Wedding Recap #2

Last weekend Drew and I drove to the Chicago area for my cousin's wedding which was our second wedding of the summer! We stayed at a gorgeous hotel, saw lots of family (or in Drew's case, met my family), and had a great time celebrating with the happy couple and getting pumped for the next Thomas wedding - ours!

Just like I did after Troy and Kelley's wedding in May, I'm going to recap my cousin's wedding and take note of what I especially liked about it and what I learned for my own wedding (which, by the way, is officially less than 3 months away!).

The Wedding/Reception
The ceremony took place at my cousin Marie's family church in Naperville, IL. This was the first time I was in their church for anything other than Christmas Eve mass, so the place felt so huge! The wedding ceremony was kind of long, but was really beautiful. Marie and Drew (yes she married a Drew too!) looked so happy and absolutely in love. Marie and her bridesmaids looked stunning as well.

The wedding and reception were nothing flashy or over the top, but everything was still so beautiful and exciting. This was a good reminder that weddings don't have to be outrageous to be fun. Sometimes keeping the details simple and personal make for the most memorable weddings.

What I Liked
Okay, I'm a little biased, but what I liked best about this wedding was seeing my entire family  and enjoying the awesome reception! I was so happy (my) Drew got to meet my dad's family because we all have so much fun at wedding receptions and aren't afraid to make fools of ourselves on the dance floor! Drew told me he's even more excited for our wedding now after seeing how much my family gets into everything. We all had a great time last weekend, and the party will continue in October for sure.

What I Learned
Mostly what I learned from this wedding is that I have a fun, loving, awesome family. Which is a pretty good take-away, if you ask me!

As far as more practical I-want-to-steal-this-for-my-own-wedding ideas, Drew and I both really like how this reception had place cards for each couple or family as opposed to each individual. This would save time and resources, and really just makes more sense anyways (at least to us).

This wedding also caused us to revisit the idea of having favors for our guests. We nixed favors almost immediately when we started planning our wedding, but for some reason warmed up to the idea after my cousin's reception. Maybe it's because the blue and green jelly beans we received are an easy and cute favor to give out (and matched their color scheme). Or maybe it's just because we really like eating candy and figure other people might like it too, especially after all the dancing that will surely take place at our reception. So if you're a guest at our wedding, you may just get a little treat bag for yourself. Or maybe not. We're still debating.

Also, for anyone who may have missed it, check out my last post on where to find all the practical information about our wedding (hotels, directions, etc).