Wedding Rewind: Best Practices from the Field

OK, LAST words on the wedding and then I put it to bed for good

So, one of the features I’ve always lurved on my favorite wedding blog Weddingbee is when the brides do their post-game analysis of all the things that worked and didn’t work about their weddings.  So helpful! I figured this would be a great way to end the wedding rewind, AND I think it will be therapeutic for me to whine about a bunch of dumb stuff that annoyed me, things that are truly too dumb and bratty to actually complain to real humans about.  Even though I do plan to vent mildly, please know that I consider us EXTREMELY lucky and blessed to have had a wonderful wedding experience with many loving friends and family, and lucky that we had good jobs and gracious parents that supplied the resources for it. So, with that disclaimer out of the way…

The Good…

Keeping it Simple.  Low maintenance was my top, #1 priority from the very beginning.  I wanted our venue to be a one-stop-shop for all wedding events and sleeping rooms, in a location that minimized travel for our guests as much as possible.  Hershey delivered huge on the first part, and wasn’t more than 2 hours away for most of our guests.  And only about 20 minutes for my family- score! We made a bunch more decisions all contributing to the goal of making the entire event worry-free for EVERYONE.  No running around town going to the salon for us chicks, no battling with google maps for our guests, no stressing out over DDers or taxis.  Just total fun and relaxation  And I understand everyone has different circumstances and doesn’t have these options open, and of COURSE you can have a crap-ton of fun even when you have to travel and whatever, but it was best for our wedding and those involved.  Namely my mother, who disappears on random shopping adventures if given unsupervised access to a vehicle. And for me, who achieves sanity through maintaining control and minimizing variables.  Chicks, consider your mental health when planning these things!!  

Cutting Corners.  A lot of people remarked what a “Nice Wedding” we had, when in reality, we had a seemingly “nice” wedding that was really a budget wedding with a pretty hat on.  You know, like “lipstick on a pig.”  Or Krab Dip. Did I just liken our wedding to swine and an imitation seafood topping? Anyway.  Chicks, suggestion #2- there is a LOT of room to save money on stuff your guests will never notice.  Our photographers only shot for 4 hours; I got the cheapest invitations EVER (but had them hand calligraphied so they seemed nicer than they were); we skipped a pro videographer and recorded everything with our own camcorder (thus ending up with hilarious home-video-esque reception footage); I wore an $188 dress and the bridesmaids’ were $79; we had 10,000 rose petals shipped in from a wholesaler and incubated them ourselves in my parents’ and aunt’s fridge for 2 days (instead of paying the florist’s RIDICULOUS quote for them); and we skipped a honeymoon and mini-mooned in Las Vegas (do you know how cheap it is to go to Las Vegas?!).

DIYing.  When I used to work in a procurement department (I feel smart saying that but trust me, it was way over my head), we spoke a lot about the Make Vs. Buy concept and what made the best financial sense.  Brideys, in the wedding world, roll up those sleeves because your answer to that is MAKE, beyotches.  Not crafty or creative? I didn’t think I was either (probably because my aforementioned professional work was slowly atrophying my left brain, cell by cell).  But, spend enough time lurking around the right wedding and wedding inspiration blogs, and you’ll awaken your inner artsy goddess.  Most of the stuff that made it into The Knot, plus a ton of other miscellaneous projects, were created on a LOW dollar budget using a hodgepodge of crap from Michael’s, JoAnn’s, and Wal-Mart.  Just invest the time and patience (a lot of things took a few tries to look right).  Also, a fleet of female friends and relatives you can indenture as your crafting serfs helps as well.  And actually, I just (finally) finished up printing our wedding album via blurb.com, a savings of nearly a thousand dollars from the photography studio’s album. 

