All You Need is Love: Getting dressed

Catch up here!

Here are all the things we DIY'ed for the wedding/reception
Here are our flowers
Everyone started arriving on Thursday
Friday, pre-rehearsal
Then we rehearsed
And of course ate
Then we woke up and my mom & I got our hair done
The girls got all prettied up!
Find out what the guys were up to
The details-- my something's

For all the past brides, were you the most anxious to put your dress on (that is, aside from seeing your soon-to-be husband)? I was sooooo ready and I felt like the clock was just crawling before I could do that. But the bridesmaids put their pretty dresses on and then eventually it was my turn! Yay!

And enter the awkward crawling/stepping into your wedding dress while 8 women look on. It worked though! Perhaps the hardest thing was putting on the shoes. Balancing on someone's shoulder wearing a heeled shoe while the other clips a shoe on your other foot, all with layers of tulle going everywhere makes life interesting!

As always, all pictures unless otherwise noted are by Kasey Lynn Photography.

Getting zipped up

The shoes!

Mom helping me put on my grandmother's jewelry

Me seeing myself for the first time

I will say that dress was easy to crouch in. Came in handy!

Gorgeous dress details

All You Need is Love: My Something's

Catch up on the recaps here!

Here are all the things we DIY'ed for the wedding/reception
Here are our flowers
Everyone started arriving on Thursday
Friday, pre-rehearsal
Then we rehearsed
And of course ate
Then we woke up and my mom & I got our hair done
The girls got all prettied up!
Find out what the guys were up to

Some of the wedding pictures that mean the most to me are of the little things, like my jewelry.

My grandmother passed away a little before my 21st birthday and when we went to the memorial service, I was given a jewelry pouch that had written on it- "For Jessica on her 21st birthday" in my grandmother's handwriting. Inside was a beautiful diamond watch and I knew I would be wearing that on my wedding day. The watch was given to her from another family member, so I was touched to receive this beautiful family heirloom. We took it with us to go wedding dress shopping to make sure the dress would match it. The watch was my something old.

My mother had taken the diamonds from my grandmother's engagement ring and had them set in a beautiful pendant. The necklace was my something borrowed. It meant so much to me to be able to wear those gorgeous pieces of jewelry that both belonged to my grandmother. My mom and two aunts also wore some of her jewelry, so that was also important/good.

My something new was my shoes as well as the dress and other accessories. But my something blue was on the bottom of my shoes. I went to Hobby Lobby and purchased blue sparkly stickers and on one shoe I wrote out- "I Do" and on the other put the wedding date.

The shoes- something new

The stickers- something blue

Gotta have the gorgeous ring shot!

And the jewelry- something old and something borrowed

All You Need is Love: What the guys were up to

Past recaps:
Here are all the things we DIY'ed for the wedding/reception
Here are our flowers
Everyone started arriving on Thursday
Friday, pre-rehearsal
Then we rehearsed
And of course ate
Then we woke up and my mom & I got our hair done
The girls got all prettied up!

As you know, guys don't require the same amount of time to get ready for wedding as girls. So that morning, Matt met his groomsmen for a large breakfast at a local breakfast joint. My husband really enjoys his breakfast food (waffles, muffins, pancakes-- do you sense a carb theme?) so it was right up his alley. I'm told everyone else enjoyed it too!

Afterwords, they went to go play black light mini-golf and they had fun doing that too, though at a lightning speed as to get to the church on time! Sorry, I do not have any pictures from that aspect of their morning. The church had the guys get ready in the choir room, which ironically had two huge windows on the front of the doors so it was a bit difficult to change. Somehow they managed. Here are some pictures of them getting ready!

Not quite sure what Matt is doing here, but it works :)

All photos by Kasey Lynn Photography

All You Need is Love: Getting Ready!

Need to catch up on the previous recaps?

Here are all the things we DIY'ed for the wedding/reception
Here are our flowers
Everyone started arriving on Thursday
Friday, pre-rehearsal
Then we rehearsed
And of course ate
Then we woke up and my mom & I got our hair done

As I alluded to in my last post, after my mom and I left the salon, wedding day mishap #1 (of 2) occurred. We are about 15 minutes away from the salon and we get a call from Kim, the hair stylist, telling us we forgot my tiara! For some reason I had brought it inside the salon with me, but then completely forgot it when we left. We start to turn around to go get it, with me freaking out because there was a tight morning timeline and simultaneously calling my dad to tell him we would be a bit late getting to the church.

