We Start Today: Becoming a Bride

This was one of my favorite parts of the day. My Mom and my best friends were with me and it was time to get into my wedding dress!

All Photos by the amazing Palos Studio

It started with Bridesmaid L getting down my dress for me. She's the tallest :)

I had plenty of help getting into my dress and I seriously needed it. My dress was altered to fit my body perfectly and when I say perfectly I mean it was really tight. During one of my fittings I pulled it up to fast over my hips and ripped something... All the girls knew how paranoid I was about doing that again. They helped me pull it up slowly so that I wouldn't hear that dreaded rip!

The dress made it up with no problems. Whew!

Holding my dress together so MOH N could zip it up

All zipped up! Now it was time to take care of all those buttons.

They told me I wasn't allowed to pee all night because in order to do so I would have to take my dress off and they were not going to undo all those buttons! My dress was so tight I could barely sit down let alone pull it up to pee. Spoiler alert, I didn't pee until Mr. Castle and I got to our hotel that night!

I think in this picture I'm laughing at how long it's taking to get all the buttons done. They were also telling me I already had my last pee as an un-married women.

Once the buttons were done, MOH N helped me put on my "something old" necklace

And then my "something borrowed" bracelet. MOH N lent me the bracelet she wore on her wedding day. 

Next up it was time to add the sash MIL Castle had made for me. Had to get a shot of my special hidden turtle!

My Mom said the only thing she could do was help with my shoes because her hands were too shaky for anything else. 

My "something blue" shoes. And my Mom's silver shoes! Aren't they cute?!

I'm pretty sure this picture was taken as my Mom was helping me into my shoes

Bridesmaid L helped me with my veil

We were excited

I love these next two pictures of the girls reactions as I finished up with all my bridal accessories.

I thought I was all set but still asked, "Am I forgetting anything?" Our photographer Erin immediately said, "Garter!" Ahh! How could I forget that! My special Angels garter.

Bridesmaid C helped me slide it into position

Mr. Castle is a dye heart Anaheim Angels fan. I wanted this to be a wedding day surprise but he saw a picture of it in my favorites folder on etsy! Oh well. He still loved it and was happy I was supporting his team on our wedding day.

I heart this photo.

It was really special that each of my closest friends along with my Mom helped me with a part of my bridal attire. My favorite ladies in the world helped turn me into bride! I couldn't believe that this part was over! I was dressed! I was a bride! I was getting married!!!!! 

How did you feel when you were finally dressed on your wedding day?

Coming up next some bridal portraits!

Miss a recap? Check it out below!

We start at the end with a surprise wedding video!

We rehearse

Our rehearsal luncheon

We start the day with singing, dancing, and an earthquake

I get my hair and makeup done

We arrive at our venue and Mr. Castle asks for some makeup

We Start Today: We Have Arrived!

We arrived at our venue and were immediately greeted by our photographers Erin and Louis! They were already busy taking some detail shots. The staff at Padua had already set up everything I had brought to our rehearsal and it looked amazing!

Photography by the amazing Palos Studio

Arriving and admiring the venue

Tammy, our go to person from Padua for the day, had already hung my dress and taken it out of it's garment bag by the time I made it to the bridal room. She was such a sweet heart and took amazing care of us throughout the whole day! Since she had already handled my dress I began organizing my things and giving Erin my jewelry and shoes to start photographing.

About fifteen minutes after our arrival the boys arrived! I was pretty much locked up in the bridal room until told otherwise. As I said in my post about wedding superstitions, Mr. Castle wanted his first time seeing me to be while I was walking down the aisle. So while he was out and about I was not allowed to leave the room. :(

While I was locked up, Mr. Castle and his groomsmen ran a sound check for the ceremony music.

Mr. Castle might kill me for sharing this... but I'm going to anyway. :) At some point singer J came into the bridal suite and said Mr. Castle wanted one of the girls to come out with some cover up for his face. Apparently he had a stress volcano brewing and wanted it covered up. Bridesmaids S & L to the rescue!

The ladies in green making Mr. C look pretty

Meanwhile I was awaiting the arrival of my Mother who was running late... I was anxious to get into my dress but wanted to wait until she arrived. When she finally did arrive she was very frazzled with nerves and excitement. She caught me off guard by coming in for a huge hug.

While this was happening I remember thinking, "I'm not ready to cry yet." It wasn't because I didn't want to ruin my makeup or make an ugly cry face, it was more that I was happy and didn't want to miss anything going on around me. I wanted to capture every moment and surely tears would get in the way of that!

Before the girls got into their dresses we took some pictures in our robes!

The simple direction to look at each other and smile turned into giggling bride and bridesmaids

My Mom and the girls all got dressed which meant next up it was my turn!

How did you feel when you arrived at your venue on your wedding day? 

Miss a recap? Check it out below!

We start at the end with a surprise wedding video!

We rehearse

Our rehearsal luncheon

We start the day with singing, dancing, and an earthquake

I get my hair and makeup done

We Start Today: Getting Pretty

After we had eaten and had a dance party, it was time to get pretty! MOH N's Mom, AKA my second Mother, had arrived and was ready to get started on our hair. She was doing my Mom, MOH N and my hair. The other ladies are all very talented at doing their hair and opted to do their own.

The girls hanging out while MOH N's Mom gets started on her hair

Meanwhile our amazing makeup artist Ana had also arrived and got straight to work on my Mom's airbrush makeup!

My Mom's makeup turned out so amazing!

A shot of my Mom's makeup while getting her hair done.