Ignoring Convention.  The other thing I learned is that a wedding is as much or as little stress as you make it to be.  Again, spending time in the online “community” you see girls just going completely wackadoo over wedding stuff.  I feared the worst, only to find the entire thing to be FUN and delightful from start to finish.  Well, mostly   I now feel bridal zen is achieved through letting go of all the crap you think you “have” to be freaking out over.  We enjoyed a leisurely engagement and didn’t get around to even setting a date until 5 months in.  When people asked about it, I said “I don’t know! We’ll get to it!”  I wore crap $45 shoes, and failed to shave my legs or repair my scuffed pedicure on the day of.  Because I was wearing a long dress and no one would notice these things.  No biggie.  I realized a few days before, “Hey I forgot to do that borrowed and blue stuff! Ha!” I didn’t care.  The sun rose on our wedding day.

Closing Our Eyes and Splurging. As many corners as we cut, and as much as we had wonderful and gracious help from family, the two of us still spent a lot on the wedding (though did so in a responsible, non-credit way!).  Once in a while I feel a twinge of despair when I think about what that could have meant for my student debt, or our future home, or our rapidly aging (but beloved!) vehicle.  But I don’t linger there for long because I remember what a beautiful, special, memorable day we were able to share with our family and friends, and we will never have regrets over that!

The Bad…

Idiot String Quartet! Gah! I guess everyone has that one problem child vendor and this was ours.  They came recommended from the venue and they seemed really professional and organized, so I booked them without too much thought.  Whoopsie! Probably not the best idea on something that I cared REALLY strongly about so I’ll take half the blame.  Anyway, it took weeks and multiple follow up emails to get the lead woman to respond to the few questions I had along the way.  Including questions like, “Can you confirm you got the check I sent you?” WTF! I was really obsessed with the song I walked in to and had it perfectly timed- the piece was in two really pretty movements, the first just a single violin and the second a GORGEOUS pick-up with the rest of the strings, so it worked great to have the first movement as I walked down the stairs and the second as I did my main walk down the aisle.  I painstakingly tracked down the sheet music, (it is an obscure piece but I finally found some random woman in Georgia who transcribed it), and took a look.  Thanks to the tiny bit of knowledge leftover from my illustrious middle school band days, I could read the music and tell it called for a REPEAT of the first movement.  So when I sent it to the evil quartet leader woman, I told her there wasn’t time for a repeat and to go straight to the second movement.  I even gave her the original mp3 which plays it exactly like that.  Maybe you can tell where this is going, but those idiots completely fouled up my entrance by repeating the first part.  GERR! NOT the end of the world, but the piece just did not pack a punch with only that single violin and not the beautiful dramatic part.  Jerks! And just for the record here it is on You Tube complete with cheesy nature scenes.

Our 248 Minute First Dance. Oh geez.  The ONE logistical oversight from our event was that I forgot to tell the band to play a verse or two and then CUT THE SONG OFF.  We didn’t care to pay for dance lessons (see: cutting corners/ignoring convention), though I did bring home a “You Can Waltz!” DVD from the library, but we couldn’t quite figure out how to make that work in a 700 SF apartment.  So we did the amateur “sway” which can REALLY make 3 minutes feel like a long time when you have 115 sets of eyeballs boring into you.  Hee.  This is more of a comical memory than a serious ”bad” I guess    

The Dress That Got Away. I did love my simple, plain Jane dress and it was the only thing out of the many I tried on that felt like “me,” and that I could see myself enjoying wearing that night.  But, I never could stop thinking about my original “dream” dress.  Yes, it’s way popular and over-worn, it wouldn’t have looked good on my figure anyway, and it retails for $5,000, but sometimes I still wonder if I should have just splurged and bought a used one.  I told myself all along that a happy bride radiates beauty no matter what she wears (which I firmly believe), and that it was ridiculous to spend so much on something you’d wear once (which is just something those of us on a budget tell ourselves to feel better, isn’t it? ) So although I did love my sweet little dress, my advice to betrothed brideys on the fence would be GO FOR IT and get that sucker you want!

