Our Wedding: Part 2

Check out Part 1

Our First Look

Once Adam and I were ready to go for the day and had taken a couple of solo pictures, it was time for our first look.  We decided to see each other before the ceremony because it made sense for us, our timeline, and our personalities.  Honestly, Adam has a very calming influence on me – the idea of spending more time with him on our wedding day seemed like a perfect way to relax and enjoy the day (our ceremony wasn’t until 4:30).  Another big factor: we love efficiency…and the efficiency of doing all the pictures ahead of time is pretty hard to beat.  And another big thing – I cry.  Like.  A lot.  We needed to do our nice pictures before I got all emotional and mush gush during the ceremony.

We did our first look outside in the courtyard across from the inn.  This worked out perfectly as it allowed for family members to watch the first look from the windows.  It allowed them to be involved, while giving us an intimate moment together.  Adam went outside first (brave soul – it was about 25 degrees out).  I made my way down with Allie, and my sisters.  We crossed the street toward the courtyard with Adam and our paparazi.  He had his eyes closed and back towards my direction.  We started getting closer and I was just so excited to finally see him.  It had been hard keeping all the secrets about my dress, I was excited to officially start our wedding day together.

Aww poor cold Adam waiting on me.

With my entourage making my way to the first look!

Almost ready!

Okay Julie, now count to three!

My plan for the first look was to walk toward him, instead of the usual tap on the shoulder thing you often see.  I wanted to emulate walking down the aisle, since he will already have seen me at that point.  My sister called out 1….2….3… and Adam opened his eyes.  I started laughing and walked toward him, my dress dragging in the snow.  I remember thinking “man, I shouldn’t have stood so far away from him!  This is a long way to walk.”  Finally I reached him and we hugged and kissed.  I think it was starting to sink in that we made it to our wedding day.

No peeking :)

I think he’s showing some emotion!

Don’t sob. don’t sob. don’t sob.

Hellllooooo there!

Oh hey family creepers.

 

Showing Adam the full look!

Happy and together.

Despite the cold, we took several pictures at this point while waiting for the limo to show up.  It was freeeeeezing, but everyone was really a trooper as we took a couple of different combinations of pictures.  I ended up switching into my winter boots, and I must say… those were LIFE SAVERS.  They made the day so comfortable and really helped me feel very toasty warm.  I LOVED having them.  I can’t recommend having warm feet enough if you’re going the winter wedding route.

My boots rocked my world. So warm!

Hey let’s hide under my veil. Like you do.

With my ladies!

Wearing our gloves Adam’s grandmother made for us!

Hey let’s hide behind these balloons and kiss.

Eventually we saw a small janky looking bus pull up to the Inn.  “How funny, someone else must have an event!” Well… turns out that crazy looking old bus was for us.  Dreams of our lovely limo vanished as we all piled into the bus (that also had a bathroom with no door).  We were all laughing at the change of plans, and honestly it worked out kind of great having all that space.  It wasn’t that nice, but it was spacious.  And it gave us something to laugh hysterically about – for some reason that day we all thought it was really funny.  Plus, it was a vehicle that was on time so we didn’t even think about fighting it.  Not worth it.

Enjoying our spacious vehicle.

We made our way to our one photo location.  Initially in the planning stages we wanted to stop by a couple places around downtown Indy.  But the more Adam and I discussed it, the more sense it made to stick to one location.  It would cut down on wasted time and make for a more stress-free time.  It turned out to be a brilliant decision as we had a lovely time, never felt rushed, and still got a variety of pictures.

We chose to have our photos at the downtown library for a few reasons.  One, it has a ton of variety – it was renovated and has a really neat old-fashioned looking part and a stark modern area as well.  Two, Adam and I are big dorks that love to read.  Three, we went on one of our first “dates” at the library for Adam’s med school prom (yes, that is really a thing).  Honestly if we had a big budget, we would’ve chosen the library as our venue – it’s just GORGEOUS.

With my ladies again!

The whole group looking fancy.

The handsome gentlemen.

Getting ready to go in the library. There may have been a bit of heckling by random people hahah.

Completely fancy people. I mean right??

Ooooo… so handsome!

A little “Beauty and the Beast” no??

Let’s snuggle on the stairs in the library.

Once we had our fill of the inside library… we realized it was SNOWING.  So we just HAD to go outside and capture all that glorious snow.  My dream was coming true.  Snow on our wedding day.  Pinch me!

Pretend like you’re not cold and cheer!

Let’s be all dreamy and kissy… and freezing.

Both of us were on cloud 9 with all this snow.

Cuddly almost spouses.

Just giddy!

After about 45 minutes at the library we piled back in our silly bus and made our way to the church.  It had just started to snow, so it was a good thing we were making our way.  Once we got to the church we did all of our family pictures.  We had another 45 minutes or so to do all of the combinations of family members.  It ran like clockwork as we spent a lot of time coming up with an order that would be extremely efficient.

Family photo fun!

Once all the photos were complete I made my way back into the children’s nursery to hide out.  At this point I was starting to feel a bit of a headache/light headed.  I pounded some water and advil, and ate about 4 cookies from our cookie bar.  Hahah, it worked out perfectly :)  

I was very surprised how nervous I was getting.  It seemed like the morning and photos were all fun and games… and it finally was dawning on me what was happening.  I started thinking about all of the people out there and got a little overwhelmed.  Honestly these feelings caught me a bit off guard.  I perform and am used to doing things in crowds… but for some reason I was just anxious.  I sat down in one of the rocking chairs and just tried to calm down/zen out.  I think all of the busy-ness of the day and emotions were catching up with me.  I was happy that there were no photographers or videographers with me.  It was very welcome to just have a bit of time alone.  Everyone did a good job of giving me space without me even asking for it.  I think having a bit of downtime on such a busy day made for a much more successful rest of the evening.

It reached 4:30 and I knew we were getting close.  Due to the snow I knew we’d delay start until 4:35, but no later (we told them to only delay 5 minutes in case of snow).  The clock seemed to be counting down incredibly slowly, but quickly at the same time.  Eventually I heard the music of our singers start.  This was it.  Time to go become Adam’s wife.