This picture doesn’t even do justice to how weird my hair looked.
The left side was totally slicked down to my head while the rest was blown out straight.

After I left the salon for the first time, I went to my parents’ hotel and attempted to take advantage of their stellar continental breakfast. It wasn’t happening. My appetite was still MIA. Next we stopped by my house to pick up Melissa and the remaining boxes that needed to be transported to the Garden Room. As in, Melissa and I had packed both of our cars full with boxes the night before (at 1:00 in the morning mind you) and there was still stuff that needed to go. We met everyone at the Garden Room at 10, unloaded the cars and got to work.

Let’s say a girl wants lots and lots of lemons at her wedding. How would she go about getting her hands on the tiny yellow suckers? Well luckily enough, her hubby-to-be works for Sysco and brought her a

box of over 200 two days before the wedding. It was like bridal Christmas.

In the weeks before the wedding whenever someone would ask me how everything was going to get done on the day of the wedding and I would jokingly say that I had a "Wedding Army" that would help me set everything up on Saturday morning. I had been saying that partly to make myself believe it would all really get done and partly to dodge the question. I had no idea the amount of support and number of people that would actually show up-my very own army. All of my bridesmaids were there, Shannon, Jacob’s family, my parents, and several of my aunts and uncles were all at my beck and call.

a few of the soldiers in my wedding army

It was amazing. I know it sounds weird, but the hour everyone spent sweating and pulling my dream reception together on the morning of the wedding is one of my favorite parts of the entire day.

Since the boxes were already labeled and pre-packed by table, all we had to do was find the appropriate table, and set them up to look the picture on the outside of the box.

Before I knew it there were people setting up table arrangements, hanging the backdrop for the photobooth, stringing twine for the picture clothesline, hooking up our sound system, hanging tissue paper poufs, setting up the cake stands and tons of other things.

Bridesmaid Jordan with all of the cake stands and donut sign.

Everything came together so quickly that we finished almost an hour early. I had allotted two hours and wasn’t even sure if that would be enough time, and we ended up finishing just after 11. After months of sewing table runners and scouring flea markets to collect my beloved mason jars and milk glass vases, I couldn’t believe how painless the actual set-up had been.

Bridesmaids Christine and Tamara taking a break before our next adventure-lunch!

As soon as we pulled out of the Garden Room parking lot I was instantly ravenous. I guess all of my stress had been over the set up of the reception and all the little details of the morning. With all of that finally out of the way, for the first time in days homegirl was ready to eat! I treated my aunts, grandmother, Jacob’s mom, my new sister-in-law Sommer, our friend Autumn, and all of the bridesmaids to a bridal luncheon at the Trailside Cafe & Tea Room. I had called ahead and had the front of the restaurant reserved for our little group.

G
ood shot of how crazy my hair looked. In public all day like that people. ALL Day.

Several of us girls had lavendar lemonade and the brunch plate. No food pictures, but I think it was quiche, a scone and a small salad. Everything was delicious, although I probably would have eaten a log at that point. Everyone ate and chatted for an hour or so and then it was off to the hair salon!