The Morning of our Wedding: Getting Dressed Up

With less then 2 hours to go before I was walking down the aisle, we made our way back to the camper where my Mr's cousin, our professional photographer, waited for us to take pictures well we did touch ups and got dressed...

(The view from our campsite)

(Our rented camper from kijiji)



First thing we had to tackle was our hair...remember how we were assured that hair and makeup would last through the day and night? Well they were half right, our makeup stayed on until the next morning but our hair was not so lucky. With the exception of MOH K's hair style, which was a bump with a pony tail...think Duffy..., we all had to make adjustments and touch ups. My sister, MOH M, took hers completely apart and redid it herself, where as BM K & I had to pull out the curling iron and hairspray to re curl our ringlets...

I had told the hair stylist that I wanted to look like "me" which meant leaving my hair down and curly, she decided to take that advice and use a curling iron to force my curls into controlled ringlets. I thought it looked really nice but was concerned that the humidity of the morning and all of the moving around would weigh on my hair and flatten it. She was very confident and just gave it another shot of hairspray but 5 hours later my hair was almost straight! So BM K meticulously re curled my ringlets and sprayed each one with a good dose of heavy duty hair spray.

Our hands had been tied when we booked our hair stylist because she was a package deal with our makeup artist, but I do feel bad that my bridesmaids and I had to pay $75/each for something that didn't even last the morning and wasted an hour of our time crunched day repairing. She was a really nice person but it doesn't change the fact that we paid professional prices for sub par results...

While BM K was fixing my hair, the other girls were getting dressed.

My MIL made the girls' dresses and she had some difficulty with MOH K's. Originally it was suppose to be strapless but it didn't want to stay up and kept sliding down her chest. She also had difficultly sizing the dress, first being too loose and then being too tight, since MOH K seemed to be between a 6 & 8 on the pattern sizing. After multiple alterations, we finally got a dress that fit but the band between the skirt and the chest was really wide. Not wanting to tell my MIL that she needed to fix yet another thing with the dress, we decided to shop for a wide belt to go around her waist and hide that portion of the dress. Originally we thought we could find a grey belt so that wouldn't stand out but after multiple stores we settled on a black one from Forever 21.

(Adjusting MOH K's belt to cover the dress's mid band)

 

(Picking out their black nylons)

(Touch ups)

When MOH K was dressed, our photographer D and her took my dress outside to take a few shots. It doesn't have the crinoline under it so it looks a little flat but I'm all for the detail pictures...



The girls also worked on transferring their ceremony reading to smaller paper that would be easier to handle..

 And then came the time to get me into my dress...

 With the help of MOH K & M, we got my crinolines fluffed under the skirt of the dress, my bra off and started tightening up the corset.

 I can not express how much I love corsets. I could honestly where one, happily, every day. They make me look two sizes smaller and I don't need a bra!

One downside is the inevitable back fat that creeps up and over the corset. I had my MIL make me a bolero to cover this but it was so warm out that I could bare to wear it for the ceremony and forgot to put it on later. Trying to remember proper posture was my only defense...that and not showing you any pictures where the back fat is really obvious! Its nice to have creative control...

 And yes, I'm aware I have alot of cleavage...I'm okay with this...in fact I love them...

 Lastly, I put on my jewelery. My friend, a massage therapist who designs jewelry on the side, made me this custom pearl necklace with broach (that she picked up a Michael's and fastened a turquoise stone to the center which matched with the turquoise necklaces I had her make for my bridesmaids). She also made pearl drops earrings to match.

With us also ready to go, we got into BM K's car and had her husband drive us over to the ceremony. Since we were getting married outside and I didn't want people to see me before walking down the aisle we got dropped off behind the tree line and made our way around to our starting point.

This is the point where I showed a little stress. You see we hadn't thought to have someone wait behind the trees to notify the DJ when to start the music but had just said to start at 4:00. I was worried that we would be late and everyone would be wondering why I wasn't coming down the aisle! Luckily it all worked out.

Up next...our ceremony

{All pictures were taken by Darren Hull Studios}