RECAP! Ceremony!

WARNING: This post is mostly pictures. :)

The guests had arrived...Our communion was ready and our wedding bands were shiny...We were ready to go. We took some fun pictures right before. All my maids wore different colored shoes to highlight their personalities that might get lost amongst their black dresses that looked the same. Plus, it made for a great group shot!

We took a fun picture with my brother Charlie and got him his "Charlie's Angels" shot.This is us in the elevator headed down to get married! Giving my girls a pep talk before we walk down the aisle. I almost started crying and it was something along the lines of "I can't imagine this day without you here with me. I am so grateful for your friendship...yada yada yada."Below is Mr. Scott waiting for me. I got a peak of him before he got a peak of me and I almost lost it. I am just so in love with him and felt like this was such a perfect beginning to our long journey. :) This is my father and I getting ready to walk down. I walked down the aisel to Thomas Newman's "Walkaway". I think it is a beautiful song and always wanted to walk down the aisle to something from a movie soundtrack. I had everyone else walk down to Debussy's "Claire de Lune" because it's one of my favorite songs and I didn't want anything too "weddingy".Right after I walked down the aisle, there was a brief welcome and then Mr. Scott and I grabbed a rose and he gave one to his parents and I have one to mine. No one knew about this except Mr. Scott and I and our parents were really pleasantly surprised. We just wanted to additionally honor them in some way.Time to get married! (Look at all the tears in the second picture below!!) I am so glad we did a congregational affirmation. We basically had Chuck (the man marrying us), ask the congregation if they promised to uphold us in our marriage, love us, encourage us, support us, etc. Everyone gave an enthusiastic yes, but it was so nice to turn around and see all of the faces who love us so dearly staring back at us. I really liked that part.I am very intent on getting my vows to Mr. Scott correct. :)Here is Mr. Scott putting my wedding band on my finger. I'm taken fella's! See my bling!Here I am putting Mr. Scott's wedding band on him.Taking Communion was something that was extremely important to us and I am so glad we did it. Not to mention our photographer got a lot of great shots! ;)We waited a few moments even after we finished communion to just take in the moment and hang out. It was nice to be able to just chat with Mr. Scott for a few minutes and catch up on our days and where we were. We laughed and told jokes and I think it ended with me say, "We get to bone later!" Yes I'm classy. :)

Here it is! Our first married Kiss!

Right before the recessional, we had everyone look up to the seond floor where our photographer got a shot of everyone. I am so glad to have this so I have a memory of everyone that was there! Then we were off to the reception! Next up...Recap! Reception Details!

All photos courtesy of Sean J Mason Photography.

RECAP! Getting Ready

So my day started at 9:00 AM. I woke up and showered. At first I had thought I wanted to spend that night with people like my sisters. However, last minute I decided to change my mind and sleep alone. That was truly the best idea ever. I was able to gather my thoughts and take my time thinking and beautifying myself. I took a bath the night before, watched a cheesy wedding movie on TV, and then woke up and looked out on a beautiful sunny day.My mom called me to meet her downstairs so we could drive off to get my hair done. My mom, sister, Ms. Elle, and myself got our hair done at a salon in Santa Monica called Forme Salon. My girl was incredible and I loved her. My hair trial if you remember, was not so good. Well let me tell you, day of I LOVED IT! I basically was able to go back and tell her that while I loved the back, it tended to slip out and also that the front was too "bleh" for me. I wanted some volume and curl in the front. Well, when I left the salon, my hair came out looking like

this....



from this...

A better view from the back.

I am so lucky because it really turned out exactly how I wanted it. I highly recommend that every bride do a hair trial. I am so grateful I did.

After that, I had to re-write my vows? Not really. Mr. Scott and I didn't want to write our own vows because we both knew we wouldn't be able to get through them without crying, etc. However, we still wanted to write something personal. So, we each wrote a note about things we loved about each other and why we were excited to marry the other person and had our officiant read them during the ceremony. It was wonderful. However, I had left mine at my house, so I spent the next half of the morning re-writing those.
Then I was pleased to receive visits from friends and family when they used their "Bridal Chamber Passes". I have a secret crush/love for Mrs. Lovebug from Weddingbee. She posted this post regarding her "Backstage Bridal Passes" and I thought it was a great idea to do for my maids and to encourage family members to come by. Sure enough, it worked! :) I made this sign for the door:It read "Bridal Chamber (Identification required upon entry): Enter at your own risk...B to B inside!" I had to make fun of the idea of being a bridezilla with hopes that I wouldn't become one. The best part was when people showed up wearing my passes! It made me laugh and I loved it! Below is me with my grandmother!After that was my makeup. Maid Mrs. K did it for me and I was so grateful because she truly made me look beautiful. It was fun to just sit around and have my girls hanging around doing touch ups to their hair and makeup, keeping me calm, making me laugh and overall just hanging out! I didn't do a trial with Mrs. K because she has done my makeup so many times before, that I know she knows my skin and my eyes and how to do it well. I basically told her the look I was going for, and she NAILED it. :)

We busted out the champagne after that for a job well done. It was good times! Pretty much right after that, I was off to get married! Up next...the ceremony recap.

