Wedding Day! June 5, 2010

Our wedding was everything that I wanted it to be! It was absolutely amazing! I want to thank everyone who came to celebrate with us, and everyone who helped make our day one to remember. We really appreciated your presence and everything you did! Now lets start at the beginning

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, praise God! We were so worried, since the previous 14 days contained non-stop pouring. We got married at our church, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, where I was baptized. The girls started getting dressed at 9, since pictures started at 11. I had 4 bridesmaids: my sister, Rayla, was the maid of honor, and Alex (best friend), Kelly (college roommate for 4 years), and Brittany (Matt's sister) were the other 3 bridesmaids. Brittany was our hair stylist, and she did an excellent job! She curled my hair, and braided and curled everyone's hair, and also did my make-up. The boys took only about 10 minutes to dress. Matt, also, had 4 attendants: his best man, Jerrik (a last minute scramble, since his original best man, Joe, had a mandatory Army obligation), Cory and Zack (elementary friends), and Kyle, aka Yak, a college roommate.

Everything went smoothly (unless you consider constant calls back home to my dad, for him to bring this and that that we left at home), until about 45 minutes before pictures were scheduled to start. We realized that we had left the bridesmaids dresses at home! And dad was not there anymore! My mom, the only one dressed, rushed home to get them (fortunately we live only 10 minutes away). Once they arrived, COMPLETE mayhem as girls started shoving themselves in dresses. But, it being a wedding, something else happened, too, and all to Rayla, poor girl. We realized that the clasp on the back of her dress had come off, so my mom and grandma had to speed-sew the clasp while she was in it. I was even helping curl hair! Then, somehow, Rayla managed to get lotion all over her dress, and it didn't come out with just water. My mom and grandma again came to the rescue and were ironing her dress while she was wearing it. And this is the scene that my photographer came in on.

From there, everything went swimmingly. The pictures started on time, even, and we all worked so well together that the pictures ended ahead of schedule! Since the weather cooperated, we got to take them outside, too! This was really important to me, because the fountain outside the church was built in memory of all children who have past, and the thought came after my brother past 11 years ago. In this way, my brother was able to attend the wedding.

The ceremony lasted about an hour. We left for the reception at Country Village in Matt's dad's FORD MUSTANG!!!!!!!!!! VROOM!!!!!!!!. The reception only lasted about 3 hours, but I think everyone had fun! We learned a very important lesson, though. Even if you set the buffet line at the end of the receiving line, it still goes really slow. And we were hungry hungry hungry. We did get to eat, though, eventually, and it was delicious, along with the cake, which my mom's best friend made. Our first dance was "Lost in This Moment" by Lonestar, and the father-daughter was "Don't Blink" by Kenny Chesney. A big hit (in my opinion, anyway), was the line dance to Cotton-Eye Joe, which we danced 3 times. My sister caught the bouquet and Yak caught the garter. From there, we danced and hung out until we left for our honeymoon.

I feel so lucky that our day was executed perfectly and we only had minor stressors at the beginning! We were able to relax at the wedding, which definitely allowed us to have fun! Thank you so much, everyone, for such a wonderful day!