Bridesmaids. Are. Awesome.

Bridesmaids:  they are all different body shapes and sizes and heights.  To find a dress that looks good on everyone is an impossible task. 

My plan was to send everyone to David's Bridal to get a dress of their choosing and style, but all in the same color (teal).  As the wedding prep progressed, the colors of the wedding grew to incorporate anything in the teal-turquoise range.  I realized this could work for the bridesmaids dresses, as well.  In picking their dress, I gave the girls some guidelines, but otherwise, they could pick whichever dress they wanted.

Don't they look gorgeous?!?!

I love the mis-matched look. 

My guidelines for my bridesmaids' dresses:  knee-length, modest (with sleeves or a cover), formal looking, and within the teal-turquoise family of colors.  I also asked that they wear white dress shoes of their choosing.  These guidelines freed up the shopping process considerably!  I was not able to purchase the dresses for my bridesmaids, so they each found something within their own personal budget.  Some went to bridals stores, some were from discount stores, one was from their own closet that they adjusted a bit, and one was even homemade. 

Here's the shoe shot:

Twelve white shoes, six turquoise dresses, two turquoise shoes, and one white dress.

I was actually really afraid I or my train would fall in the water, but this shot was worth the momentary fear...

One of the things my dad said in his toast at the reception was that I've made good friends everywhere I have lived and there were friends at the wedding representing all of those eras in my life. I wanted all my best friends to be in my wedding. I couldn't have all that I wanted - but I wound up with 7 anyway. It got widdled down to 6 by the wedding.

My bridesmaids were awesome and amazing. I had Nate's two sisters Alex and Lauren, plus Melissa (local), Nicki (Hawaii), Ralene (Arizona), and Sara (local).

 

 My sister-in-law made rings for each of my bridesmaids:

Melissa was my matron of honor.  She helped me so much.  She threw my bridal shower for me and also gave a toast at my wedding.  She helped with set-up and many other little things along the way, including just being super-duper excited for me.   

Sara - she helped with the set-up and, fun fact, her parents were second place in the anniversary dance at the reception (47 years strong!).  Sara is a previous roommate and a dear, dear friend:

Nicki drove from Las Vegas to be at my wedding.  We met 10 years ago in college in Hawaii.  She been one of my best friends ever since.  We've gone on vacays together and have had a lot of fun times.  She brought a song to the reception and played it for us as a surprise:  "De-lah" from the George of the Jungle soundtrack.  At some point in my life, she said I said I'm going to dance to that song during my wedding.  So she made sure it happened.  :)

Ralene drove from Phoenix.  I met her in grad school when I lived in Tucson.  She came a few days before and worked tirelessly to help decorate the reception. Ralene made the emergency run to Target to get new t-lights since ours melted in the sun before the reception.  Both her and Nicki got up on the day of the wedding at 6:00am to go hang lanterns at the reception site.  That's how you define best friends.  How early they get up on the day of your wedding...  Ralene also was my shoulder to cry on when I had my obligatory melt-down the night before the wedding.  I couldn't have made it through the day without her.  She is amazing.
 

Alex got an entire post to herself describing her awesomeness.  She made our cake!  For free! 

See the post: 

http://waitmanwedding.blogspot.com/2012/09/sweet-alexs-cakes.html
 

And Lauren, also one of my new sisters-in-law.  She is an amazing girl.  I felt so welcomed by her into the family from the very first minute I met her.  She helped her mom so much at our wedding.  She was the all-around helper.  Whatever needed to be done, she was there.  



And just for fun, we took a few funny shots of me girding-up my loins.  My bustle hook was broken...

Not the most flattering pose, but, eh.  It's my wedding day.  And I will always look pretty no matter what.  Nate said so.  :)

Here's Melissa and her hubby bringing the flowers to the back door of the temple. 



Every time she sees this picture of her waiting at the back door, she says, "Man!  My legs are so white!"  I think she looks great.



 All pictures by allichellephotography.com.  Hire her!



