Taylor & Susanna's Wedding & Weekend Celebrations Recap

The second weekend of August, we drove down to south central Missouri for my brother's wedding! Taylor and Susanna had a beautiful day and it was such a joy to celebrate them!

The wedding photographer was my sister in law Sarah Bollinger and she did an amazing job with of the photography. All of the professional pictures in this post are courtesy of her, and I highly recommend her as a capable and talented wedding photographer! (Book her here for shooting your wedding! =)) 

The other random phone snapshots are all mine. =)

This was the first Bontrager wedding that wasn’t held in Iowa, so that was different, but a fun experience to have a wedding “out of the hometown town” on the B side of the family! John and I recently purchased a camper, so we took that down and stayed in it while we were there. Needless to say, we love the camper life! =)

Above, we have three happy little kiddos ready to go with snacks and more snacks! =)

We left home Thursday early afternoon and arrived at our Missouri destination that evening, in time for the bachelor/bachelorette parties. 

This was the only picture I got that night, with my youngest sis! 

I don't have a full length picture of my red dress that I wore that night but it is my current favorite and I've gotten multiple compliments on it so I wanted to link it here. It's flattering, breathable, and summery! It also comes in lots of colors and needed no alterations!

My sis and her husband invited everyone to stay with them, so we had most of the family on their property for the weekend! They have a large house with multiple guest rooms and we also had four campers in their driveway. =) We all really enjoyed the extra time that gave us to hang out together! 

There's nothing like waking up in the morning and then starting the day with all your family around! Best of times! Here we have Maddy snuggling with Uncle Huds. 

Just a couple of the many kids =)

Game time with Gramps. 

As I already mentioned, it was so fun that Sarah was the wedding photographer! She did an amazing job and it was really lovely to see her and her husband again and get to be with them here and there over the weekend! We accidentally matched the night of the rehearsal so we had to get a picture. =) 

My outfit: Bracelet, this one. White jeans, Old Navy white pixie style, thrifted. Black tank, this one. I'm not going to link the shoes because I have tripped in them all three times I have worn them including a massive wipeout on the stage rehearsal night! They are cute but I realized that night as I was trying to think how I tripped so badly, that it had to have been the shoes! The front part just seems to catch on things. Anyhow, I threw them out after that night and haven't tripped since!

I have the black tank in two different colors and I really love it! It is flowy in all the right places but still slimming. I also have the pants in two different colors and I love the thicker texture material but also the extreme stretch. 

The boys enjoyed hanging out with Uncle Kory during the rehearsal! 

Axton and Elliot were just delighted to be ring bearers for the wedding. They became fast friends with Susanna's nieces, who were the flower girls. 

Maddy looking at pictures with Uncle Joshua during the rehearsal. 

Wedding day! 

Behind the scenes of the bridal party pictures.

It was so fun to reconnect again with this dear friend who was also a bridesmaid! 

She was one of my personal attendants for my wedding almost six years ago!

My handsome baby brother! I am so proud of Taylor and the man he has become. I have seen him grow and mature and become more like Jesus so much through this past year! Susanna is a gem of a girl and we all love her so much.  I say it every time I get a new sister in law, but seriously, with each of them, I could not ask for better!

Ready to go!

So sweet!

During the ceremony, there was a bit of a situation with the unity candles. They were burning very fast and the flames were super tall. As the speakers waxed eloquent, the whole little fire show that was happening kept me highly entertained. (I had a great view from across the stage) Thanks to John and Ike, who kept trimming the candles down without putting them out, the church did not go up in flames, and I don’t think the bride and groom had a clue what was going on. The unity candle was lit later on and all was well. 

Kinda pretty cool to get to kiss the hottest groomsman. =)

Elliot and his little girl were just so cute!

After the ceremony we did full bridal party and family pictures.

Really really love my amazing siblings. Each one of them is such a gift in my life!

Story of the dresses....I’ve had my eye on this dress for my mom for a long time. So when she told me she was looking for a dress for the wedding, I sent her this link immediately. This is a gorgeous dress and is sold in multiple colors. (navy, cream, etc) It runs true to size; my mom was wearing a size 6 in the color Cassis. I think originally it was sold at Macys and Dillards, but now you can find it on Amazon as well as the brand website, Adrianna Pappell. And it is currently on sale on Amazon! I personally think it would make a stunning bridesmaid dress too! It would also be a perfect formal dress to have on hand for those few and far between events where you want to have a formal dress in your closet!

                       

The bridesmaid dresses were these dresses in the champagne color. 

