You Only Get One

Welcome back to the next portion of our wedding recap!

After a fabulous bachelorette party with my friends, I was officially ready to get married. It was a night to remember that involved a cake in a lude shape and a visit to a gay bar (I told my MOH no strippers and so she went another direction! 😉 ).

Pictures courtesy of my friend Becca! She’s the really cute one with the boots in this picture below.

My family is originally from California, and Jason’s family is from New Jersey/New York and so a good chunk of our guests were coming from out of town. When we saw everyone for the first time at the rehearsal dinner it felt like a family reunion because there were SO many friends and family that we hadn’t seen in years! I was too frazzled to take pictures at the rehearsal or the dinner, but we ate at Mary Mac’s and had a great meal amongst loved ones. A cousin of mine captured these moments:

I ended up working on the final touches of the wedding cake until the wee hours of the wedding morning! Jason drove me down to the hotel at like 4am, at which point I alerted my sleeping bridesmaids to help me get my dress and things up to the room so that I could get ready. God bless them. And me. I got zero hours of sleep the night before my wedding. A couple hours later, my bridesmaids and I headed out the door to the hair salon! Alcohol and/or caffeine were seriously needed. Maid of honor to the rescue. 🙂

After our hair was done we headed to the bridal suite at the church for makeup and dressing up. My photographer met us there and began to document the whole thing.

Half of us went with the MAC makeup artist I had chosen ahead of time, and he did an amazing job.

It was so strange to be in the bridal suite with my ladies knowing that right outside guests were coming into the sanctuary to witness our WEDDING. I think it finally sunk it when I got my dress and veil on that I was actually getting married that morning. I remember telling myself over and over again to soak up the moment and take everything in because I knew it would be over in a flash…and it only happens once.

Of course there were last minute snafus (primarily a non-reliable florist who didn’t end up completing any of our bouquets or arrangements…YUP, wedding nightmare come true), but when it came down to it I was just excited about the man waiting for me at the other end of the aisle.

All I had to do was hang on to my dad and keep walking.

Stay tuned for the rest of our wedding day! I have far too many pictures to squeeze into just one post. 😉

-Lauren