Our Wedding: A to Z.

I saw this on Kate's Blog & I wanted to do it too. A lot of you already know all about my engagement & wedding & all that, but I do have a lot of new followers. So maybe not everyone knows the details. It's fun to look back & remember. I cannot believe we will be celebrating 3 years of marriage this year!

{Warning: this is a REALLY long post. Sorry bout that.}

Anyway. Here it is.

Our Wedding: A to Z.

A = Attendance

We had a big wedding. 300 people were invited & the church seats about 275! And let me tell you...we actually had to cut the list several times due to cost & that was TORTURE! We wanted everyone we love there. Every seat was filled and i LOVE that! Such a spirit of celebration there.

B = Bridesmaids
I had 5 bridesmaids & 1 maid of honor (my sister).

(left to right) Brandy, Shana, Michelle (my sister, Maid of Honor), Me, Jaimie (Brad's sister), Rebecca & Sarah. All very good friends of mine for many years.

C = Cake

I LOVED my cake. I had 2 pics of cakes from a magazine, showed the baker what i liked about each one & this is what i got. LOVED! And it tasted SO GOOD! They wrapped some up for us to take on the honeymoon. DELISH! :) 

This was my husband's Groom's Cake. He wanted one of his favorite keyboard, the Yamaha DX7. I didn't get to taste this one, but it was delish! She did an AWESOME job!

D = Dress

I absolutely LOVE my wedding dress. It was the second one i tried on. It's Ivory, not White, because i look better in Ivory! :) I LOVE IT!

E = Engagement
Brad proposed to me in a restaurant. Now, a lot of people who know me do not realize that i do not like all eyes on me. I can be very talkative & outgoing once i get to know you. Not to mention, i am okay with acting or singing in front of hundreds. But being proposed to in a restaurant? Eek! Brad had bought the ring that day & couldn't wait. He made some smooth come back to something i said & slid the ring across the table to me. I gasped & covered the ring with my hands, just in time for the waitress to come by to see if we needed anything. She had no idea what had just taken place! Brad started to get on his knees & i wouldn't let him! Haha. I didn't want to draw attention to ourselves at ALL. Little did i know that our sisters were waiting at the bar to come take pics & congratulate us as soon as the ring was on my finger. (Our sisters are LOUD! Haha.) Anyway, it was sweet & fun. :) And i remember thinking when i saw the ring, "OMG. It's BEAUTIFUL!" I wanted him to pick it out & he did. And he did a great job! I love my ring!

One of our "rock shots" from the wedding.

F = Flowers
I LOVED my flowers. One of my favorite parts of my wedding. I used "All About Flowers" in Baton Rouge, because the owner was a friend from the theatre. My friend Amber worked for him & actually did my bouquet for me. It's perfect. Exactly what i wanted.

& the bridesmaid's bouquets

G = Groomsmen
Brad's best friend Trey was his best man. He had 5 groomsmen, 2 of them are his cousins.

(left to right) Brad's cousin Matt, his friend Lucas, Brad, his best man & best friend Trey, friend Shaun, cousin Chad & good friend Derek.

H = Honeymoon
The first two nights were spent at a bed & breakfast in St. Francisville. Then we drove to Galveston Texas for a Caribbean Cruise. It was awesome!

Cozumel was GORGEOUS.

I = Invitations
I LOVED our invitations. I always thought i'd have the BEST invitations because i've always loved paper (stationery, cards, etc!). But they were so expensive! I ended up with SIMPLE. And it was beautiful. I don't have a pic, but i loved it. :)

J = Justice of the Peace
Pastor Philip officiated the wedding. He is the pastor at HeartsEase, where we were attending at the time. Love him! He did a great job officiating the wedding, too.

Us with Pastor P

K = Keepsakes
I'm going with "favors" like Kate did! Haha. Here are our favors. Mom found them online & they match our wedding colors. They're cute little jars & we filled them with dinner mints.

L = Ladies Night
My Lingerie Shower was really my "ladies night". I didn't feel the need for a bachelorette party, too, since the shower was a party with my closest girlfriends anyway. We had SO MUCH FUN. It was at Shana's house (one of the bridesmaids) & we laughed all night. It was the bridesmaids & a few other close friends. We had such a good time!

 I also had a Bridesmaid's Brunch at Another Broken Egg Cafe the day before the wedding. It was fun to have a little time with my mom, mother-in-law & bridesmaids before the big day.

M = Music
The song that I walked down the aisle to was a song that Brad composed & orchestrated just for me. Brad's friend, Doug, played the piano for most of the ceremony. He played Canon in D with my friend Morgan (violinist) as the wedding party walked down the aisle. We had friends of ours sing "Whenever You Call" by Mariah Carey & Bryan McKnight. Our friends Lizzie & Nolan sang it & most of the HeartsEase band played for it (we were members of the praise team then). Brad's sister Jaimie sang a beautiful song she found - the lyrics were so "US".  Erin, our worship leader, sang AT LAST by Etta James, as we were walking out after the ceremony.At the reception, our first dance was to Michael Buble's "You & I". I surprised dad by having the DJ play "You Ain't Nuthin But a Hounddog" as he was being called to the dance floor! It was hilarious! (There is a story, of course.) We had it fade out, though & actually danced to "What a Wonderful World".


