I Thee Wed

Success is 10% inspiration, 90% last-minute changes. -Unknown

{Jeremy & Robin, July 31, 2010}

I spent all of last week making little lavender vests and dresses for my youngest sister's wedding. I was on-schedule to have the vests all finished and ready to go a few days before the wedding. Then I had the brilliant idea that I needed to make skirts so that my sister and I could have something new to wear. I then realized that our sister-in-law, who is pregnant, also was not getting a new dress and so I went to JoAnn's {armed with my trusty 50% off coupons), pulled the skirt patterns and then started to thumb through the pattern books looking for something maternity. There was no such thing. I came across a cute, simple dress pattern that I thought would work for all of us and

eliminate the need for me to shop for a blouse to match the skirt. I put the skirt patterns back {I'm still going to have to make one of those skirts at some point because they are so dang cute} and got fabrics for the three dresses. This was Tuesday, the wedding was Saturday and I still had a full day's work on the vests.

{l to r: Julie, Miss Butterfly}

Thursday morning, I worked on altering the patterns, fitting them to each of the three of us. I had real life duties in the afternoon, so when I finally got back to the dresses that night to start cutting them out, I discovered that I was about a half a yard short of {spring green} fabric for the dress for my sister. I live in between two JoAnn's stores and had bought everything they had left on the bolt of that color at the closer of the two. So, at 20 minutes to closing, I set out for the other JoAnn's {with more 50% off coupons} hoping that there wasn't any backed up traffic because of the road construction between here and there. I got there with four minutes to spare only to discover that they were also out of the fabric. I grabbed a fabric that was close enough in color and made plans accordingly. While the second piece of green washed, I cut my dress out, without an inch of fabric to spare. I knew I was in trouble because I had the same amount of fabric for my sister-in-law, only her fabric was in two pieces {I bought some to go with the left-over fabric I had from the boys' vests} and her dress needed to be longer. So I cut out the green dress and went to bed completely exhausted and thoroughly frustrated that my dress plans were not going smoothly.

{l to r: Elizabeth, Mr. Bug, Grasshopper, LadyBug}

Friday morning, I started again, determined to make my plan work. I cut out everything I could for the {lavender} dress for my sister-in-law.  Then I packed up all my supplies, stopped in for a third time at JoAnn's {unfortunately I'd used up all my 50% off coupons } and headed to Wedding Preparations Central {a.k.a., my mom's house} where all the girls were helping get food ready for the big day. As soon as I got there I sat down and began sewing. Originally I was supposed to help with the food, but since I was making dresses I'd been excused. I was also going to attend the rehearsal dinner, but the dresses weren't coming together as quickly as I'd hoped. So, I kept on sewing. I was also going to go home that night so that Mr. Bug wouldn't have to drive up separately. But instead I kept on sewing and we arranged for my dad to pick up Mr. Bug the next day and bring him for the wedding.

{l to r: Julie, matron of honor Jill, Lorelei}

I'd picked a very simple pattern – it said right on the envelope 1-Hour Dress. And I took the pockets out, so that should have cut construction time down to 15 minutes. But It wasn't going that quickly {probably because I added a zipper, a bodice lining and about 500 darts to make the dress more shapely}. I'd made a really good start on the dresses for my sister and sister-in-law and sewed until I could hardly keep from falling asleep. About 2:00 am, I realized that I was only going to be able to finish those two dresses. I knew that it would take me the better part of the day on Saturday to finish them and even if I stayed up all night, there was only a slim chance I'd get my dress done. I decided that I needed sleep more than I needed a new dress.

{l to r: Father of the Bride, Mother of the Bride}

Meanwhile, the photographer hadn't confirmed, the decorator had delivered the wrong tent and rented out the chairs my sister picked to someone else, and the florist discovered {after all the suppliers were closed for the weekend} that she'd received carnations instead of calla lilies for my sister's bouquets. After months and months of planning, my sister had to take a little time-out and my mom and the florist decided to go with some purple {instead of white} calla lilies they were able to find in the grocery store. In the end, it all worked out, but it was a stressful few minutes.

My sister was up and out the door at 7:30 am on Saturday to have her hair set into finger curls. Then she went to the salon where she works and did hair for our mom, the matron of honor {our sister} and two of the flower girls, LadyBug and Miss Butterfly. Pixie's mom did her hair. They looked amazing!

{l to r: LadyBug, Miss Butterfly, Pixie}

Have I mentioned the weather yet? When we arrived for the party, it was 98˚ out. The clouds came in and a sprinkling of rain beat a tattoo on the tent during the ceremony loud enough that it was hard to hear them say their I do's. Then the sun came out and shone right in our faces for pictures. During the reception the wind picked up and the smaller tents threatened to blow away so we had to put them all down. After that it rained in earnest, but fortunately for us that really cooled things down. LadyBug was having a really hard time with the heat and was totally done with wearing her frilly dress as soon as the ceremony was over. She had a meltdown about having so many pictures taken in the hot sun. She looks grumpy in most of them.

{LadyBug, Robin}

I had a really hard time narrowing down the 138 photos {that turned out} that I took of the event so bear with me while I show a few more. Here is my sister's family:

{Steven, Jill, Mouse, Lizard}

And here is a fun one of the kids hanging out in the shade waiting for pictures:

{backish: Mark, Miss Butterfly, Pixie, Grasshopper

frontish: LadyBug, Mantis, Lizard, Cap'n Underpants}

This rainbow came out for the last part of the reception.

{l to r: Julie, Jeremy}

The Bride's Family:

{l to r: Dad, Mom, Andrew, Julie, the Bride Robin, the Groom Jeremy, Elizabeth, Jill, Mark}

And because I pretty much want to stalk her with the camera all. the. time. here's a little slide show of Pixie.