Sunday, August 11, 2013

The beginning of my happily ever after...


I thought the perfect way to start off a blog about my adventures as a wife would be to tell you about the day that this whole adventure began. June 15, 2013 was the day that forever changed my life, the day that I made my best friend my permanent partner in crime. I know that it’s totally lame and cliché to say that it was everything I dreamed it would be, but it was…I could not have imagined a better wedding. Everything fit our style and personalities perfectly and it was surprisingly a stress free day! Once the day finally came I was so thankful to just be done with all the planning and ready to get married. But even though by the end of our 9 month engagement I was so over wedding planning, I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the process. In fact, I've decided that I totally would love being a wedding planner. It was an amazing thrill to see nine months worth of little individual projects come together to create one big event! Watching all the details come together to complement each other, and then being able to share everything with our family and friends was so rewarding. So now I would like to share part of that with you!


On the days leading up to, and of course the day itself, the bride receives a constant shower of compliments. It’s a nice (although probably unnecessary in my case) stroke to the ego. And it helps keep you positive and upbeat in what can often be a highly stressful time. While I’m certainly not complaining about being told that I am a “gorgeous bride”, or that I “look like a princess”; I am pretty sure that people are required to tell the bride that on her wedding day. The biggest compliment I received was that my dress looked like me. I had several people tell me that. And it always made me smile, because it did, my dress looked like me. It was soft, elegant, classic, and quirky all at the same time. And it was nothing like the wedding dress I had imagined myself in. before walking into our first wedding dress shop I told my mom I knew exactly the style I wanted. A-line, simple, and NOT a puffy princess dress. And yet the very first dress I tried on, was a big puffy princess dress, and I fell in love. Yes, the dress I chose was the very first one I tried on. I tried on at least 20 others, in every style you could think of, but I could never get over that very first one. Even though it was nothing like the dress I had originally imagined, it was me. It was a dress I felt comfortable, confident, and beautiful in. It was the very first wedding decision I made, and it taught me right away that things didn't have to turn out exactly like my wedding board on Pinterest, but the most important thing was that I stayed true to who I was.


The reason I was first attracted to my dress was the material. It was tulle with a pin dot pattern. You don’t see polka dot wedding dresses very often, and I loved the uniqueness of that. I decided to take the polka dots and run with it, so I developed a subtle polka dot theme. The flower girl dresses were made out of a fabulous polka dot lace I found at a local fabric store and luckily my new mother-in-law knows her way around a sewing machine and offered to make the dresses for me. I asked my cake lady to add little white icing pin dots all over the cake, I used a polka dot sheet vellum over the programs to make them a little more fancy, and I found the perfect table cloths to use on the cake and sign in tables. It was the perfect amount of fun to add to the elegance. It brought personality without looking like a 5 year old's birthday party (I love polka dots, but you got to watch out for that, kids birthday party is never the feel you are going for!)


I cannot begin to tell you how stunned I was by the flowers at my wedding. I told my florist I wanted fun, summery, and colorful. I gave her a list of flowers that I liked and a list of colors, but overall it was a pretty open “do what you want just make it look good” kind of deal. And she did not disappoint! They were breathtakingly beautiful and it really helped bring everything together. Our main colors were coral and blue. The blue was specifically requested by Jon, he wanted to wear a blue tie to make his eyes pop. (Actually he first asked me if he could wear a baby blue suit and we compromised to tie). Blue wasn't originally part of the color palette I had imagined but I had to remember that this was not just my wedding, but Jon’s wedding too. I got on board with the whole blue idea once I started seeing pictures of fabulous blue succulents used in weddings! I researched some and soon realized that those succulents where died blue, that was not their original color, and using real succulents  and getting them in the blue I wanted was probably going to exceed my floral budget. But I didn't let that get me down. I bought plastic ones from Hobby Lobby and spray painted them blue, and then gave those to my florist to incorporate into the bouquets. Real succulents have a plastic feel and look to them anyways, so it wasn't obvious that they were fake, and I was able to get the exact blue I wanted while pinching a few pennies! And mixed with the colorful arrangement of live flowers they turned out great.


I could probably go on and on about my wedding and the various details, but I know by now you are bored with my stories. In fact, if you are anything like me you probably aren't even reading this. You bailed out halfway through my ramblings about my dress and are now just scrolling through to look at the pictures. So I will let the rest of the pictures speak for themselves. But while we are on the subject of pictures, aren't they fabulous?! If you are in Texas and looking for a great, affordable wedding photographer check out Marcie Meredith Photography – she took all of my wedding day pictures and I couldn't be more happy with them! My individual bridal portraits (shown at the very beginning of this post) were taken by my BFF you can check her out at Jordan Washer Photography! (she couldn't photograph my wedding because she was busy being one of my Matrons of Honor!) Both are very talented photographers that I would highly recommend. Hope you enjoy the rest of my pictures. If you are currently planning a wedding my advice to you is to have fun and be yourself! try not to stress to much, at the end of the day, if you married the love of your life, then you had the perfect wedding! Let your love keep things in perspective, its the person you are marrying, not all the details, that makes the day so special. Good luck and God bless!

-holly







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