Forgetting a Few Little Things.  Really dumb stuff like forgetting to take a screen shot of our wedding website before it expired, never getting a photo of our beautifully calligraphied invitations, and a couple other missed photo ops like the bouquet toss, and the favors, and our pretty candle-lined stairs at the ceremony.  MY HEART WILL GO ON but just in case this helps anyone else remember

PHEW! Well, that will do it for the Becker Wedding Extravaganza 2010.  Le Fin- for real this time!

Wedding Rewind: The Knot!

Not gonna lie, this is possibly the most exciting thing ever.  Back in December, I got an email saying that our photographers submitted our photos for publication, and we were selected to be a “real wedding” in The Knot magazine! OMG! I filled out this huge interview document thing and the week of our anniversary in June, this puppy arrived on our doorstep…

And apparently we are online as well! 

SO flattered to see our modest little DIYed labor of love featured like this! Wish I could start it over and do another- sniff!

Wedding Rewind: 6/5/2010 (Part 4: PARTY)

OK, I’ll try to keep this short since these narratives are getting excessive! To be honest, there is not a ton to say about the reception.  We had four glorious hours of eating, drinking, and revelry!

IT WAS SO MUCH FUN.  It was about a zillion times better than the ceremony and I wished we could have just tacked that hour onto the reception instead!

As soon as we finished portraits I snuck up to the reception room to take a look.  We were minutes away from opening the doors and transitioning the guests from the cocktail hour.  The lights were dim, the room was full of candlelight, the centerpieces looked AWESOME, and the band was rocking some instrumental warm-up type music.  The cakes were set up, the table numbers were out, I was blown away.  All my planning had come together to create this glowy, flowery, explosion of awesomeness.  It was bride-gasmic.  I was IN LURVE. 

Ahem-hem.  Sorry.  So, everyone moved on into the room and we queued up outside with the party and the parents.  The band played “How Sweet it Is” and in everyone went! Jeff and I came in to the theme from the Blues Brothers, a special surprise I requested for him… you’re welcome, groomie!

What’s crazy about these pictures is you can really tell the photogs were rocking some uber-pro-grade flashes… the room was NOT this bright!

Let’s see, what else… we had our first dance (I’ll spare you from an encore of that boredom); we had sweet, memorable toasts (nice jobs Dan, Gracie, and Best Man Sha!), and we ate! Well, not so much us, but everyone else had really good things to say about everything!

And our ridiculously awesome band got the party started! A few(ish) faves…

Gracie channels her inner… western lowland gorilla?

Love this…

Here is our dear friend Jay who actually had NEVER been to a wedding before this! We were so flattered to be his first! And he was definitely a hit of the evening… Love everyone’s reactions here…

For four hours in our lives we actually had people paid to take care of this sort of stuff for us, and my mom is the first to run in when a glass of wine went down… sigh… Mom…

Now… NOW.  Here comes the #1 most awesome thing in the history of all that is awesome… the PEANUT BUTTER CUP that came to party with us!!! This idea came to me one day and I decided I WOULD make this happen.  Jeff, in a bizarre streak of seriousness and solemnity, fought this idea valiantly, insisting it was “like something you’d see at a child’s birthday party.”  To which I responded “Yes… AND??” I did not let the dream die and eventually he caved   Spoiler alert, our surprise peanuty guest was BELOVED and a complete hit.  Jeff now sees the silliness of his ways, and I will delight in gloating over this forever.  Mwa… ha… ha!

Heee’s here!

And, my #1 favorite image from the entire weekend, would be this timeless image of our conga line taking to the balcony, with my father in law affixed to the back of the life-size likeness of a Hershey confection…

Lima Oscar Lima my friends.  Ahh, it was a fun, fun night.  And it broke my heart that it was over so fast.  At midnight, we migrated the party to the hotel bar, which actually stayed open beyond their regular hours for us.  SCORE! I was pooped by this point.  My hair was a mess, my shoes had come off, and my killer tummy ache was back.  I ordered more toast!

