Dancing in the Stars {Dallas makeup artist, Dallas hair stylist, Dallas bachelorette party, dance lessons}

My bridal portrait session started with an appointment with my makeup/hair artist, Courtney.  I really didn't know how I wanted my hair for the day of the wedding, so this "trial run" came in good timing.  Courtney started by curling my hair and then began to style it.  About halfway into it, I stopped her, explaining that I just didn't like it.  So she started completely over and about halfway through the second attempt, I encouragingly told Courtney that we were getting closer to the look I wanted!  When she finished, my mom and I were in love with the style.
It's amazing how my look just came together.  I didn't know what style of wedding dress I would fall in love with until I put mine on.  My hairstyle for my wedding day is something I never dreamed of until I saw it with my dress.  Like my photographer said, "I can't imagine any other hairstyle with this dress."  Sometimes you just have to go with it or just "walk by faith" ;)
With hair and makeup done, Mom and I giddily met Allison at our wedding venue for the portrait session, which went great!  The weather and the lighting from the sun was just gorgeous.  In less than a week, Allison emailed me with the link to all the photographs and I wasted no time forwarding it to mom so we could look together.  I love how they turned out and I cannot wait to have some printed and I can't wait even more for Matt to see them (or just see me on our wedding day)!

The "Final Fling Before the Bling" was an absolute blast and was a night out with my girls that I will always remember.  The first, of many, surprises drove up to Lindsay's house just seconds after I arrived.  "Is that for us?!"  We were riding in style!  Thank you so much, Wayne, for a fun and fabulous way for us girls to get to our destinations!  We rode [in style] in the limo to Victor Tangos for a fabulous dinner.  The Carnitas tacos were delicious... so delicious that after mom (yes, my mom was at my bachelorette party, along with some other fun ladies!) tasted one of mine, she went ahead and ordered them (after eating her salad, lol) for her and my aunt.  "Wow" was her anthem that night...  Once we finished dinner we walked, completely stopping traffic, across the street to The Dram for some dancing.  It was a blast!  An unexpected surprise came when we found out that our table was right next to Bon Jovi's band!  Now we were partying with style.  We finished our night back at Lindsay's home for my lingerie shower.  I got a lot of beautiful (and not so beautiful........) things.  Thanks girls :)

Thank you, Doug, for the bubbly!

It's always a good night when you see me with one arm up...

Matt and I had a dance lesson(!) at the 17 days to go mark.  We went to Studio 22 and had a private session with Veronica.  She taught us the Rumba for our first dance.  Surprisingly, we caught on pretty quickly and progressed to the more challenging steps.  Once we got our footing perfected, she suggested to sway our upper bodies a little.  I died laughing when Veronica said, "Oh, Matt, not that much."  (He's been such a good sport through all this wedding planning.)  After about an hour of repetition, we felt pretty good about our first dance!  Veronica recorded us dancing for reference, but we won't need it because according to her, we're naturals........lol.

Early in our session, Veronica put our song on the speaker system while we practiced our steps and sways.  Dancing with my soon to be husband with our first dance song playing overhead was so overwhelmingly surreal that I nearly started crying in the middle of Studio 22, lol.  I recovered and turned what would have been happy tears into a goofy smile I couldn't get rid of.  I am so blessed and so thankful and so excited that I get to dance with this man for the rest of my life.