N = Newlyweds
This is my favorite newlywed pic of us! We have been married for 2 days here. This is the first day of the cruise. I asked a stranger to take a picture of us & i love it. My hair is still curly from the wedding.

O = Old, Borrowed, Blue & New
Something Old was my Papaw's hanky, which was attached to my bouquet.
Something New was my dress & veil!
Something Borrowed was my sister's pearl necklace & earrings.
And this was my Something Blue...

They were sparkly. Found them online & loved them. Too cute!

P = Photographer
I went with Amanda Meyer Photography & she was great! She was a great photographer but she also felt like a coordinator of sorts! Haha! She helped me so much when i had no idea what i was supposed to do next! :) Love her! And she did a great job! Most pics in this post are hers, by the way!

Me & my photographer Amanda! She became a mom to TWINS a year after this post, by the way! Crazy! :)

Q = Question Popping
LOL. See E for Engagement. :)

R = Reception
We had the reception at Reflections. I'm really glad i went with this place. It was not my first choice because the place i wanted was more expensive & i would have had to cut my guest list again. I wasn't willing to do that, so we went with Reflections. And let me tell you - i am THRILLED that i went with them. First of all, it had plenty of room for all guests. Secondly, it was a lot closer to the church. And most important? I just think they had the BEST service. The DJ Eric (who i went to high school with) was AWESOME. He met us when we got there in a side room & talked to us for a minute, gave us some alone time & then was just basically there to help everything go smoothly. He helped it to feel not quite so overwhelming, haha! We had a great time. And everyone said the food was SO GOOD!

S = Shoes
I loved my shoes. They were pretty. :) I thought i was doing good getting a low-ish heel, but I should have known better. My feet were killing me at the reception!

My sister being the good MOH & bringing me flip flops at the reception. It surprised me & I couldn't stop laughing!

T = Trash The Dress
I did not do this. I really really want to. ONE DAY I WILL! :)

U = Unique
The song I walked down the aisle to (the one brad composed & orchestrated).
The video that played pre & post ceremony. It was an interview with us & it was cute! Got a lot of compliments on that. One day i will find it & post it on the blog! :)

 I loved my programs. Wrote a little note about each person in our wedding party. That was fun. Mom designed them & we put them together. She did a great job.

I also think this is unique, even though it was not my idea. Lots of brides have done this. If you are not doing a First Look Session, you MUST do this! You can't see your groom but still get some fun pics. this was a *moment* for me, i almost started crying. I am so glad we did this.

V = Vows
We did the traditional vows. We both love the wording of the traditional vows & wanted to use those.

W = Wedding Woes
aka Regrets? Well, the main one is that the song that was SO IMPORTANT to us (the one brad composed for me to walk down the aisle to) did not start playing until halfway through the song. There is a huge crescendo where the doors would swing open but that part didn't even play, so it was weird backstage (listen to me. Backstage. I mean, er, in the lobby? waiting to come out!) because i couldn't tell if it played or not so i didn't know when to go out. It was important to me & brad. Mom said it sounded fine & all that. But i wish it played the way we wanted it to. Oh-well!
The other regret is i wanted a pic of me with my four ushers, but it didn't happen! They were theatre buddies of mine & one of them got there late & another left right after the ceremony! Sadness! But i still love them. :)
I also do not know WHY i did not get a pic with just me, brad & our sisters. What the heck?!
My MAIN regret is not getting a videographer. We had to cut something & that was it. I regret it now because it was such a blur, i don't remember a lot of it! HAHA.
So those are my woes. But overall? It was absolutely beautiful & fun!! Everyone said it was touching & a blast! Lots of people danced, which i loved. :)


X = X Rated
Hahaha. This question is funny to me. Well, i did get a pretty awesome gift from my very best friend Sarah.

To a virgin girl, this was a pretty awesome gift! She had a note for everything. Love it!

I also have a FUNNY story. I thought it'd be so romantic to leave the wedding in my wedding dress & have Brad, ahem, take it off of me for our wedding night. Um....wow. I don't think i really thought that through. Because THIS?

...is not easy to get undone! Especially for a guy! And for two thirty-year-old virgins?! Well, we were not really wanting to wait any longer! Ha!

{wow, i think i just said way more than i've ever said about that on this blog. i don't even know who all reads this thing. If I knew, I'd be blushing like crazy!}


Y = Young Kids
Wow, we go from X-Rated to Kids?! Alrighty then. We couldn't invite a TON of kids, because of cost. Did you know that a lot of places charge the SAME amount per head for a 6 year old as they do for the adults? That is a LOT of additional cost! So do not be offended if your kids aren't invited to a wedding! I didn't mind kids there, so if they were under 5, i put "and family" on the invite. But if they were over that, i only invited them if i knew them well & REALLY wanted them there! Like the kids i was a nanny for! :) I loved having kids there, though. And if any made a sound during the ceremony, i didn't hear it! :)

The Graphia Kids came in from Shreveport & I was SO HAPPY they were there! I was their nanny for over 3 years before they moved away. Love that family!

my sweet flower girl Kinley

Z  = Zzzzz.

Well, we did catch a little nap in the limo on the way to the Bed & Breakfast. It's an hour drive! It was sweet. I don't know if we slept much after that! Ha!

Well, that was fun. You should do it too. Although i will warn you. It took FOREVER! But it was fun looking back! Thanks, Kate!