Jennifer's Big Day

Dave's sister Jennifer and her fiancee Ryan got married in Maryland last week. Dave attended as a groomsman, and I attended as a carefree guest (wohoo!). Earlier in the week, the bridesmaids let me help out with planning Jennifer's bachelorette party. What happens at the bachelorette party stays at the bachelorette party, but I can say we had a good time without (I hope) causing too much embarrassment.

My mom and I both got to go to Jennifer's shower. Mom was in town to hold my hand through a medical procedure and got to join in the fun. One game was particularly fun - Jenn had to answer questions about Ryan. For every wrong answer she had to chew half a piece of bubbalicious gum. There were quite a few hard questions, and toward the end Jennifer was having a hard time managing all the bubble gum:I also had a fun time with her shower present. I made her a towel cake with items from her registry:

The rehearsal itself was lots of fun, and generally a good time. The best man had to juggle parental and groomsman responsibilities for most of the night, but I think he found creative solutions:Here is Jennifer and Ryan, both looking great. They looked ready to run right back up the aisle and out of the church just like the rehearsal had been the real deal. Either that, or they were really hungry and wanted to move on to the rehearsal dinner. The bride, of course, had her pretty bow bouquet from the shower.
One custom I was not familiar with was the bow hat for the father of the bride. Hmm...I think I know where Dave gets some of his personality quirks from.The rehearsal dinner was lots of fun. Months ago while I was home for the summer, Jennifer had mentioned that Ryan wanted to have a special groom's cake made for the rehearsal dinner, but she couldn't come up with any ideas. I spent a minute or two on the internet, showing Jennifer where I had found some cake image galleries, so imagine my surprise when the cake turned out to be the first one we had looked at!

On the big day, I got to help get Jennifer ready with the bridesmaids. Her dress was pretty complicated and required patient lacing, but the effect is just gorgeous! Of course, I admit to being biased towards all things reminiscent of corsets.Here's another shot of Jenn getting ready with the bridal attendants and Matron of Honor (she's a bit hidden behind Jenn's head):The gentleman were also looking very dashing. Especially that tall one in the back.And here's a shot of the ceremony in progress. I have a great shot of the kiss, but I wasn't sure Jennifer would appreciate me posting that on the internet. She'd probably be fine with it, but I'll play it safe. I think the decorations turned out beautifully. Most everything was done by Jennifer and her aunts. I helped out on some of the pew hangings and hanging the draping in the background. I went shopping with the mother-of-the-bride for the fabric and was especially proud that I managed to negotiate a good deal from my favorite fabric store since we purchased an entire bolt (I've clearly been living overseas too long because I generally don't attempt to bargain in retail stores in the US).