Wedding Recap: Getting Dressed

BM and I just passed the 5 month mark. Time has flown since we got married and moved here to Garlic Land. It's funny, the time looking back on when I was unemployed seemed to go on forever, but it was only one and a half months. God was good in allowing us to not be so busy those first couple months, I appreciate that time so much more now looking back. Working full time is no fun, I desperately miss being home, and I'd be lying if I said I was grateful for my job all the time. 

So on my day off, after all the laundry has been done, and groceries have been put away, I have some time to myself and get to blog.  Oh how I miss this little space, I miss getting to read my favorite blogs, I miss the connections. 

Today I am happy to relive moments leading up to the ceremony, I swear one day I'll get to actually blog the main event!

We arrived at the venue around 2:00. Thomas Fogarty is way up in the hills of Woodside, and it takes a while to get there. Looking back, I wish I would have reserved the winery so we could be there earlier. Having 2.5 hours to get ALL of the ladies makeup done is not enough time at all! 

Boys have it so easy. All they had to do was show up, get dressed, and put a little gel in their hair...

They even had time to play!

Meanwhile...

I was FREAKING OUT. 

Clearly not showing it in this photo.

Amidst people asking me every 30 seconds if I was "OK", my dress being wrinkly, me worrying that all the decorations were getting put together correctly, I was having a mini meltdown on the inside. 

So that's when you go outside and ask Jesus to calm your nerves.

And He did just that. I returned to the room ready to get dressed and walk down that aisle. 

Ok seriously, I have a dashingly handsome husband. 

Little did we know that the thumbs up would be our token symbol for the whole day!

We all started getting dressed and put together the finishing touches...

like handkerchiefs

and hairspray. 

And then it was time to put my dress on.

Cue sweat.

A LOT of sweat.

They should install fans inside wedding dresses.

Just saying. 

Cue funny moments. 

Cue precious moments. 

Cue last minute fixings. 

ta da!

Hi handsome :)

I'm so glad we decided not to do a first look.

It made walking down the aisle all the more special. 

As 5:00PM approached my thoughts were pretty overwhelming.

No second thoughts, of course. No worries, those were pointless to think about now. 

In my attempt to soak it all in, I think my mind just froze.

And then my mama teared up.

And we had a moment.

That special mother-daughter moment. 

After the bridesmaids left and my mama got seated, I knew it was getting close.

My dad showed up in the dressing room to see me for the first time.

He was scared to even look at me.

His little baby girl getting married.

He should write a blog post on the emotions of the event for him!

Champagne is a good way to calm nerves....

right?

We scuttled up the back way so I wouldn't be seen.

Walking up a steep hill in a wedding dress on a warm day isn't the most comfortable.

I'm thankful my dad helped me carry my dress. 

And then...

just like that it was time to walk down the aisle. 

7 months of preparation.

7 months of excitement.

7 months of crazy were about to come together.

Next time I'll recap the ceremony, the best part of the entire day.

BEST.

Thanks for joining me on this journey, friends.

Wedding Recap: The Morning Of

Happy Tuesday friends!

Thanks for joining me for another step on our wedding day journey. 

As mentioned last time...I didn't sleep the night before. Seth on the other hand, slept 8+ hours with his hands behind his head and legs crossed like he was relaxing in the sun!

The nerves started to set in as soon as we got to the hotel. There had been so much activity, so much running around, and so little time to actually spend time with Seth. I know it seems silly to want to spend time with him right before the wedding, but at that point he had been living in Gilroy for a month and I only got to see him on the weekends! 

I was lucky to have my girls with me that night, that is for sure! I gave the girls their bridesmaid gifts and we all attempted to hit the hay around 11:00. Melissa, Ashley, and I decided it would be fun to share the King size bed...but us sharing a room never comes without shenanigans. Shenanigans and tears in this case, these sweet girls prayed for me and asked Jesus to calm my anxious heart. 

These are some of the moments I could never forget, not even if I tried.

After about two hours of tossing and turning. I decided that sleeping was a lost cause..and that I was certainly wasting my time even trying! I fumbled around the hotel room for a while, I made sure the slideshow was perfect, I took a bath, and I spent a few hours in the lobby drinking the free coffee! I seriously couldn't wait for 6:00am to roll around, hoping someone would be up!  

It definitely took a while for everyone to wake up, and everyone was shocked that I didn't sleep! It started showing on my face soon enough though. My cheeks were puffy, my eyes tired looking, and I was starting to get irritable. Uh oh.

Luckily, my mama showed with champagne and juice. Champagne can make even the tiredest of brides feel better. 

