Abby and Mike's Wedding

Congratulations to Laura at Dual Coast Bride for winning my uprinting.com giveaway! I'll be in touch with you soon with details. Thanks so much for participating everyone! I'm going to have some other giveaways coming up, so stay tuned!

Last Friday Chris and I went to our second out of three weddings this year (including ours). We left with plenty of time to check into the hotel, change, and make the ceremony. Well unfortunately, we didn't go above 20 mph pretty much the entire drive to Connecticut! What was supposed to be a 2 1/2 hour drive ended up taking 4 hours and we missed the entire ceremony!! AHH!! I felt just awful about it, but there was really nothing we could do about it. I heard it was an absolutely beautiful and gorgeous ceremony, and I wouldn't expect anything less from these two!

We arrived at The Simsbury Inn with just enough time to change and head out to the reception. We got on the shuttles and had some good catch up time with friends Ben, and Christina and Kenny (Read about their wedding HERE!) 

When we arrived, Abby and Mike had pictures of their childhood, and pictures from their relationship set up on a table in the entrance-way.

These beautiful olive oil bottles with hand-painted blue hydrangeas doubled as favors and our table seatings!

"May these olive oil bottles be a symbol of our hope that your life may always have flavor"

Their guest book was postcards they had made from pictures that Mike took while he studied abroad in Italy. You filled out a postcard, then "mailed" it to them in the mailbox!

"In recognition of Mike's Italian heritage, we've used photos he took while
studying abroad in Italy to create these postcards. For our guestbook, please write a
message to us on a card and "send" it to us by placing it in the mailbox.
Thank you!

Cards went into an adorable white mailbox, which Ben demonstrates here:

This was one of my favorite ideas from their wedding: I read last week at on a blog (will link to it as soon as I remember which one) about how a friend twittered her whole wedding and she LOVED looking back on the updates and seeing real-time updates. Well, Abby and Mike invited everyone to join in and twitter about their wedding! I know a lot of people don't really "twitter," but Mike is big on the social media scene and I totally loved this idea. I twittered throughout the night, and you can read everyone's real-time updates here. I think this was such a great idea and great way to get everyone excited and involved! Plus, it's something nice for Abby and Mike to read and re-live the night through their guests.

Then it was time to eat! My favorite was the hummus and the brie with raspberry!

Green drink (of course). This was called a Pearl Harbor

After cocktail hour, we entered the gorgeous ballroom for the reception:

 Their table numbers had different wedding phrases, in different languages:

 Elegant centerpieces, I just LOVE hydrangeas!:

The sweetheart table:

The cake with their Cinderella and Prince-Charming Cake-Topper:

Our table:

 Then it was time for the Bride and Groom to enter and share their first dance!

First Dance "Then" By Brad Paisley:

Cake Cutting:

UMMM FUNFETTI CAKE?! So awesome!

Mother/Son Dance:

Father/Daughter Dance:

And then TIME to DANNNCE!

With the bride!

Now with the Groom!

Chris and Christina break-it down!

Dancing to "For Good" from Wicked....which Abby dedicated to her Father.

They had a sparkler send-off, I can't WAIT to see the professional pics from this.

They had an awesome limousine with jumper seats in the back where they can be seen!

And then we hung out for awhile for the after-party at the hotel bar! Another fantastic wedding. I am so happy for Abby and Mike and hope they are having an amazzzing time on their honeymoon right now in Antigua!!

Now, no wedding would be complete without an Animoto slideshow of the event!! (I really love this website, it's def. worth the $30 a year membership!)