Well everyone, it's done. We're married. For real.
I would like to go on record and say that our wedding day was more beautiful than we ever even dared to hope. It was such an incredibly fulfilling feeling to watch our wedding day unfold and realize that all of our hard work with planning, arranging, crafting, designing, stressing, and spending our (as well as our family's) moneys really paid off and came together to create something that we think most everyone enjoyed.
So, here's some of the photos I've collected from various wedding attendees, since the professional ones from
our photographer won't be ready for three more weeks (maybe I looked at them 1700 times during our Honeymoon...so what if I did?).
My hair, makeup, and dress? Fabulous. You know things are going well when you feel absolutely beautiful all day long. Those kinds of days are rare for a girl and I wish I could have a beauty entourage like Karilyn Carreon at
Karilyn Hair, Sierra Buchannon at
Flirt Beauty Bar, and Jessica Law at
Jessica May Bridal to help me out every day! They really made me feel perfect for my wedding day, and I am so grateful!
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| Just a shot of me after I was all done-up and ready to go! |
You can see more pictures of my
custom wedding dress here.
The ceremony? So special. Nothing beats covenanting with your best friend and God in the Holy Temple for all eternity and knowing that the two of you and your future family will be able to be together forever - not just until death. Devon and I both were so emotional multiple times leading up to the ceremony. We held each other's hands and thought of all our family and friends who were there waiting for us and we thought of how we've kept ourselves pure for each other and how now we get to spend the rest of eternity learning to love each other more fully and we just couldn't contain our emotions. Then when the actual sealing ceremony started, we were too filled with joy to be emotional. All we could do was smile from ear to ear.
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| Right before we got married. |
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| Right after we got married. |
The flowers? Gorgeous. I didn't get to see what our flowers would look like before the actual wedding day, so when Devon and I walked down the stairs of the San Diego Temple and saw my bouquet and his boutonniere waiting for us, I just gasped at their beauty. Perfect. Just perfect. And then I couldn't get over how beautiful all the other flowers were for the rest of the night. We had Cathy Jacobsen of
Lilybrook Floral in Temecula do our flowers and people, she's genius. So kind, and even affordable.
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| My niece, Jane, in love with the bridesmaid bouquets. |
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| Bridesmaid bouquet. |
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| A decent shot of my bouquet. LOVE. |
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| Some small decorative bouquets and my bouquet on the right. |
The people? So fun and supportive. We loved spending our day with the people we love most and we were sad to miss those who couldn't make it. And both of us felt so blessed to be surrounded by our families and especially to have such great (and attractive) Bridesmaids and Groomsmen!
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| Groom with three of the groomsmen. |
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| With my Dad. |
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| Bridesmaids. |
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| My siblings. |
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| My siblings and their spouses. |
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| My super-hardcore brothers. |
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| My nieces and nephews. |
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| My Uncle Wes, hiding his super-awesome mohawk with that hat. |
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| Uncle Wes, Aunt Safa, Lane, and Lydon. And Ron with the photobomb. |
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| Mom. |
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| Shannon, the best. |
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| Kathryn the great. |
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| Aunt Safa and my sister Ellen, the MOH. |
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| Mom and Step-Dad, with their body guard. |
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| Devon and his Dad. |
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| Devon's cousin-in-law and nephews. |
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| Devon and his niece. |
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| Devon's niece, sister, mom, aunt, and cousins. |
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| Me and E. |
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My step-bros.
If you have any pictures of the wedding, feel free to use the hashtag #DuplainWedding on Instagram - you can also view that hashtag to see more pictures! |
The ring ceremony? Tender. Devon and I decided to do a special ring ceremony before our reception so our family and friends who weren't able to attend the temple ceremony could participate. I found out after the fact that Devon's words to me made every woman in the room teary-eyed. I consider that a success! When it was my turn to speak to him, I could barely choke the words out through all my emotion. At the end, one of my Bridesmaids, Jayni, sang the song,
Moonlight Becomes You (a Bing Crosby classic) in memory of my Grandmother who passed away last summer. That had me teary-eyed yet another time.
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| Spencer, the Best Man, said a few words and "officiated." |
The reception? So fun. We loved getting to mingle with friends and family (some of whom we hadn't seen in a long time!), dancing, playing Cornhole on the handmade, custom boards Devon's Dad made for us, and playing the Shoe Game (hilarious!)
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| Devon dancing with his Mom. |
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| Our first dance. |
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| Me dancing with my Dad. |
The food? To-die-for. Seriously,
our caterer went above and beyond. I wish I had better pictures of the food (or rather, desserts) we served. There was a chocolate fountain with lots of delicious things to dip (even bacon!), strawberry shortcake shots (INCREDIBLE. One of my biggest regrets in life is that I only had time to eat one of them), gourmet brownies and cookies, and eight strawberry cheesecakes. Devon and I don't love cake, so we decided not to spend $500+ on a cake we didn't even want to put in our mouths and went with Costco cheesecakes instead. Yep. They already come with piping around the sides, they're lots more affordable, and my bestie, Shannon, cut the tops off of strawberries to fill the tops. They looked and tasted fabulous.
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| Bride and Groom enjoying some delicious things. Classic. |
The decor? I loved it. We had our reception in an LDS Cultural Hall (a multi-purpose room that kinda looks like a gym with a stage), so making that (HUGE) room look classy enough for a wedding is a challenge. But after researching several venues in the area and finding out there was a $10,000 spend limit for a Saturday evening, I thought to myself, okay cultural hall, challenge accepted! For a fraction of the price for any other venue, Devon and I ended up with a beautiful, classy, and even fun reception space (thanks to everyone who was willing to help put it together). There were several fun DIY projects used that I will post about later. I can't wait to get more pictures so I can show you how it all turned out.
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| Nautical theme, complete with bunting (DIY) and sailboats! We even had cute little anchor bottle openers at every table and we served bottled sodas (it wouldn't be a Raechel wedding without a bottled Coke). |
The honeymoon? Perfect for us. Will post more about that in a separate post.
But most of all, my favorite part of the wedding was
this guy:
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| These actually are professional pictures from our photographer. Yay! |
My more-than-handsome groom who smiled from ear-to-ear all day (except for all the times he was trying to keep from crying) and who I am so, SO blessed to now call my Husband. (Weird! But great.)
