After a morning full of hair appointments, picking up our bouquets and applying make-up, it was finally time to put on my wedding gown!

As you all know, I haven’t yet revealed the gown that I chose to wear – so, without further delay, here it is! I chose an ivory Alfred Angelo tiered lace gown with an ivory satin bodice and sash :)

The gown has since been discontinued (actually, this gown was discontinued a mere two weeks after we ordered it!) – I love knowing that I am one of the last women to wear this beautiful, vintage-inspired gown.

My Mom helped me get into my gown…

Then it was time for jewelry…

I wore beautiful pearl earrings that Jordan gave me as a gift; a Norwegian brooch that has been in my family for generations; a Norwegian necklace that my grandmother gave to me when I was young; a fun yellow-gold ring that I purchased from Galla15 on Etsy; and a lovely pearl bracelet that my friend and bridesmaid Serena gave me.

And then, it was time for my veil! I purchased my veil at a local bridal shop; it’s by Signature Bridal.

Next up were my (hand-crafted and homemade!) garters and my shoes, featuring shoe clips from BPoetic on Etsy!

And with a few tears from my bridesmaids and my Mom…

…I put the finishing touches on my bouquet (isn’t it beautiful!!)…

…took a few bridal portraits…

…and headed over to the chapel to meet Jordan for our “First Look!”

Coming up next: my favorite part of our day – our “First Look!”

What do you think of my gown? Was it worth the wait?

[All photos by the outstanding Creative Kindling]

After a busy morning of  hair appointments and picking up our bouquets, my maid of honor Kristen and I finally arrived at Augustana College to start getting ready! My bridesmaids met us in what we affectionately called our “Getting Ready Room,” which actually was the make-up room that the theatre cast uses before each show. Full of mirrors and lights, the room was perfect for a bunch of girls getting beautiful!

So, as Kristen wrote furiously, finishing her maid of honor speech…

My new sister-in-law Larissa was my make-up artist extraordinaire!

My hair needed a few more bobby pins…

And just like that, my make-up was done! Larissa used mostly Bare Minerals products, as well as some Loreal and Maybelline eyeshadow and mascara to finish off the look. Larissa and I had two make-up trials before the big day to get the look exactly right – I’ve never felt so beautiful!

My Mom arrived at Augustana with my gown, and it was almost time to get dressed!

While we girls were getting beautified, the boys were getting ready across campus!

Stay tuned…the dress reveal is coming up next!

[All photos by the splendid talent behind Creative Kindling]

Remember those inspiration boards that I created for my bouquet and my girls’ bouquets on Style Me Pretty’s Style Circle? I brought these to Twyla, our florist at The Flower Shop, to use as inspiration for our florals.

Well, I can’t wait to show you how our lovely flowers turned out!

In the top picture, notice the sunflower bouquet on the left; that was my throw-away bouquet! It was wrapped in burlap and was simple but beautiful. The other bouquets in that photo are my girls’ bouquets; they turned out perfectly! Very organic – they look like they were just picked right from a field before the wedding! The bouquet with the succulent is Kristen’s, to make hers a little special, as the maid of honor.

As you can see in the bottom picture, the girls’ bouquets were wrapped in ribbon, and I had Twyla attach a brooch to each of their bouquets (I spent the months before the wedding searching flea markets and antique stores for brooches!)

And now, a peek at my bouquet (more of the full bouquet after I reveal my wedding gown!):

I had Twyla wrap the stem of the bouquet in burlap, to echo the organic, nature-inspired feel of our wedding (as well as the burlap on the reception tables!). I then wrapped a piece of lace around the stem – my great-Grandma Sophie made the lace! As you can see from the bottom picture, I also had Paloma’s Nest on Etsy make me a bouquet charm (my something blue! notice the blue string?). I just LOVED the bouquet charm; it says “i carry your heart with me,” after the e.e. cummings poem we had read during our wedding ceremony. I also attached to the stem of my bouquet a little brooch that Kristen gave me – it was perfect!

In my bouquet, Twyla used sunflowers, succulents, dusty miller, billy balls, lisianthus, spray roses and much, much more. It was literally the bouquet of my dreams – I couldn’t have been more pleased!

A big plus – I had Twyla ensure to utilize as many locally grown blooms for our flowers as possible!

Stay tuned for what’s up next: me and my girls (and Jordan and his guys!) getting ready, plus a full list of make-up products that my sister-in-law used to achieve my bridal look!

[Inspiration boards made by me on Style Me Pretty's Style Circle; all photos by the amazingly talented Creative Kindling]

And let the wedding recaps begin…

Waking up on the morning of our wedding day was extremely surreal. My lovely bestest friend in the whole world, my cousin and maid of honor Kristen, spent the night at my house the night before, and honestly, that was one of the best decisions I made – having her there right away in the morning definitely helped to calm my nerves!