Oy… unfortunately what I remember first about this part of the night was these two MEGA CREEPY dudes that were lingering at the bar.  About 25 wedding guests and these two losers that would. not. leave.  They leered at girls, got verbally aggressive with dudes, and worst of all, I turned around to find one of them EATING THE TOAST I ORDERED.  I was so freaking flabbergasted I said “EXCUSE ME…. did you just……  EAT someone else’s FOOD in a public setting!? Namely MY TOAST?” I don’t recall the details but this lowlife then proceeded to get fresh with me and some of the chicks with me.  Normally this would raise the question: WHO has the nerve to hit on a person wearing a WEDDING GOWN, but the answer clearly is: someone who eats a stranger’s food at a restaurant.  And, if you’re wondering, my darling HUSBAND was nowhere to be found, out on a balcony with a group of guests sharing a spaghetti pie they had delivered.  Ha!

Anyhoo.  Phew.  We got the bartenders involved and they eventually moved along.  As much as it pained us, we had to wrap the evening up.  We said our goodbyes.  My mother couldn’t bear to see the centerpieces go to waste and was hauling them out to her car.  Jeff’s aunt had grabbed one of our initial letters and groomsman Dan had the other.  Our year and a half engagement was over, our beautiful wedding and celebration had come and gone, and we were married

Kim caught this last image of us as b & g

 

The rest of the story? We SLEPT, enjoyed a goodbye breakfast with our families the next day, followed by a romantic newlywed lunch at Red Robin, I slept again while Jeff watched another NHL playoff game, and we flew off to Vegas for our minimoon! My feet killed for days to follow, including losing feeling in one of my toes for a few days, and about a week and a half later my stomach started to feel better, yay!

And there you have… our wedding!

Le fin!

Wedding Rewind: 6/5/2010 (Part 3: Portraits & Details)

I would love for this post to have some element of cohesion but unfortunately I fear it will be a slew of gratuitous details.  Sweet!

By the time we assembled at the back of the hotel for pictures it was Rai-hai-haining.  Fat raindrops.  Golf umbrellas coming out.  BAD.  I owe the world to genius Wedding Coordinator Woman for making the call to start the ceremony early, because otherwise we would have been stranded in that. 

We did the best we could working our way through portraits with everyone hunkered down under the gazebo thingies in the back of the hotel.  We had a ton of family combos to work through and not a lot of time, so things were a bit nutty. 

We knocked out the party portraits first…

My bridesmaids have a first name, it’s S-M-O-K-I-N:

Next up we did all the family pairings which I’ll spare you from (they were also smokin’ though, duh!).  I did want this one picture of everyone from both families, you know, just for posterity.  Not expert staging, but you get the idea.  (I love the lurkers in the back row, and Bridesmaid Michele’s foot sticking out on the left there- ha!)

We sent everyone on their merry way to the cocktail hour and snuck off for romantic bride/groom portrait time (ooOOoooohh).  On a macro scale I am not wild about our portraits- we got a few in outside before the rain started back up, then had to make it work inside.  Of course there are worse places to take pictures than the Hotel Hershey, but indoors paled in comparison to the grounds.  That said, we got a few GREAT portraits which more than made up for everything:

Second shooter Claudine was upstairs documenting the dets…

Remember the letters we made on Thursday night?

My mom, aunt, and sister helped me make these back in April or May… LOVED these…

As it turned out, the dreaded magenta/bubble gum pink/salmon flowers ended up looking beautiful Our reception room was pretty bold in the first place, so the centerpieces ended up being more of a complement than a focal point.  We sold our souls to afford these centerpieces but I have no regrets when I see these pictures!  

Can I get an OM NOM NOM…

Groom Cake!!!

With a little extra time on the clock we grabbed the guys and gals for one last picture!

Love, love, LOOOVE these two:

When the photog queued us up for the “jumping” picture I sort of thought “meh, it’s been done,” but now I love this photo!!!!

Woo hoo! Well enough of the boring stuff! Next up… what we’d all been waiting for… PARTY TIME!

Wedding Rewind: 6/5/2010 (Part 2: The Ceremony)

When we last left our heroes… treacherous weather was barreling down the atmospheric highway, closing in on Hershey, PA- it was shaping up to be a bad evening to have a wedding in the Sweetest Place on Earth!

