Well, Jenn and Chandler got hitched! The weekend couldn’t have been much more perfect overall, especially the wedding day itself. We drove down to Birmingham Friday morning, and Travis dropped me off with Mom, and then he and Brooklyn headed to Trussville to relax for the afternoon. Mom and I went to Jenn’s bridesmaids luncheon at Olexa’s in Mountain Brook. I hadn’t ever been there before, but it was such a cute little place! It was very obvious that it was a “girly” restaurant because there wasn’t a single guy there…haha. The food was excellent, especially the dessert. Yum! Olexa’s also made Jenn’s wedding cake, which was really good too!
Jenn made these cute little signs for all of us with a flower in a bottle. She didn’t leave any details undone the whole weekend!
Amanda, Katie, Jenn, and Chelsea
Loyce (Chandler’s mom), my mom, and Aunt Ann
Claire, me, and Kathleen
After we ate lunch and opened our gifts from Jenn, we took a few more pictures outside before heading a nail salon nearby for manicures and pedicures.
Jenn with all of her bridesmaids except Jessica, who had to work :(
Amanda and Kathleen were in charge of handing out programs at the wedding…
Claire wanted a picture with “Auntie Rachel”
Jenn with her soon-to-be MIL and SIL :)
Cousins!! (I’m the blonde in the family…seriously! Everyone else has DARK brown hair…)
After I finished getting my pedicure, Mom picked me up, and we ran a couple of errands before heading back to Trussville. We didn’t have more than an hour though before we had to change clothes and get ready to head to the rehearsal at Woodrow Hall (where the ceremony took place on Saturday). I don’t have any pictures from the rehearsal, but it went pretty well overall. We got there early to let Brooklyn “practice” going up and down the aisle. She did pretty good at first, but she refused to carry her basket at all, and she mostly wanted to climb up and down the stage. After a few times, she stopped wanting to walk down the aisle at all. I think she was bored and ready for a new activity! At the end of the rehearsal, I didn’t feel very good about how Saturday night would go. I figured she would either run away, cry and pitch a fit, or do some combination of the two. Oh, ME of little faith! (More on that in a minute…).
After the rehearsal, we all headed to the Veranda on Highland for the rehearsal dinner. By this point, Brooklyn was getting a little tired of all the activity I think. She wanted to get down and run around, but it was too crowded to do that. She fussed quite a bit when we first got there, but it got somewhat better after we got our food. The food was really good, although I was too nervous to eat much of it because I knew I would be giving a toast/speech shortly after dinner. *My hands are getting clammy again just typing that sentence…haha. I HATE public speaking; in fact, it is one of my biggest fears. I had my toast all typed out on the computer, and I had practiced it several times that morning on the drive to Birmingham. I was so worked up that I started crying when Travis “criticized” my delivery after I practiced it once. He was trying to teach me the difference between reading the speech and talking through the speech. Apparently, I sounded too much like I was just reading it when I was practicing. I told him I had no idea how to “say” it any differently, but after a few times of practicing, he told me I was doing better. Maybe he just didn’t want me to cry again…haha! Anyway, I waited until the end of all the toasts to give mine, and I think it went pretty well. It went a lot better than I imagined it going at least! My favorite part of the toast was towards the end…
“Finally, I’d like to share a quote that I heard on the radio the other day that I really liked. It goes: “Live simply. Love generously. Speak truthfully. Pray daily. Leave everything else to God.” I think these words of wisdom would be helpful to all of us, but especially to two people who are about to make a serious commitment to each other for the rest of their lives. Live simply. Love generously. Speak truthfully. Pray daily. Leave everything else to God. Jenn and Chandler, if you live by these principles and work as hard on your marriage as you both do in other areas of your lives, I know you’ll have a lot of wonderful years ahead of you…”
So, after I gave my toast, I could FINALLY relax. Whew! Jenn had made a really neat slideshow with pictures of her and Chandler growing up, and we watched that after everyone gave their toasts and we’d eaten dessert. It was a great ending to the evening!
Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of pictures from Saturday, the actual wedding day. It was kind of a whirlwind between getting ready, taking professional pictures, the ceremony, and then chasing Brooklyn around at the reception. I’m really looking forward to seeing the professional pictures when Allison finishes with them…I know they’ll be great!
I had to be at Regions Field (where the Birmingham Barons play/where the reception was held) at 9:30 AM to start getting ready. It was fun to get my hair and makeup done for the first time in several years! Actually, I don’t think I’d had my makeup done since my own wedding (6.5 years ago!). We had several hours to get ready, so no one was rushed, and that was really nice. After lunch, it was time to get into our dresses and start taking pictures!!
This was right before Jenn got into her dress!
This is a side picture of Jenn’s dress. She wore Mom’s veil because it went with her dress perfectly!
I “borrowed” this picture off Facebook…it is one of the sneak peeks from Allison Lewis Photography. So beautiful! Jenn’s bouquet was gorgeous!!
