Kenny & Angela’s Wedding: The Big Day!

Typically, early June is a good time for an outdoor wedding… it’s usually pretty nice weather, no rain, not too hot… Kenny said that, last year on the first weekend of June, it was 70 degrees outside. This year, just in time for their wedding, MO decided to inflict 95+ degree heat and a zillion cicadas on poor Kenny & Angela! It was so hot at the rehearsal that I told Josh we were going to have to go buy me a dress, because I couldn’t handle the thought of wearing my black pants and heels to the wedding! And it takes a lot to get me in a dress, so you know it must have been bad! :)

But, heat and cicadas aside, it was still a beautiful wedding, and better sunny than raining! :)

Laney, pre-ceremony.

I highly recommend some form of bribery for young flower girls… although, not Nerds, because they were much too loud during the ceremony! She also got to pick on “extra-special” treat for after the wedding… she picked Strawberry Whoppers (my girl), and they proved to be quite the motivator!

Kenny and his dad, all dressed up and getting the video camera all set up.

They were definitely thinking ahead- they provided bottled water along with the programs, which Angela made into fans using free paint sticks from Home Depot painted white (genius!)

Some of the ushers, and Josh. Kenny & the best man wore tuxes, but the ushers wore just simple black pants, white shirt, black tie. It looked nice without being so expensive for them!

Laney was thrilled when she actually got her flower girl basket. She was officially ready to go then!

Always have to get a shot of the hair when a girl’s all dressed up! I just threw her hair up in a bun and clipped the flower on… thought it turned out pretty good, actually!

Daddy, walking with Laney to line up. We figured since he was dressed to match the wedding party, he should be the one to help Laney.

They looked awful sweet together!

As expected, though Laney did really well practicing, once it came time to actually walk down the aisle with all of those people staring at her, she wasn’t ok with Josh leaving her. But she did a great job of walking down the aisle with Daddy holding her hand. And it was quite sweet. I can’t wait to see the actual photographer’s pictures, since I was on the other side and couldn’t really see them.

Once the wedding was over, it was party time! We all headed back to Kenny’s parents’ house for the reception. Still really hot, but we had fun anyway!

Hot and sweaty flower girl… but she seemed relieved to be able to relax!

Of course, Miss A was there, too, also sporting a dress made by Ellen!

Their cake topper was so cool, I meant to take a picture of it and forgot. They took a picture of Kenny proposing to Angie, and cut out just the two of them and somehow mounted or printed it on plastic, and that was the cake topper. Sounds a little strange, I know, but it looked really neat, and was a sweet, personal touch. They had a small cake, and then lots of cupcakes!

Miss A was a fan of the cupcakes!

They did all of the traditional reception things- cut the cake (they went the smashing route, and she got it good and up his nose- I imagine he’ll be smelling icing for weeks), did the daughter/son dances, the first dance, the bouquet toss, etc. I try really hard at weddings to not get in the way of the actual photographer, so I didn’t take too many pictures of the festivities. The funniest thing, was Laney during the bouquet toss and the garter toss… when Angela got up on the dance floor, she absolutely INSISTED that she had to stand right next to her. She wouldn’t go stand with everyone else to try to catch the bouquet and, when I tried to get her to, she looked at me and said “I’m the FLOWER GIRL, I’m supposed to stand by the BRIDE!” Guess maybe we did a little too much verbal rehearsing of her flower girl job… :)

Standing by the BRIDE during the bouquet toss… notice the sweaty red face! She’d been playing hard, even in a fancy dress!

I did take a picture of the garter toss, mostly because it was hilarious. Before he went after the garter, Kenny shoved his shirt sleeve full of random things (a brush, a screwdriver, a carabiner, etc.) and kept pulling those from her skirt instead of the garter. It was pretty funny!

After the wedding reception traditions were out of the way, it was time to dance and have a good time. And, everyone did!

Laney spent a lot of time playing with these two cute little boys… probably an indicator of the years to come!

Daddy and A busted a move!

Although she played some, and ate a little, mostly Laney DANCED! She was impossible to keep off of the dance floor.

She flew…

She boogied with a friend…

She twirled, of course!

And she always remembered to hold up her princess dress when she was done dancing! :)

But the most fun, of course, was dancing with Daddy… absolutely precious!

So, see, that’s why I had to do separate posts for the rehearsal and the wedding! Too many great pictures to share!

Really, we had a great time… we got to visit with some people we hadn’t seen since high school, and reconnect with old friends. And it was so awesome and so much fun to see Laney running amok in her dress, feeling like such a grown up princess, but still totally willing to be a kid and run off into the woods and play with kids she didn’t know and dance like a crazy person. I often wish for her complete and total lack of self-consciousness!

Beautiful wedding, beautiful bride, beautiful flower girl… now for a beautiful marriage! Congratulations, Kenny & Angela! So glad we got to be a part of your day!