Norwood-Vest Wedding ;) Best Weekend Ever!!!!

      Eric and my wedding was beyond one of the best day of our lives!! We already wish we could relive it again every weekend! We loved every single thing about it! Even the unplanned “hick-ups” that came along with the wedding process! Eric, of course being the man, did not have to be involved in every aspect of the wedding planning, but luckily for him; he was also in Georgia and Oklahoma the entire time so he just got phone calls and texts when I needed his input. Now with him being military, we struggled on when to pick a weekend that he could actually attend his own wedding. So we decided on Memorial Day weekend with hopes that he would have that Friday and Monday off.  The entire engagement year I would just joke that I would be fine with having a laptop on a stand and Facetime him during the ceremony, but a wedding and reception was happening with or without a groom physically present…ha!  We did not know until May 13th-ish that Eric would actually be able to come home for the wedding and I would pick him up Friday morning before the wedding at Birmingham Airport! YAY!!! What a relief!

       Friday went by so fast, with having to pick Eric up in Birmingham, get our marriage license, transfer our cell phone accounts to our own, decorate for the rehearsal, and get dressed for rehearsal, meet out-of-towners at the hotel for check-in, and not be overwhelmed!...  Just breath, just  breath, just breath…. Rehearsal was fun and quick but rehearsal dinner was the highlight of the day!! OMG the food was amazing! A family friend, Dana McCutcheon, had a fried tomato bar ready for us when we arrived. It was amazing!! I do not prefer fried tomatoes but the way they were cooked and the sides to go on the mini buns were delish and could have some right now!  Dinner was beautiful and loved all the courses! I even asked for a to-go box and Eric asked me to get the dessert recipe! After dinner it was just casual with getting to talk to everyone and catch up with everyone that does not live near! Then my girls gave me a photo book with a photo of every girl and behind it a letter they had written me… Yep I started crying just looking at the pictures and waited until I was home that night to read the letters! They were all amazing and I am soooo blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life! 

 

      Saturday was the best day of my life so far! I woke up and for the first time in a long time and it felt like any other day.  I was not stressed at all and I did not have a million things going through my mind of what to do.  Once getting to the hair salon, I gave all my girls a letter I had written them over the past few months about how my life would not be the same without them and some favorite memories. I tried not to make them to sappy, because I knew it was going to be a tearful day with those girls. Well, the tears started rolling immediately and even Sarah had to go off to a corner on her own to compose herself-ha!  But no worries, while giving them the letters I also gave them a handkerchief – monogrammed with ‘No Ugly Crying’ and the wedding date.  They came in handy many times throughout the day!

       Just like having a first look with the groom I had a first look with all the girls! Once getting to the Magnolia Room, all the girls got dressed in the bathroom, and then lined up facing the wall in the reception room.  I got dressed in the bridal suite with my mother and then I came out and had all the girls turn around at the same time! Ohh it was sooo fun and a last minute idea the photographer came up with! Then we all headed to the Old Decatur Bank to have the first look with my groom! We had him stand at the end of the brick drive and I walked through the iron gate towards him and it was perfect--  except he didn’t cry… haha! Eric and I had a joke going on about how he had to cry on my prettiest day! Oh well typical guy! The pictures were amazing and so fun to do!! We could not have asked for better weather; not to hot and a bit breezy!

      Waiting for the wedding to get started we all were having some fun times down in the basement of the church just relaxing and getting excited.  Well there were some funny hick-ups while waiting that I found out about later. First, a pew broke, as in the legs snapped and was on the floor. Then two groomsmen hauled it outside. Second, we had chairs taken upstairs because I thought it was a packed house, which freaked mom out; but it ended up being because of the pew breaking. Third, before we knew it, it was time for the wedding.  As we were all starting to get lined up downstairs for the ceremony someone asked if Robbie, the pastor, was here…hummmm?  I had not been paying attention to it, just like everyone else had not noticed. A quick call later we found out he was still at home and had been thinking the ceremony started at 7pm not 6pm! Can you imagine if we went through the entire processional and had all the wedding party in place and only then realized no pastor!  Now that would have been a story! But Robbie lives close to the church and he was there in ten minutes and we still started on time. He did an amazing job just like we knew he would, and even got Eric teary eyed!

      The reception was amazing and everything went perfect! The food was delicious! The cakes were gorgeous and great tasting! My photographer even set up a preview of pictures from throughout the day on her ipad—I loved that! Eric and I had an amazing time dancing to our wonderful oldies band – The Sweet Yung’uns! So much fun!  AND we got to leave in an old red convertible, with an Alabama shaker walk-through! We even got to have an after party down the street at a local bar! Could not ask for a better day! I ended it with a crying session with some close life-long friends; who we have never been apart realizing --yep I’m moving to Oklahoma in a few hours! Wow, that snuck up on us quickly! All I have to say is having a wedding as a going away party is the best idea ever! All your close friends and family are there! What a better send off!

