The Big Day

Sunday, May 20, 2012 was a perfect day.  All of our hard work and planning definitely paid off.  Let me rewind to the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner the evening before.  The rehearsal was complete in our goal time of one hour.  After that we headed to The Tea Garden for a delicious dinner: choice of prime rib or stuffed chicken breast, asparagus, carrots, rolls, and heart-shaped strawberry meringues.  Yum!

On Sunday I headed over to the Keeling Accounting conference room at 8:45 to start getting ready.  At 9:00 I got my hair done while the bridesmaids got their makeup done.  Lori did such a great job on my hair!  It stayed out of my face but still looked feminine and soft.  At 10:00 the bridesmaids and I switched.  They curled their hair while I got my makeup done.

At 11:00 Robert and I started couple's pictures.  The weather forecast had been showing rain for Sunday all week.  The chance ranged from 10-60%.  Well...it didn't rain, and overcast days are the perfect natural environment for wonderful pictures.  So happy!  It was cloudy, about 75 degrees, and a little breezy.

At 11:30 the wedding party joined us for some pictures.  I stayed in one spot the whole time while various arrangements of the wedding party joined me.  I would highly recommend this because it saves time since you don't have to fluff your dress several times.

At 12:00 we took pictures with our family (parents, siblings, and grandparents).  After that we stopped for lunch which Serina so graciously provided.

The wedding started at two o'clock sharp.  The grandparents and parents' seating went off without a hitch thanks to our wonderful ushers, Jim and Sam.  Nobody tripped. hehe  The sound system worked great!  We didn't mess up our vows.  It lasted 24 minutes (Our goal was 20-30).  We had 250 of our wonderful friends and family there.  We couldn't have asked for a better day.

The reception was at Citizens Memorial Hospital's community rooms.  My aunts outdid themselves with decorating the ceremony and reception sites, by the way.  Anyway, we heard the food was great although we didn't really get a chance to enjoy it.  We had fruit trays (strawberries, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, grapes, pineapple), vegetable trays (broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, tomatoes, celery, peppers, and dip), iced tea and water, and cupcakes (chocolate, vanilla, red velvet, and strawberry).

The reception lasted about an hour and twenty minutes - our goal was 1-2 hours so it was perfect.  We ran out to people throwing birdseed at us.  We had chosen birdseed because it was 1) cheap and 2) might as well help out the birds.  However, I would highly suggest NOT doing that.  It's probably the one thing I didn't like about our wedding.  It got stuck in our hair which wasn't exactly pleasant.  Also, since I was kind of sweaty it stuck to my skin.  But the worst part was that Robert had a piece stuck in his ear for two days.  I could see it but couldn't reach it.  So glad we didn't have to start out our marriage with Robert getting an ear infection on our honeymoon.