Before the wedding ....

always so much going on before a wedding

while folks were getting ready

I helped keep an eye

on 2 of my grandchildren

ring bearer and flower girl

Declan and Avery Grace

they looked so cute

Jacquelyn and I before getting dressed

trying to keep Avery entertained

so precious

niece Christy did such a great job on Jacquelyn's hair

and beautiful on mine too

Avery making a run for it! haha

selfie with Grandma

later....

The Wyndham Resort ....

As I have said in previous post....everything for the wedding

was held at the Wyndham resort

Such a beautiful place with a gorgeous golf course

It is 3 separate buildings, one housing the guest rooms

one is registration and conference rooms

and the 3rd building is the ballroom, restaurant, bar

below is the view from our room of the golf course

we had such a really nice room with the cathedral ceiling

and found out the next morning our room was attached

to the bridal suite.

the foyer of the guest building

the storms knocked out power to the guest building

we had no a/c that night but it was ok

we were up so late after the rehearsal dinner that we

were exhausted and went right to sleep

the problem was the next day when there was no way

we could get dressed in the hot room

The staff was awesome at the resort

they gave us a conference room over in the registration

building where the air was back on

So all of the groomsmen gathered in there and I can tell you

I had so much fun hanging with them and laughing

My niece Christy was in there with us doing mine and

Jacquelyn's hair. After all of the groomsmen and Jake were ready

we all headed over to the bar for a drink. 

The coordinator there was so great to work with for the dinner

she always was so nice, so helpful and we loved working with her

later.....

The rehearsal ....

Just as the rehearsal dinner had to be moved inside

the actual rehearsal also did....the storm clouds were

looking bad right at the time to begin

so inside we went and actually it ended up the

wedding was held there too as more

storms came rolling through on Saturday

such as it is when you have an outdoor wedding in the summer

It rained on mine and Johnny's wedding day 38 years ago

I was always told it is good luck so there....a good way to look at it

here's some pictures from the rehearsal....

later....

Speeches ....

you know me, I have to document as much as I can

otherwise, I forget

and I def did not want to forget the sweet words Johnny

spoke at our son's rehearsal dinner and his wedding.

here is his speech for the rehearsal dinner.......

Welcome everyone and thank you for making time to come

here this evening to share in Kayce and Jake's rehearsal.

I know most all of you but to those I don't, I am Johnny, Jake's father.

Diane and I would also like to thank Kathe and John for what we

know will be a memorable and fun wedding tomorrow

We are pleased and happy for Jake to be able to wed, as he says,

the love of his life and his best friend, Kayce.

My family has thought of Kayce as part of our family for

quite a while now and tomorrow it will become official.

When Jake met Kayce he would tell us a little about her

each time we saw him and we just knew by how he talked that this

"could" be the one. And Kayce, we couldn't be happier that 

you ARE the one!

So let's raise our glass to toast this special couple, Jake and Kayce

I wish you many, many years of happiness, always take care of 

each other, stay best friends and throughout your life, always put

each other first.

If there is anyone else that would like to say something or make

a toast, now is a good time

thank you

and then for the wedding, Johnny served as our son's best man

here is his best man speech

Hey, I met some of you last night. To those I didn't meet

I'm Jake's dad Johnny

I am very honored to serve as my son's best man. 

and because I am the best man, I get to tell some stories about Jake

Like how he taught us what action figures can be flushed

down the toilet, you can sit on the roof from 

your bedroom window and magnets do 

mess up color TV's.

We will not bring up the teenage dumbassiery

years but we all survived!

and now look, all grown up and married

to Kayce, his love

Jake, your mom and I couldn't be more proud

Kayce, welcome to the family

We love y'all so much

Johnny did a great job! 

later....

Rehearsal dinner .....

Johnny and I hosted the rehearsal dinner at the 

same hotel as the wedding would be

Because we all had rooms and would be spending

the entire weekend there, it just made sense!