Then my dad saves the day! He tells me he will go ahead and drop the bridesmaids off at the church (per the plan) but then go drive an hour roundtrip himself to go get the tiara. Yay! No more me running late though I felt bad he had to drive all that way. So- lesson learned-- make sure you have EVERYTHING before you leave :)

So my mom and I arrive at the church right as my photographer, Kasey, and her second shooter arrive. A few minutes later the bridesmaids arrive, and the getting ready begins!

Now a little plug for our makeup lady. I had contacted her about two months prior about doing my makeup and the original plan was to do just the regular powder makeup because though I wanted the airbrush it was a bit more than we wanted to spend. When she arrives, she tells me she will do the airbrush for the original cost of the powder-- not charging us anymore! She was so sweet and you could tell she just loved what she did. I absolutely loved how my makeup came out and it stayed all day. So if anyone is getting married in Houston-- contact her! Though not anytime soon-- she is expecting a baby any day now!

The church had a huge parlor we got to spread out all of our stuff in along with a full-length mirror, so it was perfect for getting ready. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves now.

All pictures by Kasey Lynn Photography

All You Need is Love: The Morning!

Want to catch up on the recaps?

Here are all the things we DIY'ed for the wedding/reception
Here are our flowers
Everyone started arriving on Thursday
Friday, pre-rehearsal
Then we rehearsed
And of course ate

So, as you may remember from the last post, I barely slept at all. But, it didn't matter. After seeing light coming through the curtains, I allowed myself to look at the clock, thought it was as good of time as any to get up, and cue girly freak out. It was along the lines of-- "Wow! We're getting married today! Let me text Matt. Wait, is that allowed? Why isn't he texting me back? He can't be asleep still..." And then I realized it wasn't even 6 AM yet. Fair enough.

As it was so early, I tried not to wake anyone up. I did some last minute packing for the honeymoon, and then realized-- I didn't know where our Disney park tickets were.

Umm... yikes!

So I alerted my parents to the issue and we started quietly looking around. I had to wake up one of the bridesmaids to search in the room she was sleeping in, but hopefully she didn't mind too much. When all was said and done, we found them (in my room, of all places. Too much moving makes papers and other important things get cluttered), so crisis averted!

Anyway, the other girls woke up and we started eating breakfast and waiting around. I know I was getting antsy, wanting the time to go by quicker, etc. But looking back I really enjoyed that time with the girls when it was relatively quiet and we were filled with anticipation. Ah, good memories!

My mom and I left to go get our hair done at our normal salon which is about 30 minutes away. You know how it is-- you find someone that does a good job with your hair and you just stick with it, even if it is an hour round trip...

But Kim did an amazing job and my mom and I were both very happy. Our thin and fine hair doesn't curl--- and if it does, it doesn't hold. I don't know what Kim did, but she amazingly got both of our hair to curl and it held all day...

And because no post is good without pictures (I know, in wedding recaps it's what I pay the most attention to), here are some pictures of the hair results.

All pictures by Kasey Lynn Photography

Up next- my mom & I leave the salon, followed by a mishap and meet the girls at the church

All You Need is Love: Rehearsal Dinner

[Photo credit for all these- my dad]

After the rehearsal was over, we headed over to the fellowship hall to have dinner! [Here's a recap over the rehearsal dinner adventure here]

Matt's parents, with the help of a good family friend, decorated the fellowship hall quite perfectly, in my opinion.

BM and Matt's sister Lindsey made this great slideshow of Matt & me growing up

We had a really good local BBQ place cater, and it was delicious. We had brisket, sausage, and other good BBQ staples. Also- can't forget the delicious cobbler!

We then distributed the gifts for the bridesmaids, groomsmen, and to our parents. For a reminder of what I got the girls, click here. For the guys, Matt got them personalized Swiss Army Knives, a fun little game, and Nerf Guns. Yes, these things.

Photo source

The guys had fun with those, I think. Matt & me gave our parents engraved frames from Things Remembered along with pictures from our engagement session. All gift recipients seemed to appreciate their gifts, so I count that as success!

In lieu of doing toasts at the reception (our venue wasn't the best place for those), we instead had them at the rehearsal dinner. No pictures of these (or the gifts, silly us!) but Matt & I felt very blessed to have such good friends and family!

After the dinner, Matt & I went for a walk around the Waterway. We wanted some time together to really remind ourselves of what was about to happen, to pray, and to exchange letters to read the following morning. He dropped me off at my house, and I come home to find several of my BMs and my brother playing on the xbox 360.

