The day started off a little cloudy and just the tiniest bit humid, which is exteremely weird for this desert that we live in. I spent the night in our apartment, Will slept between his parents in their king-size bed because other guests had taken over his bed. I went by their house to get something, and headed up to the church to finish a few last minute details like moving the unused boxes of greenery to the bride's room.
After that I went to get my hair done with my maid of honor, who had strict orders to tell my stylist if she was going amiss. (I had a trial run with my hair a weeks before and it was HORRIBLE. Worst hair up-do I'd ever had. I decided to trust her and brought in a new picture of what I wanted, and I knew my MOH would make sure it came out the way I wanted.) When my hair was done we ran through Taco Villa for lunch and then went back to the church to wait for everything to start happening. I didn't want to go back to Canyon because I just knew something would happen and we wouldn't make it back in time, so we hung out in the brides room for a few hours.
Finally, it was time to get ready.
This is a picture of my best friend since elementary school's mom sewing me into my dress. I knew it was going to be a tight fit, but just as they were hooking the little button on the top of the zipper if took a deep breath in and it popped off. This woman was always like a second mom to me while I was growing up, so it was only fitting that she help me in this moment :)
My hair-do. A little un-conventional, but I loved it. I would have loved to wear my hair down, but it is simply too hot in the summer down here. My hair was long and is super thick, so she had to use a million bobby pins and a ton of hairspray. They even tucked some more bobby pins in at this point, but by the time we went to take our pictures after the ceremony part of it had come out. Oh well!
My mother-in-law managed to snap this awesome picture of the groomsmen while they were waiting for the ceremony to start.
The ceremony.
Didn't my cousins do an amazing job with the aisle?
The only fresh flowers we had were the bridesmaid's bouquets, the arrangments on stage (both baby's breath) and the boutiners for the groomsmen and crosages for family members (which were all light pink baby roses). My bouquet was made from white silk peonies, since they're my favorite flower but were pretty much impossible to get at that time.
We had tons of candles everywhere. I really lucked out with a lot of our candles decorations because I was working for a woman that used to decorate weddings, and she gave me free reign of all her gorgeous stuff.
We rented this unity candle stand, the big swirly candle sticks, the massive gazebo we stood under, and the arch at the end of the aisle. Since it was such a big stage, we put the gazebo in the middle to make it more focused. The greenery that went up all the columns was sent as a wedding present from one of my mom's friends who live up north somewhere.
You can see in this picture that the gazebo had a kind of chandelier thing in the middle. We hung a bunch of little crystals from it to add a little more bling.
Since it was such a big church with many entrances, we hung these letter on the doors to indicate which ones guests should enter. We also had these letter on the doors to the building where the reception was, since it was across the parking lot.
And then we had two signs to direct people to the sanctuary.
The guys were able to take these awesome shots before the ceremony. I am still so sad we weren't able to get any of the girls.
My handsome groom.
I adore this photo of my granddad. He's the man who has been with me my entire life, and he walked me down the aisle. This was taken just before we came out to walk down the aisle.
And then we danced back down the aisle. I had really wanted to do this but Will had told me "no" all along. Then at the rehearsal they started the recessional song (Chris Brown's Forever) and he busted it out. I am so happy we decided to do it- it was so much fun.
As you can see, the best man really go into it also :) All the groomsmen pulled on sunglasses as soon as the song started, for an added effect, I suppose.
Will's grandparents even got in on the action!
All the family
The wedding party
Walking over to the reception.
There was a big entry way to the building where the reception was. In lieu of favors, we had a cookie bar where we asked several family members to bring a "meaningful" cookie to share. I made snickerdoodles the night before since those were the cookies I learned how to make just for Will. I asked a family friend to be in charge of this table and she far exceeded my expectations! It was so beautifully done and I didn't have to worry about anything.
I made a little tag for each kind of cookie to explain its significance.
Our cake table was in the middle of the room, since the had an odd layout. I think it turned out especially well since everyone could see us and no one had to move. Plus, it was the center of attention.
We had a first dance, but not an actual dance after that. The stage wasn't very big, plus I didn't really think we would have very many people want to dance. We aren't big dancers, so it was fine with us.
We asked Will's best man to sing and play the guitar for our dance. He was a little nervous at first, but again, he did an amazing job. It was so special and personal for him to do that for us, and I am so happy we asked him. He sang Parachute's She is Love.
Cake time!
We chose not to smash it in each other's faces, mainly because the cake was traditionally supposed to be a sign of communion, or in other words, a representation of Christ's body. We felt it was a little disrespectful to smash cake after we knew what it was supposed to represent.
In this picture, if you were to zoom in (but please don't!), you can see my "something blue"- I clipped a small evil eye that I was given in Turkey into the strap of my dress. I wanted a little piece of my Turkish family to be there with me, too, that day.
While we were taking our pictures is when something went wrong. Apparently a lot of people thought we had already left so they started to leave. And apparently, our wedding cordinator didn't think to get on the mic and announce that we had just gone to take pictures, and that we would be back soon. We were on the other side of the church taking pictures when the best man roared up in his pickup and said we had to go back because everyone was leaving. Keep in mind that the entire reception had been going for about 45 minutes at this point. So we went back and didn't even get to go back into the reception because the cordinator had gathered everyone outside so we could do the bouquet and garter toss. Will's mom had gone back to Canyon to get our marriage license because I had forgotten it and the pastor was leaving town that night. In a whirlwind we did the tosses and were ushered to the car.
Sigh. I wouldn't say we're laughing about it yet, but it does make for a semi-funny story.
Here are a few other details the photographer grabbed:
I bought a bunch of shepard's hooks to line the aisle since we had chairs instead of pews, which made it difficult to hang the tulle. I made these cones out of scrapbook paper and put baby's breath in them.
I always told Will there was no way we'd be buying these dumb napkins, because I thought they were such a waste of money. But they were the one thing he really wanted and I figured out they weren't terribly expensive in the midst of everything, so we got them. Also, he always called the "embroided napkins" and it drove me crazy, because they're "embossed" and "you CANNOT embroider paper!"
His Meme thought the story was funny, so she made some real embroidered napkins to put at our table.
My mom made a gazzilion of these beautiful things for the tables. Every time I went over to her house for months leading up to the weddding she was working on them. I loved them!
Instead of a groom's cake, we had cupcakes! We also made all the cupcake stands by buying plates and platters and candle sticks from the thrift stores and gluing them together. We spray painted them all white.
There weren't any professional photos of the table, but my awesome mother-in-law managed to snag one. We're always laughing at her for taking photos of everything (she even took some photos during the ceremony from the front row because she noticed the photographer never came over to that side, and she wanted to make sure we had some pictures from that angle... she thinks of everything!), but I am so happy she got the photos she did.
Groom's table
Drink table- we put a bunch of our engagement pictures this table.
They made us open this wedding present because they thought we might want to take it on our honeymoon. It was a Wii! And we did take it, and we did use it! It's probably one of our most-used wedding presents.
All in all, it was the perfect day. There were some things that came up that I could have lived without, but there's nothing I could have done to change or prevent it ahead of time. We wanted an elegant, high-end-looking wedding on a teeny tiny budget, and I think we accomplished that. We never tallied up everything we spent since we paid for things as we went, but I think we spent less than $6,500. I would not change a thing. Of course, that day was just the starting point for a lifetime together, and I know a lot of people don't get so excited by weddings. But it was our day, and it was a perfect day. I can't believe it was almost two years ago!