Kristen and I headed to Salon Ne-Zhoni in Sioux Falls, where my bridesmaids and I proceeded to take over the salon for the morning. My sister-in-law Larissa arrived, too, and all 3 of us were whisked off to the beauty chairs for our updos.

As you can recall, I had a hair trial a few weeks prior, so my hairstylist and I were on the same page from the get-go. For my bridesmaids, we decided to have all of the girls wear their hair up and off to the right side…it looked super cute to have their hair all going the same direction!

My hairstylist Lisa began curling my hair…

Kristen took pictures…

I started to feel bride-y…

My hairstylist braided the back of my hair across my head (my favorite part!)…

And inserted my hair fascinator (courtesy of Y&E Bridal on Etsy…one of the first purchases I made, and one of the best)…

And I was done!

Larissa and Kristen were seriously gorgeous…

And then it was time for my other 2 bridesmaids, my friends Jessica and Serena, to have their hair done!

First, Serena got in touch with her inner Curly Sue…

And Jessica tried a new look…

But eventually, they were ready for the day!

You’ll notice the hair pieces in all of the girls’ hair…my Mom and I made those! We purchased very inexpensive fabric flowers from New York & Company, dyed them grey (they were ivory), sewed and pinned on some ivory lace, added a hair comb on the back and a bauble in the middle of the flower, and voila! I was so pleased with how they turned out.

We all grabbed a quick lunch at the salon, thanks to my lovely Aunt Becky…

And while Kristen and I picked up the flowers (which were HEAVENLY – I can’t wait to share them with you!), all of the other girls headed off to the church to get ready!

[All photos by the amazingly talented Creative Kindling]

Today I started off my career in graduate school – eek! It was SUCH a great day, and I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to pursue higher education and especially to get to teach incoming undergraduate students! I can’t wait for the semester to get started.

Anyway, the lovely Valery from Young(s) and In Love bestowed upon me the super-awesome HOT Bride (Helper of the Bride) Award, which therefore requires me to bestow 7 powerful pieces of advice regarding weddings. Well, here’s my batch:

1. Ignore the WIC voice that’s telling you that you need a wedding planner – you definitely don’t. For us, our friends and family were more than willing to help make our day a success, and chances are, your loved ones will, too.

2. Wear the yellow shoes. Or the veil. Or no veil. Or a short dress. Or a long, long, forever long train. Or a pantsuit. Or whatever. In other words, DO WHAT’S RIGHT FOR YOU.

3. DO NOT sign up for stuff at bridal shows. All you get is spam email…and no sweet deals, sadly.

4. Try one DIY project. Just one. I promise, you’ll learn something about yourself that you couldn’t learn otherwise.

5. However you’re feeling is how you’re supposed to feel. Don’t worry about “being present” or “remembering the little parts of your day.” If you look back on your wedding day and all that you remember is the blissed-out joy you felt, cool. If you look back on your day and remember how the stupid DJ didn’t play the right music, or the best man misplaced the rings right before the ceremony, only to find them in *enter random spot here* later, but you still feel the serious joy of being MARRIED, equally cool. Just own those feelings, and don’t worry about whether or not they’re right, or they’re what you’re supposed to be feeling.

6. Yes, take a honeymoon. But don’t think that it has to be epic. Don’t think that you have to go abroad and stay for a whole week (unless you want to!) … do what YOU want, even if it’s a trip across town at your favorite getaway spot.

7. This one I feel super strongly about: DO A FIRST LOOK. It was the single most goosebump-inducing experience of my life, and I’ll never, ever forget it.

And now, a teaser of lovely things to come:

[Photo: Before our wedding pictures began on the hottest day of the summer, courtesy of our amazing photographers]

I know, I know, you thought that I’d be blogging about the wedding…but I promise, I’ll start with the recaps as soon as we have our professional pictures (which should be in the next week or so!!). So, stay tuned!

In the mean time, here’s a recap of the goals that I wanted to complete for July:

- Get married! (CHECK!)

- Take a trip overseas. (CHECK!)

- Write a poem. (Nope…)

- Cut bangs into my hair…again. (CHECK! See top photo; you like?)

- Go kayaking. (When we were in Jamaica, we chose to go kayaking on our last day in the country. However, the weather had other plans for us; it rained all day long! So, this goal went unaccomplished…)

- Take one shot of tequila. (Nope…I was too scared to get sick on our honeymoon!)

Goals for August:

- Investigate life insurance.

- Post regularly on my blog (see: wedding recaps!).

- Watch “Animal House.”

Hopefully I’ll be back very soon with my first wedding recap!

