Wedding Day Recap - First Look

Hello lovelies! Technically, it's still my weekend right now. Jealous? :) Well Jeff and I went to St. Augustine for the weekend to attend a friend's wedding. Since the wedding was last night, it was too late to drive back home. So we get an extra day off today! So for that, we're very grateful. And also because of that, I'm not doing a weekend recap just yet, but I've  still got something lined up for y'all - wedding photos!

The First Look....

I think pretty much everyone these days either loves or hates the idea of a first look. For us, it was great and we loved it. I was so glad I got to spend just a few minutes with my groom before everything got crazy. I was glad he got to really look at me in my dress. I was glad we got to steal a few quick kisses.  It also helped calm me down too. While we were so busy getting ready, I started to get anxious and worried about things not being ready in time, or about something just not getting done. But once I finally got to see him, all of that extra hoopla just faded away. I was able to just chill and relax, and try to wait as patiently as possible for the ceremony to finally start. 

It was really a very sweet moment for us, and I'm so glad we did it. Also, the photographer found this little spot for us, and the lighting was so pretty back there on that little boardwalk through the woods of the park.

My wedding present to him was a nice wooden pocket knife, engraved with our wedding date, and some sappy lyrics from one of 'our' songs by Perry Como. He loved it! Side story here: we had decided to just exchange small-ish gifts and not go crazy with anything big or extravagant. Thus, I chose this little pocket knife from Etsy. But he got a little excited and surprised me with a Kindle PaperWhite a few days before the wedding! Which of course I loved! And he was still just as grateful for my sentimental gift for him :)

I know not everyone wants to see their future husband or wife before the ceremony, because of that age-old tradition that says it's bad luck. But really, that's just a silly tradition, and if you want to do it, then do it. We loved it, and I'm so glad we did it that way! It was so sweet and we both loved those extra few moments together before everything got crazy. After that, we were able to take more pictures together, and also take almost all of our family photos, and that cut down on photo time post-ceremony a TON, which is what we wanted. So all-in-all, we loved doing photos first, and would do it the same way again!