Wedding Week and a Party for Laura

I'm still blogging about May's events, but the biggest event for me and our family was my youngest sister, Laura's wedding, on May 21st. I was able to spend the whole week leading up to her wedding with her and that week was EXHAUSTING but absolutely wonderful! My sisters lived together and their old roommate, Andrea, who flew all the way from Germany, was there the whole week as well, so you can imagine we had a blast, you get those three girls together and it's like a stand up comedy show 24/7! We had lots of jobs to do while Laura had to go to work Monday and Tuesday of that week, but we wasted no time in tackling our "to do" list! We planted begonias in little clay pots for the centerpieces at the rehearsal dinner, made 6 satin pink sashes for the bridesmaids, painted a big "L" pink & "S" gray to be hung by pink and gray satin ribbon on the door to the rehearsal dinner, made 10 centerpieces for the reception, organized and shopped for the lingerie shower (pictures below), put together "welcome" bags for the out of town guests, made a playlist of fun music for us to listen to on the big day, and some other stuff that I've probably forgotten about by now.


We rented 5 beach houses in our favorite beachy community along the Gulf Coast for our big family and Shannon's family and moved out to the beach house on Thursday afternoon. Laura had to be completely packed for all the parties and events, and her honeymoon when we moved out there, packing was one of the hardest jobs! This is Laura starting to pack around midnight on Wednesday night, with a scared/I'm so tired/ "I don't know where to start" look on her face!



Thursday began the wedding beautification procedures...





And this is what you do when you bring a 2 year old boy with you to get a pedicure...thank you Andrea for having your laptop handy! And thankyou Asian salon man for having 200 DVD's (only of which 1 was semi-appropriate for my son to watch, it had something to do with chihuahuas).




After our pedis and a quick stop at publix, we were FINALLY on our way to the beach! We unloaded everything and got to work on the lingerie party preparations.




A wedding cake made of Gouda, Brie, and Provolone cheeses, served with crackers, yes please!



We served petit fors (b/c Laura loves them!), heart shaped brownies, veggie pizza, the BEST chicken salad EVER from a local deli with crescent rolls, cream cheese, powdered sugar and pecan stuffed strawberries- a delicacy created by Andrea, and spinach dip in a bread bowl. To drink...Go-Go juice and Love Drunk Punch (kudos to Andrea for bringing it all the way from Germany!!), and champagne with fresh black berries. The food was a hit and everything tasted delicious!


Lots of family and several of Laura's friends came to the shower at the bridal party beach house! In this picture, Lizzy (cousin Kyle's girlfriend), cousin Melanie (aka Scuz- b/c she's like a sister and cousin all in one!), Aunt Karen, Aunt Beryl, friend, Verna, and my Grandmom - Doris, p.s.- she's 91 and I wish you could have seen her dancing with Laura on her wedding day! I hope I NEVER forget that memory, it was awesome!!


This is my mom, Kristin, and my paternal grandmother, Arlene.


Long time family friends, Monica and Julie...Now, after we ate and opened presents that's when things got good. Oh wait, the funniest present she got was a pair of boys camouflage underwear! When Laura opened them she said she was trying to be polite and say thankyou without laughing but then realized they were a joke and so it was ok to laugh, they were hilarious and Laura modeled them later for us, awesome! Then it was time for some trivia, Andrea had secretly emailed Shannon earlier in the week some questions about Laura, then we asked Laura the questions to see if she could guess his answers and then we read his answer out loud. The questions ranged from when and where was your first kiss, to how long do you think it takes Laura to get ready, to what are you most looking forward to on your honeymoon! :) There might have been some diagrams involved in one of his answers ;)






As a little girl, Laura LOVED mad libs, and I think it's safe to say that she still LOVES them today as well. So... to honor that love, we wrote a little mad lib of our own, the story of how Laura and Shannon met, their first date, how long it took Laura to get ready for said date, (it included the detail of her falling asleep in the car on the way home from their first date, which is true, by the way! Haha!), and how many kids they will have. Laura had to ask everyone to shout out a noun, verb, a number, etc. and then fill in the blanks with those words and read the story aloud. She was laughing so hard she couldn't get the words out, it was priceless!






It was a really fun party and a great way to get the wedding festivities off to fantastic start!