A BFF's Wedding

Shanda and I became best friends when we met in pre-school at age 3.  This past October, I was honored to be her Matron-of-Honor when she got married.  I've been meaning to blog about that beautiful day for months, but today is Shanda's birthday, so I thought it was finally time.  (Happy Birthday Shanda!)

She was such a gorgeous bride and everything was so perfect and fun!

Shanda and I at her rehearsal dinner the night before.

Shanda is a very loyal, loving, and thoughtful friend.  I thought her bridesmaids gifts were the best I'd ever received - as part of the gift, she made us each a personalized photo album with photos of our entire friendship (so for me, the photos were from my entire life!)  There were hundreds of pictures in my book and it is so special to me!  If Henry and I were getting married again, I would love to do something like this for my bridesmaids, but I think it would be really hard because I know each one took many, many hours!

She also gave each of us a personalized hanger for our bridesmaids dresses.

The Princess Bride before the wedding.

The new Mr. and Mrs. Steele!

Before the wedding, the bridesmaids decorated the golf cart that the newlyweds left the ceremony in:

My mom helped me make the wreath for the front - she made those tissue poms herself (I will get her to write up a little tutorial for the blog).  Shanda and Matt love sports - it's hard to tell from the picture, but there are also little sports balls wired onto the wreath.  Shanda LOVES lemonade, so I bought a 12 pack of cans of lemonade just to string up behind the cart, but they got all kinds of twisted.  Anyone have a good tip to keep that from happening next time?

The day was awesome and I was grateful to be a part of it!  More importantly, I'm thankful to have Shanda as a friend.  I'm wishing for a lifelong friend like her for our Lil Homey on the way; every girl should be so lucky.