As I waited for my turn in the hair and makeup chair I kept busy entertaining our youngest ring bearer. My Mom kept all our special childhood toys, so as soon as MOH N's son arrived she brought out a big box of trains for him to play with. We took turns trying to see who could build him the best track.

Every bride plays with trains on their wedding morning right?

The other ladies kept busy drinking more champagne, napping or just hanging out.

Finally it was my turn to get my hair done!

After hair I got into the makeup chair for my turn with Ana. 

I loved loved LOVED my airbrush makeup. It was so light. It felt like I wasn't wearing anything, a good feeling for someone like me who rarely ever wears makeup. Ana did such a great job of making it look classy and natural. Just the way I wanted it!

A shot with the girls after completed hair and makeup!

With all our hair and makeup done, it was time to head over to the venue!

Miss a recap? Check it out below!

We start at the end with a surprise wedding video!

We rehearse

Our rehearsal luncheon
We start the day with singing, dancing, and an earthquake

We Start Today: All Shook Up

Here's a little peak of what my wedding morning looked like.

Wedding morning from Mrs. Castle on Vimeo.

Singing, dancing and eating bagels. 

I heart that video. But let me back up a bit to the very beginning of the morning. I woke up at 6:00am while my bridesmaids were all still snoozing around me in the hotel room. I checked my email, wrote my final miss post for weddingbee and killed some time on Facebook. When MOH N woke up she immediately informed me that I had been talking in my sleep. Apparently I said, "That looks beautiful!" I thought that was a good sign. It was much better than me mumbling something along the lines of, "You ruined everything!!!"

The other girls got up and we all started getting ready for the big day ahead! After I had showered and dried my hair, I decided to sit on the hotel room couch and re-read my vows. All of a sudden I felt some shaking and heard a loud noise in the building. I turned to bridesmaid S and said, "Did you feel that!?" I turned on the TV to make sure I wasn't hallucinating and sure enough there had just been a 4.2 earthquake! An earthquake the morning of your wedding?!? Good luck, bad luck? In our case I'm going to go with good. I joked that I was glad our OOT guests were getting the full California experience.

Once we were all ready to go, we headed over to my Moms where bridesmaid L and singer J had arrived with bagels and champagne! We all got into our robes and started the dance party shown in the video above. It was a thrilling way to start the day.

Bridesmaid S and MOH N excited about the day ahead!

Me and my girls!

Someone got this nice shot of our backsides... I'm guessing it was singer J...

Singer J was clearly the star in the above video. Not only is he a very good friend of mine, he is also a very good friend of Mr. Castle. We kept saying that he got to "play for both teams." He spent the morning with me and the girls and then met up with Mr. Castle and the groomsmen to get ready. I was so glad we both were able to share him while getting ready. :)

At some point that morning my Mom felt bad that singer J didn't have a robe like all the other ladies, so she went and got one out of her closet for him to wear. Seriously one of my favorite memories from that morning.

Singer J wearing my Mom's robe.

I was already having such a great day! I couldn't believe how calm I was. I wasn't nervous and I wasn't overly excited either. I was just living in the moment, cool, calm and collected. No earthquake could shake this bride up!

Next up it was time to get pretty!
All Photos/videos are personal

Miss a recap? Check it out below!

We start at the end with a surprise wedding video!
We rehearse

Our rehearsal luncheon

We Start Today: Rehearsal Luncheon

I was so glad to have finally made it to our rehearsal luncheon. It felt like everything was downhill from here. No more planning, no more stress about getting things finished in time. We got to relax and enjoy some quality time with our family and closest friends.

MIL Castle brought some of my favorite orange flowers for the center of each table!

Our rehearsal luncheon was held at the local Buca di Beppo. It was conveniently only about ten minutes away from our venue, and since it was lunch time on a Friday afternoon we had most of the place to ourselves. 

Some of the tables at our Luncheon

The food was really great and the company was even better! We kept everything pretty casual, but Mr. Castle's Dad did give a toast. He started his toast by saying, "You know the saying, 'speak now or forever hold your peace'...well I'm going to speak now and tomorrow I'll hold my peace..." This made Mr. Castle laugh hysterically which in turn made everyone else laugh. Once everyone settled down he went on to give a very thoughtful toast which brought some tears to my eyes.

After desert we gave our bridal party their gifts. We decided to give our parents their gifts at a separate time so there wasn't a big "show" of it. One of my favorite memories of the day was giving my Dad his gift, an embroidered handkerchief, after the rehearsal. It was just the two of us and it was really special to be able to sincerely thank him for everything without the pressure of knowing a room full of people were watching our exchange. My Dad even shed a few tears which I have only seen him do about twice in my lifetime. 

Before our lunch was over we had to get a couple more shots with our awesome bridal party! Starting with our adorable ring bearers!

I really can't stand their cuteness

I promised a better picture of their shirts. How cute is that?!

The boys. Someone commented on facebook that the way the groomsmen have their arms around Mr. Castle's shoulders makes it look like a small child is holding onto his back. I can never look at this picture without thinking that. 

The girls with our little honorary bridesmaid, our best man's daughter.

And finally a shot of Mr. Castle and I!

We said our goodbyes and went back to my Moms house to relax for a bit. Before I knew it it was time to say my final goodbye to Mr. Castle! I wouldn't be seeing him again until my walk down the aisle. I headed over to the hotel with my bridesmaids and actually went to bed at a decent hour! Next up, the morning of our wedding day! 

What about you? Was your rehearsal dinner/luncheon more formal or casual?

All Photos are personal 

Miss a recap? Check it out below!

We start at the end with a surprise wedding video!

We rehearse!