of it afterward too and drove it back to its owner from our reception! I was SO happy with how it all worked out – She’s wonderful!

 

I love that you can see my nieces/our flower girls in the above pictures and my dad helping the younger one, A, blow her bubbles. They’re definitely who I’m smiling at in this picture:

I have the biggest, goofiest grin on my face in all of these pictures, but I couldn’t help it! I just can’t hide it when I’m excited!

 

 

One of my favorite memories of the day happened as we went to get in the car. My friend left the keys in the car’s ignition for us, so when David opened my door for me the car’s alarm started going off. It was absolutely hilarious, and all of our guests were laughing with us. I love David’s expression in this picture:

My aunt and cousin were on the other side of the car, so they got some great pictures of our guests – I’m so glad I have their photos!

 

 

{2 above photos taken by my aunt}

 

 

{3 above photos taken by my cousin – The kids on the right hand side of the first 2 pictures are ones I nannied for. I love how he’s looking up at me in the first picture!}

 

 

 

And I have to include BM S’s picture of our kiss – I love it!

{picture taken by BM S}

Another of my favorite memories from the day: When we left the ceremony we took a different route than our guests to avoid any highways (a convertible + long hair and a veil = not a good idea) and so we’d arrive a bit later than them. I was dying of thirst, so I told David to go through the drive-thru at McDonalds so I could get a Dr. Pepper. He pulls into the drive thru and we’re about to order and then he realizes.. Oh wait. Neither of us has any money. We literally had nothing on us – No ID, no drivers license, no money, no cell phones. It was weird, but kind of fun! So we laughed and decided to forget about it. When we told people afterward they said we should’ve gone through anyway and said, ‘We’re newlyweds and we’re broke. Literally!’ Haha, I still smile every time I think about that story.

So now that we’ve made it to the reception, I won’t have any recaps for you for a bit – I still don’t have the pictures of our reception from our second photographer, so I don’t have a whole lot to share yet. Hopefully I’ll be getting them soon and I’ll finish up my recaps – I can’t wait to share our reception with you! :)

*All pictures in this post were taken by Brandi Coldwell of Lola Jo Photo Design unless otherwise noted*  

 

Need to catch up?

We started on Thursday.

We decorated Friday morning.

We rehearsed.

We got pretty!

I put on my dress. 

We had our first look!

The guys had their turn.

The girls stole the show. 

We got some fun bridal party pictures. 

We took bride & groom portraits.

We took care of the formal portraits.

We took pictures with the kiddos.

We spent time hanging out waiting for the ceremony to start.

The grandparents and parents were seated.

It was finally time for the processional.

A step back to the playing of the slideshow.

The ceremony started. (Part 1)

The ceremony continued. (Part 2)

The ceremony ended. (Part 3)

We had a little fun with our recessional. 

I shared our ceremony details. 

*Don’t forget to enter my giveaway from CSN Stores!!