The hair and makeup promptly started at 9am. Andrea started on each of the bridesmaids hair, and Janet arrived to do mine.  I had been growing my hair out for four whole years for this very day, and I'm so glad I did.

I thought about dying my hair dark before the wedding, thinking I would regret later having so many highlights. To be honest, I wish I had indeed made my hair all one color before the wedding, but I obviously can't go back and change that now!

What bothers me the most is the orangey tone of my hair in all of the pictures. Oh well!

 I got a little cat nap while Janet curled my hair, which took a ridiculous amount of time considering all of the hair spray...I won't tell you how long I had to scrub my hair after the wedding, you'd be so shocked you might fall out of your chair. 

Let's talk about wedding hair for a second. Because I had grown it out for so many years, it needed to be perfect. 

I had initially wanted my hair to be big loose curls, with the top pinned back so it wasn't in the way. I eventually got something that I liked, but I started panicking when I looked in the mirror and felt like Shirley Temple. I totally understand the need for using un-Godly amounts of hairspray to make it hold for the whole day, but it felt like...glue. 

I ended up pulling at it most of the day trying to get it to come down, it was just so tight! My hairdresser used a 1 inch wand, which I regret asking her to do. Wands make for really tight curls that taper and get smaller at the end. Oh well, it ended up being just right. My hair feel just past the top of my wedding dress, had it have fallen any lower it would have taken away from the ruching on the top of my dress!

It was 12:00 before we knew it. It was time to pack up, get in the limo, and head to the winery!

Nerves started at this point even worse than ever. Even though no one knew this was bothersome at all, I loathed when people would ask "are you doing ok?" -- or any form of that question. After a mini break down in the bathroom, we all agreed to not ask any form of that question for the rest of the day! I was getting married, yes I was very excited, but also so very nervous!!

The car ride was nothing short of exciting. The road was super windy and we were all getting pumped up. The girls blasted the radio, requested my white girl dancing, and took pictures of their wedding shoes. 

I tried my best to stay calm when we got to the winery, but that was pretty darn difficult.

Put 8 or 9 ladies in a room, full of nerves, and full of crazy...you can bet I was stressed out. 

By the time we arrived we only had about 2.5 hours to finish getting ready. I really wish that the venue would have let us arrive earlier. One makeup artist for 7 women in 2.5 hours + the bride? Not everyone got full attention, I started freaking out because I didn't initially like my makeup, and it quickly became a mess. 

But, I did my best to keep in perspective what was happening that day. I was marrying Seth, and all of the hard work and effort we had put in the past seven months was finally coming to fruition. That thought kept me going. 

-------------------------

Now, wasn't that a nice emotional roller coaster?

phew. 

I was biting my lip all over again just typing it out. 

Next time I will cover  the ceremony!

This wedding really was a labor of love, and I'm so glad that all of the little details were photographed and the special moments captured.

Until then,

Wedding Recap: Pre-Wedding Events

I've been wanting to do a recap of the wedding for a while now. I'm afraid if I don't do it soon, I'll forget the little details!

I was re-inspired to do a series of posts when my MiL let me borrow her camera to take on our honeymoon and she had pictures  left over from the rehearsal and a few from the wedding day. I love seeing pictures from other perspectives. Some of the guests photos were my favorite of the whole day! 

My stomach starts to churn just thinking of the crazy emotions & anxiety I had leading up to the wedding. Having Seth in school full time at that point made it hard too, I just wanted some time to rest, but that wasn't really possible five days before the wedding! 

Five days before her wedding, a bride should really give up any thoughts of control she might have. I understood that there was nothing more I could do to make things *perfect*, and relinquishing control, or my perceived control rather, made it possible to calm down....a little. 

Because 3 out of my 5 bridesmaids live far away, we decided to leave the bachelorette party until two days before the wedding. In hindsight I probably wouldn't recommend doing that, maybe three or four days before. I didn't want a crazy bachelorette party; I was firm on that, no matter how crazy they all wanted to get, wanted ME to get. Melissa, my MoH, flew in on Wednesday morning -- just hours before the party was set to start! I drove her right to the hotel, at her request, and left to go get my hair done. My only instruction was to wear a white dress, while the rest of the ladies wore black. Oh! And I had to have fun shoes, that was a must. And if you know me at all, I don't really do fun shoes...ever. So I decided that my girlfriends would love if I stepped out of my box a little bit. I strapped on these babies, a decision my feet would surely regret later, but they were fun while they lasted.

My feet look so comfortable...right?

