Enough With The Bad & The Ugly! Let's Get To The Good Stuff!

Okay, from here on out, I'm only going to bring up the bad stuff in context to the day it happened. I thought hashing it all out in a few posts ahead of time would be the best way to get it out of my system. But really, it gets to be too much and makes me mad all over again. Because I'm so close to the big wedding events, I'll just mention things as they happen.

So, it is now just two days before the wedding and I'm still working round the clock to get things done before the wedding. I'm sleeping only a few hours a night and am constantly surrounded by all-things wedding, and quite frankly, I was going a little nuts...

Me having a crazy moment. I was near insanity at this point.

Mr. Lab was stuck back home 4 hours away because of his classes, so I thank God that I had some wonderful ladies accompany me to Savannah early to help out.

(L-R) Brittany, Moi, Amanda, & Ashley at our hotel's bar the night before the wedding.

Let me talk a little about my bridesmaid Brittany and my Matron of Honor Amanda (aka my BFFs!):

Although we’ve all hung out together before my engagement, Brittany and Amanda were really only friends through me. But as the wedding festivities became more frequent, they got closer and closer. Besides both hosting some of those pre-wedding festivities, they both traveled with me down to Savannah the Wednesday before the wedding to help with last minute prep. It was then that they truly bonded over their shared interest in making my wedding the best it could possibly be. They worked side by side the entire weekend taking the initiative to get things done. They routinely answered my phone and dealt with needy (and I mean NEEDY) vendors. They would come up with a Plan B whenever possible so I wouldn’t have to deal with many of the problems.

Brittany and Amanda constantly hopped in the car and made trips to buy last minute wedding supplies and slaved over DIY projects. Like our chalkboard signature drink signs:

Or assembling (& delivering!*) the OOT bags with all my "Southern" themed goodies:

And while they were doing that, I was busy putting together the rest of the flowers I had put off for so long:

The honorary flower girl's single stem.

The toss bouquet. I also put together the mothers' bouquets that night.

And I perfected the rest of the bouquets by adding twine to the handles and special adornments for my bouquet and my MOH's bouquet.

Remember how I talked about transforming the bouquets into centerpieces? Well, I did a trial run and took photos for our day of coordinator so she'd know exactly what I wanted. Looking back, I wish I had paired the mason jars with the lanterns and vice versa.

And I quickly threw together these cards for some very special ceremony readings:

After all our hard work, we decided it was time for a quick trip to the nail salon for a little R&R and some mimosas! (Btw, thanks girls for telling me that we could bring our champagne & orange juice into a nail salon! I have been enlightened! lol)

And because this post was heavy on the DIY, I have to give a special shout out to my bridesmaid Ashley (aka mash8!):

Thank you for introducing me to Weddingbee. Without WB I wouldn’t have found the inspiration necessary to create my wedding from scratch. I also wouldn't have all the amazing support afterward to work through my PWD. So in essence, this is also a thank you to the hive. It is easy to see who I drew inspiration from by checking out some of my DIY posts. And having the feedback and support of my fellow bees and all the hive members has meant the world to me. You all rock! :D

That night, I wrote what would be my final post before the wedding before things got CRAZY. Ooooo, the classic Weddingbee teaser line! Stay tuuuuuuned!

*If you deliver the OOT bags to a hotel, many of them require that you have the names of the specific guests they're for to leave them in the lobby. A lot of our guests didn't get their OOT bags because I didn't do this ahead of time. :( Luckily, MIL Lab hand-delivered a lot of the bags to people who missed out after the wedding!