Show us Your Life: Wedding Party and Flowers

Our wedding was very small and was planned in about 4 months. We had been engaged for almost a year and couldn't really decide what we wanted to do as far as the wedding. We didn't want anything big and we thought about going away with just our immediate family and really close friends. That somehow changed and we decided to invite less than 60 people to a very intimate (and very last minute) wedding.

I love the internet. I'm in front of a computer all day long at work so I did everything on the 'net. My crazy self tried to do a lot of DIY 'cause I was so inspired by Weddingbee and all sorts of blogs that I found after J and I got engaged. I thought about doing our own flowers but thank goodness I didn't! I originally found the florist online and I was originally going to buy just the flowers and have my mom and myself arrange them. Since we didn't have a wedding party, we didn't need much but the florist gave me an awesome deal that I couldn't refuse.

I wanted nothing but white/ivory and green for the flower arrangements. My only specific request is to have hydrangeas. I just loved them so much! Everything else I left up to the florist. I sent her some pictures of what I liked and that was it. She did an amazing job on my bouquet and all the arrangements. I had a bouquet of roses and freesias, the two corsages were freesia and hydrangea, J's dad and grandpa had a single rose for their boutonniere, and J had a freesia for his. She came to the farm and arranged all our ceremony flowers of hydrangeas and roses on planters that I provided which we also used for centerpieces at the reception.

[ Photo credit: Jason Keefer Photography ]

I don't like and can't do pain

Aside from the last few weeks, I had a very easy time being pregnant. Labor and delivery was the exact same way --- it was very easy in the beginning and quite painful in the end. Active labor, when I was actually pushing, was only an hour and twenty minutes (yes, I timed it) and I was probably in pain for only twenty minutes. The pain during those twenty minutes was very very painful.

My doctor scheduled to induce me on my due date. She didn't like how my pressure was towards the end and didn't want to wait it out. I was relieved to have an induction date set since the waiting game was getting old. J and I drove each other crazy towards the last couple of weeks. We talked about going into labor everyday! We made bets on when we thought it was going to happen and where.

I didn't expect to deliver Kayla earlier than my due date. I never really experienced braxton hicks and I had only dilated between 1 and 2 cm for three weeks. It was quite a surprise that I went into labor on July 3rd. What's even more unexpected is that she's a 4th of July baby!
The day before Kayla's birth and her birthday were quite a blur. I distinctly remember some parts of it but I don't remember everything about it. I'm almost over the pain. Sure, I still remember that labor was a very painful ordeal but I'm just glad that I didn't get a c-section. I'm sure that would have been hell.

Show us Your Life: Wedding Dress

I know - weird, right? I'm joining in on the fun over at Kelly's Korner. Every Friday Kelly hosts a Show Us Your Life post and this week is dedicated to your wedding dress. I happen to be in love with mine so I thought why not show it? You know how they say that when you know it's the one, you just know? Well, I did! I fell in love with the dress soo much! It reminded me of this Monique Lhuillier dress that I drooled over for so long that I knew from the get-go I will never be able to afford.

My dress is not really a bridal dress. It was meant to be a bridesmaid's dress but I liked it so much and has been dreaming of this exact same style only it was longer...just like what Kelly posted on her blog. There were so minor changes that were done to the dress before it came to be what it was on our wedding day.

I found an awesome lady to do my alterations and I paid more for alterations than what I paid for purchasing the dress. I tried the dress on at local boutique but purchased it online from Victoria's Bridal Couture.