The Dress! (The Hitching Post and Mom)

One of the first things brides are supposed to do is find their dress.  I had a four month engagement.  That's not very long to find a modest dress in Southern California.  I tried David's Bridal, but every dress I tried on would have had to be altered to cover my temple garments.  And most of them, they couldn't get in time.  I started searching for modest wedding gowns and I found 2 nearby.  One was about an hour away and, while the dresses were perfect for temple weddings, I didn't like the selling style or the way the fitting went.  I felt pushed into buying a dress.  So, nope.  Not shopping there.  

Then I went to a place called The Hitching Post.  The Hitching Post is a business run by the wife of one of the stake counselor's wives out of her historical home.  In their front yard, they actually have an old, original hitching post where people would hitch up their horses.  So the name worked out really, really well for the wedding dress business.

See their Facebook page:

 http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Hitching-Post/109962535708726

And their website:
www.thehitchingpostdresses.com

Anywho, here is a nice one of my dress on the wedding day:

I love the skirt.  That's my favorite part. 

My mother told me early on that she wanted to pay for my dress.  She has a side business on ebay where she makes and sells doll dresses.  In one month's time, she sold over $500 worth of doll dresses to pay for my wedding dress.  Many little dresses for one big dress.  I love my mother and I am forever greatful for what she did for me for my wedding.

The picture with my hand on my hip is actually me just standing there waiting as my train got safety pinned to my rear to create the bustle.  The hook broke when I took it to the cleaners the week before.  I didn't find that out until I took the dress out of the bag to put it on in the temple after the sealing.  Ah, well.  It all worked out.  There were about 7 safety pins near my rear by the end of the night, but they held beautifully. 

My dress was around $500 due to being a closeout.  I love a good deal!  Alterations were around $300, so not too bad for a wedding dress. :)

  

 My veil and headband were from Hobby Lobby, both on sale 50% off, about $7 each.  I got the little jewels in my hair at Claires Accessories, along with my necklace and earrings.  Add my $5 turquioise flats from a swap meet, my hair for $55, and my nails for $25, I came together for a grand total of about $950.  My mother-in-law did my make-up for free. 

The ring?  I didn't pay for that, but if you want to know where he got it - He went to Jared. 

All photos by Allichellephotography.com.

Sweet Alex's Cakes!

We knew from the beginning that we were pretty lucky regarding a lot of wedding, because of our family relations.  One of those examples is my new sister-in-law, Alex.  She's graduated from the pastry part of culinary school and has worked in bakeries, making all kinds of yummy goodies - and she also makes and decorates cakes.  We knew we wanted her to make our cake.  Nate insisted on it since her cakes are always so tasty.  But we were very surprised when she offered to do it for free.  

Again, I felt that warming feeling in my heart as another person offered to help us because of the love they have for us.  No words can adequately express how grateful we feel to everyone.  

As one of my bridesmaids, here is Alex:  

She's cute, yea?

A few months before the wedding, Alex was home from school for a weekend and the family had a session of looking through bridal magazines.  I thought it was fun... maybe not for Nate or his dad, Doug...  Anywho, I was noting different cake designs and Alex was doing the same, looking for a cake to make for an upcoming bridal show she had in Utah.  She came across one that I absolutely loved, except the coloring.  It had 4 tiers and the edge of each tier was covered in little tiny fondant flowers.  I thought is was lovely.  It was clean looking, sophisticated, and I loved the use of one color of various shades.  It had dark peach flowers on the bottom layer and then they gradually got light towards the top.  Alex took that design back to Utah, but was having trouble with the peach coloring.  Mom-in-law, Tammy, suggested she try doing it in teal-turquoise, knowing those were my colors and knowing I loved that design.  Alex tried it and it worked.  

See her show cake on her website:

www.sweetalexscakes.com

Alex created the same cake for us for our wedding.  We had (from bottom to top) chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate in the tiers.  She makes each tier with 4 layers separated by Bavarian cream.  The outside was butter cream, which she smoothed so well to look like fondant.  We wanted our cake to look beautiful, but we also wanted it to taste yummy.  And fondant is not yummy.  

A note on the pictures above:  the only thing I did to make this table pretty was tie the ribbons on the cake cutting utensils and rent the tablecloth...