Our only glitch was the dinner was to be outside

under a tent by the pool

Storms prevented that from happening and so early that

day we made the call to move it inside

We decided on a buffet dinner and Jake picked the menu

He wanted to have a good ole southern buffet as

Kayce's family lives up north, so he thought it would be great

to have local favorites to serve

it was delicious!!

we had a cocktail party prior to dinner

beer and wine

Imported and domestic cheese display with grapes and crackers

seasonal fresh fruit 

mozzarella salad w/tomatoes, basil and balsamic reduction

then came time for dinner.......

fingerling potatoes w/bacon vinaigrette

cole slaw

tomato and cucumber salad

iron skillet corn bread with whipped apple butter

mini corn on the cob

pulled pork brisket

rolls

we also added a pasta station for folks who didn't care for BBQ

we had penne pasta and tortellini

with marinara and alfredo sauce

with fresh vegetables

I wanted to have the grooms cake at the rehearsal dinner

as I feel like it kind of gets lost at the wedding reception

So I checked with Jake and Kayce to make sure

that was ok.......and they were good with that!

I had a 2 tier cake that really just looked very ordinary

but once you cut the cake, you saw that it was 

buffalo plaid! 

the significance is........Jake is very well known for his buffalo plaid that he 
wears quite often throughout fall and winter

so much so that Kayce even got a heart tattoo 

that is buffalo plaid! 

Jacquelyn helped me with coming up with the design for the decorations

we had mason jars with mostly baby's breath sitting

on a round of wood
the mason jars had a tag tied with twine and the tag
read "tomorrow will be the best day ever"

then I ran just greenery down the middle of the tables

we had 2 tables that sat 25 people each.....50 people!

it was a fun night

then the storm hit and power went out!!

a few of us went over to the bar and then

ended up sitting outside for a while, enjoying 

some cold beers and a big summer storm

for the names tags I had those little log holders below
I set up what I thought would be the correct seating on the dining room table
and then had Kayce and Jake check it over to make
sure I had it right

as the staff was setting up the tables 

my sweet daughter-in-law and I before the rehearsal

the building where the rehearsal dinner, wedding and reception took place

I told Jake and Kayce to cut the grooms cake as practice for the
wedding cake....then once they saw the inside they were so surprised

the bakery did a great job!

the greenery running along the table

such a awesome thing that Jacquelyn and Bucky's best friends
came from Texas for the wedding
All of us were so thrilled to see them....it had been 4 years!!
when they lived here I always called them my Texas kids
(they are originally from Texas)
as they attended all of our big family events

the flower girl....Avery Grace

bride and groom

another picture of the cake

Jolon wasn't even born when Joe and Melissa moved to Texas
So Declan and Jolon had never met but they became best friends!!

carrying home tons of flowers the morning of the rehearsal
all of the flowers came from my favorite florist, Coleman Brothers

a night we will all remember

later........

A wedding .....

Johnny and I along with Jacquelyn and Bucky went to

a wedding in May.

A little bit of a bittersweet wedding as it was our son's

ex-girlfriends wedding. I know that may sound weird to some but

Jake and Kayla were together about 4 years so naturally we became

very close to Kayla. Johnny and I always thought she would

eventually become our daughter-in-law!! But as high school

sweethearts usually end up, they both changed. They grew and matured

and their interest became different. And I'm so happy to say that they

have remained friends.

 

We felt very honored that Kayla and Aaron would invite us to

their special day. It was a little cool that day, especially for the

middle of May but what a wonderful time. The entire wedding, ceremony, dinner and dancing was all outside right along the James River.

 

 

here we are enjoying the evening..........

 

 

We wish Kayla and Aaron all of the best

and Kayla will always be an unofficial member of our family!

 

later.....



Forgotten....

back in June and July of 2011 I wrote a whole series on

lessons learned from planning our daughter Jacquelyn's wedding

Just a whole bunch of stuff that no one told us.....we went into wedding

planning blind!! And because we just learned along the way, I did

the series to let other folks know the good, the bad and the expensive!

