Well well well, what have we here? At long last—over a month past her wedding—I’m finally posting the pictures from my little sister Bekah’s big day. Allowing so much time to pass before posting this was just meant to keep you waiting, build suspense, get that breath niiiiice and bated. Certainly had nothing to do with procrastinating, or sifting through and editing hundreds and hundreds of pictures, and definitely nothing at all to do with dreading revisiting memories of my children in top demonic form that day.
You may notice a marked lack of Darcy and Jeff in the following pictures. Weeeeeell. That would be because Darcy picked a particularly nice day to get all sorts of barfy on us. It was pretty dang hot the day of the wedding, and after spending over an hour in 90+ degree heat, I’m sure you can imagine the sort of mood she was in. Even sitting in the shade, she was dripping sweat and absolutely miserable. After the ceremony, I took her back to the car to nurse her (there wasn’t really any other option of a quiet, private spot to do it), where I realized A) I had not chosen a very nursing-friendly dress and basically had to strip down to the waist to feed the poor thing, B) I didn’t know that you have to press the clutch while turning the keys in my husband’s car to get it running and the air conditioning going, and C) as if it wasn’t hot enough in that boiling oven of a car that I couldn’t turn on, I (stupidly?) put a nursing cover on so as not to scandalize innocent passersby. So there we are, Darcy and I, sitting in a car with no air conditioning (temperature roughly equal to the surface of the sun), stripped to the waist with a blanket draped over us to try and hide the goodies from people on the street, dripping sweat all over each other, while I frantically wonder what I’m missing outside.
Darcy finally finished up but was still really grouchy and whiny. I figured she was just tired and overheated. I re-dressed in the car and scurried back over to where the family photos were being taken, and as soon as the photographer got us all arranged for the pictures, Darcy absolutely lost her mind. Screaming and flailing and bellowing at the top of her lungs, through every picture. Every. Single. Picture. Then Forrest figured, why not, let’s make this a family affair, and subsequently lost his mind, too. Every photo, people: both of my children screaming with all their hearts and souls (luckily, there was enough of a crowd that I don’t think we managed to singlehandedly ruin the pictures, but it was not exactly a fun photo experience).
As the photographer rearranged people for some smaller group shots, I tried to calm Darcy down and not 5 minutes later, she vomited—all over the sidewalk, the temple gardens, and some little splishy-splashes on both our wedding outfits, of course. So for the next hour, Jeff drove her in circles around the block (I guess the air conditioning wouldn’t get cool enough if they were parked, and we were still thinking maybe she was just too hot) and I repeatedly chased Forrest down and dragged him into additional photos where he pouted and grumped and generally refused to smile.
If you want to know the most effective way to ruin a wedding, I think we’ve proven that the answer is to invite us.
Anyway. Once we got Darcy laid down for a nap and changed out of our pukey clothes, things started looking a little better (although she did manage to throw up 3 more times that day and spend a bulk of the day/evening/night screaming her little heart out, and since a handful of other people ended up sick within the next couple days, I guess it wasn’t just a case of being out in the heat for too long). We had a few hours between the wedding and the reception (which was at my parents’ cabin at Bear Lake, a gorgeous little lakeside town up on the border between Utah and Idaho) and spent some time getting things set up there. My family has been visiting Bear Lake for years, and Bekah has always said that she wanted to have her wedding there, right at the family cabin. So I guess, in a way, this reception was years in the making.
Here’s the happy couple with all the nieces and nephews on our side of the family (minus Darcy, obviously, who was busy recuperating in the car from her little barf-fest).
And all of my siblings together:
You might remember from my post about her bridal shower that Bekah’s style is girly and frilly and sparkly, but definitely tempered with easy-going, homey rustic touches. So I’ve dubbed this “country glam.” I don’t know if this is a real thing. Just go with it. (All the previous photos have been the professional ones taken by Aria Photography . . . from here on, they’re mine.)
Almost everything at the reception was either DIYed by my mom and sister/sisters-in-law, or pulled together from things people already owned. The star garlands were made by using a star paper punch on silver and gold glittery scrapbook paper, then just stitching them all together on a sewing machine. Everybody pitched in some of their own Christmas lights, and the tissue pom poms were reused from the bridal shower. We set up most of the food and tables on the front porch of my parents’ cabin.
After a dinner of roast turkey breast, mashed potatoes, green beans, and rolls, we set out a dessert buffet on this table with fresh fruit and a bunch of Bekah’s favorite bars that I made the week before the wedding—peanut butter bars, brownies, lemon bars, and 7-layer bars. Simple and tasty desserts that were easy enough to make ahead of time and freeze. (Bekah didn’t want a cake.) We also served homemade lemonade (I wonder if my poor mama’s hands have recovered yet from squeezing 4 billion lemons?). And some of the gold dot favor boxes from the bridal shower also made an appearance! They are seriously the cutest.
For centerpieces on the tables, we used log slices (from a log my mom picked up off the side of the road—what I would have given to watch her struggle to lift a 100-pound log into the back of her car all by herself) topped with jars (collected from all of our pantries) that we glittered up, along with bridal photos and a few flowers. Simple and rustic and beautiful.
One of the traditions we have when staying at my parents’ cabin is making s’mores over the fire pit—no trip is complete without them. So of course s’mores had to be a part of the reception, too. I thought this was one of the cutest parts of the reception—my mom brought up this hutch she already owned and set it up as a s’mores buffet bar next to the fire pit. Such a fun idea, and it looked so adorable. The ‘baskets’ are actually trash cans from the dollar store, and she used little hooks to attach them to the hutch, then just filled them up with s’mores ingredients. We reused the chalkboard easels from the bridal shower to label items and give a few instructions.
The kids loved making s’mores, and the fire pit looked so cute dressed up with the paper lanterns from the shower, too.
^ My mama and nephew, Porter. All fingers and toes are crossed that I look like her when I grow up.
^ and my beautiful little niece, Abby. My mom sewed coordinating dresses for all the nieces at the wedding—so much work, but they came out beautifully.
I didn’t get half the pictures I wish I would have taken (a puking child sort of messed with my plans), but did manage just a few with the bride in them. She looked so stunning. So, so beautiful. Forrest still seems convinced that Bekah and Alan are siblings, but was very excited to see “Queen Bekah” in her “fancy queen dress!” I love this picture of the two of them together. I would also like to give my own horn a little toot here by saying that I did her hair for her wedding day. I am miles away from being any sort of experienced/talented at styling hair, but I thought it came out quite nicely anyway.
Her bouquet weighed about 80 pounds, so she tossed a few individual flowers down. I love the hand reaching up—ha!
Are you tired of pictures yet? Just in case you aren’t, I’ll pepper you with a few more. We’re back to the professional shots now:
All right, that’s probably enough. Congratulations to my beautiful little Bekah, her dashing husband Alan, and to you for making it through this. Now go have a nice big slice of cake or something and have a good weekend.
