Bridal Party and Flowers

I'm participating in Kelly's Korner's "Show Us Your Life" again this week because she is continuing the wedding theme! You can head to her site to see more people's links and pictures. I'm having a blast looking through the links. There are always so many, but it is so much fun to see the variety of wedding pictures. And, as a warning, my post is FULL of pictures. We just got married 2 weeks ago, so it's all very fresh in my mind, and I am so excited to show off the wedding some more! :-) Thanks for putting up with the ridiculous amount of detail.

Anyway, this week is bridal party and flowers. I am looking forward to seeing the photographer's pictures of this stuff (and they should be ready to view online this Saturday--as in tomorrow....woohoo!) because our guests didn't get as many detailed pictures--understandably.

The bridesmaids wore dresses from Davids Bridal in a dark pink color called watermelon. Four of the five bridesmaids all came shopping together, and they miraculously all agreed on this dress pretty quickly, which was great with me!! I love the bubble hem and the little bit of ruching at the top.

Here are four of my bridesmaids on the shopping day!

Our wedding party had a total of 11 people--5 bridesmaids and 6 groomsmen. My sister was my maid-of-honor, and Ben's dad was his best man. Ben's groomsmen were all friends from his hometown, which was really cool. And my bridesmaids included a lifelong friend I grew up with, my best friend from high school, my best friend from college, and my now sister-in-law. :-) It was a great group, and they all helped and supported me SO MUCH during the wedding planning and the actual wedding itself.

And, now for some pictures of the wedding pary during the actual wedding! The groomsmen wore watermelon vests and ties to match the bridesmaids. Ben work a white vest and tie. And my dad wore a black vest and tie.

A great shot of the whole group during the ceremony

And all of us afterward

Bridesmaids (L to R: lifelong friend Kate, high school friend Jenny,

sister-in-law Katie, college friend Jen, and sister/maid-of-honor Laura)

Groomsmen (funny note: since some of Ben's friends were from his high school days, I didn't know a couple of them that well. And I didn't meet one of the groomsman until the day of the rehearsal! :-)

A few more details about our ceremony! We had our wedding outdoors at a historical house in my hometown called the Broyhill House. I had always wanted to have my wedding there, but I had also NEVER wanted to get married outdoors. After a couple of months of looking at other venues, we decided to risk it with the outdoor wedding. It was totally nervewracking because we never had a solid back-up plan for rain (just a couple of tentative, not-so-great plans), and for most of the planning we were sure our guests (and all of us!) would be sweating buckets during the whole ceremony. Instead, it was a PERFECT day weather-wise (and all other ways, too!). It was unseasonably cool for July, and even the rain they called for on Friday night (which would have made the ground awfully mushy) never happened. I was so relieved and happy!!

Here is the front of the house

Another "fun" note--since the house is an old family home (and up on a hill with lots of beautiful grounds), there is no large parking lot. We shuttled our guests from the reception site (a couple of minutes down the road) to the house and back again afterward. I am telling y'all, this wedding could not have been pulled off without an army of our friends and family who so graciously stepped in EVERY SINGLE TIME we needed anything. In the picture of the house above, you

can see the white van that was one of our shuttles. It was driven by Jenny's (my bridesmaid) dad. Her mom directed the wedding. They were like a second family to me in high school, and everything they did for us during the wedding meant SO MUCH. I am really hoping I can at least somewhat repay the favor when Jenny gets married this December! :-)

Anyway, we got married behind the house under a huge tree. It's just gorgeous back there. And since our wedding was outdoors, we decided not to use many flowers at the ceremony. My original plan was no flowers at all (except the ones for the wedding party), but my mother-in-law got some arrangements for the rehearsal dinner that we were able to re-use at the ceremony and the reception. It was perfect!

Rehearsal flowers (looking a little rough at this point--they had been transported around quite a bit, but they held up really well!)

A glimpse of the flowers on the tables during the ceremony (and my bouquet!)

The wedding party's flowers were all roses. I carried a bouquet of dark pink roses (that photographed a little bit red, but oh well!), and my girls carried white roses. I loved the way the white roses looked with their dresses. Our moms carried single white roses, and our grandmas had white rose corsages. Funny note: my dad snapped the rose off of his corsage right when we finished taking pictures before the ceremony. Thank goodness he was able to rig it back together!

We were married by a pastor from Winston-Salem who has known Ben his whole life. I liked him from the moment I met him (as did all of my family and friends who got to know him during the wedding!), and he made our ceremony meaningful and beautiful. We are so glad that he did the wedding!

Rev. Larry Jones

My mother-in-law took care of all the details of providing music for the ceremony, and my family and I are so grateful for that! We don't know what we would have done if she hadn't offered to take care of it! And the music was just beautiful (or so I heard...I didn't hear too much of it myself :-). A string quartet played before the ceremony, and a soloist sang as the mothers were walked down the aisle. She also sang Alison Kraus's "When You Say Nothing at All" during the ceremony, which is one of my favorite memories--standing up there with Ben and looking at him during that song!

String quartet and soloist

Our sisters both did readings during the ceremony, too. They read excerpts from The Awakened Heart by Gerald May and from Beyond Words by Frederick Buechner.

Laura doing her reading

Us with our sisters after the ceremony

Finally, (and I promise this is all!) a couple of fun pictures. Since we had an uneven number of bridesmaids and groomsmen, here is what happened at the end of the ceremony!

One of my favorite pictures...makes me grin every time! :-)

And my beautiful, wonderful parents, who have always made all of my dreams come true, and who really pulled out all the stops to make my wedding day absolutely perfect. I have always felt so incredibly lucky to have such a great family, in the big moments and the small ones....and boy do they know how to pull of some wonderful big moments!

Daddy and Mama

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my marathon post! :-)