Louie

[Guest guest]

Louie,

Your e-mail helped me tremendously. It was nice to read the story of your

daughter's wedding. I am going to take the advice of my daughter, family, and

all my wonderful online friends and simply enjoy spending the day before the

wedding with my daughter and I both being pampered!

I got a real shock today. My husband's sister called and asked me who was doing

the bridesmaid's tea. I told her I was going to do it at a cute little place

called April's Tea Room in the historic district in our town. My sis-in-law

told me that she would like to do the bridesmaid's tea that she felt she had

been remiss in not doing anything yet for Nikki's wedding and that time had just

really gotten away from her. My sis-in-law is actually Nikki's step-aunt

because my hubby is my second husband and is Nikki's stepdad. We've been

married since Nikki was 8 and his sister has always cared for Nikki, but I

certainly did not expect her to offer to do the bridesmaid's tea for us. I

wasn't really going to do much of anything except have a cake made with the

bridesmaid's charms in it, go to the place I'd planned to have it at, and pay

the bill. However, I just thought it was so kind and thoughtful of my

sis-in-law to offer to that for Nikki and me. My sis-in-law enjoys entertaining

and is a fabulous cook so I know the tea will be wonderful. She said she wasn't

sure if she'd do it at her house or at one of the local country clubs, but

either way, I have no doubt it will be very nice. Regardless, just that she

would even think to offer to do that for us is very appreciated and just made my

day that she wanted to be a part of the bridesmaid's tea and see to it that it

is special for both me and Nikki. Just another blessing in my life!

By the way, you are correct that the wedding day will be a long day. We had

already decided we don't want anyone getting sick or feeling ill from not

eating. We are going to get some simple sub sandwiches (basically with just

meat, cheese, and lettuce and we'll have mayo and mustard available), bottled

water, juice boxes for the kids, and probably a little fruit. We'll have

someone bring that to the church for people to have BEFORE they start getting

dressed. Nikki and I have already decided that once everyone starts dressing,

all food and drinks (except bottled water) will be gone. I talked to our

wedding coordinator and she said we won't need to start pictures until 6 p.m.,

which is an hour later than I thought, so that's good. Also, I talked to the

beautician that's coming to the church to do our hair and told her I really

wanted to have two beauticians do our hair so we won't have to be at the church

so early. She's going to try to talk another girl into helping her. When I

originally booked the beautician, I told her we needed to be dressed and ready

for pics at 5 p.m. and she said she would want to start with our hair at noon.

Now that we won't have to be ready for pics til 6 p.m., worst case scenario is

that they'll start doing hair at the church at 1 p.m. However, I've already

decided that if we can't get two beauticians, I'll have the bridesmaids get

their hair done first so Nikki and I can go to the church a little later. So,

either way, Nikki and I will probably not need to be at the church until about 3

p.m. All the wedding ceremony pics will be done prior to the wedding. That

will start at 6 p.m. and the ceremony is at 7:30 p.m. By 8 p.m., we should be

on our way to the local university's ballroom for the reception. The antique

car that will take Nikki and from the reception to 's car will

arrive at the reception around 11:15 p.m. and Nikki and can make their

exit between 11:15 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. depending on when they are ready to

leave. We have the car booked from 11:15 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. and their car is

only going to be parked a few blocks from the ballroom. We have the DJ booked

til midnight so Nikki wants to make sure they make their exit before the DJ

starts packing up to go.

As for colors, my dress is kind of a pale rose color. I had it made by the same

seamstress that is making the bridesmaids' dresses. My 'dress' is actually a

floor length straight skirt with a sleeveless top and a long sleeve jacket. It

is very simple, but classy, and looks great on me if I do say so myself! As for

shoes, I decided to go for comfort and I just picked out some simple flats that

I will have dyed to match my dress. They suggested we wait til a month or less

prior to the wedding to have the shoes dyed because they can sometimes fade.