HA! ..........well, here's one more that I had not posted about

and that's because I just today picked up Jacquelyn's

wedding gown, all cleaned and sealed in a box so that it won't yellow.

yes, almost 2 years later!

 

For one thing, I knew it was going to be expensive and well we had

just thrown a wedding so I felt like that could wait. But then it was shoved

into an extra closet upstairs and forgotten about.

 

In cleaning out closets I decided I really needed to get that taken care of.

so off to the cleaners! The entire bottom of Jacquelyn's gown was black,

from dancing at the reception. The guy at the cleaners said he loves to

see dresses come in like that because it means the reception

was a fun party! And that it was!

 

 

But it also meant a very large cleaning bill, along with the fact that the

dress was French silk and had a ton of crystals on it!

 

So the cost......are you ready for this.........$250!!!

Johnny and I were pretty shocked!

But we paid it and now we have some very expensive boxes

that will stay under our bed until Jacquelyn and Bucky

move to a bigger house. And then they can have the expensive

boxes and slide them under their bed!

 

 

later........

 



Wedding ... budget

this is the worst part of the planning!

But you have to do it......and you have to do it as the very first step!

this is how Jacquelyn, Johnny and I approached it

Johnny and I talked with Jacquelyn and Bucky about the kind of wedding they wanted

then I did a little research around each component of the wedding

trying to come up with what I thought the dollar amount would be

we then listed it all by line item and presented it to Johnny

he was shocked, he recovered...then he was cool ....and in the end, he wanted Jacquelyn

and Bucky to have the wedding of their dreams.

We tried very hard to stick with that budget.

for example, say we had budgeted $500 for something and the actual cost

was going to be $800

then we tried to take $300 from somewhere else.....or instead of buying something

pre-made, we made it ourself.

We were constantly doing trade offs.

As I have said in previous post, choose where to spend the big money

We ended up doing a lot of DIY stuff

we had 2 DIY days set aside with the bridal party and some family

these days were fun, productive and I wished we could still have them!! haha

wedding tip for today.......the secret that no one will tell you

But I will

take your budget total

cut it in half

take that half amount and add it to your budget total

and that my friend...is what you will spend!!

and I have no pictures for this post.......well, guess I could have posted

a picture of Johnny's empty wallet! ha!

later.....

Wedding ... staying organzied

I can't stress enough how important it is to stay organized

as organized as I thought I was, there were a few times I felt

very discombobulated!!

Jacquelyn was depending on me to keep all of the contracts, websites, receipts, ideas, etc....everything together.

That way we could both put our hands on things.

we went down to the wire on finding the chair sashes and when we did find them just a couple of weeks before the wedding, I ordered them. But I failed to print out the receipt

then we couldn't remember who we ended up ordering from since we had

looked at what felt like 100 websites!!

Jacquelyn's best friend Melissa came through for us......she had written it down!

One thing we did that worked great was to buy these clear folders from Staples

I had a folder for every item........ie: Hilton, gown, food, guest list, florist, photographer, beach rentals, dj, decorations and misc.

this way it was easy to pull it right out when needed

I also kept a notebook for us to keep appts and notes in.

as we thought of things, we could keep a running list

wedding tip for today .... STAY ORGANIZED!!

it will make the wedding planning so much easier.

and it's easy to stay organized when you have months to go but the final 4 weeks before the wedding, it's easy to stray. Those weeks will be better if you stay on top of it.

later.......

Wedding ... order of events

No matter who you work with on a wedding......be it a coordinator, hotel, other venue, you have to put together a timeline of the events.

Jacquelyn and Bucky had their rehearsal on Friday before the wedding from 4:00 to 4:45

the rehearsal dinner was at 7:00 so this gave everyone

plenty of time to shower and get dressed for the dinner.

then the timeline for the day of the wedding went as follows....

