Introducing the newest Mr. & Mrs. Bell!

Introducing the most beautiful couple in our eyes - the newest Mr. & Mrs. Robert Bell!!

Could we be more blessed to be Robert's parents and then by his side on Friday as he brought Ellie into our family through marriage?  Absolutely not.

Right now, until we get the professional pictures back, the picture above is my most favorite one :)

 They left to an arch of sparklers and a fireworks show. . .

It was sooooo cool :)

OK, rewind. . .Wednesday night my Dad, his wife, and I got these gift baskets together for all of our friends and family that were staying at the hotel with us:

These were fun to make and then later hand out.

Erin was off all day Thursday - she made 930 nail appointments for us.

I've never done gel before - after paying for it I can't see this being something I do all the time but I'm sure it won't be the last time either. . .:)

We picked up Nana & Grandpa and headed out about 2 p.m. - my sister & co and my aunt and uncle had beat us to the hotel!

Props to aloft and their 7th floor bar area - we broke out some snacks, packaged the cookies that Jodi had contributed to the rehearsal dinner and caught up a bit until the groom and his best man showed up!  Jodi caught this, my "first look" of the groom prior to rehearsal:

Look at them and their proud grandparents. . .these boys are wonderful young men - there are not words enough of thanks to the Lord for allowing me to be called "mom" by them.

We headed over to the Rehearsal Dinner venue where everyone ran through the plan for Friday, speeches were made, and those delicious DLM cookies were devoured.  

This was Robert's gift to his bride that he asked me to make for her:

Such a FUN night!!  We capped it off in our hotel's rooftop bar (luckily there was a lot of indoor space that night - the temperatures were in the 30's!)

There is a picture (somewhere) of four of us closing down the bar but I don't have it yet ;). I did make it!!

Bright and early Friday morning the girls were off to pick up breakfast for the bridal party (11 bridesmaids!!) and spend the morning together getting ready.  My sister took me over about 10:30 and Ellie shared her private vows to Robert with us - she is such a special girl 

She also wrote me the most beautiful card.  They put a lot of time and thought into this day and the guests were the lucky recipients of their effort :)

Some "behind the scenes" from the bride's quarters:

All of the bridesmaids were gifted robes for a "getting ready" picture and Robert gifted the mothers one each too.

Nana was there for some of this time and the girls snagged a picture with her - 

and me too once we got downstairs!

Meanwhile the guys were relaxing in their own area:

It was a long morning. . .the bride and groom decided on a first look and private vows and then did many of their pictures ahead of time.  Can't wait to see them all!!  Tom grabbed a couple of them from the window with their get-away car:

Things got a little behind, as can sometimes happen, and they weren't able to get to the Groom's Family pictures so the wedding coordinator took a couple of quick ones for us. . .don't worry, we did get some with the photographer afterwards :)

Nana & Grandpa, sisters, best man, groom, parents, maternal grandpa and my brother and his wife - they were there early because my brother was walking Virginia and my dad down the aisle.  I'm so happy Robert asked him to do that (Stephen walked his other grandparents down the aisle, Robert walked me down).While we were waiting for the ceremony to start I snagged this pic of Robert with his grandfather, brother, and uncle.  I'll probably do something with this as a gift for my dad.

No pictures were allowed during the ceremony - our friends said they almost cheated because Robert's reaction to his bride coming down the aisle with her father was so touching.  

Afterwards, the guests went upstairs where they had hot cider and a hot chocolate bar set up while pictures were finished up downstairs and outside.Cousins pic!
This was my aunt's favorite picture of us with her before dinner.  I adore it also.

This was the second floor, the in-between stop post-ceremony and pre-dinner.  

So amazing - our family was blessed by the presence of grandparents, both my siblings from other states, my very special aunt and uncle from Florida AND aunt and uncle from Ohio, cousins from Nashville and Washington DC, our framily, the Maxwells, AND our traveling buddies.  Our cups runnenth over.  

Isn't the back of Susan's dress great?!?  

Here's the front!!  

Connie captures some great pictures - here's hers with the guys - 

Thank you, Connie, for always having your camera ready!!

Dinner. . .

And then back to the first floor for dancing. . .

They got the dancing started for everyone else and brought out a DQ Blizzard Bar!  They were really excited for this - and it really should become a trend :). It was a great idea - I think everyone enjoyed it.

They did have a small (and delicious) cake and had asked Barbara to please cut the it for them.  Barbara's prayers for them throughout their courtship have been constant and faithful.  The other cool thing is that they used the cake topper that Tom's parents used in 1964 and then we used in 1995: 

Sorry for the amateur picture over-load - this blog a great place to record and share the story from my perspective.

Here is the group of us, minus the kiddos, half who we first met halfway around the world two years ago - 

And a few more notes. . .for now. . .

They used a Bible as their guest book and I made up these cards and envelopes for guests to write about their memories of the day and mail to them this week so they will have other people's words/thoughts added their scrapbook of this special beginning.

The beauty of the space. . .

The bride really was this happy all.day.long - 

The special "Aunt Jodi" cookies - The Bells, get it?

Here was her hiccup - the day before she was going to pick them up she called to check on her order.  They had them made but only made a single bell.  The staff asked if she wanted them, and she said, "no", the order had double underlined that she wanted a double bell - for a reason - and they redid them all.  I bet their stores were pushing bells in their bakeries this weekend!  Luckily it's 'tis the season to have that shape on rotation. . .

And a terrible end-of-night picture of us but we were happy. . .

And I loved having him all dressed up for the day :)

The honeymooners sent us a picture Saturday when they got to their sunny layover spot before they travel to their final destination Sunday:

Maybe still a little tired - glad they have a week of relaxation ahead of them.

Thank you for reading about our family's special day - I hope I captured it well.  

Love,

Jenni