Real Weddings: Claire and Rick

Our second Real Weddings post is graciously provided by my good friend Claire. I was actually a bridesmaid in her wedding over Christmas a year and a half ago. Claire's wedding was HUGE, and pretty formal. Claire and her mom somehow planned the whole thing, so I would definitely consider her an expert at this point. If you are planning a big formal affair listen up!

{Me cleaning lipstick off the brides teeth right before the wedding)

Where does one start planning such a big event?

By far the most important part for us was for it to represent our faith because it's the most important thing in our relationship. So in keeping, I wanted my dress to be modest and sleeved so it had a high back and we wanted the other parts of the wedding to incorporate our faith which shaped our choice of the Cathedral and led us to incorporate more hymns and readings than most modern weddings.

{The gorgeous cathedral}

How did you decide on your colors/theme?

The colors for the wedding party were champagny white and celedon green (as you'll recall from the dresses), and gold. The unofficial underlying theme for the other wedding was Pi Phi, as I was still President at the time, so there were hints of wine and silver blue everywhere - but as this is a whack color combo I kept them understated and put them places only pi phis would have identified. On our save the date we included notes to pi phi alums to wear their arrow pins and the bridal party. The pin thing actually turned out really neat, especially for the Stanford Pi Phi girls because they met all these girls our age and older women who were just as obsessed as they were and it made for a neat where's waldo type spotting game for pins.

{The Groomsmen doing their impression of a PiPhi pose}

{The Bridesmaids}

{PiPhi Pin on Claire's Garter}

{PiPhi Colors in the Bouquet}

Any Advice?

We knew for our wedding it would be a lot of people's first taste of Texas and the south so we wanted to to be southern and traditional and with a hint of my cajun background. Our emphasis was on representing my cajun background and making sure it was just a big party where all of our young friends from Austin, Houston, and California could mix and get to know each other. As you recall it was seated so we put a lot of work into mixing the tables...not easy when managing 1500 invites. If you can do it, seated dinners create an awesome experience for the guests and helps you to get your guests mixing. It's much harder go organize but we just set aside a day 2 days before the wedding with both of our families and did all of the seating arrangements, that way we could assure everyone had a place and there was a great mix at each table

I highly recommend doing a traditional 4-day wedding if one can. It's great if you have lots of out of town guests b/c it keeps everyone entertained but also gives them quality time to see the bride and groom if its a large wedding (bc that's just NOT possible on the day of, let's be real). We had a day of pool and cigars for the guys, some different luncheons for girls, line dancing at Blancos, etc. all before the wedding. This helped out California friends to mix with our Texas friends so that by the wedding they already knew each other and could have a great time.

It seems really silly but somehow dealing with all of the people and a big wedding party etc, we got sort of distracted by the details for our wedding. For example, somehow we had this whole event planned down to a T, but managed to have not figured out the order of events for the reception until right before we went to get dressed (such as first we'll have toasts, and then we'll walk out, etc.) So I ended up having to drill this out with our emcee (Sarabeth) about 45 mins before the wedding...luckily it all worked out, but MAJ oversight there. oops. Also, we never figured out who caught our bouquet sooooo maybe the wide world of the internet and vast readership of Peppermint Bliss can help solve that mystery.

What was your favorite memory

The BEST part of our wedding in my view was the Second Line marching band parade at the end. It was 100% representative of my family's Louisiana background and just a taste of something special. It was fun to go out and dance through the streets under all of the christmas lights (River Oaks blvd was just amazing with the full strands hanging from the trees) and to get sent off dancing by all of our family and friends.