Mr. & Mrs. Michael Harper!
Two weeks ago my college roommate (aka the favorite) got married to the man of her dreams!I blogged in October about her sweet Baylor Homecoming engagement, and soon after
was honored with bridesmaid status for her wedding! I drove up to Dallas/Ft Worth for an entire
wedding weekend extravaganza and had an amazing weekend celebrating her wedding!
We started off the weekend Thursday evening with a rehearsal and dinner at a local
Mexican restaurant...yummy! We ate like royalty all weekend, and enjoyed every minute of it!
The next day we got together for a bachelorette evening that started out with dinner at a tasty
family style Italian restaurant in Dallas called Maggiano's. After dinner we headed back
to a friend's house to have a wine tasting and shower her with outfits for the honeymoon
if you catch my drift... :)
Wine tasting, complete with form that was customized to help us rate how we thought each wine would make Rachel and Michael feel and when each might be most appropriate. Fun!
This gift bag has been passed between me and Rach for almost 4 years now, we always joke how I'm the puppy and she's the kitty. Polar opposites in some ways, but still the best of friends!
This night was especially exciting because Kristyna arrived in town from Chicago! The three of us were especially close at Baylor and have managed to get together at least once a year since we all left Waco. It was fun that this year's gathering was for the trio's first wedding!
Saturday morning we had a bridal brunch at Rachel's granny's home and enjoyed girl time honoring Rachel. Above is the bridal party, starting in the back left with Kristyna, me, & Pam. On the bottom row is Rachel with her sister Rhiannon. Kristyna and I are her Baylor friends, and Pam is a friend of Rachel's from Kindergarten! After we stuffed ourselves with cinnamon rolls, fruit, mini muffins and keiche we worked on a craft Rhiannon had planned. We each decorated a scrapbook page for Rachel and wrote our words of wisdom or encouragement for her as she and Michael begin their marriage. It was a really cute and sweet book of notes by the time we were done!
Later in the day we went to get our nails done for the wedding and all ended up going with some shade of purple. Rach had a really cool flower detail done on her big toes and we all loved getting extra long foot massages!
Post pedicure toe shot; (from l-r) me, rach & pam. I didn't expect my color to turn out as dark as it did, but it was fun for the weekend! I had the same color on my fingernails so I felt a little edgy, kind of Ashlee Simpson or Nicole Richie like...haha!
Aren't these flowers gorgeous? One of the things I really enjoyed about Rachel's wedding was that I got to put my creative itch to work in several ways. She ordered the flowers from Growers Box and we made all the bouquets, boutonnieres, pew decorations, and reception arrangements! I had so much fun flower arranging and even got to help Rachel make her bouquet! Her bouquet only included purple calla lillies and white/cream roses but we used white calla lillies in several of the other arrangements. The flowers were so beautiful!
Pretty ladies, both soon to be wives! You can even see Kristyna's new bling on her left hand in this picture! Looking forward to her Chicago wedding in the fall!
The day of the wedding we woke up around 9 to head to the chapel and set up the reception hall. After tying up all the loose ends we headed back to Rhiannon's house to do hair and makeup, then went back to the chapel to get dressed and get Rachel married!!
Of course we didn't leave without getting into some leftover Bluebell cookie dough ice cream from the night before! We are definitely girls that enjoy food!
About an hour before the ceremony her phone received this notification from Twitter. She and Michael had made a joint Twitter account to post updates during their wedding planning and called the account Team M&R. The phone reads: Team M&R unite for eternity! We're getting married!
The wedding was held at the Rose Chapel just south of downtown Ft. Worth. It was so pretty that it hardly required any decoration, and it was perfect that there was a purple tone to everything already! The reception was next door and looked great at night with pretty lanterns on the tables and lots of pictures of the happy couple around!
We waved purple ribbon wands as the couple left the reception, and here you can see another floral arrangement I got to make!
His cake. Her cake. Isn't his so funny? He figured since it was his cake it should have his face on it...why not? Don't you love the little pair of love birds on Rachel's cake? It was gorgeous!
Here's a few shots of us getting ready for the ceremony.
Rach made her own shoes, which turned out so cute!
Kristyna and I above, me with the bride below! She got those cute flowers in her hair from etsy!
Who knew that you can buy a tux for a 9 month old? Here's Rachel's nephew Hudson, so cute!We got to have a mini roommate reunion too! L-r is Sarah, Rach, me and Kerry! All three of those gorgeous ladies are married now! I always cherish the time we get to spend together and love that lately our gatherings have been for such exciting occasions!
Finally, here's the happy couple during their first dance. The music at their wedding was perfect to their personalities and they even had mix CD's made as party favors for their guests. I'm really enjoying the new music and love even more that it reminds me of people I love!
Congrats Michael & Rachel, I loved every minute of your wedding weekend and know you'll be very happy!!!
