{Wedding Day: Getting Ready}

On Thursday afternoon, I packed up my honeymoon bags and my “getting ready” things for the wedding, and left my parents house for the last time as a single lady. I was so calm, that I was able to go out to dinner Thursday  night with my husband’s co-workers from his previous job…and not even stress about the wedding. Thursday night was my first night at our new condo, too. Exciting! On Friday morning, I woke up early for a spa appointment, then all of my bridesmaids came over for brunch and to see the new condo. Then we headed over to the reception venue to start setting up! Our chairs, tables, and dance floor were delivered early on Friday, so we were able to go ahead and get most of the reception set up before the Rehearsal Dinner. We had a slight mishap and the tablecloths and china didn’t get there until too late Friday, so that meant we had to come in Saturday morning to finish up. This is the only point in the entire wedding weekend that I started to have a ‘bridal meltdown’ – but I quickly got over it! 

Friday evening, we got ready and headed to the church for our Rehearsal. After 10 months of wedding planning, it finally started to feel like it was really happening! We rehearsed for an hour and a half, then we headed to our Rehearsal dinner. I wasn’t sure what to expect, because we’d never heard of this restaurant before, but as it turns out, the food was amazing. My MIL rented the whole restaurant out, and we had an open bar and lots of Southern food. It was so nice to see all of our family and friends before our big day. When we started handing out bridal party gifts, it REALLY sunk in that we were getting married the next day! 

After the Rehearsal dinner, I went back to the condo to get my luggage, then headed to the hotel room for the night. One of my bridesmaids, Kelli, and I shared a room, and we stayed up late reminiscing, thinking of how crazy it was I was getting married the next day…we’ve known each other since we were 4…so we had lots to reminisce about! On Saturday morning, we woke up early and Kelli played “Going to the Chapel” for me – OMG wedding nerves! So hard to believe I was getting married in a few hours. My groom had Starbucks and a sweet note delivered to my room as we were getting ready to go finish decorating for the reception. This was the first of many times I teared up throughout the day!

We finished setting up the reception Saturday morning – it was all ready for the flowers and the cake to be set up! Then we headed back to the hotel to start getting ready. A wedding is seriously an all-day affair. We started hair and makeup at 11am and it still was barely enough time to get ready for a 4:30pm wedding! I’ve known my hair stylists for at least 10 years, so they had no problem coming all the way to our hotel to fix our hair…and they also brought brunch and mimosas! All of us girls spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon getting ready, and then we headed to the church around 2pm to get ready for bridal party photos. Us girls were up for photos first, so the guys waited a little while to get to the church. We had so much fun getting some cute photos, and then the guys had theirs taken. Based on the pictures, it looks like they were having fun…

Our photographer, who is AMAZING, had been keeping a list of photo ideas for us and she knew there was one in particular that I wanted. My groom & I didn’t want to see each other before the ceremony, so we took photos of us standing on opposite sides of a door. It was a sweet moment, where we got to talk to each other before I walked down the aisle, but not see each other. I was so calm after having the chance to talk to Michael and laugh a little bit…although I started to tear up again! After this photo op, it was almost time for the ceremony….to be continued. 🙂