Beauty session at the crack of dawn
Thank you to everyone who woke up before the crack of dawn on my wedding day. I’m so sorry about the early morning call-time but I think it was worth it!
Special thanks to Jennie’s parents, my Ninang Nora and my Ninony Perry! Thanks so much for letting us use your house to get ready for the ceremony. Thank you for the breakfast and thank you for the coffee. I had the sniffles before the ceremony, so thanks for the Advil pill. It wouldn’t have been pretty if my nose was running while Monsignor took us through our vows.
Here’s she is – Miss America! Jennie looked beautiful in this bridesmaid dress from David’s Bridal. In retrospect, I’m glad she called me up on the day she was trying the dresses on. It gave me the chance to look-up the style numbers on their website and visualize how she would look.
Sharon Tabb and her assistant took care of the hair stylings for my bridesmaids. She also worked on hair and make-up for my mother and me.
Here’s Sharon’s assistant working on Susan’s hair. I had my maid of honor and my matron of honor with their hair done all the way up. Ria and Jennie got the half-up/half-down treatment. I got nervous about Mark and his family getting to the church. So, I had Susan give my future hubby a call. It figures his party would make it to the church on time. Then again, BEAUTY takes time. Lot’s of it.
Doesn’t Betina make a lovely matron of honor?
Ria flew all the way out from New York for the wedding. Thank you!
When Mark and I met with Monsignor about our readings, Mark asked him if the lectors had a dress code. “No bare shoulders!” he replied.
OK – so….yeah, I guess that was important to St. Denis. In fact, I was told no bare shoulders after our meeting with the church’s wedding coordinator (Leilani rules by the way! She totally kept things flowing and not going chaotic during our ceremony). Damn shame I bought my sleeveless wedding dress before the meeting. Then I remembered she said if the veil covered the shoulders, that should be good enough. So yeah, I didn’t have to buy a cover-up.
But I told all the ladies to make sure they had a cover-up or no thing spagetti straps.
Don’t they look lovely?
Here’s my mom with Ninang Nora.
My parents woke-up before me. They usually do. My mom gave me a ride to Phillips Ranch. It was a deja vu moment – like all the times my mom drove us to the skating rink in the early morning hours. My mom is amazing.
Here’s my head under Sharon’s talented hands. I wore my old Catholic school uniform blouse because it had buttons. Yeah, I like it and I don’t care how old it is.
My dad gave Andrea a ride to the house. All the men in the ceremony rented tuxes from Men’s Wearhouse.
Here’s Andrea with my bears. You can see Betina grabbing her dress behind Andrea.
It took my mom, Betina and Jennie to help me put on this dress. We got it from David’s Bridal. It was designed by Oleg Cassini. According to the folks at the store, this designer dreamed up stuff for Jackie-O when she was at the White House. I love the dress. It made me feel like royalty. In one issue o Vogue, Melania Trump said she was a bit concerned about the massive size of her dress. “The Christian Dior original, which was reported to have cost $200,000, has 91 metres of satin and a four-metre train that took 550 hours to embroider.” [from CTV.ca] Thankfully, my dress wasn’t that ornate but it was heavy. A good thing I pumped up some muscles during my cardio kickboxing class. For most of the day, I felt pretty in the dress….but it also felt like I had to work a lot to keep that dress from wearing me down. Whenever I had to hit the ladies room, I need at least three people to help me get out of that dress.
Still, it was THE dress for my wedding day. I knew it as soon as I tried it on at the store and looked at myself in the floor length mirror.
I joked with my bridesmaids that they needed to engage the child locks on my passenger door. All my past issues with commitment to another human being kinda ran in and out of my head for this week.
My dad drove Ria, Jennie and myself to the ceremony. We were a little late but I think we made it to the church before the wedding coordinator. I gripped Jennie’s hand for most of the trip. Thank you Jennie for letting me do that. I told my bridesmaids to keep telling me everything was going to be fine. I kept telling myself everything was going to be fine.
We were right….everything went so smoothly….