A sneak peek at my BIG surprise!!!

Ok, so I have eluded to the fact a few times that I have a special surprise for all of our guests that is my absolute most favorite thing about the entire wedding!  And it is also the biggest DIY task that I have taken on.  I have been working on it since July and have spent countless months (off and on) and hours trying to piece it together.  But alas, with only 79 days to go until the big day, I am just getting super antsy about wanting to share at least a little bit of a teaser with all of you fellow blogger brides about what I am hoping to finalize within the next month.

Of course, none of my family and friends read this blog, but just to be safe, if you are a family or friend and you want to still be invited to my wedding, then you will absolutely jump ship right now and get the hell off of my blog site!  Love you ;P

So last week I posted about what the guests will experience as they arrive for the wedding.  I also shared about our processional and the songs that will be playing as our bridal party makes their way down the aisle.  I then stopped and said that once the BM's, FG and RB's all get down the aisle, everything will stop - and I will not yet make my entrance.  For I have a little surprise for the guests.

You see, most people have jumped on board with the idea to put together a little video montage of photographs of the bride and groom from infancy all the way through their relationship together.  It is set to romantic, fun, sweet songs and typically played during the reception for all the guests to enjoy.  I, of course, wanted to do this, too...but at the same time, I wanted ours to be different, not typical, and something they've never seen before to keep their attention.

A friend played their little photo montage just before the ceremony began while all the guests were seated at the church.  I thought that was such a great idea because you have all the guests facing forward and you have their attention while they're sitting waiting for the ceremony to start.  So I definitely wanted to do this, too.

But I also wanted it to be more entertaining and have an actual purpose at the ceremony...and I know that while they are watching this, I will be tucked away, waiting for my walk down the aisle and most likely freaking the hell out!  So I figured why not provide them with something to make them laugh so that I will hear their laughter and joy and sweet ooh's and aah's and feel a little more relaxed myself?

I started browsing YouTube for ideas on creative reception montages and came across a film student who had edited her own little video.  I fell in love with the idea and many had contacted her asking her to create one for them, too!  I called and asked her what she charges to make one of these and the price she quoted me was pretty ridiculous and definitely not in our budget!  I was pretty bummed...but never one to give up. 

Becoming self-taught to create my best friend and sister's wedding videos, I know my way around an editing program enough that I knew I could do this myself at no real cost to us (more on that to come later).

Well, I started browsing around googling ideas like music, video, actors, and such to figure out how that girl made her video.  And I figured it out all by myself and recreated our own personal one for us and our guests...it tells the story of our lives and our relationship but with some fun twists in them. 

As I mentioned, it is still not finished (I need to spend some more time with Mr Fix It and my daughter to get some final details handled), but I don't want to wait too much longer to share with all of you.  Please note that I quickly rendered this little teaser to share and it is not high quality and not complete - so you will see about 15 seconds of 'black' in the middle where there is still stuff for me to fill in...but you'll get the idea of what I am doing.

As the processional ends, this video starts...

It goes on for about 15 minutes based on an E! THS style spoof.  This is only the beginning...there's much more to come and many fun surprises within.  I showed it to my future sister-in-law when she was in town a few weeks ago and she busted out laughing saying that everyone will love it. 

The kicker- at the very end, it plays the song 'The Day Before You' by Rascal Flatts and halfway through the song, the video goes to black and instructs the guests to 'Please Rise'...*THAT* is the point where I will make my entrance.  I love that song so much...more to come. 

What do you think so far?