Sorry in advance for the long post! Our wedding was on 9/14/19, and we just returned from our honeymoon in Italy last night! Today was my first day back at work and I can't believe how quickly it all came and went! We got engaged 12/22/18, and wanted a somewhat quick engagement.
Leading up to the day was a bit stressful with so much to do. It seemed like no matter how prepared we were going into the last week, vendors kept coming to us with questions, like do we REALLY want the Chavari chairs (YES!)?!
Some of you may recall that there was drama on a "guest greeting" or a welcome event of sorts for all 100 of our out of town guests. We did not want to invite them all to the rehearsal dinner, and MIL wanted to host a happy hour, we did not, but ended up caving. I can honestly say this was SUCH A GREAT IDEA! We got to spend 2 hours in the lobby bar the night before the wedding visiting with people that had traveled in to come to our wedding. Friends and family got to meet each other, and it was just generally a great time. We didn't have a chance to talk to everyone at the wedding, so I am so glad we were able to spend time with people the night before. Afterwards we left for the rehearsal dinner, and had so much fun with just our bridal party and immediate family.
The day of the wedding was a blur of nerves getting ready, I had been so busy finishing up all the details that other people insisted we have that I didn't even have time to finish my vows until that morning! I had written notes along the way though so I wasn't starting from scratch at least hah. Getting ready was so much fun, but hair/makeup ran way late which was honestly the recurring nightmare that I had had leading up to the day. Annoying, but we pushed through.
We had a friend officiate for us, so we wrote our own ceremony and everyone kept telling us how much they loved it, and how special it was. There was not a dry eye in the house!
We did a first look, which I was so happy with, not only did we get the private moment of seeing each other, but we were also able to get all of the bridal party pics done before the ceremony. This was awesome because my dress had 81 bustle points on it and that took about 20 minutes to do!
The reception was amazing, I am so glad that we took lessons for our first dance, because we didn't look for feel awkward out there. After the first dance its all a blur, we made sure to eat our food and then walk around to tables. We intentionally started with tables that had people not at the guest greeting, which was a great call because otherwise we would not have gotten to talk to those people at all!
The next day we had planned a quiet brunch with just our parents and siblings, all of which traveled in. We are so glad we did this because it was a more private and personal way to end the weekend. After brunch we rushed around to pick things up at the venue, and then had literally 1 hour to pack our bags for our honeymoon to Italy! it was so crazy! First Kiss! 
The dog's first look
