Wedding bio
Meredith and Scott

March 1, 2008

    Scott and I were married on the most perfect day, weather wise, Fort Lauderdale has ever seen.  Plus, my husband was gorgeous, my guests were lively, and I was as calm as they come.  The day was seriously perfect.  I wouldn't change a single thing.  

And I know you're probably looking at this for the pictures and not what I have to say about how wonderful my wedding was, so let's just get moving then.  Oh, and if you take any of these pictures, please credit me and/or my wonderful photographer, Stacey Brandon.  Merci beaucoup!     

P.S.A.

    But ... if I could just have thirty seconds of your time first, I have a bit of wisdom I feel is my duty to impart to my fellow ladies before we move on to the pictures.  So here goes:  

You are the bride.  Like it or not, you are the center of attention.  All eyes are one you, as they say.  Everyone, and I mean everyone will want to pose for a picture with you.  Normally, this involves someone coming up and standing next to you while the picture taker gets out the camera.  The picture taker holds the camera up to his or her eye, and then invariably at the last second, the person standing next to you throws his/her arm around your waist and smiles for the camera.  If you are wearing a veil, this will cause your neck to snap backwards uncomfortably just as the picture taker snaps the camera, and all of the pictures will turn out like this:

There is a very easy way to avoid this: Anticipate the last minute arm reach.  When the person steps up next to you, as the picture taker is readying the camera, kindly ask the person to slip his or her arm "behind the veil."  Those three simple words will save your neck lots of unnecessary drama, and your pictures then will come out like so:

Problem solved.  Oh so easy.

 I feel better.  We can proceed.  I'll try to keep the commentary to a minimum. 

Getting Ready

       

   

 

   

     

"Bitch, watch what you're doing."  

I wasn't really thinking that, but that's surely what my expression says.  

My brother crashes the party.

 

The only part where I nearly lost it.

   

Represent.

    

Pre-Ceremony Pictures

    

   
   

My family.

Scott's family.

   

My parents.  They are so wonderful.

My girls.

Scott's guys.

"What, are you and your sister going to start making out?" -- Scott, upon seeing this picture.

One of the great parts about my venue was that it was right on the New River, so boats were constantly passing by and honking while passengers yelled well wishes.  It was awesome.

Here we all are emulating the David's Bridal virtual bridal party.  Those things are creeeeeepy ...

I sprained my ankle two weeks before the wedding (yeah, I know, smart), so I wore my comfy flip flops as we traipsed around downtown Fort Lauderdale taking pictures.  Looking back and seeing how much the freaking things were visible in my pictures kinda makes me wish I'd just sucked it up and worn the pretty shoes.  Oh well.  

The "Reservoir Dogs" shot.  Big hit with the boys.

We hijacked that trolley.  No, really.  The passengers were really nice about it and let us take pictures.

    

Little Details

 

   My mom, sister and I spent hours making the color-coded votive holders because the venue told me they needed some way to distinguish which guests had ordered which entree.  Of course, on the night of the event, the waiters ignored the color coding and did table side ordering.  Nice.  Oh well, it looked pretty.

   

DIY menus.  

    

I loved the simplicity of my centerpieces.  I told my florist floating orchids, and what she came up with was better than I was imagining.






 

I loved my cake SOOOOO much!



My grandmother passed away rather unexpectedly right after Thanksgiving.  My mom found one of her old embroidered handkerchiefs, which I used to wrap my bouquet.  It was my little way of having her there with me.   

The favors were also a way to honor her.

Ceremony

   

Scott's brother is 6'5".  My sister is 5'2".  Even factoring in her 3" heels, they still looked pretty funny together.   

The priest was funny.

I said it before, but the weather seriously was perfect.

According to my sister, I turned and bolted as soon as the priest pronounced us and husband and wife, and she barely had time to straighten my train.  I love this picture because you can totally tell that happened based on her facial expression.

I have no idea what that face is about.

The train is definitely my favorite part of the dress.

We did it!

   

Cocktail Hour

   

   

Another boat.

Reading the guestbook, not signing it.

Gorgeous sunset!

Showing off my shoes.

Reception

The bridal party was introduced to "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys.  We kinda forgot about some of the lyrics until the big F-bomb was dropped right as Scott's parents were being introduced.  Oops.    

Our first dance was to "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton.  It's our special song.

   
  




My dad gave an impromptu speech after dinner, during which my mom showed off the fact that she had changed into slippers.  It was cute.



Dancing with my dad.

 



The sentimental stuff isn't really "us," so we decided to liven things up.





My dad can always make me laugh!





Scott's brother's best man speech was the hit of the reception.  Probably because it wasn't so much a "speech" as it was a roast of Scott.



   
Everyone loved it.



No, really.  Loved it.



He's such a good sport.



My sister's speech was more touching and sentimental.



Alright, it's time to dance!









Not sure what this was about, but apparently it was hilarious.



