it's the little things...

Or, you know, the beginning. Blah blah. :) Getting married in the summer, I felt, was the perfect time to use sparklers during our getaway. The thing is, a lot of places don't allow you to have a big group of probably drunken folks carrying open flames, often during a draught. When I was meeting with the facilities guy at the university, I decided I wouldn't bring it up. Beg forgiveness instead of asking permission. But because I was in crazy bride mode, I let it slip. He, because he was awesome, let it slide. So, no, I don't think we were supposed to have sparklers but no one told us not to. The getaway did not go as planned. I would have liked it if the car were decorated but it's ok that it wasn't. (Note to folks getting married, just tell someone that in advance.) I would have liked it if the top were down on the convertible. (SIL really tried but sometimes it can be finicky...say if tons of wedding crap is crammed in the trunk. Should have just taken a few minu...

Ok, so I almost forgot to include a post about this. If you live in Texas, you know Aggies are a little crazy with tradition. Perhaps we're so crazy with tradition, you may know this even if you're a foreigner. One thing that I've really enjoyed at previous weddings of Aggie friends is that they pay tribute to our school. How do we do that? We all get up and sing. It's awesome. There were lots of Aggies there...too many for one picture. And even more who were there earlier in the evening but now have little ones and had to go home before our night was over. There's something about doing this that brings everyone together. There are people in this line who are currently attending school and folks who graduated long ago. But somehow (shh...it's the traditions ), A&M brings all those people together. "There's a Spirit can ne'er be told..."

We interrupt baby crazies to continue on with wedding recaps. Only two more after this and I'll be done in time for our anniversary! So, nothing can compare to the ladies' crazy bouquet toss reaction but the garter toss was pretty fun, too. My Hubby knew he wanted to make it a little more fun than normal so he had a little something up his sleeve. And in his pockets. I had told him I was ok with the now-traditional groom-going-up-the-bride's-dress thing. So he went up there and pulled out a few things before getting to the garter. A yo-yo (that ended up going home with my Maid of Honor)... A gun... A ball... And, finally, the real thing. And then it was time for the wind up and the release. Shockingly, the guys didn't get nearly as crazy as the ladies had. But at least they didn't just let it drop to the ground. I love the above two pictures. In the first one you can see my (pregnant) Matron of Honor's husband reaching his hand up way in the back corner of ...

These are some of my favorite pictures from the whole day. You'll see why in a second. Ah, the bouquet toss. In the modern day wedding community a lot of folks are doing away with this. I don't know...as I got older and was still single I think I started hating the tradition. Or, rather, I hated that I didn't really feel like being the only single adult woman surrounded by 8-year-olds. And the harassment you get from people if you don't go out there and try to catch that bouquet. They know it doesn't come with a groom attached, right? But I didn't mind the idea at my own wedding. And I have a feeling some of my ladies would have been really pissed if I hadn't done it. So we stuck with tradition. Sort of. First, I had to check to see where the ladies were located. Who knew there were so many single gals at the wedding?! You may be able to tell that one 'maid in particular wanted the bouquet. This may or may not have been the same person who tried on a wed...

We kicked off the dancing portion of the reception with the Grand March. I still don't know if it's a Southern thing, Texas thing, small town thing, Catholic thing, or Czech thing. But it's fun. And a tradition. I never went to a wedding without one when I was growing up and we went to A LOT of weddings. My aunt and uncle always lead it at family weddings (and I would bet at a few weddings of friends, too). When they did it at The Brother's wedding, they (and we) were shocked that when the DJ told everyone to get up to join in the Grand March, they did. I mean, almost everybody. That doesn't happen at home. My aunt turned to The Brother and asked him who would watch. Same thing at our wedding. Nearly everyone participated. One really fantastic thing about this was that my photographer captured so many fun shots of nearly all our guests. In my opinion, this was way more fun that going from table to table and having folks smile. I mean, these people were having a good...

We really are barrelling to a close on these recaps... We were pretty traditional when it came to who gave toasts at our reception. I wish I had copies of everyone's speeches (or a video of them) because I barely remember what everyone said now. But I know they were awesome. Just a quick word about our glasses. Honestly, I think I picked the disposable champagne coupes everyone is holding because they held slightly less champagne than the flutes. Is that bad? Also, I wanted Hubby's and my real glasses to be coupes as well. Since I like tradition, I wanted to find some at an antique store and be able to let future generations use them at their weddings. When we were in Brenham for my bachelorette weekend, my Maid-of-Honor walked into a store and immediately found the ones we ended up using. How did she do that? I had looked at several places previously, to no avail. Anyway... So I had both a Maid and a Matron-of-Honor, I had two lovely ladies who spoke first. They both did reall...