Marrying McAfee | Pre-Wedding Events

Invitations from Zazzle

Welcome to the new and improved Wedding Wednesday posts: Marrying McAfee, where I'll chronicle all the little details and moments of our wedding weekend that meant the world to me. I hope it gives you a glimpse into the thought and emotion behind our decisions, and will maybe even inspire some ideas of your own!

To kick everything off, I wanted to dedicate the first post to the week before the big day. I worked until Thursday that week which looking back probably added a lot of physical stress to me, but I didn't have a lot of vacation time with the honeymoon coming up the week after the wedding. My sweet mother really set the tone by sending me countdown flowers throughout the week, starting with four roses, then three peonies, two daisies, and finally a single beautiful corsage to wear to the bridesmaid luncheon and rehearsal dinner. Each day was such a surprise, and I loved the thoughtfulness behind it. We ended up using two of the arrangements as centerpieces at the bridesmaids luncheon, which made it even more special!

My mother hosted my bridesmaid luncheon at the country club here in Statesboro. It was a lovely time with the women in my family and my very best friends. A few tears were shed, but I think we all needed that time to get our warm fuzzies out in the open in hopes of keeping the tears at bay on Saturday.

Mother's dress is from Buckhead Betties, and mine is the Gabby Shift from Lilly Pulitzer

My mom and I found sparkly picture frames at Belk that we used as place cards for the bridesmaids. She surprised me with a 25th anniversary frame as my own place card, which I'll save for the future. For my girls, I gifted each of them with a pink monogrammed button down to wear with Lilly shorts while we got ready before the wedding, a monogrammed clutch to keep up with their things at the reception, a glittery bottle opener, and pink and blue koozies that we had at the wedding.

To make it a little more personal, I picked out a special bracelet for each bridesmaid that I felt represented them and our relationship.  For my maid of honor, I chose the Kate Spade maid of honor bangle. For my matron of honor, I had a special bracelet made with a line from a Phi Mu song that is particularly meaningful to the both of us. Each bracelet was unique, just like each of my very best friends! I even gave my mom a beautifully sparkly mother of the bride bracelet, too!

My grandmother actually made bracelets for all the little girls with pearls and pink Swarovski crystals, and she graciously made one for me too which I wore at the wedding. The little girls also received monogrammed glittery tumblers, which helped keep spills at bay in their pretty dresses on Saturday. One of my favorite gifts to give was an Our Generation doll that twinned with my flower girl...down to the matching flower girl dress! The flower girl dress was from Rosebud Collection, and most of their dresses have the doll dress as an option, which I think is a really fun detail.

Another handcrafted touch was the paper dresses made by one of my blogger friends, Wendy. She made 15 different pink paper dresses which I hot glued onto blank cards which I used to write notes to each of the ladies in my life. I am blessed with so many sweet friends who have done so much for me!

My bridesmaids surprised me with the most meaningful gift at the luncheon: the Southern Living monogram necklace from Moon & Lola. I have been saying for years that I would love to have this necklace to put on for my wedding reception, and they truly made my dreams come true! It was absolutely beautiful, and such a wonderful surprise!

After lunch, we had a little bit of downtime at my house before heading to the wedding venue for the rehearsal. Somehow we ended up getting married on the hottest April weekend I had ever experienced. It was in the mid-nineties Friday evening, and I was slightly panicked about how hot Saturday would be...especially in a huge dress. Thankfully, the rehearsal went off smoothly.

I'm so glad we had as many people at the rehearsal dinner as we did. When I first worked on the list, I was feeling like it was so large, but compared to Saturday it was really rather intimate. The best surprise of the evening was a presentation by Jax, our ringbearer. He's always said that I was his girlfriend, and was not very happy to have to give me up. So he read his 10 rules for Christopher about how he should take care of me...which including him feeding me and giving me lots of kisses!

We had a yummy low country boil, and spent hours laughing and talking throughout the evening. Christopher's step dad shared a memory about his first time meeting me, where I said I would never date anyone under six feet tall. Ooops. After dinner there was some impromtu dancing, followed by corn hole in the reception space. Christopher actually built the cornhole boards for us, and my MOH Kirstie cut the monograms for us to put on. This was probably our most last minute, stressful DIY projects of the wedding which we ended up forgetting to put out on the actual wedding day! Ugh! Of course, it really doesn't matter, but it's such a funny thing to remember now. At least now we have lots of corn hole boards for future festivities!