Throwback to Wedding | 2018

We are coming up on our 5 year anniversary, so I figured I should probably do a blog post to recap it 🙂

Rehearsal Dinner

Christy flew in from Colorado and stayed at Joel’s house.  We had a sleepover.  We got down to the hotel and checked in. The girls were planning to stay at the hotel for the night while Joel stayed at his house (soon to be our house!).  We got ready for the rehearsal and then Christy and Mel and I went down to grab a drink at the hotel bar.

We had a nice, quick rehearsal. After the rehearsal, we headed over to Joel’s parent’s house for dinner.  Dinner was so great, it was catered in from Hy-Vee.  Joel’s extended family joined in and my cousin Kristin and her parents joined from California.  It was so lovely.

We got back to the hotel and got ready for bed.  Leah and Katie spent the night in the suite with me (did Cassie too?).

Wedding Day 5(ish)-k

We were up early to go to the Lake Nokomis to meet friends to do a loop around the lake before the festivities.  It was amazing how many people joined in! Friends from Kansas City, my cousins from Cali, Christy did it too! 

After a loop around, my parents came with some coffee and donuts for everyone.  We hung out a little bit before booking it over to the hotel to start getting ready. 

Getting Ready

We started to get our hair done by my hair stylist that I’ve had since I moved here in 2012, Steph.  She brought her hair-do partner.  Thankfully, she helped me pick a hair style inspiration from Pinterest that great.  She had also made me blonde blonde the week before for the big day.  

We ordered in Panera for lunch, my dad went to go get it.  They messed up the whole order and took forever, but gave him a bunch of vouchers for later.  

After lunch, the make up artist showed up.  She was a last minute hire for me based off of a recommendation from my friend Jaimie.  She did a fantastic job!

The photographer showed up and snapped some pictures of us getting ready and a couple group shots before it was time to go do the first look and take the rest of the pictures.

The boys had lunch and got ready at Joel’s parents house.  They had fun playing Spike Ball in the front yard.  

The photographer was able to snap some pictures of them hanging out and getting ready as well. 

Pictures

We went over to the park down the street from our hotel for pictures.  The first look was fun! Joel smiled and we walked down to join the rest of the group for pictures of the wedding party and then pictures of the extended families. 

The weather cooperated! It had been teasing us about possible rain but the sun came out (and blinded us on a couple of pictures).

Ceremony

The ceremony was short! We had all been up in the room before, signing the marriage certificate.  We headed down when it was time.  It was emotional waiting to enter the room, standing there with my dad, I got really choked up.

We walked down the aisle and had a very quick ceremony.  I had found the officiant on a wedding website and followed one of his templates to write his speech.  It was short and to the point.  

When it was time to exchange the rings, I kept trying to put the ring on the wrong hand for Joel, oops!

Reception

For the reception, we had about an hour of open bar with a Lindt truffle bar and bags of popcorn for snacks while they flipped the room. We mingled and said hello to friends.  

Once the room was flipped, everyone took their seats. I had made a seating chart so everyone had a table to go to.  Kourtney had made the centerpieces for the table and I used my Silhoutte to create table numbers with some vinyl stickers that were things that we loved (animals, running, lifting, etc).

We had our grand extract as the wedding party came in and went to the head table.  We did a buffet – a chicken dish and a pasta dish.  I don’t really even remember eating the dinner.. but my mom tells me the food was good!

The speeches were stellar.  Jen talked about how Joel and I met and some other super wonderful things.  I can’t remember what she said anymore but I remember the feeling that it was a wonderful speech and she did a great job.  Dan, Joel’s best man, had everyone laughing with his speech – bringing up watching the Notebook on Valentine’s Day together.  My dad talked about how Joel was a great guy and had awesome interests… racquetball, tennis and swimming, just like he did!  Joel’s dad’s speech was great. He talked about the differences that we had but how worked.  He lost his place in his speech at one point and had to borrow one of his cousin’s pink glasses 🙂 

We had Costco cake for dessert, my tongue definitely turned blue from the frosting!

We did our first dance too Russell Dickerson “Yours”. Joel and I danced with our partners at the same time.

We stayed until about 10/1030ish and then I was ready to go to bed.  I sent the DJ home a little early and we went up stairs so I could start taking out the 1000 bobby pins in my head and shower.

Photo Booth pictures

We had a Photo Booth, which I loved seeing all the picture!! It printed off strips and also sent it to people’s emails, but the wifi was a little spotty… Here are a few of my favorite ones:

Day After

The next morning, I woke up really early with a very uncomfortable pain in my neck, mostly likely from whiplash from chest bumping my brothers on the dance floor… 

I had some coffee with my mom in the kitchen part of our room and hung out for a bit until Joel got up.

We went to the cars and my car had been nicely decorated by my Ragnar team 🙂 It was awesome

We went over to Joel’s parents house for a lovely brunch with family.  

After brunch, we drove home and rested and finished packing for the honeymoon.  We made it to my running club’s end of year pizza party and then headed home to get a good night sleep in our own bed as a married couple!