a tennessee wedding ~ the big post.

On the 13th of July, my little brother married his soul mate.
Drew and Kristen had a beautiful wedding in Knoxville, Tennessee (where they both currently live).
It was a gorgeous day with just a splash of rain that lasted all of 10 minutes.
The bride looked beautiful in an ivory gown and my brother was so handsome in his tux.  He is always so calm and easygoing, he was just ready to get the show on the road.
When you are busy keeping four children occupied (Quinn and her three cousins) you don't have a chance to let it all sink in.  When I saw Drew walk down the aisle and go get the minister, it sunk in and I got emotional.  But I had to pull myself together, because in just a minute Todd would come down the aisle (groomsman) and then my sweet girl as flower girl.  Let's just say I soaked up every tiny bit of this experience of having her be a flower girl.  I knew it is likely my one time of experiencing that.  I loved every second of it.

For us, it was a jam-packed weekend wedding extravaganza and road tripping all in one. :)
With flower girl in tow, no naps most days, long travel days, late nights of family gatherings, she was still an absolute rock star and did her flower girl duties so gracefully.  We were SO proud of her!
Liam (our nephew) was the ring bearer, and Todd and Mike (brother-in-law) were groomsmen.  My sister, Amy, and I did a little speech together. :)  (My 4th wedding toast, I think that should round it up though, but I guess you never know.)
On top of everything else, out-of-town weddings are fun too because you actually get bonus time with extended family.  We all stayed at the same hotel and most nights we would put Quinn to bed and head to room 828 (aka. Club 828 - or Uncle Brian and Aunt Sherry's room) for laughs and drinks and a good time together.  We love our video monitor for allowing us to go have a good time but keep an eye on our little Quinn.

The wedding was beautiful and the reception was a blast!
Quinn beat out just about anyone on the dance floor as she lasted the entire night!

Drew and Kristen, we love you so much.
We are so excited for you and Quinn is so glad to have a new Auntie Kristen.

Now for a ton of pictures!
(and a video too, at the very end)

 

 

These are from my camera, so with photographer pictures still to come, I'm sure I'll have more to post again later!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Details on our little Flower Girl:
Dress was from this Etsy shop Olivia Kate Couture.  (Gorgeous dress, timely, and comfy material.)
Shoes from Target.
Flowers in Hair from H&M.
And her mommy did her hair. :) 
(with helpful advice and tutorials from bestie Kirsten - or "K" as Quinn calls her)

 

I love photographs, but I am always grateful for videos, they just capture even more.

Here is a video of wedding and reception highlights (well, the ones I had a chance to capture).

When you watch it, turn up the volume and increase the video quality (bottom - looks like a wheel) to 720p.

Enjoy!

the wedding - just a sneak peek.

I know right, just a sneak peek?!
Well, I need a little more time to get the pictures and videos ready for the BIG Tennessee Wedding post of my little brother, Drew, marrying his beautiful new wife, Kristen.
From our amazing and fun-filled wedding weekend...
Here are just a couple pics, a sneak peek (ya know, not giving away full outfits yet), with much more to come!

Disney & a Two year old.

During our trip to Florida, we decided to venture over to Magic Kingdom for one day of Disney fun.
Quinn's first official trip to a Disney World Park.  (Grandpa and Grandma joined us too!)

We are so glad we decided to take our shy little girl.  She LOVED all of it!
She was ready to go in her adorable little outfit made by Grandma (and her name stitched on her shirt was awesome when meeting characters, they called her by name like they knew her, without having to ask).
She was SO excited to meet the characters and princesses, like she could hardly wait in line (but she did because she is a good girl).  She was fantastic the entire day.  Watching her reaction and expression to everything was priceless.  Seeing the park through her little two year old eyes was like seeing it for the first time myself (all over again).

I would say around 2:30, she fell asleep on Todd while we were on our way over to Buzz Lightyear's ride.  Fortunately, our fast passes still had about an hour left, so we detoured and rode on the people mover and then the Carousel of Progress just to do something while she slept.  It worked great.  She woke up ready to tackle Evil Emperor Zurg.

Going to Disney at any age is a great trip.
Going to Disney at least once between the ages of 2 and 4 is truly magical.  Their excitement is overflowing and seeing the characters is so special.  Each stage is different, but we are so glad that Quinn was able to go at this one.

We had the best day!
We truly lucked out going in a peak season, our longest wait was only 30 minutes.
We moved along with our day in a way that we were able to get fast passes for a good majority of the rides we went on.  (Helps when you can send one person quickly to go get them while you wait for another show/ride.) 

We went into the day with a simple plan and one main goal - making it all about Quinn.  And our day couldn't have gone any smoother or simpler.

Our day included:
Meeting Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Mickey Mouse, Belle, Daisy and Minnie.
Riding Small World, Winnie the Pooh, Ariel's ride, Peter Pan, Buzz Lightyear, Dumbo, the Railroad and the Peoplemover.
We watched the Shake It! parade (it's a great parade to see all the characters and dance with them in the street, but not a long parade that you are sitting around for a long time).
We also went to Enchanted Tales with Belle (one of our favorite things from the day).
We ate yummy food and ice cream.
Played in the Casey Juniors little splashpark.
And Quinn acquired a Mickey and Minnie to take home, while we took home some treats from the Confectionary. yum!  And we left feeling fulfilled, happy, and not completely exhausted. We stopped and had dinner outside of the park, and it turned out to be a great way to kind of start to unwind from the day.

A truly magical day!
Can't wait to return.

Here is a little video from the day. :)

my girls.

My girlfriends are incredible women, and amazing friends.

I love them so much.

 

This weekend was about being together with friends and celebrating babies.

Ashley (in the middle) is expecting her first little baby.  It's a boy! 

We celebrated sweet little Owen and his mommy with a shower on Sunday.

 

Okay, so it's hysterical and adorable that we all wore stripes.

 

On Friday, the same group of ladies (my high school gals) pulled our little families together for an afternoon and evening of fun.  When Ashley is in town we put together any time we can all get together.  Between us, we have 5 little munchkins :)  When Owen arrives, the little babes will outnumber the mamas!

 

While the adults all hung out in the kitchen eating food pretty much the entire time, these little tired babies cuddled up on the couch for a movie late into the night.  Quinn and her boys.

These are moments we will always want to remember.

a day at the beach.

Learned something new on our two week adventure in Florida.

This girl loves the beach.

 

It was a cloudy day...

but that didn't matter.

she was in the water as quick as she could get there.

truly magical.

We left the blogging world for two weeks of summer, but we are back.

We were off experiencing something truly magical...

 

crazy precious, right?

 

 

More from our adventures in Florida with Grandpa and Grandma (papa and gmamama) coming soon.