The bridesmaids' dresses are a deep rose and they will have beaded appliques on

the bodice that are similar to the beading on Nikki's wedding dress. both the

bridesmaids' dresses and Nikki's dresses are A-line dresses and are cut just

straight across the top and back with spaghetti straps. They are fitted at the

bust and then full from the bust down. Nikki's wedding dress is very full and

she'll have a very full slip. The bridesmaids' dresses are just kind of a basic

somewhat full, flowing style. Nikki is pretty conservative and she didn't want

her wedding dress or bridesmaids dresses to be the least bit revealing. Plus,

her sister (by her dad and stepmom) will be the maiden of honor and she will be

barely 14 at the time of the wedding. Nikki wanted them all wearing the exact

same dress. She wanted their dresses to be similar in style to hers, but she

also wanted to be sure it would be appropriate for her sister. All the

bridesmaids (as well as Nikki's stepmom) really liked the pattern and fabric

that Nikki chose for the bridesmaids dresses. They will have a fitting next

weekend when they are all here for Nikki's 5th and FINAL shower. The seamstress

said that once they have the fitting, she'll just have to do the final touches

and the dresses will be done.

Nikki's dress is ivory and rum pink. Beige or champagne if you ask me, but in

wedding dresses they call it 'rum pink' and I guess it does have a kind of pink

tone to the beige/champagne colored accent fabric. Because her dress is ivory,

just about anything that would have been white, we are using ivory instead -

tablecloths, tulle, candles.

We are using shades of rose/blush/pink and lilac/lavendar along with ivory in

the flowers and decorations. We are going to use a lot of tulle and white

lights in the decorations. The guest tables will have ivory floor length table

cloths with lilac organza overlays. There will be 16 round guest tables that

will all have the same type centerpieces. There will be a 12 " square beveled

mirror in the center of the table. On that, there will be a tall clear glass

tower vase with pink water and a wispy type flower arrangement. There will also

be 4 crystal candle holders. They are the type that you can turn one way to

hold a taper candlestick and the other way to hold a two inch votive. So we'll

have two taper candles and two votive candles on the beveled mirror on each

table. We'll also have two small oval picture frames with little clear

rhinestones around the frame, one with a baby pic of Nikki, and the other with a

baby pic of . There will be one 3 " X5 " picture frame with pink

rhinestones with a picture of Nikki and together (from the time they've

been dating/engaged).

The head tables will be rectangular tables and they will be on a raised platform

that will overlook the guest tables and dance floor area. They'll have the

floor length ivory tablecloths. The front of the head tables will be draped

with ivory tulle, white lights, and possibly some ivy.

In both the church and ballroom, we'll have columns with groups of 3 pillar

candles (3 " X3 " , 3 " X6 " , and 3 " X9 " ) with a 2 " wide lavendar ribbon around the

group of candles and then a thin (1/2 " wide) sheer deep rose (same color as

bridesmaids' dresses) colored ribbon on top of the lavendar ribbon and tied in a

bow. There will be a total of 11 columns (7 at the alter and 4 in between

windows on the sides of the sanctuary) in the sanctuary and 6 in the ballroom.

However, one of the columns in the sanctuary will have a large flower

arrangement instead of candles. We're also going to have fake ficus trees and

topiaries with white lights and probably ivory tulle on them at both the church

and ballroom. The florist is going to do an arch with lights, ivy, and flowers

that everyone walk through as they enter the first room of the ballroom.

Geez, I didn't mean to write yet another 'wedding' book, but obviously I have!

I'm sure I've bored you all to tears, so I'll now retire to bed!

Thank you so much for your e-mail, Louie. All my wonderful online friends have

certainly helped me to see just how lucky I am to have such a special daughter

and to feel perfectly fine with the fact that I won't be the one doing all the

hard work the day before and day of Nikki's wedding!

Thanks for sharing your memories with me. By the way, if you don't mind me

sending you a couple of pics to your personal address, I'll send you a pic of

Nikki's dress and the arrangement that will be used at the alter. Nikki agreed

to go with a silk arrangement at the alter since the guests won't be close to

it. I had a lovely arrangement made and told her she could use it if she

wanted, but if she didn't like it, we'd have the florist do something with real

flowers (for about 3 times what I paid to have the silk one made). She (and

everyone else that has seen it in my living room) loves the silk arrangement, so

I already have pics of it. The digital camera has made it so nice for me to

take pics of stuff and send to her via e-mail.

Okay, I'm off to bed.