15 minutes ahead of schedule, we started our journey through the hotel and down to the garden.  Not gonna lie, this is a favorite memory.  Though I’m not normally one for undue attention, it was pretty fun parading through a hotel with a harem of hot bridesmaids and a handler with a headset on.  Everyone stopped to ooh and ahh- we were celebrities for a good 5 minutes there! The one thing I will always remember- and this EXACT exchange happened two separate times, comically was passing a family and hearing the parents shout to the kids, “DON’T TOUCH!”, and then saying to me and the bridesmaids, “Sorry, their hands are full of chocolate!”  Ha!

Also let me just say that I had returned to a state of flipping the eff out.  I was SOO nervous at this point- though a happy/giddy nervous- but I could not seem to relax and breathe.  I remember bridesmaid Kristine locking eyes with me and saying “YOU HAVE GOT TO CALM DOWN.”  Yea I was not doing a good job as a zen bride.  The photogs captured this hilarious image which will give you an idea:

We held at a spot right by the door and waited for go-time.  Meanwhile, in the garden…

Guests assembled…

(Aside: I have a lot of beef with our string quartet (more later), but this image irks me- WHY did they not take twelve seconds to stash their fugly nylon cello bags behind a bush or something?!)

Jeff and Pastor Nancy took their spots… apparently after walking alongside this extremely photogenic stranger danger van…

At this point, we exited the hotel and lined up at the top of the stairs to the garden.  I heard  Edel Weiss playing and I knew the parents were being seated and our ceremony was beginning.  I looked down the stairs and saw our glass bowls with floating candles lighting the way down.  All these details that I had birthed and labored over and dreamed of, they were here and happening in reality. 

One by one, I watched the bridesmaids leave me and descend…

Our kiddie attendants rocked it…

And I was still at the top, standing totally alone and taking it all in.  It was at this moment that the calm finally came over me and I remember taking deep breaths and saying “OK…..” aloud to myself.  Wedding Coordinator Woman was communicating with the quartet from between trees at the top of the stairs- she started making wild hand gestures to them and in a few seconds, I heard the opening notes of my song.  She sent me on my way, and after a few steps I heard her whisper shout from behind me “Take your time!” (The stairs were extremely steep by the way- weddings do not normally use them, but it was my absolute favorite feature of the garden and I was going down those effers). 

The stairs took a 90 degree bend as they dumped into the garden, which is where we had all the guys meet the girls.  So there was Dan waiting for me- smiling the biggest, most sustained smile I had EVER seen from him :-)

Here he told me, “Take your time, if you trip you’ll be on Youtube by the end of the week.”  Touching moment, I know

I love this non-pro photo…

Jeff was crying  Victory!

I’m coming for you, groomie… (cue theme from Jaws)

And the ceremony was underway! Here’s the thing about the ceremony.  IT WAS PETRIFYING.  Yes, I married my BFF studmuffin Jeff, so by definition yes, it was The Happiest Half Hour of My Life, but I would NOT relive it.  YIKES.  Actually I maintain that the terror began right with that picture above- where I made the mistake of glancing at the sides of the aisle as I walked down.  Everyone was leaning out, eyes locked on me, cameras clicking- OMG.  My one piece of advice to other chicks: keep your eyes on that groom!

I was trying very hard to concentrate and actually reflect on our prayers, but the freak out continued the whole time.  Actually when you watch the video back, you can see my chest heaving up and down.  I was a mess! The biggest thing contributing to this- RAIN.  We had a faint drip-drop of rain the entire time, and I was panicking thinking about what we’d do if it started pouring- we were all a few minutes away from inside- Ack!

By the grace of God, the rain held out for the most part.  It started picking up right as we were finishing up.  Pastor Nancy was a pro and expedited the tail end of the ceremony to get us the heck out of there.  The one funny thing? She pronounced us hubby and wifey but never prompted us to kiss- Jeff looked at me and said “Uhh, I guess I will kiss you now?” and we had this really bizarre and unphotogenic side kiss Too funny!