Then sleep that night... hmmm.. that was not at all successful. I had so much stuff on my mind, from the wedding, to the honeymoon, to moving that I literally could not quiet my thoughts, despite all the techniques I've picked up from my periodic insomnia attacks. I think I drifted off and got a few hours of sleep, but I have definitely had better nights!

But it hardly mattered, because the next day-- we were getting married!

All You Need is Love: The Rehearsal

[A huge thanks goes out to Jeremy and Hudson who took these pictures!! Thanks guys! :)]

The wedding rehearsal-- this is the only time I cried during the entire wedding weekend. But we'll get to that later.

The church we got married at- The Woodlands Community Presbyterian Church-- has two wedding coordinators that are in charge of the rehearsal and ceremony. I'm SO glad that the church has that resource because they were such a huge help and definitely knew what they were doing! We first got our positions at the front, then practiced recessing. Then processing and ran over the entire ceremony. Dr Jones, the pastor, may have had Matt & I rehearse the kiss a couple of times-- not that we minded!

But ok, enough words, here are the pictures!

We're in position...


Recessing for the first time

And it begins again...


Now this is where I cried. Story- my brother kindly agreed to play his clarinet at our wedding. John majored in clarinet performance in college, graduated 4 years ago, but I haven't heard him play since. He played while the grandparent/parents were entering, so I was back with my dad and the BMs behind a partition. Hearing him play so beautifully just brought forth so many emotions... the wedding, everything that was happening, etc...
Cute side story- later one of Matt's aunts was telling me that her son (who was also at the rehearsal, age 2) asked her why I was crying. She said because I was really happy, but he looked so confused. She didn't want to try to explain girls to him then... LOL!


Now processing...

Back up there... going through the ceremony


You can see my bouquet-- from one of my shower gifts

After the rehearsal was over, it was dinner time! But that's for the next post...

All You Need is Love: Friday Pre-Rehearsal

Friday was when most of the wedding chaos started. I was finishing up the last-minute things like packing for the honeymoon, packing what I could of stuff to move post-honeymoon, packing things for the rehearsal dinner/wedding/reception... basically a lot of packing.

Brittany, the fourth BM, came in that day, along with my brother and tons of other family members. So before the rehearsal, we pretty much hung out at home to welcome people coming.

BMs chilling, I think they were watching...

My brother and I play the hand slap game.

The adults talking
[Photo credit- my dad]

PS- I promise the next recaps get more exciting-- we rehearse next!

All You Need is Love: Thursday

[Sorry for being MIA for a bit, but I'm back now and will hopefully get a lot of posts in this week!]

Thursday is when Matt, his sister and BM Lindsey, the MOH Mary, and another BM Kara came in to town. Though that week had been spent in final preparation, it didn't really feel real until people started arriving. Have past brides found that true?

Anyway, we hung out with my parents, my dad grilled us delicious bratwurst and burgers, then we decided to head out for the evening. We went to Market Street, a really nice outdoor shopping area, and walked around there and came upon a free jazz concert! It was put on by the Houston Orchestra and featured a Louis Armstrong cover band-- very cool!

It was such a fun and relaxing evening spent with some of my closest friends-- just what I needed to calm my nerves before more family arrived on Friday!

At the concert

Photo credit for both- Mary

All You Need is Love: The Flowers

If you have been following this blog for a while, you may remember I had trouble when it came to actually picking out the flowers. I chose something, then changed my mind. Then changed my mind again. Read about that here:
Part one
Part two
Part three

For anyone getting married in the north Houston area, I highly recommend my florist-Lara with LZ Floral Design. As you will see, she did an AMAZING job and put up with all my changes quite patiently. And all of these pictures, unless otherwise noted, were taken by Kasey of Kasey Lynn Photography [another vendor I would highly recommend].

So, without further ado, here are the flowers. I absolutely loved how they came out!

The guys' bouts [photo credit- my dad]

Reception centerpiece and toss bouquet

Pew arrangements [credit- dad]

Centerpieces at the Reception [photo credit to Karen W]

The church floral arrangements [Photo credit- my dad]

My gorgeous bouquet

And again :)

The bridesmaids' bouquets :) [photo credit- my dad]

We also had a memorial candle for my grandparents

Photo credit- my dad

[Sorry they're in a weird order, I can't seem to get a grip on just what blogger is doing to the picture upload stuff...]

So- what did you think? I couldn't have been happier with them, though I will say I did NOT notice the floral centerpieces at the church or the reception. Thank goodness people got pictures of them haha!