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May 28, 2014

{Love} Week: The Rehearsal and The Little Details

Joshua and I celebrated our one year anniversary three days ago!
Can't believe I have been with this wonderful man for 368 days now. Can you say overjoyed?!
 
Starting last week, I decided it was {Love} Week, since our anniversary was coming up.
Well, I know it has been over a week... sorry I skipped a few days. I couldn't very well be on my computer during our anniversary trip!!
But seriously guys, this {Love} Week basically started to just have you guys get to know Joshua and me a little bit more.
For other {Love} Week posts about us, check them out on our He + She page.

Since I started this week, I couldn't wait for these posts that I'm writing today and the next few. I have loved writing about our early life, but our wedding is just something that I hold near and dear to my heart.

{Love} Week: J&E's Rehearsal Dinner and The Little Details

{The Rehearsal}

The day before the wedding is the time to really get every last detail set up for the big day. We were lucky though that Tom let us start decorating before that. And trust me, we did. My mother was out there weeks before getting the area pretty, making sure everything was cleared out, and working out our vision for the big day.  By the time May 24th came, we were just waiting to actually set up the tables and chairs to finish off the decorating!

^^  Setting up the ceremony site and not being a bridezilla at all....

Later that afternoon, it was finally time for our rehearsal and dinner. Our rehearsal really kick-started our wedding weekend. All of our close family and friends came Friday afternoon to the wedding site. It was so nice for them to finally see the place we have been talking about for so long. They finally got our vision!
I really wanted a low key rehearsal that wasn't too much pressure since weddings can be stressful anyways. So the plan was that everyone would meet at the wedding site, go through the ceremony details, then we would head over to Indiana and stuff our faces with the greatest pizza in the area - Sandy's Pizza in Fort Branch. Sounds something that a bride should not do before her wedding, right? It was delicious!
^^ Practicing saying "I do". I don't think there is a more excited feeling than practicing your ceremony to become husband and wife.

^^ Soon- to-be Mr. and Mrs! // My sister/matron of honor! ^^
Both these pics were from Sandy's!
 
So after all the craziness of practicing a wedding ceremony, and laughing and having the greatest time with our close friends and family, my then-future husband and I said goodnight. He stayed over at my dad's house with all my brothers and his groomsmen and I stayed the night at my mother's house with all of my girls. What a cherished moment I had with those ladies looking back on it now. What a great way to spend my last night as a Williams!
 
{The Little Details}
 
So you guys, the next morning, Saturday, May 25, 2013, was the day! The day Joshua and I had been planning for a year now! We would finally be husband and wife... Woo Hoo! I get butterflies thinking about it still!
 
One of the best things about our wedding was that no detail was overlooked. I mean, I cannot express the gratitude to the ladies that helped my mom and me decorate the wedding site. My mother's sister-in-law, Linda, especially helped with the real flowers! Joshua's grandma, Pat, did all of the wedding flowers and paintings which really helped tie everything together. Everything came together perfectly and the site just looked extremely beautiful.
 
>>Joshua's grandma made all of our flowers, including the men's boutonnieres and the corsages for the mothers/grandmothers. She helped us through the entire process. She went to the store with us, helped us pick out a few examples to see how they looked together, and without any help, came up with the best bouquets I've ever seen. We were so lucky she was willing to do all this for us!
 
 
>>And like I said before, Pat also made all of these signs/paintings for us. How lucky were we to get a grandma who loves doing this! We had these around the wedding site, and got so many compliments about them. They really were the greatest touch to our wedding! Thanks Pat!

 
 
 
 
 
>> The best thing about having a mom is how tuned in she is to her daughter. When we first started planning the wedding, all I knew was where it was going to happen, the colors, and the overall feel. Throughout the planning, my mother came up with the theme "Love Birds". Is that not the cutest??  So all around our wedding site, you could see our theme play out.
 
^^ At our cake table, love birds were everywhere! ^^

 
^^ For our centerpieces, we had birds' nest for decorations.

 
^^ One project Joshua and I did was cleaning off these gourds. After that my mother and I painted them and she made them into bird houses. We had these hanging all around the wedding site. // Our card holder on our gift table was a yellow bird's cage. How precious, right? ^^
 
^^ Even our wedding programs had love birds. Also, these were so great because we made them into fans to stay cool during the ceremony. Borderline genius if you ask me!
 
>> Again and again, I'll say how my wedding was my all-time favorite. And I realize every girl says that - to each their own, right! But just walking around the site, when everything came together, it was magical. One of my favorite things about the wedding were the flags my mother made herself, tied together between trees. It gave the whole area a magical feeling.
 
^^ This first picture shows flags with our date on them. The second picture is our gorgeous gift and guest book table. But if you notice in the background of these pictures, how awesome do those flags look?? This was seriously my favorite thing about our wedding, guys! ^^

>> One of my most treasured moments throughout the entire wedding day was getting ready to walk down the aisle before I started crying and seeing all of our guests sitting down in one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever witnessed. I loved our ceremony site decorations.

^^ Our aisle décor consisted of a mixed arrangement of flowers in a mason jar, filled with split peas. Seriously, my grandmother-in-law is a genius with wedding décor! The  split peas gave us an awesome pop of green! The aisle was also lined with grey and yellow flower petals. I chose to not walk on a runner since I was outside and the ground wasn't level. But the pop of grey and yellow worked so well, I didn't even miss having a runner!
 
 ^^ My mother and Kenny had built this cross when my sister got married. It was only appropriate if I had the same one. Linda made the wreath that went on the cross! // The beautiful arch! Joshua and his grandpa and some friends actually made this! We set it up, and right before the rehearsal dinner, Pat came and decorated it. Such a lovely thing to say "I do" under! ^^

Looking back, I don't think I would change on thing about my wedding. Everything was exactly the right feel, the right colors, the right everything. I got lucky that I had such amazing help with it all. It would not have turned out this way without all of the hard work our family and friends put into it! Let's go back and do it again - whatcha say, hubs??


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