The One Where We Get Married

Our wedding was more than just a day...it was like a month long celebration that culminated with a ceremony and reception. It will be difficult to sum up all that went on in just one post, but I'll attempt to do it. The festivities began a week and a half before the wedding when all of my family in Scotland arrived. All together, there were ten people who came out from Scotland, eight of which stayed with my parents. Talk about a full house. Every night was like a party. We bbq'd, swam, enjoyed cocktails, and had the occaisional pool and pool volleyball tournament. It was a blast. I was fortunate to have a lot of this time off of work so I could really enjoy my family being here and I was able to relax and unwind in the week leading up to the wedding. On the morning of Friday, July 23rd, we all headed down to San Diego. I drove down with my girlfriends, and we stopped at Champagnes, one of my fav places for breakfast, on the way down. I figured that since I was getting married the next day, I could blow my wedding diet without much consequence ; )

We arrived at Paradise Point, checked into our ocean front suite, and headed to the Barfoot Bar and Grill for some lunch and drinks. It was so exciting to see people starting to arrive for the weekend. Since we had a sort of destination wedding, a lot of our guests made a weekend out of our wedding, and stayed Fri-Sun. After lunch, we all started to get ready for the rehearsal. The actual rehearsal was pretty fun. We got off to a late start since we had to pull the guys away from the bar for long enough to practice our ceremony. After the rehearsal, my new inlaws hosted an amazing rehearsal dinner at Baleen Restaurant at Paradise Point. The rehearsal in itself was like a wedding. There were about 50-60 people there, and the bar was hosted. The Halls really went all out to make sure that everyone was welcome and had fun. Us girls attempted to call it an early night since we had a big day ahead of us. We headed to our room around midnight.

The next morning was hectic and crazy, but amazing nonetheless. There were girls running in and out, hair being done, makeup being done, shoes being swapped, dresses being steamed, lunch being served, cocktails being mixed. Megan, my maid of honor, made a great "wedding" playlist that we had blasting in the background most of the day. The afternoon went flawlessly, and before I knew it it was time to walk down the aisle. Because I have a nasty habit of passing out without warning or notice, I was extremely paranoid that this would happen during our ceremony in front of all of our guests. In fact, at my bestie Brooke's wedding, it did happen to me during the ceremony where I was front and center. Mortifying. As a preventative measure, I downed an oj, apple juice, and a snickerdoodle to give me the sugar rush I needed to stay conscious. It worked, and the ceremony went off without a hitch. I was soo nervous until I started walking, and then I just instantly relaxed. The ceremony was short and sweet. Our wedding party looked amazing. Oh, did I mention that one of my bridesmaids (Brooke) was 9 months pregnant? Well, she was. Shortly after we got engaged, Brooke found out that she was expecting her first baby. We decided that if she wasn't in labor, and if she was feeling up to it, she would still make the trip out for the wedding. Even though she insisted that she would make it there, and she was so confident that she bought her dress and had it specially tailored to fit her pregnant belly, there was a part of me that thought that she wouldn't be there. I mean, would any of you want to be in a wedding, wearing a bridesmaid dress and high heels (which were apparently horrifically uncomfortable), standing out on your feet all day, in July, in California, at NINE months pregnant?!?! Didn't think so. Well, my friend is a real trooper, because she was there with us all day. I shouldn't be surprised because this is the same friend who stayed out until 2 am with us all at my bachelorette party when she was 8 months pregnant. Brooke told me that she gave Maddie an "in utero" peptalk. She told her that she had to wait until after July 24th to come, but to please come as soon as possible any time after that because she was DONE being pregnant. Well, little Maddie must have been listening, because at midnight on our wedding night, Brooke's water broke. They had to rush from their hotel room in SD to their hospital in Irvine. The nurses joked that no one comes into labor and delivery looking that good-she still had all her makeup on from the wedding. Madelynn Grace was born just after 7 pm the next day. What a wedding gift!

Our reception was amazing. I know that I am biased, but it was such a fun night. Our DJ Tasos rocked it, our florist and coordinator did an incredible job with the room, the food was awesome (it was my personal goal to have good wedding food), but the people are what made the party. John and I really do have the greatest friends and family. We invited over 200 people thinking that we would have about a 20% decline, but we had hardly any declines. All of our friends were there, and it made it even more of a party. My aunt Carol pulled out the big guns and surprised us all by playing the bagpipes. She had apparently been taking lessons since we got engaged (almost a year) and didn't tell ANYONE. The look on our faces when she marched out with her pipes was priceless. She brought a little piece of Scotland to our wedding and I love her for that! At midnight, the reception ended, but we weren't done celebrating, so all of us mosied over to the hotel bar to finish off the night. I can only imagine what it looked like to passerby's to see a girl in a wedding dress at a bar. At last call, we finally called it a night. While we were dancing the night away, our coordinator and her assisstants decorated our suite with flowers, candles, and most importantly, snacks. It was beautiful and I wish I would have take pics, but I didn't. The next morning, we all headed back to the Barfoot for brunch. We swapped funny stories about what had happened the night before, and just enjoyed being with all of our friends and fam. John and I along with my family decided to stay at Paradise Point for one more night. That day, we rented boats and took them out around Mission Bay. We went on the boat with the Petruzelli's, and had a blast. That night, my family and my new husband and I hit up Gaslamp. We went back to our fav. bar The Field (which is where we went to celebrate our engagement). We had another night of festivities before the weekend officially came to an end.

Even though the wedding festivities were technically over, my family was still in town for another week, so we managed to continue the party for another several days. We opted to go on our Honeymoon 2 weeks after our wedding so that we could enjoy the time with my family before they went back to Scotland. Best decision ever. Even if my family was not in town, I could not imagine packing everything up to leave right after our wedding. I needed that week to recoup!

I will be forever grateful to my parents for going above and beyond to make sure that we had our dream wedding. I know that we didn't exactly stay within budget, but they made it happen and it will be a day that I will always remember as nothing short of perfect!

Here's a link to a slideshow of just some of our wedding pics:

http://jimkennedyphotographers.com/movie/tjhall/