Nate didn't have many opinions about the wedding.  There were really only 2 things he cared about:  the bride and chocolate cake.  He got both.  :)

I had wanted some kind of cheesecake element (my favorite dessert), but she just couldn't work it into the cake itself, so she made little cheesecake bites, especially for me.  It was a good thing, too!  The only piece of cake that I got was the bite.  You know, the bite I shared with my husband in the pictures below.  Alex said that she'd never seen a cake go so fast.  It was gone as soon as it was cut.  But she saved the cheesecake bites for a little later, so we got some of those.  :)  

Alex made each of these little flowers by hand.  She is so incredibly talented.  

Amongst all that she had to do with the wedding cake and the cheesecake bites, she also made Nathan a grooms cake.  His favorite show in the world is Lost.  She created a hatch and added the wedding topper.  This particular topper has never been my favorite since it implies that the groom doesn't want to get married.  This was never the case with Nate.  But topped on the Lost cake, I feel like I'm dragging him from the hatch after we've been blown up or shot or something...  It made me giggle.  I loved it.  :)

I would love to see her business grow.  I recommend her to anyone needing a wedding cake.  Alex is a professional in every sense of the word and your cake will be fabulous, beautiful, and tasty.  Hire her!

Her website:  www.sweetalexscakes.com

All photos in this post are by allichellephotography.com.

Rembrandt - The Ultimate Party Band!

Okay folks, next is the entertainment.  Rembrandt (the ultimate party band, fo suga...) played at our wedding.  When I met Nathan, he told me what his father did for a living.  His father owned a business where he managed bands that play at weddings.  I thought, cool - a band! - 4 or 5 guys with guitars that play covers of popular songs or maybe even their own music.  

I was so wrong...

Rembrandt is so much more than that.  When I finally met Nate's parents, they explained that they are a 13 piece band with a horn line and multiple singers and that they primarily play high-end weddings.  I was very surprised.  Nate's mom, Tammy (who promotes the band), showed me a demo video of the band and I was blown away.  

They. were. amazing.

Check them out:  http://www.rembrandtband.com/ 

Link to the demo page: http://www.rembrandtband.com/film.ivnu

Being the father of the groom, Doug, manager of the band, booked Rembrandt as their gift to us.  I was delighted and overwhelmed.  They were exactly what I wanted at our reception.  DJs are great, but I wanted our wedding to be an awesome party that people would remember.  And this band truly set our reception apart from other typical Mormon weddings.  Ultimately, that's what I wanted for our reception.  I didn't want a typical Mormon wedding where friends and family show up at a church building, have some cake and punch and then leave.  I wanted to have a big party where people stayed and danced and talked and socialized.  And that's what happened - mostly because of the entertainment. 

I danced my heart out.  Well, at least during one song.  But there were plenty of other people dancing the entire night.  And I loved it that people were having fun at our wedding.  The one song I danced to (besides the first dance with Nate) was at the very end of the night.  It was Pink's "Raise Your Glass."  It was one of the songs I specifically requested and Doug pulled me onto the dance floor so I could dance to that one song.  It was one of the most fun moments of the night.  I was out there dancing with Doug and my little 6-year-old niece, Emma, got down on the dance floor with us.  The floor was packed, and Vanessa, the lead singer during that song, came out onto the dance floor and danced with us, microphone and all, singing the song.  I gave her the hugest hug at the end.  I just had so much fun.  It was such a wonderful memory. 

Here is Vanessa:

Here are some dancing folks:  

And during the anniversary dance:  

(More on that later...)

The dance floor was packed nearly all night.  

This was a huge gift to us.  Normally, the band costs in the neighborhood of $8000 to hire.  We felt very lucky to have this high-end wedding band at our very non-high-end wedding.  Both Nathan and I felt very blessed to have wonderful people around us that were willing to give so much.  A huge thanks to Doug Waitman and his band Rembrandt, but that thanks can never adequately portray how amazing the band made our wedding and how perfect it made our day.     

All photos in this post are by allichellephotography.com.