After taking pictures and watching the clock, it was finally time to head to Woodrow Hall around 4:30 PM. Travis kept Brooklyn at home all afternoon so she could relax, take some good naps, and *hopefully* be in a good mood when 5:30 PM rolled around. So, they met us at Woodrow Hall around 4:30 PM. Thankfully, she was in a pretty good mood when they arrived. I forgot to mention that Brooklyn woke up at 5:15 AM that morning and WOULD NOT go back to sleep. I just knew that would spell DISASTER by 12 hours later, but it actually worked out in our favor because she was able to take 2 good naps before they had to be at Woodrow. So, we got the cutest little flower girl dressed and ready to go. It was a little bit challenging to keep her occupied in the small room we were waiting in while the guests arrived, but we managed it okay. She would not wear the wreath that the florist had made for her head, but that wasn’t surprising. I was hoping she would at least wear a hair bow, but after she pulled it out 4 or 5 times, I gave up on that too. It wasn’t worth the battle!
When it was finally time for the ceremony to begin, all of us lined up outside of the room and waited on our turn to walk in. I held Brooklyn the entire time and tried to keep her quiet. Travis and Rae Rae were sitting down on the front row, and Dad was with Jenn in a back room. Brooklyn kept “woofing” and making other noises, but luckily they weren’t too loud (I hope!). Brooklyn and I were supposed to walk down the aisle right before Jenn, so when it was our turn, I carried B to the start of the aisle, set her down on her feet, and hoped for the best. I didn’t know whether she would turn and run away when she saw all the people staring, cling to my leg and cry, or what. I tried to hand her the flower girl basket, but she pushed it away and took off down the aisle. She wasn’t running, but she definitely wasn’t hesitating whatsoever! I WAS SHOCKED! I followed close behind her, and she went all the way down the aisle to the end! I couldn’t see her face, but those who could told me she was smiling. I can’t wait to see the pictures!! When Brooklyn got to the end of the aisle, I could tell she was confused about what to do next. I tried to guide her over toward my mom and Travis, and she went over there without a fuss. I was worried that she would want to follow me up on the stage and cry if she couldn’t go with me, but she didn’t!
During the ceremony itself, other than a quiet “woof woof”, Brooklyn was very well behaved the whole time! She was a little fidgety, but nothing too bad. Not only was I shocked that she walked down the aisle, I was even more surprised that she was quiet during the ceremony. I was expecting her to make a scene at some point and have to be taken outside. I’m so glad I was wrong! Way to go, B!! You exceeded by expectations by far!!! I almost forgot to mention that Jenn and Chandler chose not to see each other before the ceremony, so their first sight of each other was when Jenn walked down the aisle. It was so sweet! I couldn’t stop looking at both of their reactions at seeing each other :) They also wrote their own vows, which I thought turned out awesome. The whole ceremony was very well thought out and so sweet.
After the ceremony, we grabbed our stuff and headed back to Regions for the reception. Before we actually went inside with the guests, we took pictures with family and the entire wedding party outside near the baseball field. Brooklyn enjoyed running around and digging in the gravel and did NOT want to be bothered with any pictures…haha. Hopefully, Allison got a few good ones at least!
Daddy and Brooklyn arriving for pictures at Regions Field
Sweet girl would not be still or look at me for a picture!
“Let me down so I can play and run, Dad!”
After the rest of us were finished with pictures, Allison took some of Jenn and Chandler by themselves. They got to go out on the field for some pictures! So neat!
Another picture from Allison Lewis Photography
The reception itself was so much fun! There was a ton of space inside for people to mingle, and guests could also go outside and sit in the stadium seats. Jenn’s slideshow was playing on the TVs inside as well as the Jumbotron outside. I’m sure that will be the only time my face is ever on a big screen like that…haha!
Brooklyn LOVED the reception. Good food, music to “dance” to, Steel City Pops, wedding cake, lots of space to run around…what more could a toddler want? She was happy for pretty much the entire night. I have no idea how much walking Travis and I did while we chased her around, but it had to be at least a couple of miles. We got our exercise that night!
Mom had the idea to serve Toomer’s Lemonade at the reception, which turned out to be a big hit! Even though it’s from Auburn, I have to admit it’s REALLY good lemonade :) (Photo by Allison Lewis Photography)
I spent so much time chasing B that my hair totally fell by the end of the night :)
Toward the end of the night, we changed Brooklyn into her PJs, but she was still determined not to fall asleep. There was too much to see and do!
Jenn and Chandler didn’t leave the reception until 10:30 PM, so it was a super late night for us. Brooklyn somehow stayed up until we loaded her into the car around 11 PM, but she was fast asleep before we’d gone too far down the road. Travis stayed and helped Mom and Dad load up their cars, and then we all unloaded the cars when they got home. I think it was at least 1 AM before we got into bed. We were all so tired (remember, we’d been up since 5:15 AM!) and delirious by the time we were unloading the stuff at home that Mom took a look inside a box of food and thought that some mini hamburger-patties were just “chocolate cookies”….HAHA! By the way, there were no cookies at the reception. We got a big laugh out of that :)
Overall, it was pretty much a perfect day! I can’t think of really anything that went wrong, and if it did, it wasn’t anything obvious. The whole day was just about celebrating Jenn and Chandler, and I think everyone did a great job of that!
Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Bares!!!