      Eric and I woke up Sunday as man and wife and headed back to Hartselle to finish packing up the car.  We headed out mid-day on our two day trip to Oklahoma to our new life in marriage and military! Best weekend of our lives!  Wooo hooo!!



Wedding Planning from a Southern-Over-Organized Girl

     Now having gone through the entire wedding process and having one of the best days of my life, I can give my helpful tips and thoughts!

1.       Do not have super high perfection expatiations for the planning process.  I am an over organized, over planned type of person. Knowing that, I went into the wedding planning process thinking NOTHING could go wrong –I was WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!  I loved the planning process but having to work through all the little “hick-ups” that came along was disappointing.   No matter how organized you are, you cannot plan for others to be as organized (i.e.: vendors, shop owners, etc.). I had all my hick-ups before the big day and every time one happened I just kept telling myself “it is happening now because the big day will go smoothly” which it did!!! BUT here are some tips to help make sure your vendors are on top of their game…

a.       FIRST THINGS FIRST! Once engaged, figure out how big and who you could not have your big day without! Then once that has been decided give a max number to each party (bride, groom, brides’ parents, grooms’ parents) that way everyone is equal. Now when planning an over the top wedding this should not be a problem, but when wanting a more personal wedding and having a smaller church and reception venue, the issues of who not to invite comes up on every side.  

b.      Give yourself at least a year to plan the big event! We personally did not have a hard time finding a venue for the reception but I have close friends and family who are, and are over a year away and cannot find a thing…EEEEEE !

c.       After ordering items call that next week to make sure they ordered it correctly – extra items you added, correct color of dresses, correct sizes, etc. This may seem excessive but believe me when you go to pick up the Groom’s ring 5 months after ordering it and they have not even order it yet, because they wrote your number down wrong and had been trying to call you for an issue they came across, you don’t want the freak out I had-- with my migraine!   

d.      Pick vendors you have only heard great things about and once meeting them you have full confidence in them. Once meeting my wedding guru, Bruce Roy, who did our flowers, catering, and cakes, I knew he would do an amazing job and all I would have to do is show up and everything would be perfect – which it was! Now once meeting with the store owner who ordered the bridesmaid dresses – she seemed a bit scattered minded So I did call her to check on things often; and she still ended up getting a few things wrong.

e.      LAST …Do not freak out over things—small or big! Just keep calm and figure out how to fix it quickly. I had one freak out, but in my defense, it was just because a few “hick-ups” happened the same day and to top it off I had a migraine. At least that is what I am going to blame it on! ;) ;)  I have to say I do over-react most times when things do not go my way but with this process I surprised myself in staying quite calm and somewhat laughing it off from time to time. I do believe the phrase by the end we used was “Can’t win for losing”

Now how I stayed organized was this…

1.       Get a wedding notebook to keep everything in. Such as, contracts, business cards, bridesmaid dresses, groomsmen tuxes, notes, ideas. Etc.

2.       Find a check list online for wedding planning with timeline and tweak it for what you want.

3.       Set up a calendar schedule for when to do things and order items by.

4.       Pinterest is a great reference for ideas but you must stop looking once it’s only a few months away!

5.       Start a Facebook group for the wedding that way everyone gets the same info. Also I started a group message with just the girls because they have and do more during the wedding process than guys do.  

6.       Plan out how you want your day to go. Figure out what is important to you for the big day and how you want it to flow. Then talk with your photographer. My photography Ashley Victoria Photography was amazing to work with!! She took all the things I wanted to incorporate and then gave me a minute to minute timeline for the entire day including the photos of who, when, and what time!!

7.       Plan out your rehearsal the same way and/or talk with you planner on how you want it to look like at the church before you get there so it can go smoothly and quickly!

8.       Once it gets closer and closer, it will get a bit more stressful and just remember to keep calm and make sure all the small things get finished early and not to wait until the last minute.  If you think of things the week before the wedding just don’t do it. If you’re just then thinking of it, I promise you it will not matter after it is all said and done!

       Example: My mother and I had planned out months in advanced what we wanted to put on the entry table at the church, which included a burlap runner with a smaller lace runner placed over it.  The day of rehearsal my mother decided she wanted to thread a navy blue ribbon through the lace--yes it looked nice, but that is definitely one thing we did not need to be dealing with the day of the rehearsal!!! Believe me when I say the week of your wedding may seem like it is going by so slowly when you’re waiting for you big day; but once it is Thursday during wedding week you cannot believe the week flew by so fast! It is now just a blur and don’t even know what I did the week of the wedding!

9.   Add little things that makes the big day reflect you and him! Eric and I had funny childhood pictures on the bathroom door at the rehearsal dinner. Then at the wedding we had pictures of ourselves and couple pictures on the tables. We also had a framed timeline of our relationship, a reminder about staying around until our send-off at 10, and personalized mints to go with our Wounded Warrior cards.

10.  Have the time of your life!!!