Wedding Recap: Getting ready.

If you'd like to refresh your memory (since it's been about two months), I started my recap back here.

For a variety of reasons, my husband and I decided to stay together the night before our wedding. We live together, our friends were staying in the same B&B with us, I can't really sleep without him, etc. So the morning of our wedding, we woke up together and went downstairs to the amazing breakfast our innkeeper had prepared. Our friends were already chowing down on bread pudding, bacon, and other treats, so we joined them and fueled up. As much as I tried, I didn't really eat much the rest of the day, so the huge breakfast was a very, very good thing.

After breakfast Summer, our mistress of hair, arrived. Not soon after, our photographers, Bradford & Mia Shepherd, came in and started snapping away.

Prior to these guys showing up I don't think it had really hit me that it was The Day. But having people fawn over you and take pictures of everything you do is really out of my norm, and while I wasn't nervous, it took me to a more serious place. At least until we broke out the champagne.

Don't knock canned champagne until you've tried it. They are like juice boxes for grown ups. And the champagne/sparkling wine in them isn't bad.

My brideswomen drank it up, while I sat around looking serious. I was mostly nervous about my vows. I'm terrified of public speaking, and I didn't particularly want to read something personal I'd written in front of a large group of people. On the other hand, I wanted to hear P. to say nice things about me. So this is me trying to focus on deep breathing and not being stressed about it all day.

I swear this picture wasn't set up. Our friend pulled it off the bed and stuck it there the night before. I didn't realize it was still there until I saw this picture. It's fitting though!
Once the booze kicked in we decided to start with our makeup. The downstairs room we were using for hair was deemed unfit due to bad lighting, so my officiant/brideswoman/best friend snagged the downstairs mirror and we went upstairs to the workout room.

Instead of paying someone to do our makeup, we all brought what makeup we own and did each other. It worked fine, and the concern about not knowing how to do makeup for the camera was alleviated when we figured out that we could just have the photographer take pictures as we went.

Also, while none of us are really girly girls, I have to say that the time we spent hanging out that morning, doing our makeup, was one of my favorite parts of my wedding day. Actually being able to focus on the people around me was nice (and not totally possible the rest of the day).

At some point it was decided that it was time for me to get into my dress. I'd taken it on and off myself about 100 times, since I'd had it at home for months and I was constantly changing my mind about it, but it seemed right to have my little sister help me with the official putting on of the dress.

It looks like I'm wearing bright yellow jockey underwear in this picture. Not true.

Then we all sat around and took more pictures for ages, while we waited for the menfolk to show up. They were back at the house/wedding location helping set up and getting ready. Apparently they also ate lunch and forgot that practically every one of us womenfolk is a vegetarian when they brought us back a bunch of beef tamales (oops).

A good shot of the facinator/veil I made. I was getting a bit nervous about seeing P. at that point, and I almost forgot to put it on!

When the men finally got there, we were downstairs and I had to dash into the kitchen to hide (we were doing a "reveal" type shot). Only they didn't know we were waiting in the kitchen (they thought we were still getting ready), so we were there FOREVER. Finally my friend's boyfriend wandered in and we let him know what was up.
One of the inside the kitchen pictures, taken by one of the brideswomen. And just to clarify, we were holding the bananas because we were going to take them with us for snacking. We weren't just posing with them!

Up next, the reveal (which sounds much more dramatic than it was).

All pictures (except the last one) by Bradford & Mia Shepherd.