Wedding Bells Were Ringing

First of all, thank you all so much for your words of congratulations yesterday after I passed my thesis defense! Let me tell you, it feels like such a HUGE weight off my shoulders. After my defense, my committee took me out for lunch, then I went home and relaxed for the afternoon before going for a celebratory dinner at M&Ls and heading to bible study for the evening. What a great day!

Warning: Picture heavy post!

I may or may not have mentioned that this past weekend we were in the FD's hometown to celebrate his cousin's wedding. His cousin, Caley, is my frousin. That's because she's more my friend than his cousin.

We arrived Friday afternoon and got to work on setting up the tent and everything else for the big day.

Then we had a BBQ for the rehearsal dinner and practiced the good old wedding processional in the pouring rain. It was actually kind of nice because it meant that the rehearsal wrapped up very quickly and we were all back to Caley's place just after 8 to spend the evening pampering ourselves and getting rested up for Saturday.

On Saturday, the hair dresser and makeup artists came to C's house to get us all ready. That made for such a relaxing day! It really cut down on the busyness of going going going everywhere. We got to sit around and watch chick flicks while we were waiting for it to be our turn.

After I got my hair and makeup done I stopped for a little munchie and I tried to convince Caley that the outfit I was wearing would be just fine for the wedding.

We all got to choose our own style of dress for the wedding. Thank goodness, since I was just barely pregnant when we bought them. I ended up choosing the same one as one of the other bridesmaids but we looked a wee bit different in them. Can you guess which one is me? (Em - I stole this pic from you ... oops).

Around 3:30 the limo arrived to pick us up so we (well, the rest of them) drank some champagne and headed to the wedding. We were a few minutes early so we did a little drive by the ceremony site, and I stood up out of the sunroof and screamed the whole way past. Leave it to me to cause a scene.

The ceremony was beautiful and the sun came out and began to shine just as soon as Caley stepped foot out of the limo. Could not have been more perfect! I don't have any pictures of the ceremony because, well, I was somewhat preoccupied and the Dude left the camera in the truck, but I do have a few that we snapped in between ceremony and reception.

I got a picture with all of my nieces and nephew on E's side:

The reception was held in a tent at the same location so there was no crazy chaos trying to get from point A to point B. That's just how I like it.

The reception tent was decorated white red, white and burlap. They used cupcake bouquets to double as the centerpieces and as dessert. It was so fitting since Craig had used cupcakes to spell out "Will you marry me" when he proposed!

The food was delicious, the speeches were great, and the dance was so much fun! I "officially" welcomed Craig to the family with a gigantic kiss on the lips. He was so embarrassed but I think he needs to get used to it. This family likes to kiss!

We were about to call it a night when the limo arrived to pick up the lovebirds, until we realized that he locked his keys in the car and had to call for help! An hour or more later, they were finally in the car and ready to leave for their honeymoon!

The next day, we decided to hop over to my sister's to meet our brand new niece. She only lives about an hour from the FD's parents so we could not be up there without going to see her. Let me tell you, she is absolutely perrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect! And now that he's a big brother, Little H does not seem so little anymore! He is growing up!

And one last thing to share ... There is a house en route between my sister's house and my house that we affectionately refer to as "the teddy bear picnic house". Every time we drive there, I think I should stop and take a picture but I always feel way too rude to do it forget. This time, I did it! Click on the picture to make it bigger if you can't see, but, their entire yard is decorated with teddy bears. All different shapes and sizes. Just sitting around chillin' out. Crazy, right?