Treely, Madly, Deeply: More Lady Love

Sidenote: So sorry for the mini-hiatus, Hive! Life and work, especially, have been crazy. I promise that even though I may be MIA for small periods of time, I will NOT let these recaps go unfinished. :)

When brainstorming my recaps, I wasn't quite able to decide if I should go in chronological order of the day or if I should group the posts by pictures. I've made the executive decision to go in chronological order in the hopes that maybe it will help others when it comes to planning their wedding days and the various activities involved.

I realize that not everyone particularly cares about the wedding party pictures but, for what probably seems like the gazillionth time, I feel the need to stress how important all of these people are to Mr. Palm Tree and myself. I take friendship very seriously, largely due to all of the DramaRama in my life. I am, undeniably, someone who holds high expectations for the people I call my best friends and I am, undeniably, someone who can be hard to get along with at times. I know my faults better than anyone: I am loud, overbearing, opinionated, borderline obnoxious, bossy, insecure, stubborn, super-Type-A, an over-planner, a worrywart, in constant need of assurance. . .the list could go on forever. Despite all of these issues, though, the people in my life have been there for years. They have dried my tears, they have cried with me; they've witnessed - some of them firsthand - the ridiculousness that was my family life; they've traveled with me, they've taken care of me when I was sick or injured, they've demolished entire cartons of ice cream with me and they've gone to bat for me. These people are my family and perhaps deserve even a little more special treatment for continually choosing to be a part of my life, as opposed to having the blood obligation. As a result, I've decided to give them their time in the spotlight, as deserved. Feel free to skip if it's not the kind of thing that interests you, but I can assure you that this is a post I'll be re-visiting for years to come.

The Bridesmaids Dresses Revealed! (photo-heavy)

After I said yes to my dress, hugged the store manager AND my attendant and paraded around a bit, it was time to choose the bridesmaids dresses.

A lot of people expressed surprise when I mentioned we were aiming to get both my dress and their dresses chosen in one day. Honestly, it wasn't any additional stress and it was necessary for us. At that time, we were pretty much scattered: Rev. Fun hailed from Atlanta, BM Badonk lived an hour away, BM Tiny Dancer was in college about three hours away and BM Blackout and MOH Mem worked in the healthcare field and had to schedule days off two months in advance - if we had a weekend where we were all together, we were going to take full advantage and get sh-t done, for real.

Again, I had a pretty strict set of ideas in my head: no strapless, I wanted MOH Mem to be in a different color, I wanted them to be all the same style and I wanted them long. Even though I had what I wanted picked out (I won’t shove the DB Dress Your Wedding image in your faces again, but I will tell you that you can find it here), I had sent an e-mail to my girls telling them I was open to their opinions and ideas. I assured them that I would not pull a Topanga, but I also let them know that they didn’t have to like the dress in terms of style - they just had to be comfortable and able to dance.

source | "Those. are. the most BEAUTIFUL dresses I have EVER seen."

My main goal was finding one dress that fit everyone. When you have a variety of heights (I’m talking from 5’4” to right around 6’), weights, shapes, booties, bazoombas and not to mention a variety of skin and hair colors, it seems next to impossible, but I was confident that I had chosen quite a few dresses (including backups, of course) that would fit and flatter everyone.