A Woodside Wedding: Lookin’ Good at Our First Look

When the limo pulled up to Sharon Park where we were doing our first look, I could see our primary photographer getting Mr. Cola into place over next to the pond. The limo driver came around and started to open the door for me, but I yelled “NO!” so he quickly slammed the door shut. Mr. C seeing me for the first time hauling myself ungracefully out of the limo in a big dress was not what I had in mind for our first look!

The photographer who had ridden over with me in the limo got out, made sure everyone and everything was in place, and then we finally let the limo driver open the door and help me out. I adjusted my dress, walked over to the pond, and got into place on a bench behind Mr. Cola. What follows are some of my favorite pictures of the day!

I had bustled my dress for our first look, in an attempt to keep it clean until our ceremony. But we all know that didn't work!
Time to sneak up on Mr. Cola!

My "trying not to giggle" face.

Guess who?

(Hey look, my DIY french manicure the night before turned out pretty good!)

Now, time to check each other out!

And go in for a hug! It felt so great to finally get to connect with him that day, knowing that very soon we'd be saying our vows and finally be husband and wife!

But wait, Mr. Cola hadn't seen all of my dress yet. A twirl was in order!

Apparently this is my "how do you like the rear view?" face!

Like so many have said before, I absolutely love that we did a first look, and was so glad we did it. Originally I'd wanted to go the more traditional route and wait until walking down the aisle to see each other for the first time, but that wasn't important to Mr. Cola, and it really worked out for the best. We had a whole hour after our first look for pictures in the park, which I'll share next, and were able to concentrate on the bridal party and family portraits after our ceremony. Those took almost our whole cocktail hour, so it's definitely good that we got this time in before the ceremony, or we would have had hardly any time for photos of just the two of us otherwise!

Overall, I highly recommend doing a first look if you can. It didn't take away from walking down the aisle at all, and it was so enjoyable to be able to take our time, hug and kiss, and spend some (mostly) alone time on our wedding day!

Now it's your turn to share, will you be doing a first look? Why or why not?

Miss any wedding week details? Catch up here:

- I packed an emergency bag that saved my dress
- We had a crazy 4 days prepping for house guests and stuffing favors
- Shopping for a ton of wedding flowers to arrange ourselves
- Mr. Cola drinks a 40 and I have a night out on the town for our low-key bach parties
- A day of DIY'ing flower arrangements
- I kicked off our official recaps with my #1 wedding tip
- We began the weekend festivities with a sunset cruise for our wedding party
- We rehearsed our quick and easy ceremony
- I panicked, but we got our rehearsal dinner decorations set up just in time
- Our families met for the first time at our rehearsal dinner under the trees
- What went wrong on our wedding day, and my tips for future brides
- My bridesmaids and I got our hair and makeup done in the hotel suite
- I put on my wedding dress and became a bride
- The guys watched the World Cup, then got ready in 10 minutes
- Traffic delayed our decorations getting to the venue, and I almost ruined our first look

(All photos in this post were taken by the very talented photographers of Shoot Me Now Photography)