I'm not going to lie, I cringed a bit when the DJ put on that Soulja Boy song because I find it to be very disrespectful toward women, but then my cousin and his fiancee went out there and committed.  It was like in a movie, where they were the only ones dancing and a crowd gathered around them, watching and cheering.  Pretty awesome moment.  











I have no idea why I thought it was appropriate to hike up my skirt in the middle of the reception and show off my goods.  No idea.



Cake cutting is serious business.  It requires intense levels of concentration.











Yes, we did the garter and bouquet toss.









Here is my sister diving for the bouquet like she's gunning for the Heisman.





We set it up so that her boyfriend would catch the garter...



...purely so that we could have this moment.  



 Okay, let's get back to dancing.


As I discovered when going through my pictures, I like to sing when I dance.  



My Absolute Favorite Part of the Reception

    Two things to know: 1) My mother is the most selfless, giving person in the entire world.  She puts other people first always and will drop everything if one of her children is involved.  2) As the night went on, more and more alcohol was consumed and most people weren't nearly as careful as they had been earlier on in the night.  

WIth that introduction, here we go.  I'm not entirely which party was at fault, but one of our groomsmen stepped on the back of my dress as I was walking away, which ripped out part of my bustle and left half of my train hanging on the ground.  Realizing no one had brought any spare safety pins, we discovered we had a bustle emergency on our hands.

 

A friend tried to intervene but wasn't able to figure out what was wrong.  I figured I needed my mom, since she's the master at fixing things and was also the one who learned how to do the bustle at the dress shop.  I looked around for her, and just as I spotted her, the DJ put on Billie Jean.  It was then as if everything shifted into slow motion. I held up my hand to my mom, who looked at me and then raced right past me onto the dance floor. 

"Um, mom, we're having a few bustle problems here.  I could really use your help."



"Sorry, Mer, it's Michael Jackson."



"But my bustle is broken.  Half my train is dragging on the ground.  You're probably the only one who can fix it."



"Don't really care, sorry."



"Well, that's a really nice attitude to have."



"Hey, Mer, did you know?  Billie Jean is not his lover.  She's just a girl.  Thinks that he is the one."



"Yeah, let me guess, the kid is not his son?  Whatever, mom, my bustle will just look like this for the rest of the night."

Seriously, I had no idea my mom was such a fan of Michael Jackson.  Apparently Billie Jean is her favorite song of all time.  You think I would have known that.  Looking back now, this was definitely my favorite part of the reception.  I laugh whenever I think about it.  And I really didn't care about the broken bustle.  I let that puppy drag on the ground the rest of the night.  As one would imagine, it was black and disgusting by the time we made it back to the hotel.

Good Night!

Just a few more pictures from the end of the night.

   

It's funny how three glasses of champagne can make you all emotional and stuff.

 

Honeymoon

We spent ten fabulous nights in Hawaii.  I'm not going to lie -- the plane flight was no fun.  It was really long and really crowded, but we survived.  The first stop was Kauai.

Kauai

We stayed at the Sheraton in Kauai.  Not bad, and my friend's fiance's roommate from business school (convoluded, I know) is actually the manager of the property, so we were pretty well taken care of.  That was a really nice, unexpected perk.

Our room.  Before maid service.

We sprung for the ocean view room, and it was definitely worth it.

Taken from the balcony.

 

Exploring a bit on day 2.  We then decided to do some impromptu hiking, which lasted all of twenty minutes or so because look at what I was wearing.  Not exactly REI's finest.

We did get a few good pictures out of it though.  This is up near Hanalei.

We got smart about hiking the next day and actually dressed for it.  We hiked through Waimea Canyon ...

 

... and stumbled across this.  Not a bad find.

Chillin' on some rocks.  Completely oblivious to the wave behind me.

My man.  Chillin' on some rocks.

Our last night there, we stopped by one of those cheesy, touristy events put on by the hotel, mainly because they had free booze.  We were probably there for forty minutes or so, and Scott didn't take a single picture until she came out and started dancing.  That's great.

I just drank wine.

The Big Island

First stop was the Hilo side, and the Palms Cliff House Inn.

The view off the balcony.  We sat out there every night and drank wine.  Our last night at this place, we saw a shooting star.  Purdy special.  

Akaka Falls.

Rainbow Falls.

The picture that would freak my mom out if I showed it to her.

Hiking across a crater in Volcano National Park.

We spent the last two nights on the Kona side at the Four Seasons Hualalai, doing nothing but relaxing.  Awesome resort, mostly because of the fantastic...

...outdoor lava rock shower.  So effing cool.  

The room.

That sexy beast, ladies, is my husband.  

This was taken our last night there, by the drunkest woman I've ever encountered in my life.  She grabbed our camera and gave us slurred instructions to, "Go out there and have fun.  You kids frolick.  You still have time to enjoy your lives.  Don't waste it."  We were a little frightened, and this was the best frolicking we could muster.

Thanks for Looking!