April and Nate's Wedding

Ah, traveling at Christmas is so fun. I got to Des Moines airport an hour early for my flight just to see that it had been delayed...4 hours. So I scammed the nice guy at the counter for free meal vouchers once I got to Minneapolis. The worst part is that the delay was because the crew had too much air time and needed to have a break between flights....sigh.

Oh well, I was supposed to get in around 8pm san diego time, got in around 2am the next day, which is 4am my time....I was beat! Got to April's and crashed till the next morning.

Then Shawn and I went to buy ingredients for crepes, because that is April's favorite breakfast. I got her a crepe pan for one of her gifts, so thought I would make her breakfast the next morning, pre wedding :)

We used the GPS to try and find a grocery store that had fresh strawberries and couldn't find them anywhere! How is that possible? I can ALWAYS find fresh strawberries in Iowa! Oh well, we settled for frozen and that was fine. Then we went back to April's and the boys went one direction the girls another. We went to April's aunt's million dollar mansion with an amazing view. The house was perfect for a wedding. Vendors were dropping off flowers and tables and heaters (was chilly!) We were scurring about decorating arches and planting flowers for centerpieces. April ran through her list of what needed done the next day (day of the wedding) so that I had some assemblance of what she wanted. Her wedding coordinator was a bit of an airhead, so I ended up yelling at and coordinating a lot of the people the day of. Craziness!

After we spent most of the morning prepping, we had a small rehearsal so the 3 flower girls, junior bridesmaid, and all of us knew what to do. The little girls were surprisingly cooperative, and tried to be very helpful! I know that April's mom was supposed to be by this time to start arranging the flowers but she had delay after delay because of the crazy storms in the northwest. So, luckily April found someone who would come and do all the arrangements that evening.

We went to a really fun pizza place for a kind of rehearsal dinner afterward and got to hang out with Nate's family. We had a good time, and by then I was STARVING, since I hadn't eaten breakfast! We goofed around, ate groom's cake and I got to watch everyone drink good pub beer :(

Then they handed out gifts to all those who were in the wedding. The little girls got fun things to play with and we got jewelry that April's mom had made for us for the next day. It was really pretty!

Then it was back to April's aunt's house where we spent a long evening making preparations for the next day.

--my main task was to paint this aisle runner for them, turned out great, thanks to me doing the right handed stuff, and April doing the left :)--

By about 11pm I was beat...that is 1am my time, and I go to bed at 10 most nights! I could tell that I was about to pass out. We headed back to April's and crashed.

Then the next morning was wedding day! I got up and made crepes for Julie and April, which I think turned out well :) Then it was off to get our hair done. At this point April was worried because she hadn't heard from her makeup lady...so we were frantically calling places like Merle Norman and Clinique to see if SOMEONE could do her makeup! Turns out Merle Norman would do it if we all bought something small. So we headed there afterwards. I think they did a great job on everyone's makeup!

--April getting her makeup done--

Makeup took a lot longer than we had hoped. So April's mom and Julie headed up to the house to finish final preparations and April and I raced up after. We only had about 30 minutes to make sure everything was in order. I ran around trying to make sure setup was what she wanted, and attempted to throw on my dress and keep april from stressing out. We were arranging last minute video tapers, trying to get vendors to know what to do, and trying not to slug the wedding coordinator.

--Julie getting April's dress ready--

--all the ladies doing makeup and hair--

--flower girls--

--practicing throwing petals in the hall--

--me taking a picture of april getting ready, junior bridesmaid on the left--

--back of april's dress, she looked beautiful!--

--april and julie--

--april and me, remember.....7 months pregnant here....be nice!--

I thought it was really funny that the only direction we were given from April was to get black dresses with pink ribbon. We lucked out that our dresses looked VERY similar and we had the exact same color pink! April is not that much taller than me, I just waited to put on my shoes until the last possible second. My feet, face and hands were still swollen from the plane!

--the venue was beautiful, here is the pool that looks as if it is fading into the horizon--

--bustling her dress prior to announcing the new couple, glad she knew how to do that!--

--as the sun set, it got a little chilly, but the decorations were really pretty!--

--another example of the crazy coordinator, she is wearing socks and burkenstocks..what is wrong with you!--

--the cake was so pretty, and yummy. I missed the cake cutting because we were decorating their car :) --

--first dance--

--garter throw--

--these are for chels, makeup (after a long night it was pretty much shot)

--hair--

I tried to stay late and clean up the aftermath so that her aunt and uncle could go to bed in their room! We did as much as we could, but I was absolutely exhausted. April and Nate looked so amazing, and the look on his face as she came down the aisle made everything worth it! I was so happy I got to be a part of it all, even if it was a crazy whirwind of activity! Congrats you two!