Our hotel/wedding night was so romantic. We had to take a cab to the hotel from the party, and we were able to check us into our room right away. We had a suite, not just a room. They had a gorgeous Jacuzzi tub and the bathroom was huge. I wanted to live in that room forever! The nicest part was that in the morning they had breakfast for us. It was the first time I had orange juice and champagne, and I felt like a princess.

We rented a limousine only for the start of the wedding, to get everyone to the church and then to the party. The inside of the limousine was very cool. My favorite were the pictures of me getting out of this huge black car with my huge white dress, and then the picture of my husband and his best man getting out with their sunglasses on. My younger sister has rented a different limousine for her prom from the same company, and that limousine was cool, too.

It was my mother-in-laws idea to make postcards and send out postcards as the save-the-dates, since postcards are much cheaper than a regular letter. We bought blank postcards from Office Max, the kind made from the thicker cardboard, and then we printed up our own cards. My husband used this as an excuse to get a new printer, which was also on sale at Office Max. I thought it would be hard and take long, but it took less than two hours to print up 200 cards. The thing that takes long is getting everyone’s mailing address.

This almost didn’t work out because we were delayed at the church for the rehearsal. We were twenty minutes late, but I spoke with the manager on the phone and he agreed to keep our tables. They get 5 stars just because they understood we were running late and didn’t cancel on us or charge us a late fee. The food here is amazing, I think everyone who came had eaten there before. The portions are good, but the food always tastes fresh and is perfectly seasoned and the cook your steak how you like it.

My husband and his best men all rented tuxedos. At first he was going to wear a regular suit, but during the fitting the tailor convinced him that a tuxedo is much more formal and daring. The price difference wasn’t that much, and he looked great. The only thing he needed to buy after he rented the tux was his socks and shoes and his own shirt, but he got all that at Macy’s.

My husband said that he picked this store as the place to get my engagement ring because he liked how nice the inside of the store was. I was impressed. I had only been inside chain jewelry stores, so I thought they would try to rip us off, but I think they were even better than a chain store. They totally gave us a great price and the ring and wedding bands were so beautiful.

She has the most beautiful collection of wedding card invitations, envelopes, baby shower cards, cards for almost all occasions! It was so hard for me to focus in that store! I fell in love with everything. I think we also got a good price and deal on the invitations we chose. My husband and I had made our own save-the-date cards, and I know it takes a lot of time. This store was wonderful.

My mother likes the florist here a lot because she spent lots of time here when my grandfather passed away. I liked them, too. They showed us different centerpieces, and then showed how the bridal party would match the overall floral theme. What my mother and I really appreciated was that they knew our budget and never showed us anything that we couldn’t afford. My mother says they really have class.

We had one small gift for all our guests, but we had one special ‘favor’ for our family. We bought it at the Swarovski store at Macy's. Chris and I had found this really star hanging pendant. It was made as a Christmas tree ornament, but you could hang it in a window all year long. The salesperson was great to us, because we saw that they had about 20 on sale. We asked her to hold them all for us while we discussed whether this was something we wanted to get for our family members. We got the star pendants because they were beautiful and special, and we wanted our family to always think of us when they looked at the stars.

This is my father’s church, and we chose this church because we really liked Steve Dodson, who was the lead pastor at the time, and Toni, who helped us plan the ceremony part of the wedding. They were so welcoming and so supportive, and they also took time to remind us that it was a marriage and not just a wedding. I liked that they weren’t so overtly forceful with their message, which isn’t always the case when you want to get married at a church.