Weddingbee

***sidenote: our pro pics are in and they’re AMAAAAAAAAAZING! Seriously, I am in hardcore love with them.***

During the wedding planning process, one of the things I knew I wanted for sure was that I wanted to stay at the hotel our reception was going to be at. I wanted a pampered pre-wedding night that was relaxing and enabled me to spend a night away from placecards and menus and obsessing about wedding details. This forced me to be done with everything at least one night early. I know, NBD for most people, but there are some brides who go down to the wire on prepping. I also got to be with my maid of honor and my bridesman who are two of my best friends ever and who make me laugh until my stomach hurts and I’m gasping for air.

The night before the wedding, MOH and I went to drop off some stuff to my coordinator, then went back to the hotel. I didn’t have time earlier that day to straighten my hair, so MOH helped me flat iron. We were having a great time talking and laughing as she worked when all the sudden, the flat iron sparked a couple of times, then died. It’s OK, it was on its last legs anyway. Luckily my MOH is so on the ball, she brought one of her own just in case, so we finished up with only a couple of minor burning incidents.

Bridesman came over to spend the night and we all spent a lot of time talking about the wedding (in a good way, like how excited we all were for the event), and also about our friendship. We all met from being a part of the same student groups — we were all part of a leadership organization in college (their sophomore year, my senior year) and at the end of that year, we were all orientation counselors (which meant we lived and worked together).

Towards the end of the night, Mr. P came over to the room and I got to see him for the last time until the wedding day. We both felt like giddy little kids who were being a bit naughty in seeing each other Mr. P left to go back home and get some sleep and went to Lucky Boy, a Pasadena institution for some late night yum yums. If nothing else, it was just amazing because now that we’re all old and grown up, we don’t get to see each other as often. We used to live within 4 blocks of each other, even when I was in grad school, so we’d go over and visit or go out together all the time. Now we’re sort of spread over LA, so minus the occasional happy hours we can sometimes make it to, there’s not enough “Friend Time” in our schedule.

The morning of the wedding, I woke up at 6:30AM because I was just so. freakin’. excited! It was a whirlwind of breakfast, and the requisite laughter and fun times. Then hair and makeup arrived and it was on — wedding time!

All pics courtesy of John Schnack of Schnack Studios

The hair: I went for a hair trial the week before the wedding and, while I loved my hair and makeup artist, I didn’t pick a hair style that was flattering to me and fit the style and mood I went for. Even better — my stylist (Sherry McAnelly from On Location Beauty) agreed and, on the morning of, we went with something completely different. This is what we came up with

The makeup wasn’t too shabby either!

After getting dressed, a touch of nervousness set in. Ya know what makes it all better?

And after that, hilarity ensued.

(sidestory: the pic of my goofy face and my MOH laughing is from after she helped me put my veil on. She said “You have a stray hair” and pulled it out. . . except it was more like 4821 stray hairs and it felt like she pulled a bald spot out. Hence, my reaction and her raucous laughter).

Shortly after the hair pulling incident, it was time to meet my groom for our first look. Stay tuned. . .

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