Planning our wedding was very chaotic and stressful, but completely worth it. I planned the entire wedding in one year, all during my senior year of college. I would never recommend doing this, looking back, but I am so happy to be married now and to be done planning (although it does make me sad from time to time).
I spent so much time planning all of the details, and now that it is done and over with, I don’t even know where to begin describing it. I will be posting once a week until I get through the whole wedding and then will be creating a page with all the info there. In case anyone is inspired by it, I want to make sure I get all the details down now before they disappear in my mind (which happens a lot for me, sadly).
Today I will be tackling the beginning of the day: getting ready!
The wedding was held in Stewartville, MN at Riverview Greens. However, I grew up in St. Charles, MN, and have always gotten all formal hair done at Aspasia Salon, the best place in town and completely affordable. I spent $35 on my hair and $18 on my makeup (including the trial).
Leah did not start snapping photos until we got to the venue, so my maid of honor, Megan, took the following photos of us getting prettified:
Lovely Courtney (mother of Parker) my matron of honor.
Lovely Megan, my maid of honor.
The only two girls out of five that got their hair done with me were my maid and matron of honor. To have them stand out, I had them wear a flower fascinator in their hair.
All done!
We headed to Riverview Greens at about 11am to get ready, eat lunch, and clear my jitters. The following photos were taken by Leah or her assistant for the day, Julia.
My shoes were from Payless for $15 and the heart shoe clips were from Ban.Do for $25 total. Luckily Mr. Converse Sneakers is only about a centimeter taller than me so I didn’t have to wear painful heels!
I wore a Casablanca 1930 dress I got from The Wedding Shoppe in St. Paul (where I had a pretty bad experience that I won’t go into). The dress cost a little over $700. It came with a bow attached to the sash, but I replaced it with a flower fascinator I got for $15 at Charming Charlie (I actually spent $200 buying out all the flowers in the store so I could try them all out and then simply returned the ones that didn’t work). The dress was a halter which looked horrible on me, so I had the straps removed to create a sweetheart neckline by the wonderful staff at Su’s Express Alterations in Minneapolis. All of my alterations (bringing in the waist, hemming about eight layers of heavy fabric, removing the straps, and bustling) cost $400. I wish I could have found something a little more affordable, but I had a lot of work done and they did an awesome job. The girls wore different dresses each by Alfred Sung in the seaside color silk dupioni.
I bought my necklace originally for Courtney’s wedding last year at Icing. My veil was found for $20 on ebay and the earrings were from Kohls, on sale for about $15.
A friend gave me the “sexy little bride” tank as a bridal shower gift.
Mr. CS and I wrote letters to one another to read before our first look. Somehow I managed to hold in tears all day! I don’t know how I held them back through everything, especially while reading this incredibly sweet letter. It must have been all the nerves and happiness that kept me from crying all day.
The girls ran to the bar downstairs to buy some champagne to toast with before I saw San for the first time. One of my best friends, Tiffany, gave such a sweet speech.
No, I wasn’t crying, I was reacting to the taste of the alcohol which does not usually get along with me.
Since our venue only had one area to get ready at that was already occupied by us girls, the men came dressed and waited for us to finish.
I wish I knew what they were all talking about!
That’s a wrap on us getting ready! Over the next few weeks, I will be posting once a week with the following recaps:
- Our first look
- Formal photos of the wedding party
- Formal photos of Mr. CS and me
- The ceremony
- The reception
- The little special details
- Other random details
I hope you enjoy the photos as much as we do! What’s your favorite detail so far? What was your favorite detail at either your own wedding or at a wedding you attended?
Beautiful photos, and I love the idea of writing each other letters before the first look - so sweet! I wish we would have done that (but then I probably would've cried and ruined my makeup, haha! Kudos to you for not unleashing the waterworks!).
ReplyDelete~Chelsea
It is hard to pick out which photo I like the most but I thought the toast of the brides maids gave a wonderful feeling of happiness. I also really like the dresses hanging photo. It looks like you had a wonderful group surrounding you as you got ready for your wedding!
ReplyDeleteP.S. I thought the letters you wrote was very sweet and shows how much the wedding meant to you.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea you went through so much with your dress! It went perfectly together and I loved it as a sweetheart strapless!
ReplyDelete