Feature wedding: Bobby and Sarah Mills

What a better way to introduce myself and let you get to know my style and me than featuring my own wedding.

How we met:
My husband, Bobby Mills, and I met at Western Michigan University. We lived right down the hall from each other my junior year. The first time we met, our mutual friend wanted us to help him play a prank on his suit-mate by stealing his bed while he'd been home for the weekend. We hit it off and I--that's right-- I asked him to go see a movie. He claims that he was "just about to ask me out." We ended up seeing Saw III. Such a bad movie! Of course we started dating during hunting season and I've been a hunting widow ever since.

The Proposal:
We live in west Michigan so the water has always been a huge part of my life. I just love how the colors of a sunset bounce off the water.  We had had dinner at Clementines (a restaurant in South Haven) and then took a short walk to Lake Michigan...around sunset time of course.  We walked along the beach...and walked and walked. There happened to be a lot of people there that day.  We walked up a dune to a little closed-off spot, erfect for sunset watching. The rest is all a blur and I remember saying "OK" and feeling like I was about to have a heart attack. I got the man--and the rock--of my dreams!

The wedding!
We got married in Muskegon, Michigan on July, 30 2011.  It was a brisk 93 degrees. We are so lucky the church had installed air conditioning earlier that summer. I was surprisingly really calm the whole morning. I'm not too emotional and it's really hard to frazzle me.  Spoiler alert: I cry once during the day... can you guess when that will be?

My girls

We had seven bridesmaids and Groomsmen so it was quite a big wedding.  Kaitlyn and Louise are my cousins.  Kristen, Lizz and Jenny (MOH) are my friends from middle school.  I met Stacey at Western and Jennifer is Bobby's sister.  Chris (BM) and Brian are Bobby's friends from Elementary school, Steve and Eric he met at Western, Bill and Gerry are work buddies and Shaun is his brother-in-law.

My awesome shoes

  Everything went as planned. The girls and I got our hair and make-up done. Arrived at the church and ate some sandwiches prepared by my lovely English aunties Eileen, Lizzy, and Kim.  (Eating before you get ready is such a good idea.  You won't eat again until dinner time and chances are there is a little drinking in the limo. You DO NOT want to get sick.)  All the while the photographer was taking pictures of me in my hoop and bra, I wanted the moment with my mom helping me put my dress on.  For some reason no one could find my mom, and let me tell you, my bra saw NOT sexy by any definition of the word.  My mom finally arrived, and after what seemed like half an hour, I was all tied up with bouquet in hand.  My dress was a beautiful Maggy Soterro, fit and flair with ruffles and bling.  And I can't forget my bad a** hot pink peep toe heels.   My mother in law, Nancy, gave me a beautiful crystal bracelet, and I put on his grandmothers necklace and I was all  "blinged out."

 Side note: I got my name painted on my toes because I'd be wearing flip flops at the reception.  Sarah Mills fits perfectly :)

Walking down the aisle was HORRIBLE. Not because I didn't want to get married, but because I had 250 sets of eyes staring at me. I felt like I was going to pass out a few times. I just looked at Bobby and smiled.  He had tears in his eyes. I'll never forget the way he looked. So manly up there in his suit, crying his eyes out -- still no tears from me, by the way. I smiled from ear to ear as I held his hands and tried to get him to smile. Rhian (a young girl I used to babysit for) sang "The Prayer" beautifully as we lit our unity candle.  To this day I have no recollection of lighting the candle. We recited our vows and before I knew it we were husband and wife and kissing and dancing out to the dance version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart."  We dismissed rows so we were able to say hi to everyone and thank them for coming.

I must say I got some mad air considering how heavy my dress was!

 Our limo ride was amazing! It fit all 16 of us nicely and we were on our way to the beach to take pictures.  Have I mentioned I love the beach? We drank and danced and sang. The beach was amazing. A little hot. But amazing. We posed and jumped and showed a little leg.


The reception!
We arrived at our reception site, The Lake House Bar and Grille, a new restaurant and event center on a marina.  The view was breathtaking. The head table was set up in front of huge windows that overlooked the marina and Muskegon Lake. When guests entered, we had a message in a bottle station set up.  They were encouraged to write a special note, piece of advice or memory about the bride or groom and stick it in the bottle for us to read on our one year anniversary. --We had such a blast opening them.--We had two different centerpieces. Both were about 12-14 inch tall, wide cylindrical vases. Both had black rocks and a white floating candle in them.  One centerpiece had white orchids submerged in the water while the other had strands of pink beads submerged. We had pink table runners and hot pink votive candle holders.

After the speeches were made it was time for dinner.  We put small different colored stickers on the guests place holders to let the waiters know which entree they ordered. The food was wonderful, what little I ate of it, and then it was off to mingling. While the guests were eating the sun had started to set on the marina, so the photographers took Bobby and me out to take sunset pictures.  They turned out so beautiful are some of my favorite pictures from the entire day.

Then it was time for our first dance. We picked "When You Love Someone," by Kid Rock.  Not your traditional love song, but it had special meaning to us. That's all that matters right?  So we danced and a few lines into our song, my husband said "Hey I don't think this is our song." He was right! The song the DJ was playing was Kid Rock, but it was "When it rains."  Those of you who don't know the song, it was written about the loss of one of his friends. And when one bad thing happens, it all goes down-hill --lovely wedding song right? Rather than go yell at the DJ, I burst into tears and just cried into Bobby's shoulder for the rest of the song.  All of the guests thought he had said something nice to me and had made me cry, so what they don't know won't hurt them I guess. Apart from that mix up, the DJ had been brilliant and kept everyone on the dance floor for the rest of the night.  Congrats to all of you who guessed that the first dance is the only time I'd cry.

look at all that anticipation

When it was time for the bouquet toss, all the girls piled onto the dance floor.  Let me tell you, these girls were out for blood!  I had a few friends in mind that I wanted to catch it, two of which are getting married next summer!!! I turned around and threw it ...and hit the ceiling.  Tried again and hit the ceiling ...again.  OK this was my last chance.  The fates of Lizz, Stacey, and Kristen were in my hands. One last toss and ... it hit the floor right at the girls and a friend of the family stomped on it, thinking it was hers...  little did she know.  Dana, a co-worker of Bobby's ended up with the bouquet (of stems by that point.)

bobby's sexy dance

To take the garter off, the DJ had fun with it and played a song for Bobby to dance (sexily) over and retrieve it from my leg.  After a few drinks, there is no sexy dancing for Bobby.  Let's just say he shimmied his way over while flipping his arms a little bit like a chicken. Yep, that is Bobby's version of sexy dancing.  Then it was time for the guys to reluctantly pile onto the dance floor. Most of whom were dragged out by girlfriends. Bobby used to play football in high school, so he has a much better aim than I do. On his first toss, Eric (Stacey's now fiance) caught it. I am so glad my 10 year old cousin Sonny didn't catch it. The DJ had Eric sit in a chair with the garter on his leg.  Dana had to do a sexy dance over to Eric and take it off of his leg!  One of the funniest things I had ever seen.


The rest of the night was full of dancing, drinking, catching some air on the deck overlooking the marina. I enjoyed getting to know family members and friends I had never met before. Looking back I wish I had gotten a chance to take more pictures with people. My wedding was everything I dreamed about since I was a little girl. It was such a celebration of love and togetherness. Soon it was time for the last dance. Everyone got on the dance floor and swayed back and forth to "Time of Your Life," by Green Day.  The day went by with such a Blur, but it was the best day of my life!