Happy Monday y’all! I want to start off this post by wishing my sweet husband a happy anniversary and I want to thank him for two wonderful years of wedded bliss 🙂 I feel so blessed to have Cameron as a partner to go through life with, and I can’t believe it’s already been two years since our wedding day. I know that no matter where our future travels takes us, as long as we’re together, I’m home 🙂 Love you Cameron!! xoxo
In honor of our anniversary, I’m doing a special post; I saw this great idea over at This Kind of Love, and thought it would be the perfect way to reminisce. Now I have to be completely honest, our wedding seems like a somewhat of a blur to me now. I know that sounds a little sad, but I think that any bride that tells you that they remember every single moment perfectly is just crazy. Everyone who’s already gotten married always tells you that beforehand too, about how the day goes by so fast and to just savor it, but still, the day flies and it’s emotional and the next thing you know it’s over. Don’t get me wrong, our wedding was wonderful, but the most important thing about the day is that Cameron and I ended up as husband and wife and that’s all that matters 🙂
We had a fairly small bridal party, that consisted of just our families. I have some really dear friends from high school that I’m still close with, and I’ve got some really great friends from college as well, so I decided rather than have a giant bridal party or hurt anyone’s feelings, I just wanted to keep it small and have only 3 bridesmaids. My sister Melissa, was my maid of honor, and then my cousins, Olivia and Kayla, who I’m really close with were my other two bridesmaids. It’s funny because I’m the oldest out of all my cousins and I got married fairly young, so all 3 of my bridesmaids were actually under 21 at the wedding!
Catering/Cake
Dress
My dress was a strapless silk ball gown style by Pronovias that I got at B.Ella Bridal in Ann Arbor. I love the dress was simple, classic, and elegant but still had some drama with the large bubble hem; I loved it from the moment I tried it on!
Cam and I got engaged on Sept. 15th, 2008 in Ann Arbor during our senior year of college, so our engagement was 8 1/2 months long. We were both 21 when we got engaged, and then we were both 22 when we got married, so pretty young by today’s standards! 🙂 We were fortunate to have some beautiful engagement pictures taken at my parent’s house by a family friend who’s also an excellent weding photographer! (I’d highly recommend him!)
Flowers
Our flowers were done by Lily’s Garden in Kerrytown in Ann Arbor, and they did a fabulous job. Our wedding colors were pink and navy, so we used a lot of pink and white in the flowers, and then incorporated the navy in other accents. Peonies are my favorite flowers, so my bouquet included those as well as roses, calla lilies, and pearled stephanotis. For the arrangements at the church and on the tables, we also included pink lilies and white hydrangeas.
Groomsmen
Honeymoon
For our honeymoon, we spent a week in Negril, Jamaica at the Samsara Cliff Resort. We left to go to airport right after our wedding, and we actually spent our wedding night at the Westin inside Detroit Metro Airport (which is actually a really posh hotel, I was shocked by how nice it was!) because our flight left at 6 am the next morning! It was really nice just to have a week to relax on the beach 🙂
Invitations
Our wedding was a First Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor, and our pastor was Rev. Budge Gere. We actually started the process with a different pastor, however, midway through our engagement he ended up moving out of that so Pastor Gere was kind enough to step in!
Keepsakes
All around the reception site, Cam and I had framed photos from different points in our relationship, as well as a sweet book with all sorts of pictures that my aunt gave to us at our shower. We also had guest sign a guest book as well. We had engagement pictures on the table numbers, and then Cam and I each gave a little keepsake momento to our bridesmaids/groomsmen. He got his brothers a nice wrench and had it engraved with our wedding date and an inscription, and then I got my bridesmaids all lockets with their monogram on the front, and our wedding date and a nice message on the back.
Music
For the reception, we had a 12 piece big band and I think that was probably one of the best decisions we made when planning the wedding. I really wanted our wedding to be elegant, and I think having a band really helped keep it classy. When we entered the room for the first time, the band played the Michigan Fight Song (so awesome) and then everyone from our friends to my parents friends and our older relatives seemed to enjoy the band’s swingy music, and people were out on the dance floor all night!
