Wonderful Wedding Weekend

Over Easter weekend we all (Me, Chad and the bean) headed to Memphis for Chelsie and Brian's wedding!! We went up on Thursday and on Friday the girls went to the bridal luncheon. We went to a place called La Baguette and it was an outside inside restaurant. What does that mean? Well you walk IN the building but it is build like you are outside. All the stores and cafe's are built in houses and buildings that look like you are outside walking along a path, but you are inside! It was SO cute.
Most of us got quiche and soup or chicken salad and it was pretty good! Chelsie then got a cake that said "Congratulations Chelsie" which was also very good :)
After that we headed back home and got ready for rehearsal dinner! We went to the church and ran through everything. We got to meet a lot of Brian's family (SO sweet!) and friends (hilarious guys). Ava did wonderful through the whole thing.
We then headed to Colettas which was a fancy Italian restaurant. We had our own private room and name places and little snack cups set up with pictures of the lovely couple everywhere! We had dinner (I had the chicken alfredo) and Chelsie and Brian went around and talked about everyone in the room. I had to only semi-look at Chelsie when she talked about me. I was going to ball my eyes out haha
Ava was being passed all over the place from grandparents, to great grandparents, to random church members so I didn't have her as I was leaving the restaurant and AS I was leaving I heard ava fussing, but it wasn't coming from the room we were just in, it was coming from a table in the main area. I looked over and saw this random blond lady at a random table holding her! My body started to react and I almost jumped on the lady but right then I looked up and saw Doug and Sherry there talking to them. Turns out they were their next door neighbors.  That would have made an interesting story -- "Civilian jumps lady at local restaurant over baby mix up".
That night the bridesmaids and Chelsie went to the church and just hung out and talked. It was so nice to just have normal girl time talk. I've forgotten how nice that is. None of them are married (2 engaged) or have children so it was just normal conversation. Very fun :)
The next day was THE day. Chelsie woke up and went and got her hair done and when she got home she drove me to the church to start getting ready. All the girls met at 10 (ok, ok, 10:30) to 'get ready' together with our hair, make up, dresses, etc. I'm SO thankful to Rachel helping with my hair! It wouldn't have looked anywhere near as good without her! After that was picture time - we watched from afar as Chelsie and Brian saw each other for the first time. So sweet! Then we had pictures with Chelsie, with Brian, with Brian and Chelsie then family pictures. After that everything went very quickly and we waited in the Bride's room until it was show time. We went out, took our places, and were off! The ceremony was short and sweet. Vows, rings, speech, and done. They were so cute. I teared up and tried very hard not to just lose it. I didn't :)
Reception was afterwards and was just gorgeous! They had an ice cream bar because they aren't big cake fans and it was so fun. I ate waaay  more than I probably should have ( and I wonder why I can't lose the rest of my baby weight?? ha). I also gave a speech (thats right, I stood in front of 200 people and spoke) and again, had to speak quickly so I didn't just cry like a baby infront of everyone haha
Brian's truck got hit pretty hard by the groomsmen. Luckily they had forseen this and were secretly taking another car. They pretended to get in the truck and then said 'just kidding!' and got in a car parked nearby. Sneaky, sneaky. What they didn't know is some poor soul had to drive that truck back to the house and wash it haha
Overall it was VERY enjoyable. I am told Ava did perfectly when I wasn't with her. She's such a social little bean.

Pictures!

see all pictures here!