Laced with Love: Laced with Love: All Dolled Up

The day before our wedding, Mr. Lace and I spent the day running errands, checking into hotels and getting ready for our rehearsal. I purposely woke up early that morning so that I'd be really tired at night and it would trump that nervous excitement that might keep me all night. After the rehearsal, Mr. Lace dropped off Momma Lace and I off at our hotel and we parted ways.

And what did I do the night before the wedding? I took a shower and went to bed. Yup. That's all. I was worried about getting tired midday and feeling sleepy on my wedding day. I think I crashed around 11 p.m., but of course I woke up in the middle of the night, not because I couldn't sleep, but because my Mom was having some kind of dream where people were ordering her around and she yelled "STOP!" really loud around 3 a.m. I woke up with a start, but managed to fall asleep again pretty quickly.

The next morning, Momma Lace and I stopped at Starbucks to pick up some coffee before we met up with the bridesmaids to get ready. My fantastic hair and makeup artist, Kelly Zhang, was early and began working on the bridesmaids right away. We spent 4 hours getting ready, but the time zipped by super quickly. Before I knew it, my fabulous photographer, Hanssie Trainor, knocked on the door, stepped in and began snapping photos!

Before I share some photos from the morning of, here are a few things for those of you getting ready for your big day.

1. Be prepared - bobby pins, q-tips, cotton balls, Kleenex, water, blotting sheets, hair spray, safety pins, straight pins, chapstick, lip gloss, fake eyelash glue, toothpicks...throw it all in a bag and bring it with you all day. I was surprised at how often we ended up using items from this bag! When you're in a wedding dress and your girls are in dresses and heels, it's more inconvenient to get around.

2. Consider your transportation from one place to another. Make sure there's enough space for you and your dress. It ended up being more difficult to move around, sit, bend, etc. in my dress than I would've imagined.

3. If you plan to get ready in a hotel room and your photographer is going to take photos, try to get large room. Our hotel room was a LOT smaller than we thought and was really crowded most of the morning. There wasn't much space for my photographer to be able to snap photos without people or stuff being around. She did beautifully for such a cramped hotel room!

So now that I've given you a few tips, it's time for photos. All photos are courtesy of Hanssie Trainor unless otherwise noted.

That's Kelly making sure my hair will stay up all day long (which it did!). She gave me a great tip before she left, she said at the end of the night, when I was going to wash my hair, to condition first, wash and then condition again.

All done!

Bridesmaid M is the camera queen. She has such good aim!

Sister-in-law Lace getting ready. Her hair was super cute.

Getting into my dress. It felt a little awkward getting into my dress. You only see three of my BM's here, but there were actually ten other people in this room.