Joe and Brandie’s Wedding

Okay, I know picture-heavy posts take longer to load, but I feel like either you’re interested or you’re not and I’d rather just get it over in one post in case you’re totally un-interested and then you’re not tortured (though if you’re not interested I’m not sure what you think I’ll come up with next that’s better than this but that’s your problem, not mine!). That also means the people who ARE interested aren’t tortured by having to wait until the next day to hear the end. Right? Just my theory. So this is a long post and sorry, but I am definitely not sorry.

My other excuse is that I only took pictures while we were getting ready and I had to wait for the wedding guests to load their own pictures to Facebook so I could steal them for this post. And oh em gee, those wedding guests are taking forever to get those pictures on Facebook (I will be the kettle, thanks). Thanks to Shaye and Jessica for providing most of these and hopefully not being mad that I didn’t ask first.

I’m going to start with engagement photos because I took them and then I never shared them. I mean, not with you – obviously I sent them to Joe and Brandie. The day we took these was the hottest day we’d had yet this summer and sadly it was just a preview of what the summer had in planned. Still we managed to get in some good shots!

Fast forward to July and guess what? We were sweltering again! Brandie is the first bride I’ve ever known who was praying for rain – both so it would cool everything off and so her reception lighting would be exactly right. Well – the lighting was perfect but we sure didn’t get any rain or relief from the heat. Some of us (not me, which if you know me at all you know is nothing short of a miracle because I am a chronic fainter) were struggling to stay on our feet through the ceremony/cocktail hour. We lost both my parents and a bridesmaid to fainting spells but if I hadn’t rudely told everyone just now I don’t think many people would have known. Daughter of the year, right here.

I know. Enough talk. More photography.

(Brandie is 5’1″ so that may help you understand how high that dress was hanging)

Ceremony dress on the left, reception dress on the right

(I know the left picture below is not well composed, I just wanted to show that Dori and I were tripping over each other trying to get pictures of everything since Brandie didn’t have her photographer do the “getting ready” pictures)

About now is when all the bridesmaids figured out why I jumped into the hair chair immediately. Sorry, Ladies!

Brandie did her mother’s hair and makeup for her which was probably a good way to keep the jitters away!

We were also really fortunate to have Mark with us for the day. He’s a good friend of Joe and Brandie’s and just happens to be a professional stylist (I know that’s the wrong word but I cannot for the life of me remember his actual title!!). He managed um, everything, for us from steaming the bridesmaid dresses to bringing out his arsenal of fashion show tricks to make sure all the little details were handled (like taping our shoes to keep us from getting blisters). Mark was also acting as the Day of Coordinator and managing the hotel staff and wrangling groomsmen. I don’t know what we would have done without him because our motto for the day was seriously, “It’s okay, Mark is here/will fix it.”

Details! Louboutins for the ceremony, the gold BCBG shoes for the reception:

Brandie’s addition to her dress and a love note from Joe (Brandie sent him a set of boudoir photos that I also took and won’t be sharing for the obvious reasons):

I’m so sad about the invitation picture because I could not figure out how to turn the light off next to the bed. I sure felt like an idiot, and I knew the picture would have been prettier in the natural light, but I didn’t think to move the whole setup to a different spot. So much fail. And that, kids, is why I don’t do this for a living.

My mom and Shaye (Brandie’s Stepmama). Shiny eyes on Mom! Boom!

Brandie’s Mom, helping Brandie into her dress.

I call this next set “The Reveal” – Brandie, her mom, and I were the only people in the bedroom of the suite while Brandie was getting into her dress so there was a big moment here.

Now, this next picture is not exceptional but anyone who knows Brandie will appreciate how this is a pure Brandie moment:

Again, not an awesome picture but it’s the only one I got of the back of the dress:

Final touch up!

Last picture I took before she officially became Mrs. Sullivan:

Now here are the pictures I didn’t take. Here’s the aisle decor -

The groomsmen and, of course, my brother (he’s the one with the black tie):

The Bride and her daddy about to walk down the aisle:

Married!

Mr. and Mrs. Joe Sullivan (with Brandie’s Mom):

And that’s pretty much where the pictures end. I could have grabbed a bunch of dancing pictures off Facebook, but it’s hard to make that exciting when you don’t know the people in them, right? Picture lots of red and purple lights and everyone having the night of their lives. It was really a beautiful night and I know everyone had a blast. I’m still hoping someone managed to grab a picture of the cake before they cut it cause that thing was spectacular.

Happy sigh. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that my brother is now married and that I can finally call Brandie my sister instead of “my soon-t0-be sister-in-law” cause thats a lot of freaking hyphens. It’s a really wonderful thing to watch your brother fall in love and even more amazing that our families mesh so well together and that there’s just so much love surrounding this new husband and wife! I’m happy I got to be part of their big day and to share it with all of you.

I promise if a cake picture turns up I will share that with you, and I hope I’ll be able to share some of the photographer’s pictures as well but I think this may be the last wedding-related post for a while. My brother and his wife (!) are now honeymooning in Paris and Nice, France for 10 days. They keep finding free wifi so I hear from my brother fairly often and it sounds like they’re having a great time.

I’m definitely still recovering from the trip – does anyone else feel like it takes an inordinate amount of time to get re-oriented to real life after a vacation? What’s your favorite part of a wedding?

Tagged as: pictures, red and purple, wedding