Best friend's wedding

I had such a wonderful time at the wedding this weekend! Despite a lovely case of bronchitis (luckily, on the mend), I was able to fulfill all my maid of honor duties and still have a wonderful time. It was a military wedding with full regalia (both Marines and Navy represented, and the priest was retired Air Force), honor guard, everything. It was simply amazing!

To my horror, the bride chose a strapless gown for the bridesmaids dresses, but after I had mine altered and wore the proper heel height, it looks stunning. I was so pleased by how it all turned out. Red is definitely a good color on me!

The night before the wedding (so yesterday) the bride, me and one of the other bridesmaids stayed on the Naval base in the Navy Lodge (that was fun- I'd not been on a military base since I was about ten when my cousin graduated from the Air Force Academy) and baked the groom's cake. The bride really wanted to have her own hand in this, rather than pass it off to some random baker, so we SLAVED over this thing (we made a giant soccer ball, since her husband loves soccer). HOURS and hours later, we have this gorgeous cake (all gluten-free, may I add, which was no small task) so we took lots of pictures and finally fell into bed around 1 am. 6:30AM came WAYYYY too early, but the bride woke up with a smile and a demand for coffee and meat. (She's a bacon freak.) Snarky comment coming from the other bridesmaid: "I'll get you the coffe but the meat has to wait until your honeymoon." LMAO!

Anyway, it was a gorgeous service (about an hour long) and I was escorted down the aisle by the handsomest man!! I never figured myself a sucker for men in uniform but DAMN their friends clean up good! It was not hard on the eyes at all! The coolest part of the service for me was really a very selfish moment- I was walking down the aisle, my hand on a marine's arm, and I was suddenly just dazzled by all the candles, flowers, smiling faces.... it reminded me of my wedding, which I rushed through and didn't take time to appreciate. I was nervous I guess. But anyway, when I was walking up the aisle today I really got to take that moment to enjoy how it felt, just to be there, doing that, and knowing it can't possibly end in divorce! LOL. I was smiling the biggest smile, happy for my friend of course, but thrilled to be able to have the opportunity to participate from a position other than the musician's section. I'm usually playing piano or in a quartet for weddings, so this was doubly special.

What a great weekend!