Hey friends! This is the second part (of how many? I have no idea right now, sorry) of my posts about J & I's wedding on October 8, 2016. The last you heard/saw, my family and friends had gone to the Art of Life Salon to get our hair and makeup done. We got done way earlier than expected, then headed back to the hotel to relax (ha).
Once we got back, our photographer, Liz, and I headed downstairs to the lobby of the hotel to get some pictures of my dress. Afterwards, we went back upstairs to eat lunch and get ready. As I said in the last post, I couldn't bring myself to eat more than a bite of my sandwich. I was terribly anxious about fitting into my dress, but mostly it was my adrenaline and nerves. I was so worried something wasn't going to go as planned!
My mom, J's mom, and my maid of honor, Hannah, all helped me into my dress and shoes while Maya, my wedding planner/personal angel brought in the bouquets and flower crowns. If you know me well, you know that I like flowers just fine, but I don't have a ton of opinions about flowers. I really like peonies and I knew I wanted me and my bridesmaids to wear flower crowns, but that's about where my opinions end. Maya had asked me early on what I was looking for, and when I came up with, well, nothing, she asked me to go on Pinterest and make some albums with bouquets that I liked. She is clearly a witch or sorceress of some kind, because she took these half-formed opinions and made us the prettiest bouquets and flower crowns in the world!
I didn't wear a veil. I never even tried one on, actually. When I was younger, I loved the idea of one of those bird-cage veils, but when we started dress shopping, I was totally against the idea. When I tried dresses on, I just didn't want to try a veil on with any of them. Even when we bought my dress, it just wasn't something I wanted. The dress came with this necklace piece, and I decided that I wanted to wear the necklace for the ceremony, then take it off and just wear the flower crown for the reception. It still was the plan, until 5PM or so when the boning in my dress was like, "Yo, girl, I've been working really hard and I just can't anymore." So I kept the necklace on to hide my exhausted dress, haha. Unfortunately, you can see the boning kind of collapsing in some of the photos later on in the night, but it's something that makes me laugh now, even though I was really bothered by it at the time. Part of me wishes that I had chosen a dress with straps, but this was seriously my dress dress and I felt so beautiful in it for sooo much of the day, so I regret anything. 💖
After getting my dress, necklace, and flower crown on, my girls and I headed out to West End Salvage to take some pictures with Liz. I was basically in charge of choosing areas around Des Moines to take pictures since Liz was from out of town, and it was a job that really stressed me out - I second-guessed myself so much up until we started taking pictures. Literally, the moment we walked into West End Salvage, I knew I made the right choice. That coffee shop/antique store is basically the most J&M place there is in Des Moines. It's one of my favorite spots, and I'm so glad we ended up taking pictures there - including our "first look" pictures!
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| Not by Liz Morrow |
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| Not by Liz Morrow |
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| Not by Liz Morrow |
Loved all the pictures! Everything looked perfect!
ReplyDeleteHey Julia! Thank you SO much - it was basically a perfect day! :)
Deletexo M