Mother of the Bride Dresses

Don' t you love mutually happy events?

I'm winding down my wedding recaps and I've been wanting to thank you all for following along on the wedding planning process, and then DesignerApparel.com e-mails me wanting to give one of you all a $75 gift card to Nordstrom's!

DesignerApparel.com is buddies with online retailer's like Nordstrom's and Bloomingdale's, and they have this Mother of the Bride Dresses page that helps brides-to-be and their moms (and their partner's moms!) find the perfect mother of the bride/groom dress. They have designers like Adrianna Papell, Tadashi and Eileen Fisher, all of them that don't look bridesmaidy (some moms don't want to blend in to much) but don't look matronly, so it's a really good mix.

The traditional long-dress-with-a-matching-jacket dress didn't fit the style of our wedding, so both my mom and my mother-in-law got their dresses at Nordstrom's -- which is why I thought this giveaway was so perfect since I can personally vouch for what a great idea this is!

I even have proof! Here's Ryan and his mom in her pretty Nordstrom's dress (I am 99.9% positive her's was from Nordstrom's, but she ordered several and returned the ones she didn't like so I'm a bit fuzzy on what came from where)....

And here's my mom in her Nordstrom's dress! My mom walked in, we looked for 20 minutes and she bought this. It was too easy.

DesignerApparel.com also makes your life easier with nice touches like price comparison, free shipping notices and sale notifications.

Here's how to enter: Just comment and tell me something warm and fuzzy. Was your coffee order perfect at Starbuck's today? Are you rocking your favorite outfit? Have you caught up with an old friend lately? Are you pumped it's almost fall? You have until...let's say Thursday September 2 at 7 p.m., Central time.

Just a note: I'm not getting anything out of this contest. They e-mailed me, I thought you all would love it, and I personally used Nordstrom's for my wedding shopping. There's the full disclosure my friends!

Photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Bouquet Toss

I was pretty so-so on the bouquet toss...I know lots of people are eliminating them, but I didn't have a problem with it and I thought it would be fun, so I went for it. I'm really glad we did it, because it was much more entertaining than I thought it would be!

You know that scene in Glee, when the football team does a dance "Single Ladies"?

That's what I was going for. I don't know if anyone got it, but it seemed to be funny.

I 100% had a toss bouquet. I wasn't throwing one of my gorgeous bouquets anywhere!

And of all people to catch the bouquet, my 17 year old sister Mary! She better NOT be getting married any time soon!

Then we danced to Single Ladies. It was a blast, and I'm glad we included this kind of ridiculous tradition, because it was lighthearted and fun.

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

????

So, Ryan and I are in the market for a camera. We want something in between a point and shoot and an SLR, and we are not interested in spending more than $400 for absolutely everything (bag+memory card). A guy at work recommended the Pentax X90 Super Zoom Digital Camera. It has 12.1 MP, a 26 wide-angle optical zoom lens and a 2.7 inch LCD screen.

Here's the thing: I understand the difference between digital and optical zooms, and I understand megapixels and whatever, but I don't understand these things in relation to the kinds of pictures I want to take. I want to take really good action shots at cross country and track meets, and I want to take pretty pictures when I'm out and about with friends and family. I want to have enough control over my pictures so that I can work up to using the aperture and shutter speed and stuff, but I don't want it to be so high tech that it doesn't make sense to my liberal-arts-non-tech brain.

Do any of you lovelies have any ideas for us? Thank you for your help!

The Big Entrance

Running has been a major part of Ryan and I's relationship since day 1. I met him at a cross country meet and we got engaged on the starting line of the Boston Marathon, so incorporating running into the wedding was a no brainer....but it was harder to do than I thought. So when I got the idea to enter the reception song to the theme song from Chariots of Fire and have our wedding party slow-motion run into the reception (it started off as a joke but he thought it was perfect), Ryan was all about it.

I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves here, but if you want to get a better effect, the music is below.

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The groomsmen all wore pencils behind their ears...you can't catch Ryan without his signature pencil. Don't worry, he wore it for all the pictures...he had a special "tuxedo" pencil in place. I met the man with a pencil behind his ear, and I married him with a pencil behind his ear.

Get it!

I would like to note that I practiced slow motion running multiple times, and I'm terrible at it, as pointed out by my lovely sisters. How awkward does that look? Don't worry, I did that in front of all my family and friends. In 4 inch heels.

I would also like to note that our wedding party were the absolute best sports ever about this. It was hysterical, everyone loved it, it was very "us," and it honored how important running is to us. Definitely wishing we had this on film!

How did you enter your reception?

