Our Wedding Part 1: Getting Ready & The First Look

This is incredibly hard to believe, but it has been 11 months since my sweet husband and I got married.
It's crazy that I haven't blogged much about it yet already (though we already know I'm a slack blogger), but my brain definitely needed a break after the six month whirlwind of meticulously planning that bad boy. Don't get me wrong - I LOVED planning every detail of our DIY, super on-a-budget big day (I'm a little crazy like that), but after pouring so much energy into it, it has been nice to just relax and enjoy marriage.

Now that things have settled down a bit, I fully plan on blogging about all of the DIY projects, the planning details, and a breakdown of how we were able to stick to a budget of $15K (yes, it IS possible).

But first, I want to count down the weeks to our first anniversary (May 11th) by reminiscing over each part of that amazing day. Starting with, of course, getting ready:

My sweet groom looked so handsome. He wore a vest he already owned from a friends wedding and we got his blush bow tie from Etsy.

Our groomsmen gifts were beige linen bowties that I also ordered from Etsy. We also provided the boys with snacks and glass coke bottles to pair with some whiskey to nom on while they got ready.

Before we arrived to the venue, the girls and I got our hair done at a local salon. My baby sister did my make-up. I loved having this special time with the girls getting ready. My parents gave me this necklace when I was 18, and these earrings were borrowed from my sweet great aunt - so while I'm not usually a big pearls girl, I loved having these sweet sentimental jewels on my big day.

The girls each got a white bangle from Stella and Dot. They each wore different dresses, so it was a little unifying accent - and I still see them wearing it every day! We also provided them with little lemon Pelligrino sodas to pair with vodka while we all got dressed.

My dress - oh, my dress. With a short five month engagement, I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to get the dress of my dreams in time. Most shops we visited swore there would be no way to order and alter any dress in time. I found this dress at our third stop and knew it was the one, but getting it ordered formt hat shop in time was going to be impossible, so I tossed it aside. Then, on our last stop we went to a shop called Formally Yours, and they had that dress on their sample rack in my EXACT size. It had only been tried on a few times, but they offerred to let me have it that day for 20% off! I almost died that I had found my dream dress, and on top of that it needed ZERO alterations!

After getting ready and having my girls come pray around me, we headed off for a first look.

I tell every bride that worries about breaking tradition that the first look was one of my favorite parts of the day. You don't get many moments alone amidst the chaos, so having a private reunion was so sweet and intimate - not to mention it helps calm the nerves before the big moment.

We hired an amazing photographer, Lesley Kerr, who was actually a friend of mine from high school. I'd actually known for years I wanted her to capture my big day, and was overjoyed that she was able to take these wonderful photos.