A Woodside Wedding: Traffic Woes and Hiding From My Groom

After getting into my dress it was about 2:15 in the afternoon. But not everything was going smoothly. Bridesmaid H had just gotten word that the guys were all dressed and ready to head out to the venue, however the 2 groomsmen who had left early with the Uhaul were stuck in traffic from a wreck, on the way to the venue!

(Isn't she pretty? And I love how the earrings Bridesmaid H borrowed from me pop in this picture.)

Yikes, not good, because once you’re stuck on the main road up to our venue, there’s no real way to turn around. The groomsmen and all of our wedding decor was at the mercy of the traffic jam! And with a very tight set up schedule, them arriving at the venue late could mean a late start to our ceremony. :(

I didn't have too much time to dwell on it though, since it was out of my control, so I quickly told my bridesmaids to take another route up to our venue, shoved a new map with the alternate route and an envelope of cash for the cab at them, and focused on the next matter at hand: getting to our first look.(Me, with one of my many back up maps and driving directions)

I conferred with our photographers for a minute, and it was decided that Mr. Cola would ride with our primary photographer in his car (the photogs needed to have their equipment with them), and he headed down the hall to grab Mr. C. Meanwhile, I grabbed my emergency bag, purse and hanger with my veil and garters, and headed out of the suite with our second photographer.

I peeked down the hall and didn’t see anyone, so we ducked into an elevator. But when we got out of the elevator, I realized I wasn’t 100% sure where my groom was—what elevator did he take, which direction were they exiting the hotel, and why didn’t I pause in the room for a few minutes to avoid this potential ruining of our first look?

So, heart pounding, I dashed down a side hallway and gave Mr. Cola and our other photog a few minutes to safely get out of the hotel. Our photog took advantage of the time to take a couple more photos.

Once we knew the coast must be clear, we headed out to the lobby, where the limo was waiting to take me to our first look location, at a park about 15 minutes away. On the ride there I took full advantage of the air conditioning (did I mention yet that it was a crazy-hot day for June? It was.), called our DOC to let her know about the wreck delaying the Uhaul truck, and repeatedly checked the mirror to make sure I didn’t look like I was melting in the heat. I also had paparazzi snapping photos of me on our ride to the park.

At one point he told me to look serious, but it wasn’t easy! I was anything but serious at that point, more like a mix of calm, excited, relaxed, and giddy, and feeling very glam all dolled up and in my dress! I couldn’t wait to see Mr. Cola at our first look!

Some tips:

#1 If there is any travel involved on your wedding day, make sure you have extra maps and directions on hand. And some alternate routes mapped out. You never know what traffic could be like due to wrecks, weather, etc!

#2 If you're planning to do a first look, have a solid plan on how you, your groom and photographer(s) will be getting to your first look location, not just how to execute the first look itself (which was all that we had planned in advance). Bumping into each other in the hotel lobby would have been a bit of a let down for us, especially considering how much I LOVE how our first look pictures in the park turned out! Stay tuned, because those are coming up in my next post!

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

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

A Woodside Wedding: The Finishing Touches

When our photographers arrived at the hotel suite, we were just breaking out a bottle of champagne, while waiting for my hairstyle to come together. I had wanted to be completely ready, except for having my dress on when they arrived, but oh well!

(Cheers!)

(We totally rocked the champagne in Solo cups!)

Instead, my hair running late gave one of our photogs time to take some pro shots of my accessories, while the other headed down the hall to take photos of the guys getting ready, which you’ll see in my next post.

My dress:

Shoes and dress:

I swoon every time I look at these pictures of my shoes!

Our wedding bands with one of my "something old" items (a little bear I gave one of my grandmothers when I was 3 years old that she carried around in her purses for 20 years, and my grandpa gave it back to me after she passed).
And our bands with one of our DIY invitations. I love how they captured the laser cut text so well!

Our hotel suite door sign:

Then it was finally time to put on my dress!

I never thought I’d be a “dress bride.” You know, the bride who is head over heels in love with their dress, loved shopping for it, tried on a million dresses, and felt like a princess when she put it on; I always just cared way more about my shoes and the DIY details of our wedding. I had struggled to even get excited about dresses at first, had some disappointing shopping experiences (including rudely being told I should lose weight), but finally found a gorgeous gown that was perfect for me. And while I wouldn’t say I felt like a “princess” when I put on my wedding dress on our wedding day, I did feel gorgeous and really did love my dress to pieces. It made me so very happy; putting on my dress meant that the day was really and truly finally here—I was a bride, and about to marry my best friend!

I slipped into my dress in the downstairs bathroom in our suite, and then came out to get laced up by my sister, who had taken off her bridesmaid dress so the bust line could being sewn closed by her boyfriend (A guy who can sew? Now that's a keeper!).

While my sister was finishing lacing my dress, one of my other bridesmaids helped me put on my jewelry, because I couldn’t let go of the stairway railing for long, or I would fall over—my sister was doing a great job of cinching my corset super tight so "the girls" wouldn't fall out!

Then I was ready to slip on my flip flops (I wore those to our first look, because I didn’t want to tire out my feet with my 4 ½ inch heels until the ceremony), put on my lipstick, and posed for a couple of quick shots next to the window and with my bridesmaids. We were still running about 20 minutes late, and couldn’t spend much more time on the finishing touches!