All photos courtesy of Sean J. Mason Photography.

RECAP! Ceremony Site!

Before I jump into flowers and everything else, I thought I would start with how we dressed the ceremony site. We didn't need to do too much because this was the view:It was simply so beautiful outside we didn't feel the need. I feel like our touches are really summed up below:I bought parasols from Chinatown in LA. They were pretty cheap, but do plan on spending a half a day there to wander around and look for the best price. I got mine for $5-$7 each. Also, a lot of the parasols are different colors with painting on them. Since we were having a black and white wedding, I didn't want to mess with that by bringing in colored parasols. I am so glad that I did that! Plus, it made for some really cool pictures post wedding. :)Another thing we did was line the aisle with lanterns. I didn't light the candles because it wasn't dark outside and I didn't think we needed to. The lanterns looked really cool and it was a great unique touch. It was very nautical too!

Finally our programs. Man were those a labour of love! It was about six pages. The first just had the date, time, and location as well as our names. Then we had the the bridal party and order of service, we had some announcements regarding our ceremony (later post) and regarding the cocktail hour and we ended with our favorite verse and a picture of us.

The beginning of the aisle was marked by two separate flower arrangements and blocked off my a shell rope (we kinda did a whole nautical theme accidentally). I was told to try to mark the beginning and end of your aisle...to really define it. We tried to do this and it turned out really nice.
We also had petal cones on the aisles to be thrown on us after the ceremony. That was a great idea and I strongly encourage that over confetti or birdseed. Its cleaner and classier. A tip I got from a florist was to use carnations because when it's just petals you can't tell what they are, and they are much cheaper. :)

Finally, we also had extra water bottles made from our OOT bags and so we brought those to the ceremony too. It wasn't too hot on our wedding day, but I know our guests appreciated it. :)

Coming up next...getting ready and ceremony details!
All photos courtesy Sean J. Mason

RECAP! Let them eat Cake!

Our wedding was SUPER DIY. Some of that was intentional, and some of it was not. So instead of recapping everything all at once, I am going to recap the DIY aspects first since those are so time consuming and many readers are prepping for their weddings.

One of the things I am SUPER grateful I did was to have Mr. Scott's Aunt make our wedding cake. We saved money and it turned out exactly the way we wanted. I have a few pieces of advice for any who take someone up on their offers to do something for your wedding. 1) Offer to pay for the supplies and mean it. We did this and though Mr. Scott's Aunt wouldn't hear of taking our money, we had budgeted for it just in case. 2) Make sure to give the person a nice note or gift. Mr. Scott's Aunt didn't make it to the rehearsal dinner because she was working on the cake until the morning of the wedding. We wished she could have been there to share in the joy of it all, but we have decided instead to give her an incredible thank you note and gift. 3) Be prepared that your cake may not turn out exactly like you want it. That was not our situation, it turned out PERFECT!, but I was prepared for it to not turn out the same just in case. I didn't want to be disappointed. If the cake is the one thing you care A LOT about, then have a professional do it. If there was something that mattered a lot to me, I paid out for it to be done professionally. There is something to be said for professional workmanship (it's the reason they call them professionals.) This was one of those things that I am glad I didn't pay out for. AND 4) make sure you like the work of the person doing the favor. Mr. Scott's Aunt has done hundreds of cakes before including a wedding cake to feed 1,500 people! I had looked through her book and told her things I liked and didn't like. I completely had 100% faith in her abilities and I truly think that made all the difference. So without further adieu, here is our inspiration, followed by our wedding cake!

Our cake inspiration is actually an April Reed cake.Doesn't it look amazing? She got exactly what I was looking for! So similar to the April Reed cake yet totally our own! The crazy thing was that my entire bouquet was Orchids...a fact no one knew until the day before...not even myself. AND! The flowers Mr. Scott's Aunt used on the cake? ORCHIDS! The bridesmaids bouquets were supposed to be closer together (something our DOC should have done...but that's for another post). A few of the flower petals fell off the cake, but I didn't care! I thought it was beautiful! AND SO TASTEY! I thought I would add a few pictures of Mr. Scott and I cutting the cake. Just for fun! :) All photos courtesy of Sean J. Mason...we love him!