Life goes on: April in Minnesota - Day 3

The day of the wedding! Let me tell you after staying up late the night before and probably having a few too many drinks it was not easy getting up at 7:30am. It didn't help either that my dad decided to get me back by coming and jumping on me at 7:00am to get me back for the night before. Yes, we are ruthless that way too each other. I had to be at the church by 9am to get my hair done and I was determined not too be the one showing up late. I was definitely slow moving, but made it to the church on time. What do I find - no one?! I see that all of the curling irons where plugged in and hot and ready to go and someone had brought some breakfast in for us, but no one around. I sat there for a little while and then walked around the church and still didn't see anybody. All I could think of was, I could have slept a little bit longer - what the hell - and where are the 6 other bridesmaids and the bride? I sent a text to the bride and she responded that she was on her way, she only lived a block away. Slow but sure the other girls all started to trickle in as well. We were supposed to have 2 people there to do all of hair. One being the personal attendant and a friend of our from high school and the other the bride's niece.
Is any wedding a good wedding without a little stress? Well, here is where ours started. The bride's niece hadn't shown up yet and we gave her a call. She asked what time we thought she needed to be there to do hair and we said that we were told to be there at 9am, it was now 9:45am (keep in mind she lives about 45 minutes away from where the church is). She said okay. The bride gets her hair done and starts on the flower girls hair. At this point it's around 11:00am or so and the rest of us are just kind of sitting around, waiting. The stress is starting to set in - where is she? They give her a call again and she has not left her house yet. At this point there are 7 of us that still need to get our hair done and pictures are at 1pm and we start to freak out a little bit. I felt so bad for Verna, she really didn't need the stress. We start plugging in additional irons and hot rollers where we could find outlets by mirrors and start curling hair. Some of us were also supposed to get our make-up done by her, but definitely no time for that. A mad rush to start our own make-up as well. A couple girls were able to do their own hair and help those of us not as capable (I was one of those). Her niece finally showed up around 12:15 and said she was ready to help out. She ended up curling one bridesmaids hair and the rest of us were ready. Thank goodness we got through that ordeal. Pictures started and we took a bunch of pictures at the church. We then jumped into vehicles and drove around to miscellaneous locations in our old town to take some pictures, which turned out beautifully. I had some dress malfunctions with my dress. I didn't take it in to get fitted because I thought that by buying this miracle bra from Victoria Secret and using some body tape would take care of the upper half situation and it didn't. The top of my dress just didn't fit well and they were strapless. You could see part of my bra from the top if I bent over and it felt like it was falling down. I finally had someone put pins in each side to tighten it up and it worked for the most part, at least good enough. Stupid me, I should have went in and had it altered, lesson learned on strapless dresses!

Here are a few pictures of us getting beautified and before the wedding.

The bride to be!

Verna and her daughter.

Me and Verna

Whew, we made it through the morning and through pictures. Now it was time to wait for the guests and get ready for the ceremony. Time went by fairly quickly at this point and the ceremony went off without a hitch. The reception was in another town about 30-40 minutes away so they had a limo truck pick up the wedding party and we were off. We took a few pictures after the ceremony.

I now pronounce Cory and Verna M. !

Dan and I

Our ride awaits us

And so do a few beers and the guys.

The wedding party jumped into the limo and the champagne bottles were popped! We had such a blast and the excitement was coming out of all of us, let the party begin! We of course love to road trip so we toasted and drank. Because the reception was in another town and we had to go through 2 other towns to get there we stopped at a few bars along the way as well. It was fun to walk into a place all dressed up and especially to see the looks on people's faces when they saw Verna and how beautiful she was in her dress. We eventually did make it to the reception! We walked in when we were announced and proceeded with the normal reception activities. Pictures, toasts, drinks, and speeches and clinking of the glasses.

Of course after the Reception is every Minnesotans favorite part of a wedding - The Dance! The usual dances were done - 1st dance, dollar dance, the garter toss, etc., etc. We had such a fun time. We want to do it all over again. Katelynn wanted only to come to the dance portion of the wedding so my mom was great enough to drive over to the hotel and get her. She was in love with Verna. She was the princess of the night. She stayed and danced with us for about an hour and then went back to the hotel. Any good dance also has to have an after party. We went to the hotel room and I changed out of my dress (remember - malfunction!) and we headed around the hotel listening for the loudest room because that is where my friends would be. We found them of course and soaked up suds until 3:30am and Dan finally said "enough"! and hauled me back to our room for some much needed rest.
Morning of course came quickly and thank goodness there were 3 grandparents around to help take care of kids. We packed up and headed down for some much needed breakfast and ice water and headed back to my parents house. Whew what an adventure. I want to do it all over again. (After I recover for a week).