We had an ah-mazing wedding and honeymoon. And even the wedding planning process was awesome. Everything related to getting married FAR exceeded my expectations. I was AMAZED at the outpouring of love and support from our friends and family. I LOVE party planning, I love hosting people and catering to them so that they will have a good time. I love the little details that add a personal touch to your wedding. We didn’t have much drama AT ALL surrounding our wedding. The toughest part for us was the guest list. We wanted to keep it on the smaller side (which we failed) but we felt pressure to invite more people. In the end our decline rate was much higher than we were expecting so we probably could have invited a few more people.
Things I loved just the way they were:
· We debated if we should see each other before the ceremony for pictures and DH wanted to be more traditional than that and wanted to see me for the first time in my dress when I came down the aisle. So we did the next best thing – we spent the night before our wedding together. It was awesome. We took all of our decorations and stuff to St. John’s for the reception, then we went to rehearsal and dinner and then we came back to St. John’s for the night. We opened a few gifts, reflected on how awesome our rehearsal dinner was, watched a little TV and went to bed. The next morning we got up, went to breakfast together, got a car wash, stopped at the drug store for a few things and then went our separate ways. It was SO awesome. We were together. We calmed each other’s nerves. We got excited together about the day ahead of us.
· When we separated, I stayed in our suite at St. John’s and my bridesmaids and hair stylist and make-up artist came to us. This was awesome too! It was so relaxed and chill. We weren’t in a hurry. There was no running around town. We had mimosas, and tons of munchies snacks, family members stopped in from time to time. We were even ready early enough that we ate lunch on the couch and watched some TV. I loved how relaxed the day was.
· When Bill left the suite he went to his best man’s room. They went to the restaurant/bar across the street, watched the Tigers, had lunch and a couple of beers. Friends joined in with them as the day went on. Again, very relaxed!
· I LOVED that we had a photo booth. People were in there ALL NIGHT LONG and we have some great images.
· Being at St. John’s, I also loved that we had a separate room that had a bar, the photo booth, and some cocktail tables. But this room was also wide open to our reception room with the dancing. It felt like there were two areas with different “feels” but they were at the same place and were connected. I didn’t want totally separate rooms and to not be able to see all of my guests at once.
Things I’d do different: There’s not much but……
· I would have thought of the men that I wanted to dance with before the wedding and made sure to dance with them. I only danced with my husband and with men who came to me on the dance floor. Since I was already on the dance floor there were usually a line of friends, distant uncles, etc who were ready to dance. But one very important uncle was left out because he wasn’t already out on the floor – I wish I would have gone out to get him.
· We had a BLAST at our wedding. And we think other people did too. We would have started our ceremony an hour earlier to make more time to party!
· I would have gotten into the photo booth with just my husband. L
Things I loved just the way they were:
· We debated if we should see each other before the ceremony for pictures and DH wanted to be more traditional than that and wanted to see me for the first time in my dress when I came down the aisle. So we did the next best thing – we spent the night before our wedding together. It was awesome. We took all of our decorations and stuff to St. John’s for the reception, then we went to rehearsal and dinner and then we came back to St. John’s for the night. We opened a few gifts, reflected on how awesome our rehearsal dinner was, watched a little TV and went to bed. The next morning we got up, went to breakfast together, got a car wash, stopped at the drug store for a few things and then went our separate ways. It was SO awesome. We were together. We calmed each other’s nerves. We got excited together about the day ahead of us.
· When we separated, I stayed in our suite at St. John’s and my bridesmaids and hair stylist and make-up artist came to us. This was awesome too! It was so relaxed and chill. We weren’t in a hurry. There was no running around town. We had mimosas, and tons of munchies snacks, family members stopped in from time to time. We were even ready early enough that we ate lunch on the couch and watched some TV. I loved how relaxed the day was.
· When Bill left the suite he went to his best man’s room. They went to the restaurant/bar across the street, watched the Tigers, had lunch and a couple of beers. Friends joined in with them as the day went on. Again, very relaxed!
· I LOVED that we had a photo booth. People were in there ALL NIGHT LONG and we have some great images.
· Being at St. John’s, I also loved that we had a separate room that had a bar, the photo booth, and some cocktail tables. But this room was also wide open to our reception room with the dancing. It felt like there were two areas with different “feels” but they were at the same place and were connected. I didn’t want totally separate rooms and to not be able to see all of my guests at once.
Things I’d do different: There’s not much but……
· I would have thought of the men that I wanted to dance with before the wedding and made sure to dance with them. I only danced with my husband and with men who came to me on the dance floor. Since I was already on the dance floor there were usually a line of friends, distant uncles, etc who were ready to dance. But one very important uncle was left out because he wasn’t already out on the floor – I wish I would have gone out to get him.
· We had a BLAST at our wedding. And we think other people did too. We would have started our ceremony an hour earlier to make more time to party!
· I would have gotten into the photo booth with just my husband. L
