Wedding Recap: The Unofficial Pictures!

Minus a few minor blips on the day of our wedding (S had shirt issues, generally running a bit late, cookie table took longer to set up than expected), it was overall a fantastic day.  The weather was phenomenal, the ceremony was perfect, everyone claimed that the reception was fun, the food was good, and the cookie table was awesome, and S and I also managed to generally enjoy ourselves and take the time to take it all in.

In the morning, the ladies went to get manis/pedis and the loaded up the cars with the centerpieces and cookies.  The guys dropped the alcohol off at the venue and then spent the morning at Top Golf for some food and entertainment.  I can't really speak for the guys after that, they all did their own thing to get ready.  The ladies headed over to the venue to get ready in our own little cottage, eat some lunch, and set up the cookie table.

Then S and I headed outside for our "first look".  Everyone was peering out the window of the cottage to watch and it was quite sweet.

Then everyone came out and we proceeded with family and bridal party photos.

 

Guests started to arrive, so we all filtered back to our respective starting locations and got ready for the ceremony.  This was perhaps the most nerve wracking part of the day because it was just sitting and waiting.  And some more picture taking.

 

And then it was finally time to get married!  As I said above, the ceremony was lovely and so meaningful.  We really loved that our brothers were the ones who married us and that our bridal party, parents, and grandparents were able to participate.  Even though we'd requested no photos during the ceremony, a few people snuck a shot or two.

After the ceremony, S and I went back to the cottage with the bridal party and our officiants to sign the marriage license and then everyone left so we could have our first dinner and a few minutes of alone time as husband and wife.  I'm glad we got a chance to chat and eat a bit before the reception and have a moment of quiet together.  The reception started with our first dance and the hora (no pictures of this...) and then everyone was seated at their tables and we all gave our speeches. 

After the speeches, the guests all got their food and we proceeded to mingle and then get all of the respective sides of the families together for group pictures (like herding cats....) Then we had the father/daughter dance, the mother/son dance, and the (slightly less successful) two step lesson.

And then it was time to party!  There was dancing, drinking, talking, the cookie table, and of course our traditional tequila shots with grandma!

More pictures to come when the official photos from the photographer arrive!

(Thank you so much to our friends and family that took these pictures, especially my cousin C, who was my official getting ready photographer!)

Wedding Recap: The Brewery!

So 2.5 weeks ago S and I got married!  If you'll recall, he proposed about 6 months ago, so we were quite busy leading up to the big day as we didn't give ourselves a ton of time.  Add in the bachelor/bachelorette parties, bridal showers, and holidays, and we definitely kept busy during that time.  So we didn't have a ton of time to socialize.  And since there were going to be a lot of people coming into town to party with us, and we knew we wouldn't have time to properly spend time with each of them on the day of the wedding either, we decided to turn our wedding day in to a wedding weekend.  The night before the big event, we invited all of our friends and family that were coming to the wedding to join us at one of our favorite breweries in town, Buffalo Bayou Brewing Company.  We ordered a few dozen pizzas, stocked up on sodas and water for the kids and non-alcohol drinkers, packed our cars full of board games, cards, and yard games, and spent an evening at the brewery drinking some uniquely flavored brews and schmoozing! 

We had nearly as many people show up to the brewery as we were going to have at our wedding the following day!  It was really great to get a chance to catch up with everyone without the added pressure of following a specific schedule and trying to cram pictures and dancing in too.  Made us feel like we didn't neglect every one quite as much as we would have otherwise.  And everyone had a good time!  The pizzas were demolished, there were some really fun beer flavors that everyone enjoyed tasting, and it was so great to get to introduce all of our friends and family members to each other (my mom was thrilled to be able to start putting faces with names!)

Only regret I have from the night is that we brought Pandora with us, thinking that since she loves parties at our place so much that she'd have a blast having a fun social evening with us.  We were wrong there - not sure if it was because there were just so many more people or if it's because it was an unfamiliar place, but she was pretty stressed out.  Luckily we have a lot of great friends and family members who helped us keep an eye on her throughout the evening. 

At the end of the evening when the bartenders announced last call, all of our guy friends turned back into college frat boys and rushed the bar to get as many cups of beer as the could stockpile on one of the tables.  This resulted in S getting much more inebriated than I think he'd planned.  It was fun trying to convince him that, yes, he most certainly did need to drink a lot of water and then fall asleep in an actual bed that evening.  But luckily he pulled it together and was fully functional again by the next day! 

Thank you so much to everyone who took these pictures at the brewery (my cousins, aunt, and sister-in-law all come to mind) so that we could remember this fun evening!  Up next, the unofficial wedding photos and wedding day recap!