Wedding Bales: Getting Pretty

I am not a morning person whatsoever, so let's just get that out of the way. However, that being said, I was incredibly impressed that the morning of the wedding, I beat my alarm! Waking up I knew it was going to be a great day. I spent the morning checking emails and packing up my things as I wouldn't be coming back to that room. After a quick shower I met MOH Fluff in the lobby for coffee. 

Yours truly and Fluff - cheesing it up for the camera

Three years ago when she got married, we went for coffee right away in the morning together and we thought it would only be appropriate to do it for my wedding, so it was the first thing on our agenda. 

Had to get my "Bride" coffee

It really was a great chance to get to spend a little alone time with her as well and just chit chat about how pumped up I was, and to share in the excitement of the day together. If you can schedule something like that into your day, I would really recommend it. We got back to the hotel just in time to meet up with stepdaughter K and load Fluff's SUV with all the things we would need. The venue was within walking distance, but we had so much to haul that we would have needed quite a few trips, so we drove. Before we left the parking lot we met best man N outside, who pulled me aside to give me a quick pep talk and to remind me, "you are the bride, don't worry about anything today. It's your day." It's small moments like that when I think back to our wedding day that make me smile and eternally grateful for our wonderful bridal party and friends. 

Our photographer, Kyle, with Kyle Zemple Photography, was not scheduled to arrive for a few hours yet so the beginning of the morning was full of personal photos of us goofing around. We had two stylists from In-Style Salon come to The Florian Gardens and when we arrived they were just setting up. The Florian Gardens doesn't open until 10 am however we were able to arrange a 9 am opening for our group. You don't get what you don't ask for so if you need some additional time, ask for it. 

I knew that my look was going to obviously take the longest to accomplish so I parked it in a chair and started hamming it up for the camera. 

I had arranged for champagne and orange juice for the morning so we spent the morning listening to music and sipping champs, just being girls.

There were nails being done:

 

Some final stitching for a very personal gift to my stepchildren.

And a lot of pictures of people's feet? Yes, when I started going through some of our pictures on our Wedit cameras I realized there were a lot of feet photos, I guess someone wanted to showcase shoes?!

And for those wondering yes I did wear different shoes during the morning. I started with a pair of black sandals, then switched to my Kate Spade slippers, then moved into a pair of blingy sandals. 

All photos above personal

I was basically done with my hair when Kyle from Kyle Zempel Photography showed up and starting taking photos. It was at about this time that it started to sink in with me what was about to happen. I was excited and giddy and couldn't wait to see everyone all done up.

All photos below courtesy of Kyle Zempel Photography

I am such a sucker for black and whites and am so glad that Kyle was able to capture most of my morning with black and white photos. I think they are so special and something that I specifically asked for. Make sure your photographer is aware of any special requests you may have. 

I knew that because of our first look coming up that I would need to get ready as quickly as possible. I was done before everyone was finished and it was awesome getting to see everyone's transformation. It still took a few hours to finish my final look and I was so happy to be able to get up and walk around.

Up next, the boys - they have it so easy!!

Missed a recap? Catch up here:

Wedding Bales: Let's Get The Party Started

Wedding Bales: Special Cargo

Wedding Bales: Rehearsing it All

Wedding Bales: Food and Friends

Wedding Bales: Friends in Low Places

Wedding Bales: Friends in Low Places

Last I left you fabulous people I was just about to reveal my special gift to Mr. Farmer. I thought really hard what to gift my groom. You see, Mr. Farmer is incredibly romantic and when it comes to gifts - he blows me out of the water. He is constantly doing things to let me know that he is thinking of me or to show me how much he loves me. Because he is so awesome in the gift giving department, I knew that I would need to come up with something extra special for his wedding gift.

Let's face the facts, Mrs. Barn is NOT a great writer (I think we can all agree on that), but I have kept a journal off and on for the past several years. It's what helped me through some very dark years before I met Mr. Farmer and I just sort of kept going with it. When Mr. Farmer proposed I started adding more and more to my journal, and I think you can see where I am going with this. I decided to gift Mr. Farmer my journal, starting from the day we met. I made sure to bring it with me to our rehearsal because I wanted to get it documented and I also wanted to be there when he opened it.