Pros: they were fully lined, the neckline was adjustable. (there was a little snap to close it but if you wanted to adjust higher or lower you could just use a safety pin and that worked fine) 

I liked how they had sparkle, flutter sleeves, etc and a more formal look than traditional maxi dresses, but were quite comfortable as well. There were quite a few nursing mamas in the bridal party so the nursing-friendly fit was nice!

Cons: they weren’t super flattering. I wore shape wear and that helped but it was still hard to get a slimming look with where the waistband landed. My dress also kept snagging on my bracelet so that was a bit of an issue.

Still, they were the perfect bridesmaid dress for Susanna and she loved them and we all felt beautiful in them as well! It was also super handy that they were amazon dresses so we could order and return to get the correct sizes etc. 

(Note: Pros and cons are listed as I feel it important to give them when I'm writing a review/linking to a product!)

My earrings were these earrings from Shein, for just $3! I was thrilled with them. I don't usually wear big glitzy earrings but since the style for this wedding was more on the formal side of things, I decided to step out of my box a bit. I loved them, =)

Bracelets were gifts from the bride!

My shoes were these suede ones in the nude color; however, I do not recommend them at all as I had a huge blister by the end of the day plus the suede material just soaked up any dirt it touched. They ended up being cute but super impractical and uncomfortable, so this link is not a recommend from me. =) I always forget to read the reviews before ordering stuff and I probably should've read those first with this purchase. Oh well, they served the purpose and worked for the day!

Getting a good family picture afterwards was a bit of a process but at least we got all five of us in the frame, mostly. =)

With my favorite. 

Madeline with auntie Liz

Madeline's dress set (comes with matching bloomers) is this one from Walmart, and her hair bow is this one. 

Her shoes are these. (You can see them a bit in the pic below, above Axtons head)

She already had the shoes and hair bow before the wedding, and has worn the dress many times since! I don't often buy Walmart clothes for my kids just because the quality tends to not be great; however, this little dress had actually popped up on instagram in an ad and I fell in love with it! When I was picking her clothes for the wedding, I went with it because it was muted enough that I felt it would coordinate well with our other colors. 

These little outfits for the boys were so adorable! The church that we attend is pretty casual, so their typical "dress clothes" are shorts and polos, and I am so not used to seeing them in formal wear. They just looked totally different in their little wedding outfits and they were super proud of themselves! The cutest!

Grey dress pants link. I searched high and low for dark grey pants that weren’t like tents, as I like more fitted pants for my boys.These were still a little wider than my preference but they were better then any of the others I found! They definitely ran large; I sized down for each of the boys. 

White button shirt link. Axton already had his that I thrifted so I only had to buy one. I tried to find one at a thrift store for Elliot but had no success so I finally got the best deal I could find on Amazon.

Brown shoe link. I bought Axton's new for him about a year ago and then thrifted the very same ones for Elliot this summer! I love these shoes because they work great for dressy or casual. The boys could wear them with this dressy outfit, but they can also wear them barefoot with their shorts and polos on Sunday. Another plus of these little shoes is that they don't seem to scuff and tear like other regular dress shoes. Highly recommend!

Grey suspender/bow tie set link. Again, I tried multiple different sets, but these were the best fit, color match, and price! The boys were SO proud of them!!

Tan dress socks link. I knew I had to get them dress socks but also wanted to get the most “bang for my buck” so I found these in a pack of two brown pair with the rest being white that they can wear other times.Perfect.

The whole tribe. We keep expanding from wedding to wedding! Our last family wedding over two years ago had us numbering 26 and now we are at 33! Each of these people hold such a special place in my heart! 

The reception was beautifully decorated and such a laid-back, relaxed party! 

Maddy enjoying herself at the reception. =)

Hanging out with one of my dear cousins. 

As always, a highlight of family weddings is all the friends and family one gets to connect with again!

The last picture I got before my phone died. =)

This was the ride back to the house after the reception. =) It was a little crowded but we managed! For the four of us in the backseat, our spouses had already taken our vehicles and our kids back to bed quite a while earlier (BLESS their hearts!) so we could stay longer. 

We haven't had this set of people in a car ride for quite some time, if ever, and we had just a great time laughing and getting lost. =) Someone mentioned that we all had something in common with dad and mom: all of us currently have three kids in our homes. =) Haha!

Madeline kept making this face at John when he told her she needed to take a nap.

As one of my friends told me recently, "that girl has got some SASS." =)

That she does. =)

Here we have a very fitting picture to very accurately portray how we all felt after the weekend: happy and TIRED. =)

Congratulations Taylor and Susanna! We love you both!

-Chels