And we were married! (suckahs!)

Back down the aisle we went, except my mom was gesturing at me to turn around, and there was Gracie chasing behind shoving the bouquet back at me. Whoopsie! I started over with flowers this time

This time my mom slapped my butt as I walked by.  Oh mom.  And that is a good note to end the ceremony on!

Next up… the guests enjoy cocktails and an ice bar, we battle our way through a hectic portrait hour, and IT POURS.

Wedding Rewind: 6/5/2010 (Part 1: The Morning)

Blleeeuuuuurrrgggghhhhhh

Was my first thought on waking up on my wedding day.  My second thought was just that- dear God I am HAVING A WEDDING today and am having trouble finding the strength to ROLL OVER.  I was still battling a terribly hungry and empty tummy, yet the thought of actual food continued to repulse me.  I reached for the phone and dialed room service:

T….ttt….toooa…. TOOOAST…. Bring…. TOOOOAST!!

Those slices of dry toast might as well have been Thanksgiving freaking dinner that morning.  Absolutely heavenly.  This would be my go-to nourishment from this point on, and Jeff still enjoys poking fun at all the expensive hotel toast I went through that weekend! They also brought in the newspaper with the food and I will ALWAYS remember seeing that date on there that morning.  June 5, 2010.  It was HERE.  TODAY.  Holy CRAP.  It becomes such an abstraction when you type it on fifty inquiry emails, write it on contracts, repeat it to a hundred people over the course of a year and a half, and stamp it on a hundred (and twenty) gourmet paper bags.  It was definitely a woooowwww moment seeing it looking up at me from the newspaper.

Anyway.  First up on the agenda for the day, at 8:00am mind you, was my designated last-minute tanning time at the pool, which was of course printed on the official manifest with an invitation to any who wanted to join.  Happily my bridesmaids have better heads on their shoulders than me, and I received a chipper call that they had arrived at the pool and the sun was out!

I went straight out and mercifully felt better at this point.  I spent the rest of the morning with Gracie  and the bridesmaids and our BFF Zach who had just arrived all the way from Florida!! We caught up, laughed, relaxed, raced the family kids on the water slide, and basically had a really, really awesome morning.  Everyone should spend their wedding morning like this!!

Gracie and Kim found time to enjoy the croquet lawn (I love these photos)…

Unfortunately I required extensive professional work to get bride-ready so was the first one to scoot off to the spa.  I rushed through a quick shower (I didn’t even thoroughly shave my legs… another fail), threw on white shorts and an oxford, and it was primping time! I was first in the hair-chair and my mom and the bridesmaids filed in after me…

  

 Sufficiently hotted out, it was back to the bat cave to get things started! Jeff had been long booted from our room and taken up temporary residence with the groomsmen.  My mom and sister came in with food and tried to get me to eat (uh uh), the photogs arrived, Pastor Nancy arrived, THE FLOWERS ARRIVED…

Swoooooon.  I loved those things.  Anyway.  Photog Cyndi stuck around with us chicks and second shooter Claudine went off to tend to the gentleman.  Let the photo-ops begin!

On came the dress…

And the pearls…

And the shoesies…

And a bridey was born!

And the bridesmaids.  Oh.  My.  Gosh.  HOTNESS.  They looked absolutely gorgeous.  Gorgeous times infinity since there were five of them! Sadly we didn’t get any pictures of all them together during the getting ready process, but here Kristine models (well, headlessly) their peachy-pearly-awesomeness…

Meanwhile, the gentleman got a few portraits in… Looking good, guys!

At this point we were about 30 minutes out from the scheduled start of the ceremony.  Looking out the window I could see guests filing down to the garden below.  This was happening!!! Wedding Coordinator Woman and her helper-outer joined us signaling it was definitely go-time.  Unfortunately she did not have the best news.  Apparently, “something big” was headed this a-way on the old doppler radar.  She advised we get the ceremony started ASAP to get ahead of it, which I consented to. 

