Pictures From My Friend's Wedding

First, this is me after showering from the gym. I snuck into the gym first thing that morning and got in an hour workout before I had to head home to start cleaning up. It takes more time that you'd think! Men have it so freaking easy! 'Look, I put on clean pants! I'm good to go!' :p

Hair and make-up and jewellery all done. And here's one of me in natural light. Of course since it's Florida I had to throw on the sunglasses. :)

You can see I didn't do a whole lot with the hair. It's hard to tell, but I gave it some volume with a blow dryer and curling iron. The problem with my hair is that it's very fine and very thick. So really no matter what I do it falls flat after any amount of time. Hairspray and gel fear me! Once, I got a perm (I was in middle school). I looked like Bozo the Clown for 24 hours and then it fell flat. :p

Oh! Here's a full body shot. It came out kind of blurry, actually, but you can see the whole outfit. I did take a short jacket in case it was cold at the club, but it wasn't so I didn't use it.

Here you can see my nailpolish. It matched the shoes and funnily enough I realized that it also matches my car! :)

Right then. Only a couple pictures from the actual wedding/reception.
This is the happy new Mr. and Mrs. after the ceremony walking back down the aisle. I like these blurry action shots for some reason. :) And even in the blur you can see the *huge* grin Holly (my friend) has!

Her father was supposed to give her away but he died a little over a month ago from throat cancer. It was quick, which is about all you can say for it. She was always a 'daddys girl' so his death hit her very hard. They lit a candle for him at the very beginning of the ceremony and there wasn't a dry eye in the house! Her daughters wound up walking Holly down the aisle and I swear she was so nervous and tense that it looked like they were holding her upright! Her shoulders were *literally* at her ears! She and Fred love each other but she's a quiet person and after all the stress they've had going on with her dad's illness and then death and her mother moved in with them until she can find a smaller place to live...anyway. Tense. Very, very tense.

Well, once she was up front with the minister (a woman) and Fred her ex-mother-in-law had been running around snapping pictures left and right. Holly is on *excellent* terms with her EMIL - the woman actually did all the alterations on Holly and the bridesmaids and the maid of honor's dresses and made their bouquets! Anyway. She knelt down in the main aisles right in front of Holly and Fred to take another picture and then her knees locked up and she couldn't stand back up! Her husband had to go get her up before she went over on her back like a turtle! It was great because we all started laughing and Holly did too and all the tension went out of her!

The ceremony itself was short but sweet, with both of Holly's daughters giving little speeches before Holly and Fred exchanged vows. :)


These are pictures from the 'cocktail hour' after the wedding and before the reception. The club where the wedding was held is a nice, fairly small one. It's two stories, obviously. The wedding was held upstairs and so was dinner and everything else. What they did was kick us all downstairs to mingle and drink and eat appetizers while they finished dinner, etc. and then everyone went back upstairs to party! In the second picture you see three women in light purple dresses? The one with the bouquet in hand moving toward the corner is Holly's best friend and she was one of the bridesmaids. Fred's sister Lynda (who is also my boss) was the maid of honor - she was the one who introduced Holly and Fred and she also played wedding planner for this wedding. A woman of many talents! I think she was still outside getting the official pictures taken at this point. If you look out the doors you can see the hem of her dress! The other two girls are one of Holly's daughters and Holly's niece who was also a bridesmaid. Holly's other daughter was busy wrangling Fred's son who is five and adorable! He had a little tux and a top hat! But he wouldn't hold still long enough to let me get a picture.

Here's a shot of Holly and Fred! Clearly Holly is the one in the wedding dress, and Fred is the gentleman in the tux to the left of the photo. The woman behind them in the picture in the blue dress? Is the EMIL who is an awesome person. :)

These are the wedding favors.

So, we're all wandering around waiting for dinner to start and the dj comes down the stairs, finds Lynda and I overhear something about the cake. Lynda charges up the stairs, and doesn't come down, and doesn't come down, and doesn't come down. So Holly, who was mingling, decides to go up and check on what's going on. Well, she doesn't come back down either! So I'm sitting and chatting and this big blue truck (the kind that looks like it must come with a Hemi and you could *definitely* take mudding) pulls up in front of the clubhouse and a man and a woman hop out. They rush upstairs with a little baggy of cake things.

Apparently the person who decorated the cake forgot to put in support structure! And since it was a five tier cake with some of the tiers separated by those little columns? The cake was collapsing! So they had to take it apart and have a couple of tiers off to the side like grooms cakes. It was still pretty, and I heard that the photographer actually got a picture when the cake first got there so they'll at least have a shot of the cake as it was meant to be. And the bakery gave them a full refund on the cake, so all was well. I had the worlds thinnest slice of cake (by my own request. The servers were more than generous with the slices, but since I really shouldn't have had *any*, a little slice was just fine.) and it was delicious!

Hmm...the wedding was at noon and we didn't leave the club until seven? Holly and Fred are taking a cruise to the Bahamas for their honeymoon and they left today.