Our Wedding Day: The Bridal Party Attire and Gifts

Oh my goodness!  The holidays are all finally over and we can get back to our regularly scheduled program here. :)

I want to finish documenting the wedding and will hopefully only have about 3-5 more posts.  So if you enjoy them, continue reading - if not, then return in like a week?  But please come back, I do love my readers so much!

So today we will be talking about the bridal party.

Making our selections for our bridal party were mostly easy.  I will remind you that Ryan and I had most of the planning done in 1 month's time.  With Ryan getting ready to deploy I wanted him to be a part of the decision making as much as possible.  We chose the venue, cake, attire, bridal party, florist, photographer and DJ all before he left.  I will do a post on how we accomplished that near the end of the wedding recap.

Our bridal party.  We sat there, the day after the big day happened, and wrote out our list of people we would like by our sides.  We went back and forth.  We had decided immediately that we wouldn't have a huge bridal party.  No more than 4 people each, which for Ryan was extremely hard and became hard for me.  In the end, we chose and we couldn't have been more pleased with our party.  We each chose 2 family members and 2 friends.  It was a great combo that we were pleased with.

The Attire:

For my maids :)

Dresses:  I had found the most perfect dresses for my girls immediately!  I think I actually ordered them the week after we decided to have a wedding.  LOL.  I found them from ModCloth and they were absolutely perfect!  I got them each a black bandeau to go underneath as well so that straps didn't show through the lace.  I was so pleased with the dresses!

Shoes:  I also found the most perfect shoes that I wanted us all to wear from ModCloth, but unfortunately they did not have all the sizes we needed.  I ended up searching and searching for something else I liked.  I then decided to just search for the original shoe I liked on Google and ended up finding them on Overstock!  I was sooooo excited!  It was perfect.  I also ended up gifted these to my girls as part of their gift.

Flower:  Since we were going for all black on the bridal party with pops of green, I went with a green flower in each of their hair.  I found these at Hobby Lobby for super cheap!  These were also part of their gift.

For my flower girl :)

Dress:  I searched the Internet for the perfect flower girl dress.  I found it instantly!  I was so happy with it.  I found it from PrettyFlowerGirl.com.  I was so scared that it wouldn't fit her when she arrived in town, but it fit perfectly and she looked soooo adorable!

Flower:  Since she is supposed to match me, I decided to go with a black flower in her hair instead of a green one, which matched perfectly with her little black shoes.  This was also given to her as part of her gift. 

For the groom :)

Tux:  We chose a gorgeous handsome Calvin Klein from Men's Wearhouse for Ryan.  It was all black with a white shirt, vest and tie.  He looked soooo handsome - if I do say so myself :)

For the groomsmen :)

Tux:  The groomsmen were in the same Calvin Klein tux as Ryan but with a slight variation.  Instead of them wearing a white vest and tie, they were in a black vest with a green tie.  It was important to me that they look different than Ryan, but still have some green to match my girls.  It was the perfect look and exactly what I had in mind.

For the ring bearer :)

Tux:  We were worried about what he would wear because Men's Wearhouse does not have tuxes for rent for little ones.  Luckily, Gavin grew over the summer and fit into the smallest size they rent out.  He was in a matching suit as all of the guys and looked super duper handsome!

The Gifts:

For the maids:

If you know anything about me by now, you will know that I love presents!  And as much as I love receiving, I equally love getting.  While deciding on gifts for my girls, it was hard to stop purchasing things!  As stated above I gifted them the flowers for their hair, their shoes and the bandeau.  I also included monogrammed tissues and monogrammed flask all inside of a monogrammed bag in green!  It was wonderful.  The monogrammed flask and bags were purchesed through the Knot.  The monogrammed tissues were purchased at Hobby Lobby.  All together, I think each girls' gift cost me about $50.  I couldn't have been more pleased with their gifts. :)

These in green with the first letter of each girls' name

I chose to do full monograms with first, middle and last initial

For the flower girl:

I got Maddie the flower for her hair as mentioned above and a few other fun items.  I got her a water bottle from Hobby Lobby, a fun arts and crafts project from Hobby Lobby, a personalized tee from VistaPrint and a monogrammed bag from the Knot.  Her gift cost me a total of $30.  She loved it and felt so special to get all of her own stuff.

I chose to put 05 because that was how old she would be at the wedding

I chose the bag pictured on top

For the men:

Ryan was very torn on what to get his guys.  With the help from me, and oddly enough, the Army we came up with a great gift for all of them.  I ordered them all monogrammed flasks from the Knot, Ryan ordered them ManCard bottle openers from Amazon, and we got them all a bottle of Jack Daniels from the barrel being sold by the 101st out of Kentucky with a medal on it from Ryan's deployment.  Overall, we spent about $80 on each of the men.  They loved it and we were so happy in the end.

For the ring bearer:

Gavin was probably the toughest one to buy for.  He was traveling from Colorado to be here and we didn't want to send him home with too many things, but I didn't want to leave him out.  We got him a personalized tee from VistaPrint, a water bottle from Hobby Lobby and a dump truck from Target.  He was thrilled and was so happy that he got a dump truck.  Boys and their toys!  His gift also cost me $30.

Gavin was 3 at the wedding so he got 03 for his number

I absolutely loved our bridal party and their attire.  I was so pleased with how they all looked that day.  It definitely helped make my day go easier and not stress as much knowing that everyone's stuff fit and looked awesome together!

Thank you all so much!  We love you!!