Our Wedding

After looking at everyone else's posts today on their weddings I decided to join in! Usually I only post about Kaylee because this is her 'virtual baby book' but I guess you could say our wedding was an important part in her life... even though she wasn't exactly thought of yet :) Fair warning... this is probably going to be a long post because the story of what happened before and right after our wedding is pretty funny... plus I'm probably going to get carried away with the pictures!

At first we had planning on going back home, to Tennessee to get married. Daniel and I took a trip home one weekend and looked at several different churches. We decided on one in downtown Nashville that I absolutely loved. It had a huge organ and when we were there, the organist was practicing and played 'Here Comes the Bride'... I got chill bumps!

We were on a budget with the wedding and once we started getting quotes for the flowers to use at the church and at the reception area, I realized there was no way we could afford to do the wedding and reception the way I had envisioned it. On top of the money issue, I was tired of trying to plan a wedding 500 miles away and second guessing myself on every little detail... I think it was my mom that mentioned having a wedding on the beach and after all of the stress, I agreed. That was probably the best decision I made! I pretty much let go of all the details of our wedding. I had a picture of how I wanted our cake to look and told my mom to handle that and planned out a simple bouquet for myself and maid of honor. I had already picked out my wedding dress back when I was planning on getting married in a church but decided to stick with that dress after spending hours thinking to myself that it would never look right.

Looking back, if we would've stuck with getting married in a church, it would've probably been incredibly stressful. We decided to get married in Sand Key park in Clearwater Beach, Florida. To save money, we decided to get married on a Thursday, July 17. Not only was it cheaper to book the photographer and the people who setup the wedding area during the week, but we knew we had to come home that Friday because Daniel had to leave that Saturday morning to go to a race. First of all, let me say that I am terrible at putting things off! Our plane was scheduled to leave Raleigh at like 6:30 am... Raleigh was 2 1/2 hours from where we were living and I didn't start packing until around midnight, the night before we were leaving. I finally made it to bed around 1am knowing that I had to be up in a hour to get ready to leave. And that's where it all started going downhill.

I never heard my alarm and woke up at 4:30. I remember running back in forth panicking, knowing that we were going to miss our plane and we didn't have the money to reschedule our flight. Thank goodness we were flying Southwest and they put us on the next flight out around 10 am for no charge. But there was one little thing that was bothering me... our original flight was going to be a nonstop flight. The one that we got switched to had a layover in Nashville where we would switch planes and actually be getting on the same plane my maid of honor was going to be on. I didn't tell Daniel, but apparently while I was oversleeping, I had a dream that the plane my maid of honor was on crashed on the way to Florida... GREAT! I tried to just forget about it since we had so much else going on. We made it to the airport and I called my mom to tell her that instead of just arriving in Florida, we had missed our flight and were waiting for the next one.

When we made it to Nashville we were told we needed to make sure there were still seats on the connecting flight, so we rushed over to the counter to check in. Of course, since everything else was going wrong, when Daniel pulled out his drivers license to get our new tickets, it broke into 3 or 4 pieces! It was about 30 minutes past the time that the plane was supposed to take off, when they announced that they had discovered something wrong with one of the engines on the plane and were having to get another plane for us to get on. That's where I panicked... and decided it was probably a good time to tell Daniel and my maid of honor about my dream.

After at least an hour delay we were finally on our way to Clearwater. The forecast was calling for rain that day and the next and when we got there it wasn't looking good. Somehow we missed the rain and were able to go by the courthouse to get our marriage license and then spend the rest of the day hanging out. It really was just like a vacation for everyone. We all went out to eat at a restaurant on the beach and then went back to the hotel, changed into our swimsuits and spent the rest of the day and most of the night in the ocean and the hotel pool.
The morning of the wedding we all spend some more time in the ocean and the pool after going to Ihop for breakfast...and getting sick. I don't know if there was something wrong with all of the food or what, but every one of us who ate there got sick! After we finally recovered it was nice to relax since our wedding wasn't until that night right before sunset. I had made an appointment for my maid of honor and I to go get our hair done. We left the hotel for the hair salon and actually saw Hulk Hogan and his daughter ride past us on scooters!
I kept thinking we had plenty of time, but after we were done at the salon and we got back in the car, I realized I only had a little over an hour to get back to the hotel, get dressed and make it to the park to get married. We rushed back to the hotel and I literally had to jump into my dress and rush out the door.

When we got to the beach I had a issue with my dress because somehow some of the stitching that was holding the tulle up on the front of my dress had come undone and I had to hold the front of my dress up as I was walking to keep from tripping all over it. The ceremony itself was great and it all seemed like it happened so fast.

The company we hired to setup the ceremony area did a great job. I loved the colors and the little details were beautiful.

We decided to write our own vows and I'm so happy that we did. I really thought I could hold it together while reading mine... I had practiced reading them and had no problem. But of course...

I cried... lol! We finished up the ceremony with our first kiss as a married couple :)

A kiss right after walking back down the aisle

After the ceremony we walked down the beach taking pictures until the sun set.
Once the sun had set we got in the car and drove back to the hotel for me to change dresses before walking next door to a restaurant where we had our reception at.

It was nice just having a more casual reception because we didn't have to worry about decorating anything. The restaurant had a buffet and after everyone finished eating we finally were able to cut our cake!
Of course, I got him good with the cake... And then he tried to get me back!
We had shared a hotel room with my maid of honor the night before and had a room reserved for our wedding night a few miles away. We didn't make it to the hotel until around 9 or 10 that night and it was terrible! When we walked up to the door to our room it looked like someone had tried to use a crowbar to get in...and honestly, they probably had because it took both Daniel and I hitting the door with our sides to get it to open. Once we got inside, we both just got a creepy feeling. A lot of light bulbs were burnt out and there was a door that connected to the room beside it that had been left unlocked. We opened the door and saw trash everywhere. It honestly looked like someone had been killed in there! The room had an upstairs where the bedroom was. The bed was actually sitting on wooden boards. We looked in the bathroom and while it was big, there was mold in the shower. We decided to go back to the room we had stayed in the night before but first Daniel needed to use the restroom. I sat on the bed terrified the whole time. The hotel wasn't some hole in the wall, it was a Holiday Inn that actually had good reviews.

We left the hotel and hotel and headed back to Clearwater Beach. Instead of spending our wedding night with just the two of us we picked up my maid of honor and headed to McDonalds for a late night snack (and we honestly think that the guy working the drive through window had probably killed someone in the room that connected to ours, lol)!

We stayed up late that night just hanging out and then woke up the next morning and rushed downstairs to the restaurant on the beach below our hotel to have an early lunch before spending a few hours in the pool. Our little vacation really did go by way too fast. We left the hotel and stopped by the courthouse on the way to the airport to get our marriage certificate.

Not only was it a great trip because we got married, but it was so nice to relax and spend time with friends and family!