 Mr. Farmer is not an emotional person but seeing him start to cry was all that I needed to lose it as well.

I kept my journal in a Microsoft Word document (real creative I know) and I transferred it over to  Lulu.com to print it. It was incredibly reasonable and it was the perfect gift. He later told me that he while in his hotel room, the night before our wedding, he read the whole thing cover to cover. He told me that he laughed, cried and had a lot of "oh that's what you meant" moments. It's exactly what I had in mind when I created it. I left all the entries as they were written, only going through and adding a pictures with captions. I loved it and he loved it even more knowing how much time and effort I put into putting it together.

After I presented Mr. Farmer with his gift we spent the remainder of our rehearsal dinner mingling with our guests and taking pictures. I'll spare you all those photos and only post a few of my favorites.

Yours truly with Matron of Honor Fluff and Maid of Honor K

Mr. Farmer with Junior Best Man R and Best Man N (like I said not a smile kind of guy, although he just proposed to bridesmaid K this past weekend and we got to be there yay)

 A ridiculous photo of the Farmer family

 And the whole fam looking sharp

As an added surprise to our parents Mr. Farmer and I rented them a special vintage limo. We didn't want them to have to drive and we wanted to give them a chance to speak to one another, as this would be the first time they had really had any interaction, other than the rehearsal hours prior. After the rehearsal dinner they took the children back to the hotel while we went out with our bridal party for a quick stop downtown. 

Fun story time. It wouldn't be a Barn blog post without a fun story that has nothing to do with anything. You see those big "buses/RVs" in the background? Well they were all over the parking lot and knowing that quite a few concerts were going on in the area I wanted to know who they belonged to. I marched right up the the guys sitting outside grilling and said, "Hey I'm getting married tomorrow, what's with all this?" After I assured them I was not some crazy groupie and had no intentions of following them, they confided they were the band and sound crew for Steven Tyler, as in, from Aerosmith! They happened to be on their way through, and stopped for the evening, before heading to their next concert spot. No I didn't spot Steven but it was way cool nonetheless, and they wished up luck on our nuptials and toasted us as we left to join the rest of our friends.

Ok back to the details. We headed downtown Eau Claire for a quick stop at The Pickle for a celebratory shot and drink with our bridal party. Mr. Farmer and I wanted a chance to hang out with our entire bridal party before we parted ways in a few hours. Since it was the summer and college wasn't in session downtown was empty and we had the entire place to ourselves and it really was perfect.

(a very blurry shoddy photo)

We only had the bus for an hour after we left our rehearsal dinner so we didn't stick around for very long. We all loaded back onto the bus for the short ride back to our hotel. GM R was playing DJ for the evening and turned on the song, "Friends in Low Places" right as we pulled into the hotel parking lot. Despite being at the hotel, our entire bridal party continued to sit in the bus belting out the lyrics to "Friends in Low Places". It was quite honestly one of the best memories of the day. All our friends sitting on a bus singing, what could be better?

You can see BM N really getting into it. He was the person who started our sing along. Our bus driver even joined in about halfway through (I am sure he was confused why nobody was getting off the bus). I know there is a video floating around somewhere, however I have no idea where it is.

After our American Idol moment, everyone piled off the bus and headed to the hotel bar. Even though it was light out, I knew that I would need a good night sleep in order to be a functional human being, so I retired to my room for the last time as Miss. Barn. I kissed my groom goodnight and I spent the evening alone writing my final post and getting a few things ready for the following morning. I knew ahead of time that I would be too excited to get any good sleep so I discussed a plan of action with my doctor and took some medication to help relax me to sleep. It was one of the best decisions that I made. Getting a good night sleep is pretty important and I am so thankful that I was able to get a full eight hours. I fell asleep thinking about walking down the aisle and that was a pretty perfect way to end our rehearsal day if you ask me.

Did anyone else have any funny bridal party moments? What did you do after your rehearsal dinner? Were you able to sleep well the night before??

**all photos personal

Missed a recap? Catch up here:

Wedding Bales: Let's Get The Party Started

Wedding Bales: Special Cargo

Wedding Bales: Rehearsing it All

Wedding Bales: Food and Friends