Melissa had a super fun evening planned. It started with some mustaches, my favorite beer selection, and dinner. We went to one of my favorite restaurants, Elephant Bar, where I was thoroughly embarrassed by being the one girl that stuck out in her white dress, pink fuzzy crown, and sash that said "Bride to be!".  

Check out those heart shaped cookies turned butt shape cookies with cute designs!

       

My lovely best friends. I have this photo on my desk at work!

After dinner we came back, played some games, and opened presents. These ladies sure know how to make me feel special. I even got a be-dazzled champagne bottle from Haeley, its waiting in my fridge for a special occasion!

I happily took off my shoes, but when it was time to go out again, there was no way I was putting them back on! I switched to flip flops, and as you can tell, I was pretty excited about it. 

It was Wednesday, so not much happening in general, but we ended up at this awesome little wine bar in Burlingame. To my surprise, it was pretty busy! 

I did my standard creeping in photos...

Let them take one good one without me creeping...

And then we smushed into the car and went home!

My last evening as a "single lady" was super fun. These girls really know how to make me feel special and loved. 

I'm so glad it wasn't any crazier than that. The next day we had to transport all of the wedding stuff up to the Winery -- an hour long journey. And I happened to make/supply all of the wedding decor, so imagine how hard that was to transport!

We had lunch at a local restaurant on the way up, and then got ready for the rehearsal. 

We got there and the arch that my in-laws made was already set up on the lawn. This arch was the brain child of my in-laws and BiL, they took the design from our wedding invitation which had one side of the tree. My in-laws own a machine shop where they cut large pieces of metal for industrial places, or just decorative. My MiL and I painted the arch and they put it all together. I really love how it came out!

 

It was a spectacular day up at the winery. It was super foggy in the morning but it burnt off, I was confident that our wedding day would have beautiful weather! At this point, I was starting to get nervous. I was running on very little sleep, and there was a few last minute things that were really hard to handle emotionally.  

Right before the rehearsal I started to freak out. Cry, shake, get crazy freak out. My two wedding planners literally came to my rescue, bought Seth and I a bottle of wine, and started getting everyone else together and didn't require anything of us until it was my time to walk down the aisle and Seth to stand at the front. I felt bad having a mini-break down...but honestly, everyone involved in the wedding understood and that helped a lot.

My pride and joy that I had been putting together for the last seven months was now in someone elses hands and totally out of my control.  It is a strange feeling to plan the entire wedding, and that not be able to watch the majority of it happen. I had no idea if things were set up the way I imagined, or if my flower girl even managed to walk in a straight line down the aisle.

Those little details that felt monumental when I was planning them, were now something I had to really give over to the planners and hope that they captured my vision. Good thing they did, they really took my crazy, busy vision of our wedding and turned it into pure perfection. 

We did two run throughs of the whole ceremony -- it went pretty smoothly after I had calmed down a bit. 

Hannah, one my good friends and guitarist for the ceremony, her boyfriend was taking some photos during the rehersal. I had no idea that they would turn out so beautifully, especially in black and white!

I love this one with my dad in the background. A good picture of our relationship, letting me do my thing but still watching with a smile from a distance. 

After the rehersal, we got ready to head back down the mountain to the rehearsal dinner. Lucky for me, my MiL left me out of all the planning for that, Lord knows how crazy I would have been if I was in charge of that too!

We took a few last photos as we left, knowing that tomorrow things would look a whole lot different!

My lovely ladies of the wedding! Including Daryn, my precious flower girl. 

There weren't a whole lot of photos taken at the rehearsal dinner. I remember Seth and I literally buzzing from all of the excitement. We got to sit in the corner of the room that looked out over everyone, all the loved ones that were involved in the wedding and some of the family that came from out of town was there too!

Thanks Haeley, for taking the only picture we have from the rehearsal dinner!

The rest of the evening was interesting.

We got to the hotel that I had reserved for me and the girls.

I forgot to pack pants.

Literally forgot to bring pants, who does that?

What organized bride does that?!

Toby came to my rescue with two pairs of yoga pants to wear to bed and one for the next day which was sure to come before I knew it.

And you know what?

I didn't really need pants to sleep in...because I didn't sleep.

I'll save re-capping that emotional night before the wedding for next time. 

Looking back on the few days before the wedding, I am just so thankful for everyone involved. All of my bridesmaids and friends who dealt with my nonsense, my parents and in-laws who were at my hand and foot for anything I needed, and my hubby for making it all worth the crazy. 

I'll be back soon with some of the fun from the hotel the night before the wedding, and the morning of the wedding too!