More wedding

God it was good to see and touch him. It felt awesome. I am worried though, that the excitement made me lose my head a bit. I was freaking GIDDY and completely turned over responsibility to the photographer and was totally down to try whatever she wanted. And she wanted what felt like some wacky stuff. So far, I am in LOVE with everything we’ve seen from her but things like our pics alone are in front of a garage door. Michael objected at the time but I was so excited that I didn’t care.

I probably should have in hindsight…cause he was right, the door was bland and odd.

We took a bunch of shots together and then it was time for bridal party pics.

Here is the closest I had to stress the whole day. I have to preface it by saying that my mom and I have this issue all the time and it drives me batty on any day. My mom (who had my bridesmaids, 2 sugar plums and my nephews’ little cutie tuxes with her) had gotten lost. I get lost constantly (but now my phone saves me, mostly) but what gets me with my mom is that she wants you to give directions on the phone as she continues to move. It seriously kills me. I don’t understand why she thinks I have the ability to see where she is in space and time. So yeah, we get into it about this quite often and it is something I am working on being less of a brat about. So I tried to be less of one on my wedding day too, I gave her my best advice based on where it sounded like she was, listened patient-but-not-amused to her jokes about stopping for lunch and got off the phone. I wasn’t stressed about them being lost forever it was more my typical annoyance with my mom while driving (this also extends to asking me about directions when we’re somewhere that neither of us have been and to her asking me which lane is north when we’re both looking at the same sign).

To keep on time the guys started their photos and I waited in some shade with our little entourage at the nearby restaurant. I shockingly had no bodily needs. I wasn’t hungry or thirsty and I didn’t need to go to the bathroom (the thirst and hunger came back but I never did need to pee in my wedding dress).  

Once the ladies made it we took some pics while my nephews got dressed. I was so excited to see them in their suits. I really hope I got a good shot with those two. They are both so special to me and I am over the moon that they got to be in the wedding. I am also glad I gave my nut-case 4 year old nephew a job. It wouldn’t have been right not to have him be a part.

With pictures all taken it was time to head to the venue. More pictures were to take place there. But first, we got to see the room one more time. The cake had delivered but apparently didn’t fit on the stand we’d supplied. Whoops (though we had followed their guidelines). The rest of the room looked so freaking awesome! DSF and her hubby and a few more good friends were busily lighting our centerpieces.

After this little interlude it was more picture time. Family pictures. I had given Devon  a very long list of family pics. They were/are so important to me. I know they aren’t arty or beautifully composed but I want them minimally as family artifacts. I hope so badly that the pic of my sisters, mom and the children turns out. I also wanted a pic with each nephew/niece. It was a long list and Devon was a champ about getting them in but I gave her permission to just do her best…the models were difficult.

Give the people what they want…Wedding Recap 3

Day of (leading up, part 2)

When we left off, our photographer getting there meant it was time to get rolling. My hair and makeup was done and, while Devon was scurrying around taking pictures of the flowers and my shoes and my dress, I got into my dress (after going potty).

Then I was ready. And early.

I wish I had our pics already so I could see if any of the pictures she took of me in the alley turned out. This was the first time I had ventured out in the dress and it was interesting starting to figure out what I could do in it and how much I could move. I had almost the entire range of motion and she put it to use having me squat down and lean and contort for what are hopefully pretty pics.

We killed time in the alley and then the second shooter (the photog’s hubby) came to pick us up to go down to see my handsome groom.

And we were early again.

We parked and waited for the men to arrive with my immediate-future husband. They pulled up directly in front of the car I was in! Luckily I think he was distracted and didn’t see me. I did get to say hi to the groomsmen and they all looked so nice and I was already completely floating on air.

I will re-iterate here that seeing M before the ceremony was THE best decision I made for myself. I was too full at 2pm! If I had to wait until the ceremony I would have burst and the torture of not immediately getting to talk to him at the ceremony would have been too much.

The plan was that I’d walk up behind him on the pier and tap him on the shoulder. I couldn’t resist giving him a back hug. I was so happy and touching him in his snazzy suit made it feel actually tangible. He managed to turn around and, honestly, I don’t recall the look on his face. I pulled him into a hug and started tearing up. There may or may not have also been some jumping.

(sorry no pics but the link to our photog has some and I will try to remember to update)

This feels like a good place to stop. I didn’t want to have too many recaps but oh well. Should work on being less verbose I guess…and not starting writing at 10pm.

Give the people what they want…Wedding recap 2

Day of (leading up)

We had a pretty detailed schedule for the day of. I had told M that I wouldn’t be able to sleep and hence put my wake-up at 6am. To my lucky surprise, I slept until almost 8am! This was only the first of many calming  happy-stances that occurred that day. The plan was to have M head to the venue and get our helper-people organized and feed them donuts and coffee while I stayed at the rental to get our other helper’s cars loaded with all of our décor. Much to my surprise all of our stuff fit easily into the first two cars. So we threw up a sign (and sent text messages) to those who were one there way and everyone was headed to the venue.

 

(every picture said Groom Ride or Bride Room, whoops!)

We had 1 hour from 10-11am to get the decorating done and our super crew came through! We finished almost on the dot and the room looked exactly like what I had imagined. I was SO ecstatic about how great everything looked and (to toot my own horn) really proud of how organized things were. That being said, M and I each had our own snafu; he had forgotten the webcam for the photobooth and I had failed to pack the scoops for candy. The best man graciously headed to our house to get the webcam and the scoops were just lost forever.