9:00 breakfast in parents room for wedding party

11:00 hair and make up appts start at the spa

3:30 back to the hotel

4:00 photographer arrives for getting ready photos

5:30 ceremony

6:00 cocktail party

6:45 guest start entering the Pier House

7:00 announcements of bridal party and new Mr & Mrs!

7:05 First dance

7:10 parental dances

7:30 dinner served

8:30 Cake cutting and toast (Father of the bride, best man and maid of honor)

9:00 Bouquet and garter toss

9:30 dancing

11:00 late night snack served

12:00 reception ends

we only had 2 problems with our schedule

first, the minister was in a fender bender accident on the way to the ceremony

so we were delayed by 30 min

second, the light on the beach by 6:30 was so wonderful, the photographer

had a hard time passing it up so he kept the wedding party a little longer

taking pictures. Which was TOTALLY fine with me!!

we eventually got back on schedule so all was good.

Look at the picture above......this is on Friday before the wedding

that is the smoke moving up the beach road from the wildfire that is still

burning in NC

we were sooooo lucky that the winds shifted on Saturday and the smoke did

not hit the beach until we were all inside at the reception!!

here's Johnny walking Jacquelyn down the aisle during rehearsal

Bucky looks pretty excited at the rehearsal :)
and see that speck in the sky to the right, that's a piece of dust on the sensor in my camera.....grrrrr!
I need to take it to get cleaned but haven't really had the time!

wedding tip for this post ..... have a good schedule but one that will allow for flexibilty.

even though the minister was late, it worked out fine for us.

Most receptions are 4 hours long.....we had reserved the Pier House for an

extra hour. And as it turned out, that was a smart decision on our part!!

later........

Wedding ... cake

Splurge on the cake!

everyone loves cake so go for it

and today's wedding cakes are just so different

Jacquelyn and Bucky did a cake tasting last year and wow, it was so hard to choose

they ended up doing 2 tiers of chocolate eclair and 2 tiers of key lime

and I had both!! haha....they were so good.

they had purple ribbon around the cake

and purple delphinum flowers. Well, I thought they were purple
delphinums but in the pictures they look blue!

(photo credit Aaron Williams)

I know it looks like the cake is leaning but it's not
the Pier House is old....and the floor leans a bit
so the table was actually leaning

And I'll just say....I was a bit shocked by how much wedding cakes cost
but here's your tip

it's soooooo worth the money
the cake was so good, everyone enjoyed it and the baker we
purchased from had already packaged their one year anniversary
top tier prior to the wedding.
packaged so that it will taste just as good as their wedding day!

later........

Wedding ... response cards

Since pretty much everything you do in planning and purchasing for the wedding

is based on headcount, those precious response cards

are pretty dang important!

It is perfectly proper to call people who have not responded by the date

given on the card.

And we had to call quite a few.

Because you are at a standstill when you don't have your headcount.

you need it for food, chairs, favors and so much more!

We also made sure that our invites were out early enough that

we would have our headcount 8 wks prior to the wedding.

It almost worked..

One tip we were told was to number the back of the response card as sometimes

you will receive them back with no names!

so working from our master guest list, we numbered our cards in small pencil on the back to correspond with a name on the guest list.

this way, if one comes back with no name, all we had to do was look at the number on the back to see who it was.

But alas, all of ours came back with names!

and here's another thing....I've responded to many RSVP cards but I've never thought to write a note on one. Well Jacquelyn and Bucky recv'd a few with personal notes. And they loved them. And what a treasure to put with all of their wedding goodies. The next time I receive an invitation, I'll remember to write just a little "looking forward to it" note on the RSVP card.

I took all of her cards and tied them up with ribbon so she'll always have them!

wedding tip .... just as I said, number the back of your cards in pencil down in a lower corner and put the corresponding number by the person's name on your list where the invite is going. Hopefully, you'll not receive one without a name but you never know so just in case!

later....