Dear readers, I’ve been struggling to find the words to blog ever since our wedding day, simply because it was such an overwhelmingly wonderful day and I just can’t seem to find the words.

But – I’m going to try.

Our wedding day was full of tears (mostly my Mom’s), happy claps (mostly my maid of honor Kristen’s), sweating (everyone; it was nearly 100 degrees outside) and happy-nervous energy (mostly mine).

I promise to bring you full-on recaps as soon as A) I feel up to it – I’m still rather exhausted and overwhelmed by the hugeness of it all, and B) we get our professional pictures back from our lovely photographers.

Be back soon, I promise. Just know this: it wasn’t perfect, it didn’t go all as planned, but the utter fact that it WAS is just big. It’s BIG.

[Photo by my dearest friend and maid of honor, Kristen]

Hey y’all – it’s wedding week here in our neck of the woods!

Projects left to complete:

- Make our tiered cake.

- Make a tiny loaf of bread for communion.

- Line the flower girl dresses.

- Febreeze the burlap table squares.

- Finalize the wedding day agenda.

- Confirm cake, flowers.

- Pick up my wedding gown!

- Add wedding dance playlists to ipod and back-up ipod.

- Make signs for tables.

- Pull together props for photos.

- Put together my “just in case” bag for the wedding day, full of safety pins, sewing materials, etc.

- Finish packing for the honeymoon.

I’m sure there are other little things to finalize, but that’s all I can think of right now.

I’ll try and post one more time before our wedding this weekend!

As a reminder, I had a rough month accomplishing my goals in May, so I kept these same goals on my plate for June.

Here’s what I hoped to accomplish this month:

- Make or bake at least one Rachael Ray recipe.

- Try beets…again.

- Go bowling…and actually try to bowl well.

And…0-3. Boo me!

But, here are the goals I did accomplish in June:

- Purchase a new computer! I’m typing to you from my new Macbook Pro.

- Get into graduate school! I actually did this in March, but I can talk about it now, since I’ve told my employer. As of this August, I will be a graduate student at the University of South Dakota pursuing my Master’s in English Literature and my teaching certification! I think USD will be a great start on my path to higher education and eventually pursuing a PhD.

- Go garage saling at least one time per year. Jordan and I set out looking for a dresser, so we hit up some local garage sales. No luck, but it was fun!

- Try at least one new wine per month for a year. I’m on #5 of 12, and this month I tried New Age Wine at my bachelorette party; it was delicious with a lime!

That’s it!

Here are my goals for July:

- Get married! We’re only 13 days away!

- Take a trip overseas. We’re going to Jamaica for our honeymoon!

- Write a poem.

- Cut bangs into my hair…again.

- Go kayaking.

- Take one shot of tequila.

…and I’m feeling fine!

That’s right, readers – dare I say that my obsessive need to work ahead has paid off…here are the projects we have left:

- Cut squares of fabric for the tables. When we’ll get it done:  this weekend.

- Sew a lining into the flower girl dresses. When we’ll get it done:  this weekend.

- Gather (and print, if necessary) a few pictures of Jordan and I for a photo feature. When we’ll get it done:  by Friday.

- Wrangle and frame few more wedding pictures of our relatives. When we’ll get it done:  this weekend, hopefully.

- Practice making our DIY tiered surprise wedding cake. When we’ll get it done:  this weekend, hopefully.

- Print and mail gift-opening invites. When we’ll get it done:  this needs to happen ASAP!

- Fold napkins. When we’ll get it done:  first round tomorrow, second and final round hopefully next week.

- Reception playlist. When we’ll get it done:  probably next weekend; it’s about 70% done right now.

- Silhouettes (of Jordan and I) for frames. When we’ll get it done:  next weekend; we just need to format and print.

- Finalize pew decor. When we’ll get it done:  tonight.

- Purchase gifts for our parents and our ceremony helpers. When we’ll get it done:  next Friday (payday!).

- Tie baker’s twine on the programs. When we’ll get it done:  Probably the week of the wedding…eek.

- Take photos of decor, pack up decor items in boxes according to tables. When we’ll get it done:  next weekend. BIG project, but I hope to have lots of help.

- Get our marriage license. When we’ll get this done:  the Wednesday of the wedding week.

I have my hair trial and my final make-up trial on Thursday and my final gown fitting on Saturday. We also are having our premarital counseling session with my uncle, our officiant, on Saturday. We also turn in our guaranteed guest count to the Pavilion on Saturday. My wedding week beauty treatments are all scheduled, with the exception of a manicure appointment…truthfully, I may just paint my own nails!

Things are coming together really nicely – I hope that I’m not forgetting anything!?

[Photo: www.free-flow-coaching.com]