wedding continued...

Here are a few pictures of the wedding day. When Kelly posts some on her blog I will add them to mine, but until then these few will have to do.

The bridesmaids and I went to the Spa at West End to have our hair and nails done. I decided to keep all of my hair down, but have it blown out and wavy. It was a great decision. I was really comfortable all day, I felt like myself, and I never got a bad headache from bobby pins.

Here we are after David put the veil on and we couldn't find how to bustle the veil to get back in the van.

The pink and white candy buffet. Gorgeous! While the bridesmaids and I were having our hair and nails done, my mom and her friend put this together.

Cake cutting and tasting. Yum!

Me with Samantha and Natalie (bell ringers) just before the ceremony

t'was the night before our wedding...

We were pretty excited about the rehearsal for the wedding. I couldn't wait to hear all of the music come together and finally hear that gorgeous pipe organ do its thing. It was also the first time that the entire wedding party would come together in one location.

I think we all ended up crying more at the rehearsal than we did at the actual wedding. The music was just breathtaking. I chose songs that meant a lot to me, but may not be the most commonly heard songs at weddings. We asked a long time family friend to arrange all of the music for the piano, vocalists, strings, and organ and he agreed. He also sang a part in each of the songs. It was nice to be able to put all of that in his hands and trust that it would no doubt be beautiful. And it was.

Here's a run down of our song choices. I wanted a mix of sacred songs, classic love songs, and beautiful classical music. I will do a separate post on the ceremony program later so you can see it, but this is just the music I chose:

Prelude:

Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Nessun Dorma, And So it Goes, Someone to Watch Over Me

Vocal Trio:

Doxology by Rick Vale

Greensleeves

Canon in D

Bride Processional

Highland Cathedral (really beautiful with piano and organ)

Vocal Trio

Shine on Us

Seekers of Your Heart

The Prayer

Recessional

Rondeau

Oh Happy Day

Anyway, it was a lot of fun to hear everyone rehearse and plan the timing of the ceremony. Here's a shot of us at the rehearsal.

I really wanted to wear white to the rehearsal, but wanted to give it some flair. I purchased the white dress from J.Crew on a clearance sale about a year ago. J. Crew has the most amazing clearance sales-- the only catch is that you cannot return it a lot of times, but luckily, this dress in the size that I ordered fit perfectly. It didn't originally have a sash. I kept looking for satin hot pink peep toe high heels and couldn't find any. Finally, in March, I looked at Stuart Weitzman and found the shoes I'd imagined in my head. My tailor made the pink sash for me to match like the wonderful man that he is!

My brother's girlfriend, Lauren, was my stand in bride for the rehearsal and she carried the GORGEOUS bouquet of bows that my bridesmaids made from all of my shower gifts.

After the rehearsal, we went to the very nice rehearsal dinner at High Cotton. We were able to include about 65 people, so a lot of Todd's out of town friends were able to come even though they weren't in the wedding party. It was a great meal and some really kind words were shared.

Then we went over to the Lounge at Restaurant O for a dessert and champage party. My parents' friends hosted this for us and we invited everyone that was invited to the wedding. A lot of people weren't in town (Greenville) yet, but this was a great opportunity for us to get together and catch up with a lot of our guests. It also helped make the wedding reception more laid back for us because we didn't have to have those, "oh, so good to see you" conversations the night of the wedding and we could do it at this party. We stayed up late and had so much fun catching up with everyone. This is one of the things about the wedding weekend that I'm so glad we had the opportunity to do. It gave our guests something to do and we were able to really have fun the night of our reception. Here are some pictures from the dessert and champagne party.

how cute is it that my dad and brother wore pink ties because pink was one of my wedding colors?

a first wedding

I know I'm a little behind on this, but I really wanted to blog about this while we were in Maui, but I couldn't for many reasons!

I was so excited to see pictures of Jenna Bush's wedding the day after it took place. I love the elegant simplicity that they chose. If I had a huge piece of land a lake I'd have had my wedding there, too! Just by looking at the pictures you can see how comfortable, but beautiful this whole affair was and you know that everyone had a good time. I love how it looks (at least in pictures) like they didn't choose anything over the top. They have very simple pew markers and they really played up the natural beauty of the setting. Good for Jenna for choosing a wedding at home over at White House wedding.

This image is so stunning!

wedding weekend details

The honeymoon was wonderful and it was really sad to leave Maui, but I'm so excited to finally get to share some of the fun details of the wedding weekend with any of you who actually read this! I'll have to split this up into a few posts.

My parents and I got to Greenville on Wednesday before the wedding and were thrilled to have a night where we didn't have anything planned so we could get settled into our rooms. They rented a mini van and drove it from Dallas to South Carolina. It was full of all of the candy and the clear glass containers for the candy buffet. I also had to rent a mini van at the last minute to be able to transport all 62 of those welcome bags! My bridesmaids, the groomsmen, and a lot of our out of town friends arrived on Thursday night. We had a really laid back dinner with them and were happy to go to bed early.

The bridesmaid luncheon was held at the Loft at Soby's on Friday morning. My two aunts and my mom's two best friends hosted it for us and it was so much fun. My mom and I compiled pictures and she put together a DVD full of pictures of everyone at the luncheon; my friends, her friends, her friends' daughters, flower girls, MIL, Grand MIL, aunts, cousins, and so many more special Ya Yas! The food was amazing and the bridesmaid cake for the cake charms was so adorable.

I gave the girls their gifts. I got them the pink and brown medallion pattern tote and makeup bag from Toss and matching umbrellas. I haven't been able to share that fun information until now!

We pulled the little charms out of the bridesmaids' cake that Patty Cakes did for us. It was so delicious!

mr. and mrs. matthew todd carroll

We did it! The day was wonderful!!! There isn't a thing that I would do differently. The weather ended up being perfect. The music was perfect. The ceremony was sweet and sentimental. The reception was a blast! I'll write detailed descriptions of everything after the honeymoon! We leave for Maui in the morning.

I can finally post a picture of my dress... so here are a few bridals courtesy of Kelly Moore Photography. We took a ton more pictures yesterday, but these were taken back in March. The dress is VERY simple, with no embellishment. It is very structured and tailored... much like everything else I wear. The veil is full length with a delicate lace applique around the edges.

Tons of posts to come after the honeymoon!

photos of the silhouettes and wands

I wanted to post some pictures of the wand project. I have two containers that are both full of these pink and white wands. They move nicely and I think it will be a nice alternative to throwing something at the send-off. And the whole project cost less than $30.00!

I got our silhouettes back from the framer and I'm so pleased with them. I wish they were more similar in size, but Todd's head was obviously too big when he was 4 years old to fit on a smaller card. Just kidding. I'm the one on the left and Todd is on the right. He's saying, "Will you marry me?"

better late than never

A while ago I promised to post pictures of the adorable bachelorette party invitations that my maid of honor, Catherine, created for the bridesmaids and me. She created an adorable velum pocket with a silhouette of a Texas-looking scene. Catherine included lyrics to some of my favorite songs on two of the cards; Heads Carolina, Tails California (or Ft. Worth, TX) on the first card and Sangria Wine on the New Vintage Wine Trail card. She's so talented and so creative!

isn't the little curtain of ribbons so adorable for the lingerie shower card?!