Getting Ready for Nicole's Big Day

Nicole's wedding was on Friday, February 17. I don't know what in the world I was thinking...or maybe I'm just such a responsible human being that I didn't want to take so many days off of school...but I arrived in Twin Falls on Wednesday. In the days leading up to my trip, I was feeling sooo bummed that I'd be getting so few days with my sister and our friends!!!!

On our drive from Boise to Twin Falls, I started getting the chills, hot flashes, cold flashes...I felt so nauseous and disgusting...I thought, "NO WAY. I'm going to walk down the aisle in my sister's wedding with a full-blown case of the flu!" I felt awful! After we arrived at Nicole's house and had our happy reunion, my mom made me an immune-boosting powder drink. Cherie and Stephanie filled me up with activated charcoal...I took some ibuprofen...then off we all went to the church to work! There was a lot to be done.

I didn't take any pictures this first day....it is kind of a blur...I think we made pom poms and then came home? Cherie, you can get on here and correct any of my mistakes :D
My brain was a little foggy. Anyways - we were so happy to be all together! Something I loved about Nicole's wedding and her choice of attendants was that we are all so close and absolutely have the best time together. We already knew each other, already had a tight bond so working together was pure FUN! I love all of these girls so much!

Stephanie MADE Nicole's wedding cake! She is a total PRO! She does incredible work! 

She made me laugh so hard - after a day of cooking 3 layers of what was supposed to be a 4-layer cake, she told me, "This just became a THREE layer cake. My feet are killing me!" I said, "Oh my word, what will Nicole say?" Steph says, "Oh, she won't even notice." 

Which was soooo true. Nicole's mind was definitely on other things! 

The cake turned out beautiful, so tall, and there was plenty for everyone! I didn't taste it on account of not being able to hardly eat because of my sore throat and nausea, but several people told me that it was delicious.

Cherie, professional wedding planner in the making. This girl knowwwws what she's doing. 

I feel like between Cherie and I, we are able to corner Nicole into making needed decisions, or we just made them ourselves. LOL!

We were playing wedding songs to get in the mood of romance which inspired beautiful dance moves...

...but every time the girls got me laughing too hard I'd start gagging, causing them to start screaming and running away. (I never lost anything, but was mainly just being dramatic.)

Setting up the backdrop...

...taking Nicole's beautiful hand-made paper flowers over to the church...

(I don't want to show too much until the actual ceremony pictures. Then you'll get to see the final product! But just know that Nicole is extremely creative and crafty and did a ton of hard work to make her wedding prettyyyy!)

First American meal in Twin - Chick-Fil-A :)

Perfection!

Nicole tasting her wedding cake - YUM.

We'd planned to throw Nicole a surprise bridal shower so that night Andrew helped sneak Cherie, Steph and me away to Nicole's house to set everything up. Nicole came out of the church right as we were pulling out of the parking lot and she looked so confused to see us all driving off. I was squealing, "Keep driving, DON'T LOOK AT HER!!!!" She immediately called me and sounded a little ticked. I explained that I just wasn't feeling too great and had to go home - which was totally the truth and she knew it.

Nicole arrived about half an hour later and was so surprised and happy!
 

Dorisa and I brought a few gifts but 99% of all these are from Cherie and Steph. They reeeeally made Nicole feel so special!

The bushed bridesmaids - Cherie, me, Steph, and Dorisa

The next morning, Andrew arrived at the church bright and early to make us all breakfast. 

As long as we had food, our morale stayed high and we felt inspired to work!

This was the day of the reception. The last day we had to get everything done! We ended up renting a lift to hang decorations in the gym. Thankfully, Andrew knew how to drive this machine.

Between Andrew and I, we got the all of the papel picado hung. He was going up in the lift, tying them to the lights and tacking them to the walls. I was making sure to hand them to him facing the right direction and in the correct order of colors. 

The direction they hung was important because the papel picado was custom made here in Puebla to where every third paper said...

So special!

This makes my palms sweaty. Ha! I do not like heights.

Andrew went to pick John up from work after getting  all the papel picado hung. Dad then took over the lift and started hanging the pom poms.

Dad was very proud of himself for being able to touch the ceiling!

Cherie was in charge of making all the table runners, which turned out to be pretty time-consuming. 

Cherie is the gal you want working behind the scenes at your wedding!!!

At one point, Steph and I went out into the lobby of the gym to cut out some last minute paper flowers. Steph grabbed a bowl of grapes to snack on and when we sat down, the game "Chubby Bunny" was brought up. This is a contest to see who can stuff the most marshmallows in their mouth and still manage to say the words "chubby bunny". The idea occurred to us to try this game with grapes. 

Stephanie started stuffing her mouth full...but we were so wound up that we forgot to even count how many she fit in. Of course we then got to laughing....crying...screaming....

Soon, one of these huge green grapes rolled down Stephanie's throat - whole - causing her to start gagging and blowing grapes into a nearby trash can. She then went running into the ladies restroom where things suddenly went silent except for the sound of my own wheezing laughter. After about a minute it occurred to me that she might be in the bathroom choking to death and I was about to have to pull out my Heimlich moves! 

She ended up being fine, but her throat reportedly did stretch to double its normal size, allowing her the ability to practice "eating for two".

This all was on Wednesday and Thursday morning. Thursday evening was the rehearsal, which I will cover in the next part! This is the part where we all start getting emotional....yay! Who doesn't love a good cry?! ( ;D )

~Bethany~