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

The Ceremony

After our receiving line, we all went to our places to get ready for the ceremony. I cooled off a bit first...

...and had a serious look on my face when I talked to my Dad. We didn't talk about anything serious, so I'm not sure what the look is for. I took my shoes off whenever possible, they were really hurting by this point.

Ryan looked cool as a cucumber.

Everyone headed down the aisle...

As soon as "Dawn" from Pride and Prejudice started going, so did my tear ducts. I was struggling not to cry as I walked down the aisle both of my parents, and trying to soak it all in, but it was beyond overwhelming. In the best possible way of course!

The hand off:

Mom's brooch snagged Ryan's tie, so he tried to tuck it into his jacket.

The ceremony was just the right mixture of light and meaningful, and we clocked in right at 20-25 minutes.

Our parents stood up for the parent blessing:

Mr. Hennon: And now, would both sets of parents please stand.

Family is very important to both Stacy and Ryan. They would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge you, their parents, for the love, support and encouragement you have given them over the years. The ideals, values and respect they have for each other, have their roots in the love and care they have received from their families. To have your blessing and approval is very important.

Do you, Lisa and Pat, give your blessing upon the union of Stacy and Ryan and their new family?

Stacy's Parents: We do.

Do you, Susan and Patrick, give your blessing upon the union of Ryan and Stacy and their new family?

Ryan's Parents: We do.

I can't get over how gorgeous Eliot Chapel is. It has the lovely, classic woodwork but it is still simple and bright.

So I forgot to switch my engagement ring over to my right hand. I should've just left it, but I tried to switch it over from my left hand to my right hand and promptly dropped it. Before I had realized what happened Ryan swooped down to pick it up!

We exchanged vows that surprisingly didn't make me cry. They felt so right, and I am so glad that we wrote them ourselves.

Before we knew it, we were married!

Our ceremony could not have been more perfect. The homily the officiant gave was so, so fitting. I got the Unitarian Universalist wedding I had my heart set on, and it was a great fit for Ryan and I's brand new family.

How was your ceremony?

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Thank You's

We had 3 showers and a wedding, all with beyond generous family and friends. Needless to say, we have been busy with thank you cards for months now (we have under 10 left to write and we're all done with the wedding thank yous!). While I would love to buy pretty thank you cards off of Etsy, with the volume we're writing, it just isn't feasible financially...but I can't stand to send out boring ones on crappy paper.

So thank you, Target, for your letterpress thank you cards that run $12.99 for a box of 50. They're pretty, the paper feels nice, and they don't break the bank.

We've gone through 2 boxes of these and are working on box #3:

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Aren't these pretty too?

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They have way more options in the store, PS.

Where did you get your thank you cards?

Favorite Formals

I'm not going to do a big post on the b-maids, then the groomsmen, then all the family pics, but I did want to highlight some of our very favorite "posed/formal" pictures.

I got my tree picture!

The photographer took this picture with me+individual b-maids, then Ryan+individual groomsmen, then Ryan+ individual ushers. They all were absolutely lovely. Alli is still that much taller than me AND I'm wearing 4 inch heels.

Here's Ryan with his ushers, being bad*sses.

This is on the steps of the St Louis art museum. I LOVE that fish eye lens!

More trees!
The church was gorgeous inside and out.

Ryan found these rocks called The Cascades in Forest Park, and they worked out really well as a backdrop. I wanted trees, Ryan wanted rocks, we both walked away happy.

A little twist on the traditional bride w/groomsmen....

Ok, this is Ryan's cousin Mike. This guy is incredible. He lifted me up like I was nothing. He's a strength and conditioning coach.

BOUQUETS! And you thought I was going to stop yammering on about them!

Woohoo!

The posed, perfectly arranged formals are nice to have, and I'm glad we have them, but the ones that make my heart sing are the fun ones, the ones where we're laughing or being silly or having a "moment." I have a feeling the goofy ones will be the ones that end up in the album!

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

The Way I Am

Ryan and I did our first dance to Ingrid Michelson's "The Way I Am." We picked it because we're both kind of weird and love the oddities (most of the time at least!) the other possesses, and because it wasn't super long. We took 1 50-minute dance lesson and learned a basic foxtrot. We also learned some fancy entrance/exit stuff, but the entrance part flew out of our minds.

This picture is in my top 5 favs from the wedding:

And we ended a bit early (my fault), so we stood there and made it out. It worked out just fine-when in doubt, just make out!

I am so, so glad that we took a dance class. It was such a simple dance, but I had my bona fide princess moment. And it was awesome.

How'd your first dance go? Did you take dance lessons?

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.