Newlyweds
Old, New, Borrowed, Blue
This may have been bad luck, but for the life of me, I cannot remember anything I had that was old or borrowed! Whoops. However, my dress, shoes, and jewelry were all new, and then my “blue” was one of my favorite details of the wedding. Under my dress, I had a Michigan garter, so my “blue” was really “Go Blue!” 🙂
Photography
This is one point of the wedding that I was not super happy with, I ended up really not liking the way our wedding photos came out. Part of it is my own fault; I was concerned about choosing a photographer who was too artsy, so I opted for a studio that was more traditional because I wanted to make sure I got good pictures of our families. However, in the end, I wish I would have went with someone who was more passionate about photography and was a little more creative, because I just did not love how my photos came out. I mean, they’re fine, but after seeing so many other photographers amazing work, I really wish I would have chosen someone different. Don’t get me wrong, we got some nice shots, but I’m a perfectionist about things, and if I had it to do over again, I would have chose a different photographer…oh well, nothing I can do about that now! 🙂
Question popping
Cameron proposed Sept. 15, 2008 during our senior year of college. That weekend, a bunch of my friends had gone down to Notre Dame for the Michigan game, so Cam and I were just having a low-key weekend hanging out. We ended up going out to dinner at the Gandy Dancer, and after dinner we were just relaxing at Cameron’s house when he suggested we go for a walk. It was like 11:30 at night and it had been raining earlier, so I thought that was a little strange, but I agreed. We walked around campus just talking when all of the sudden Cameron stopped under the Engineering Arch right on the edge of the Diag on Michigan’s campus. Michigan has tons of different traditions and legends, and one that they tell everyone on the tour at orientation is that whoever you kiss under the Engineering Arch at midnight is who you’re going to marry. Cam timed it so we were under the Arch right at midnight, and right then he got down on one knee under the Arch and proposed. I thought that was such a sweet idea, and was just perfect since Michigan is such a big part of our love story, since it’s where we met and began our relationhip. Cam and I both really love all the tradition at Michigan, so to have him propose in a way that really makes us a part of that tradition was really special, and I thought that it was just perfect. Plus, we were able to get some great pictures under the arch on our wedding day since it was right near the church where we got married!
Reception
We had our reception at the Ann Arbor City Club, which was right down the street from our church where we had the ceremony. It was important to Cam and I to have our wedding in Ann Arbor, and the City Club ended up working out perfectly. We had a lot of friends from college, as well as family and family friends as well, and it was a beautiful evening. It started with a cocktail hour outside at the City Club (which took place while we were taking our wedding pictures), and then everyone moved inside for a sit-down, plated dinner. As I mentioned our wedding colors were pink and navy, and I was happy with how everything came together in the end. We had white table clothes and chair covers, and then navy satin sashes on the chairs, with tons of pink flowers. I’m mad, I can’t find any pictures of our favors we had on the tables, but we had these adorable pale pink boxes that were wrapped with navy ribbon and sealed with a monogrammed label that I designed on Zazzle.com, that were filled my favorite candy, M&Ms! (pink and navy of course!) I think probably one of the most memorable moments of the reception was my when my sister, the maid of honor, went up to make her toast. She got about half way through her first sentence and just burst into tears. (She’s notorious for crying so I knew that this toast would be a struggle) She made a few attempts to try to do it, but she just kept crying, so Cam’s brother Brandon, the best man, took the mike and said a few words to lighten the mood. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the band, and they did a great job all night. Cam and I shared our first dance to “Only Fools Rush In,” which we thought was a perfect song for us. Then my dad and I danced to “What a Wonderful World” which is one of my favorites.
Shoes
I wore some pretty satin sandals with a diamond brooch in the center…I don’t remember who made them though!
Nope, we got in cleaned and preserved and it’s sitting in a box in my closet at my parents’ house. 🙂
Unique
One thing that I think was a little unique about our wedding was that we didn’t see each other before the ceremony. It seems like a lot of people now see each other and get their pictures out of the way before the cermony, however, being the traditionalist that I am, I was adamant that we not see each other before the ceremony. I really wanted the first time Cam saw me in my dress to be when I was walking down the aisle, and although it was a little rushed to fit in all our pictures after the ceremony before the reception, I’m glad that we waited.
I know this may come as a shock, but we recited traditional vows.
Wedding Woes
Overall, our wedding day ran pretty smoothly and there were no major issue or hiccups. The only thing I remember that was a little stressful is that I was still working out logistics with our limo driver while I was getting my hair done that morning, but I got that worked out and everything turned out great! The only other thing I might have changed is I would have taken my veil off for more of the reception, because it was a littel overpowering. I left it on when we came in and ended up talking to people all night and forgetting to take it off and put the flower in my hair until the end of the night! (Oh, well except for the photos in my opinion, but I didn’t find out about that until after the wedding…)
X-rated
I don’t really have much that I’m going to divulge for this category, but I suppose that the most racy tidbit that I can share is that I didn’t wear a bra for our wedding. My dress had some built in structure, and it’s not like I need a ton of support up top if you know what I’m saying! I just had this fear that if I wore a strapless bra that it would ride up and end up showing in pictures, so I figured the best solution was just not to wear one!
Young kids
We didn’t have a flower girl or ring bearer for our ceremony, because my little cousin Evan was a little too old and Cam’s niece Alexa was just a little too young. However, Alexa looked so sweet, and ended up falling asleep at the reception, while my cousin Evan stole the show during the bouquet toss/garter throw. When Cam threw the garter, Evan lept up and caught it, and it was just such a hilarious moment. Luckily, my friend Kristen who caught the boquet was a good sport, and everyone was laughing hysterically at him putting the garter on her leg.
Zzzz