Wedding Details {or what shape was your cake?}

I've been having fun following along with Kelley and Liz's Wedding Week. I decided it would be fun to play along! Sit back, relax, and enjoy me telling you about why my wedding was the best wedding ever {not really, but I enjoyed myself!}. Truth be told, so much went wrong the day of the wedding!

Brad proposed to be on a beach over fireworks Memorial Day weekend 2008. We quickly set out on deciding on a date. We got married December 28, 2008.

My parents were in town a couple of weeks after we got engaged for my college graduation. Before the graduation ceremony, my mom and I went dress shopping. I knew I wanted something strapless {a friend mentioned that her selves dug into her skin and restricted her from hugging people} and something timeless. My mom kept picking out dresses with pick ups for me to try on. Don't get my wrong, those dress are pretty but I don't think they're timeless.

I ended up selecting a a full length ball gown with lace and beading all over. The train was super long. It was so much fun! I really love how it looked all bustled up. I defiantly had second thoughts about the dress after buying it. But when I put it on on the day of the wedding I knew I had made the right choice.

We chose colors based on Vincent Van Gough's Starry Night. My bridesmaids {who were my three college roommates and my best friend} wore knee length iridescent navy dresses. One of my amazing bridesmaids detached the sashes that went with the dresses and made the royal blue ones out of fabric I found at a flea market. Attaching the sashes and getting them to stay right was a last minute {like as we got ready for the wedding} venture. I'm not going to lie...I have some really funny pictures of this process. For the sake of my amazing bridesmaids, I'm not going to post those pictures. 

My hair was done by one of my roommates. Another roommates mom {who is a Mary Kay rep} did my makeup and provided all of my bridesmaids with similar shades of eye shadow and lip stick. My wonderful bridesmaids were such good sports. They worse nylons even though they all hate them. My mom insisted and since I didn't have the wedding in my home town {which my mom brought up whenever she was mad at me} I figured I'd give her this one. Plus, it wasn't me wearing them! I had a full length dress so no one could see that I didn't have them on!

Yes, my husband thought it would be fun to read in a tub before the ceremony!

We got married in an old victorian mansion. The venue had lots of character. There was a whole floor upstairs with rooms for us girls to get married. There was also a man cave downstairs complete with video games and a pool table. We had an intimate ceremony and dinner reception. 

The venue provided the fun little lanterns. It made decorating a breeze and super affordable. We bought a pack of tea lights and tea light holders from Ikea and spread them around the lanterns. The chair covers were not suppose to be on. The chairs were beautiful old wood. I spent HOURS making flower decorations for the chair backs. They ended up being put on the aisle only because they didn't want us attaching them to the chair covers.

We made triangles out of card stock for our table markers. Each side had a table number on it. One side had a picture of me at the table number's age and the opposite side had a picture of my husband. Lost of people went around to all the tables to see the pictures of us. Embarrassingly enough, I was 5 in this picture!

The guest book was a wish jar. There were tinny little papers and tinny little envelopes for people to write down their wishes and advice for us. We had so much fun reading through them. Its still displayed in our home.

The flowers were both amazing and a disaster all at the same time. I did everything right. We met with several florists. We brought pictures. We had a design meeting. Yet, my bouquet is the only thing that turned out right. I absolutely loved my bouquet. It was beyond perfect. My bridesmaids flowers ended up looking small and cheap rather than how we had assembled them a couple weeks before at the design meeting. My mom's corsage feel apart after an hour. I had a fun and quirky corsage picked out for the wonderful friend who read scripture at the wedding. Instead, they sent a twig bracelet. I kid you not...it was a twig bracelet!

One of my roommate's dads performed the ceremony. I loved that someone who knew us {well really me} and cared for us performed the ceremony. A dear childhood friend played the piano and sang. Funny story about the music...my brother in law thought it would be really fun to lock his knees during the ceremony so he fainted in the middle of the song. Thankfully, he bounced right back. Unfortunately, he cut the music short! 

The cake was made by Brad's mom. When we got engaged, Brad said I could do almost anything I wanted as long as he got to pick out the cake shape. I said why not. It may not have been the best idea. Yes, my cake was pyramidical. I decided to run with the whimsy and used fondant cutouts in our colors to decorate it. Brad loved the cake. We had a funfetti with buttercream filling layer, a chocolate with andes mint cream filling, and a vanilla with champagne filling layer. They were all delicious! I think the cake nearly killed my mother.

We had a lot of fun dancing at the reception. Our friends were very good sports and danced despite the terrible DJ. The DJ was a house DJ. We had a meeting a couple of weeks before the wedding to discuss our special songs and our no-play list. Well, the first song after the traditional dances was that stupid "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me." Yah, not thrilled. They also didn't play any of the songs we requested. Still, our friends and Brad's little cousins seemed to have fun on the dance floor!

Despite the hiccups {which most people didn't even notice}, the wedding was just what I wanted. We wanted a small group of family and friends celebrate with us. That's exactly what it felt like...a celebration.

We stayed at a Bed & Breakfast in the Sierra foothills for a couple of days for our first honeymoon. That gave us time to save up for the trip we actually wanted to take. A year later, we went on our real honeymoon to San Juan, Puerto Rico. We had an ocean view from our hotel room and spent five days exploring the island.