Kedinger Wedding

Yesterday was a day chock-full of wedding events.  We began with the bridesmaids brunch at my godmother’s house.  We feasted on mimosas, two kinds of quiche, Zea corn grits, fruit salad, and bridesmaid dress cake!  The food was fabulous, and I was so honored to have everyone there.  After the brunch, the whole crew traveled down the street to my mom’s house to view the dress and the abundant wedding gift display.

After the brunch, it was time to get ready for the big bachelorette party that night. (more…)

As I poured milk on my cereal this morning, I was surprised and excited to notice that we will be married before this carton of organic skim milk expires! What an encouraging thought!

Things have of course been rolling right along with the to-do list. Most exciting, to me at least, is that a couple weeks ago (more…)

So, I thought I would post a little update about the plans in the works so far. This past week has been extremely productive. Last weekend, we spent the majority of Saturday shopping for wedding bands. We went to no less than nine jewelry stores on our search. The difficult part was finding a band to fit around my engagement ring. I was pretty sure I would just have to get a ring custom-made to fit the engagement ring, but we were looking just in case we found the right thing. Wouldn’t you know it, (more…)

I know it’s been a while since we’ve posted, but the plans for the wedding have kind of been on autopilot recently. After having all the major things and places booked, we have some down time until all the details need to be finalized.

Last night, however, the official wedding partying got kicked off with our couples shower hosted by my amazing bridesmaids. The shower coincided with the first Mardi Gras parade of the season, (more…)

I’ve been made aware that my fabulous bridal party has not been featured in this blog, so I am going to dedicate this post to them and their wonderfulness:

My Matron of Honor is the unparalleled Amanda Shackelford Parker. Amanda and I met through our sorority, Alpha Omicron Pi (this is a common theme with my bridesmaids). We weren’t exactly friends at first. She was way too cool to hang out with me! But after about a year, I started to come out of my shell and we started hanging out a little. Well, that led to hanging out a lot more, and we ended up moving in together into a little blue house in the Saints streets. We had a fabulous two years there where we solidified our friendship. No one thought we would last! Admittedly, we are extremely different, but we definitely compliment each other. We have traveled to fabulous and exotic places like Las Vegas, Paris, and even Brentwood, TN. I had the privilege of being Amanda’s maid of honor this past July, and I know she is now thrilled to return the favor. I can truly say I would not be the person I am today without her!

My Maid of Honor and my favorite Texan is the stupendous Susan Gonzalez. Susan went through recruitment the year after me and fatefully ended up an AOII as well. My first memories of Susan are of her experiencing a frat party for the first time. She really enjoyed herself! I’m not sure exactly how we started hanging out, but we did and thank goodness! I would not have had half as much fun at Target for the past four years without her. Susan and I have had some wild adventures including, but not limited to: trying to find Holly Beach in the middle of the night, a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Paris, France, looking for Paris Hilton in Henderson, too many doctors office and ER visits to name (including an especially fun one in Washington D.C.), and three years of day-after-Thanksgiving shopping madness. Our next adventure: Susan is moving in with me for a while after graduation!

The lovely Elizabeth Gillespie Catalanotto is also doing me the honor of being a bridesmaid. Liz and I met through AOII (big surprise!) and we really started getting close when I became Vice President of Recruitment and she was President. I got a little crazy that year, and Liz really helped calm me down! She definitely owns the most incriminating photos of my sorority days! We bonded over our mutual love of entertaining, and we are both self-proclaimed foodies (who BUYS infused olive oil, when you can make it yourself?) Liz is always there when a task needs to be accomplished, and is super-fabulous at organizing things, which I desperately need in my life! I also had the honor of being a bridesmaid in her wedding, and I am so glad she is in mine!

The always classy Claire Oliver Caffery rounds out my bridesmaid posse. Claire and I have known each other from day one, being cousins and all. Our moms are sisters, and we are both the only girls in our family. Since we are stuck with all these brothers, Claire is the closest I have to a biological sister. We got into a WHOLE lot of trouble together growing up, but we sure had a lot of fun doing it! I don’t think I would have been obsessed with troll dolls if it hadn’t been for Claire. Some of my best memories from childhood were playing at her house in the country, and spending time together at Granny’s. Claire became a teacher this year, which I am so excited about! I now have someone to swap stories with at our numerous family gatherings. I am blessed to have such a wonderful cousin!

I hope I did my girls justice! I am so lucky to have all of them in my life and I know I won’t make it through the next six months without them!!

I got my dress today!! As in, it is actually in my hot little hands. Well, it’s at my mom’s house, but close enough! Although I can’t go into detail about what it looks like, I will document how it came to be:

I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted and more importantly what I really DIDN’T want. Due to the fact that my father is the deacon who will be marrying us, and all of Daniel’s priest friends would be there, I knew it had to be modest. And honestly, modest suits me better anyway! I knew it would be a challenge to find what I wanted. My mom and I started on Friday afternoon in Lafayette. We went back a boutique I had been to with my bridesmaids last week to see what they had. As I feared, nothing that fit my specifications. We tried another shop and struck out again. I found a lot of dresses that were okay, or would work with some modifications, but of course no girl wants an “okay” dress for her wedding!! So, I made an appointment that evening with David’s Bridal. Now, two of my best friends have gotten their dresses from there, but I was still extremely skeptical. I will admit that I pre-judged them! I had a very nice consultant and we found two dresses that fit well and met my needs. In fact, my mom teared up when they put the veil on me and she saw the whole look, so I took that as a good sign! So, we were excited to have at least some back-up dresses in case we found nothing in Baton Rouge.

This morning, my mom, Susan and I headed east to Baton Rouge. I had an appointment with a boutique when it opened at 10:00. Unfortunately, the attendants were kind of stuck-up and the prices were outrageous, so we moved on pretty quickly. The next shop was much more promising. We were allowed to grab any dress we wanted and there was a large selection of sizes. So, I tried on about eight dresses and found a strong contender. So, the decision process began. I was extremely torn between one from David’s and the one from this second shop. I decided that I needed to try on the David’s dress again to make an informed decision. Luckily, the Baton Rouge store wasn’t far. We headed over and after a good 15 minutes of waiting to get a consultant to help, I asked them to pull up the dress number from my file and find the dress. When we couldn’t find it on the racks, we started to wonder. Then, we were informed of something surprising: the dress I had really liked at Davids was discontinued! So we immediately called the Lafayette store and had them pull it from the rack and hold it for me. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the David’s bridal dress, so we abandoned Baton Rouge, and headed back to Lafayette. We went back to David’s and I tried the dress on again. As soon as I put it on, I knew it was it. I fit me perfectly, and had all the different parts that I wanted. I also appreciated it a whole lot more after seeing what else was out there! The best part? Since it was discontinued, it was on clearance and half the regular price!! I ended up getting the dress, the veil, and the undergarments for the original price of the dress. So, I got to check off a major item on the list: Dress Mission Accomplished!!

I’m told that as a bride, I’m way ahead of schedule on the planning aspect of this wedding. Considering the fact that we set the date, and had the church and the photographer booked within an hour of the proposal, I guess I would have to say it’s true! Of course, when the celebrant is your father, and the photographer is not only a close friend but also photographed the actual proposal, it makes more sense. In the past 5 days, we have also started the registry, picked bridesmaid dresses, booked a florist, booked the reception hall and set the menu for the reception. What can I say? We’re extremely motivated!!