Saturday, July 7th:
The big day! We woke up fairly bright and early to start prepping the yard for the ceremony and reception.
The bride coordinates events as part of her career, so she had a great vision for her wedding. Since the couple’s yard is huge, one half was set up for the ceremony and the other for the reception. It was one of the most adorable back-yard weddings I’ve ever seen, in person and even compared to the internet/magazines.
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| How cute is this wreath the bride's MIL made? |
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| I did the tulle bows :O) |
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| Their alter was handmade and beautiful |
The balloons were a bit of a challenge to work with. We first picked up 150 balloons from Kroger and I volunteered to sit in the back of a pickup holding the balloons with another friend. Even though it was less than a mile from the store to the house, we had several balloon casualties because of the heat, which was kind of scary. But this...
turned into this...
Our dresses were from Old Navy. We’re originally purchased a smocked tube top dress from Victoria’s Secret to wear as our bridesmaid dresses, but the colors in person weren’t what the bride was looking for, so she ended up ordered a dozen of these red bandana dresses in a variety of sizes. I literally didn’t try on my dress until about an hour before the ceremony, but luckily it was a pretty basic fit that worked well with any body type.
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| We all wore boots! Those of us (3) who are married got them as part of our wedding gifts! |
About three hours before the ceremony (which was at 8pm), the skies started to get overcast and then the rain fell. With no backup plan, the bride was surprisingly in good spirits. As I told her, my mom always says that rain on a special day is considered a Hawaiian blessing. Lucky for us, the rain stopped about an hour before the ceremony. The only downfall was that the bride had rented a mechanical bull for the reception and the vendor called to cancel, saying they couldn’t set up outside in such wet conditions.
That was okay though, there was still a Snowcone truck and a bouncy slide to entertain. So much fun!
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| (I should note that the earlier days in the trip I wore my hair wavy. For the wedding it was blowdried and curled; with the heat and humidty, it pretty much ended up looking like it would have it we'd saved the time curling and just put mouse in it!) |
More pics from the night:
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| In honor of their dogs |
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| Bride and Groom (She changed after getting cake frosting on her dress) |
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| I wish the bride would have been looking! |
Around 11pm, Party Bus #2 of the weekend came to pick us up for bartime. We were dropped off at Rebel’s Honky Tonk, which I can only describe as the most amazing country bar ever. Patio? Check. Mechanical Bull? Check. Dance floor? Check. We had a blast learning how to line dance and a few of us rode the mechanical bull. It’s challenging enough, let alone in a dress, but I was voted to be one of the best from our crew. It was so much fun!
We were having such a blast that we stayed there until bar close and then got back to the house around 3:15am, which was perfect considering my friend and I had a 4am pickup scheduled for our 6am flight. The small group that was left just chatted (and also ate some leftover dinner) until our taxi came. I was surprised how well the whole early pickup went over. The worst part of the morning was the 30 minutes we had to kill between checking in and waiting for our flight to board. We were pretty much pinching each other to stay awake.
Thankfully, this flight had no issues. As soon as I was seated and buckled up, I put on my eyemask and passed out. We got back to Chicago around 8:30am and by 9:45am I was already tucked in bed at home. Sunday was a bit of a struggle, as I kept dozing off, but all in all, it was definitely worth the savings to take the 6am flight home. I’m glad it worked out so well!
Texas was such a blast that we’ve talked about making it a Fourth of July tradition. We’ll have to see what the future holds!
Texas - Part I Post
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