 

Seeing M so early in the day and helping decorate are some of the best decisions I made for myself for this whole thing.

My mom and others had tried to implore me to leave it to others but it was one of the most fun and relaxing hours of the day. With decorating done the ladies headed back to the vacation rental for hair and makeup. This was an area of fear for me; if the hair/makeup person didn’t show up and I was left to scramble…that would be bad. The stylist I found (on craigslist) was there a touch early which was a huge relief and she did an awesome job, even stayed calm when we had to wash some gunk out of my hair (bonfire grit and general dry scalp don’t make your updo pretty).

Everyone kept trying to feed me and make sure I had everything I needed. It was too sweet and cute…though even for them I couldn’t eat the fake meat sandwich they brought me.

 

In the meantime, the men were hanging out and having sushi for lunch and taking pictures of air fresheners.

Time felt CRAZY slow and then all of the sudden the photographer was there, and it was REAL real. Before I knew it I was putting on my dress (there is no sweeter sound than an effortless zipper on such a big day). 

OK, I will sign off here for tonight so I guess there’ll be a bit more before we get to the good stuff.

When the readers demand…Wedding Recap

I just got slammed by 20% of my readers (DSF) demanding that I do wedding recaps. So I’ll give it a shot.

Pre

The time leading up to the wedding is a total happy blur for me. And I think it may have come off the sweat of my future husband’s brow. While I was off being pampered (thanks ladies!) he was busy coordinating picking up keys to our rental and figuring out tuxedo fittings and putting pork tacos in a crock pot and picking up rentals and etc. etc. etc.

The rental property turned out to be so cute and perfectly suited for prepping flowers and getting ready. Plus there were goodies for us (add that to the list of above things that put sweat on his brow)!

Wednesday evening we finished up the last of the wedding projects. The photo seating chart. Despite my best judgment I allowed a jet-lagged ex-pat to man the exacto knife but no fingers were lost.

Thursday we did the wedding task that I got THE MOST grief about. From the most liberal minded wedding people to the most conservative ones they were very concerned about my floral plan. But the time had come! Speedy, Ali and one of my oldest friend-family Jenna and I all went to Pike’s Place Market and left with arms full of amazing flowers. We arranged them back at the rental and they turned out AMAZING (if I do say so)!

Thursday’s plans all relied heavily on DSF and her hubby. While we were at the rehearsal, trying to coax my middle nephew into doing his job,

they took decorations to our rehearsal dinner site and then staked out a fire-pit on the beach for our get together later that night. It all went off without a hitch and I can’t thank them enough (forgetting to send them some pizza is high on my (very short) list of wedding regrets). The ‘smore party was exactly what I hoped for. Seeing all of my loved ones for a few extra relaxed minutes was a VERY good thing.

Property of substitution

Running= sucky
Walking = sucky. { surprisingly so to me anyway}

Running/walking = 1

And 1 sucks much less than either.

I was going to let that be my See Jane Run race report but I guess that's cheating.



The nerves in my thumb are done typing on my phone for now. Will try again later




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Relief and Sadness

Now that our wedding has passed I figured I’d muse on an area of sadness I was expecting and relief I am ETERNALLY grateful for.
I am kina morbid (which I think bugs M) but it is in a practicality of life sort of way. That death is a lurking possibility and will leave you in the throes of dealing with it before you can bat an eye. With this said, I was really worried that someone I loved would die before the wedding. I have been worried about my aunt for years, my mom for a year and this year I was worried something would happen to my sister or the baby. I worried about M’s family and especially since they drove out. I even worried about the two of us and a freak accident. Now, it isn’t that I think by making it to the wedding I have safe guarded everyone I love nor do I feel like everyone’s attendance is all I needed/wanted them to stay around for, it is bigger than that. We did it! We have made and safeguarded the memories from that day forever and death can’t ever take that away. There will hopefully be a million more celebrations with each of those people but regardless we got that one! I am so glad for all the people we had present and the love they showed us that day because we get to keep it forever. On some wedding items I would ask myself “is this worth it,” until one day I realized I needed to answer that by deciding if it will make memories. And not just for M and me but for our loved ones. One of my favorite pics is a photobooth image of the most random assortment of M and my dearest’s. I’m not sure how this crew came to be, or if it was random or if they were sober enough to remember taking it, but it is a tangible reminder of the new “baby-family” M and I made official that night.

The other side of this is the sadness I referred to. I’ll have to get M’s perspective on it (since his loss is newer and closer) but I was surprised by the how soft the sad was. I felt like the way I missed my loved ones who weren’t there was imagining their presence and how they would have celebrated the day. It was nice. And not overwhelming. It may be because these guys didn’t even make it to my sister’s wedding which means they’ve all been gone 8 years or more. In fact I distinctly remember my goal for that wedding had been to avoid thinking about it (my Opa had died only ~1month before). Whatever the reason, it was a good feeling.

I am not sure what I’ll do about wedding posts on the blog. Maybe when I am inspired (aka on the bus) I’ll yammer like this post but it is probably time to start talking about blisters, bunions and the 3-Day walk.

Oh, and change my blog header.


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My wedding day rocked

It was amazingly amazing. It was happy and smooth and things turned out pretty and I got to see so many people I love.

I got to marry this cute guy



I can't even begin to thank all the people in my life who've helped make it happen and helped keep the excitement going.

Ah! It was awesome




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