Next up, the guys get ready!

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

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

A Woodside Wedding: Getting Bee-utified!

On Saturday, I woke up around 7 in the morning….even though on the weekends I regularly enjoy sleeping until noon, there was no sleeping in today, IT WAS OUR WEDDING DAY! Luckily my sore throat from the night before was completely gone, much to my relief upon waking.

Mr. Cola thought differently about waking early, and probably didn’t appreciate me curling my bangs and eyelashes, and bouncing around the suite, getting things ready for the day. To give him a little more quiet sleep time, I got dressed in my “getting ready outfit;” white short-sleeve sweatshirt with my initial on it, purple tank top, and white skirt, and headed downstairs to the on-site Starbucks.

Down at Starbucks, I ran into one of my bridesmaids, and we stocked up on caffeine for the day. I knew I couldn’t get through a long day without my usual quad shot iced latte, and I picked up a Double Shot can too, just in case I needed it later!

By the time I got back up to our room, Mr. Cola was finally awake and in the shower, so I could open up the drapes and lay out my jewelry, garters, shoes and rings. I wanted to have everything ready to go for when our photographers arrived, so they could easily shoot my accessories, and also in case we ended up running late; I didn’t want to have to find things at the last minute and potentially forget something.

Then I just had to wait until Mr. C left to go hang out with the groomsmen before I could get out my dress, and hang it on the large mirror that was bolted to the wall in our suite. And since 2 of our 3 hair and makeup artists were running about 20 minutes late, a bridesmaid and I had time to snap a few pics of my accessories ourselves.

(waiting for everyone to arrive, sans makeup)

Around 10:20 the rest of the hair and makeup team finally arrived, with so much stuff they needed a luggage cart to get everything to our suite!

(Tons of after party drinks in the corners of the room!)

And then it was time to get pretty! The stylist who’d arrived on time had already started on my sister’s hair, since she would need to run up to my parents house later to pick up her dress and my toss bouquet, which I’d planned to use for our first look, to save my real bouquet for the ceremony.


My 3 bridesmaids traded off between the two secondary stylists, with one doing everyone’s hair, and the other doing everyone’s makeup. And other than requesting that my sister wear her hair up, I let everyone decide on how they wanted their hair and makeup to look. My bridesmaids feeling comfortable and beautiful was more important to me than having them conform to any particular look or style!


And I had to snap a couple shots from the second story of our suite!


While my bridesmaids were switching off between the secondary stylists, I had my miracle worker stylist all to myself. You may remember Aimee Lam from Mrs. Pug’s wedding, and she is seriously worth her rate in gold! She remembered everything from my trial back in November: smoky eyes, double layered eyelashes, and the fact that since I wear contacts, I have trouble with others putting eyeliner on my lower lids, so she let me do it myself.


Once my makeup was done, it was time to tame my hair. In case you haven’t noticed, I have a LOT of it, and it’s pretty long and very thick. So industrial strength hair spray, a super powered curling iron and pin curls were necessary to get my curls to mostly hold until the wee hours of the morning.

(Mobile blogging again!)

It was so nice to have a relaxing morning of getting fawned over, especially after the stress and near heart attacks of the previous week. I'm happy to report that I was able to "get in the zone" and there was nothing that could stress me out or bother me on the morning of our wedding. What would happen would happen, and there wasn't much I could do or worry about, so I just didn't. I just listened to the relaxing playlist of Ingrid Michaelson and Joss Stone I'd put on, chatted with my bridesmaids and the stylists, and soaked up the morning.

Around this time our DOC called to check in, make sure I was eating, and reminded me to take an allergy pill (thankfully, because I probably would have forgotten and it was much needed for our day outside). She also took the opportunity to confirm our hotel room numbers, so she could let our photogs know so they wouldn’t have to bug me to find out themselves. Yet another reason why having a DOC is a must, on your big day there are so many other things to think about than the little details, so having someone on top of their game is extremely valuable, even before the wedding starts!


While I was getting my hair curled, my bridesmaids were finishing up their hair and makeup. One of them ordered us some yummy sandwiches from room service, and made sure I actually ate some of it, since coffee alone wasn’t going to get me through until dinner. Another bridesmaid called the bell desk to request a van cab for 2:30 for most of the wedding party to get to the venue, and my sister went up to my parents house to get her last minute altered dress (but sadly my toss bouquet was forgotten, so I didn’t have a bouquet for our first look pictures).


Time was drawing near for our photographers to arrive, and my bridesmaids were mostly dressed and ready to go, but my hair was still a work in progress. Since we’d been 20 minutes behind all day, I wasn’t all ready to go except for putting on my dress as I’d planned when our photogs arrived at 1:30. Unfortunately this meant we didn’t get any fun bridesmaid pictures around the hotel like I’d wanted, but it was worth it to have my hair all securely pinned in place and perfect.

So instead of getting into my dress right when our photogs arrived, we broke out the bottle of champagne I’d bought a year ago on a trip to Sonoma, and had been saving for this very moment. Doesn’t the bottle look perfect for a wedding?


Next up, what the guys did the morning of our wedding, and I finally get to put on my wedding gown!

If you end up running late getting ready for your wedding, will it stress you out, or will you be able to just go with the flow?

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

(All pictures in this post are personal photos, taken by myself or my bridesmaids)