I shut the door behind us and our envoy started making our way down…

To be continued!

Wedding Rewind: 6/4/2010

WOW dudes Friday had come! AHH! We slept in a little bit and mid-morning, loaded up the car for Hershey! The rest of my family lagged behind because, well, getting my mother out the door is the hardest thing EVER.

The lovely Hershey concierges hauled away our mounds of decor and I went off to get something to eat before I met up with our coordinator one last time to go over everything.  Here would be the start of a few poor food/beverage decisions that day.  The nerves had definitely set in big time when we moved to the hotel, and real food just did not sound appetizing at this point.  What did? A triple mocha and bag of baked lays! YEA!

Armed with my newfound heavy stimulants (Hershey mochas are pretty awesome by the way), I checked in with our wonderful hotel coordinator.  Jeff, Dan and the groomsmen went to get the tuxes.  Then it was off to the spa with mama and Gracie where we were mani-ed and pedi-ed.  Sadly we ran a little behind and I had to cut my pedicure short to go get changed for the rehearsal.  BOO.

Back at the room I linked up with Jeff- it was rehearsal time! I changed and gussied up, grabbed my clutch… camcorder…. room key… WHERE ARE YOU CELL PHONE.  I searched and searched and was now late for my pre-rehearsal meeting with Pastor Nancy.  I retraced my steps and last remembered having it in the pocket of my spa robe.  UH OH.  Jeff sent me to the rehearsal and embarked on my phone’s search and rescue mission.

I was flipping the eff out at this point but trying desperately to keep it together.  I made it out to the garden right before it started…. raining! Awesome! Wedding Coordinator Woman, in a very mysterious omniscent-narrator kind of way, pulled up in a black SUV and said to redirect everyone to the Fountain Lobby.  This was a great idea except I HAD NO MEDIUM OF CONTACTING PEOPLE.  Honestly I don’t remember how it happened but people did start materializing in the lobby.  All Jeff’s family! The bridesmaids! The groomsmen! And Jeff was back with my phone which he dug out of the spa hamper! We might make it through this afterall!

Unfortunately my “flipping the eff out” status had not improved.  The nerves were in high gear and being ridiculously hopped up on caffeine on an empty stomach was not helping, and basically my entire body was shaking and I was a hot mess.  Not my finest wedding weekend moment.

The rain stopped and down we went to the garden…

Rehearsed and headed off to dinner! Here is everyone ascending the beautiful entrance to the garden… probably the best shot of these stairs we got all weekend- thanks Kim!

OK, since this is an honest account I have to tell you the story that came next.  Everyone left for dinner and I stayed behind with Jeff to test out the camcorder positioning quick.  (We DIYed the videography).  Somehow I managed to pinch the fleshy web of my finger in the tripod and it HURT.  This would be the catalyst leading to COMPLETE BRIDAL MELTDOWN.  Yea.  At this point I started crying and could… not… stop.  I hustled my neurotic self back to the room to try to get my crap together, which I did, eventually.  Oy.  Again, I blame the nerves and the espresso.

What happened next was another awesome moment of the weekend.  This delayed our arrival to the rehearsal dinner, so everyone was well into a lovely cocktail hour by the time we got there, and as we came into the room the entire crowd started clapping and cheering for us.  AWW! I love our people!

So, this is getting to be really excessively long so I’ll try to wrap this up.  We ate, drank, toasted…

Mama & Gracie

Beeauuutiful BMs!

Jeff’s awesome gift to the groomsmen…

 

The end of the night found me on the balcony with my sister and girlfriends goofing around with the gaggle of kiddies in our group.  It was hot and humid and the sky was full of heat lightning.  We wrapped things up and migrated the group to the hotel bar for the Flyers playoff game!

 

Friday night was so much fun.  Our family, Jeff’s friends, my friends, all hanging out together in the same place.  When else in our lives will that happen?!

 

 

 

Unfortunately I was having a little TOO much fun and neglected to take into account my completely empty tummy.  And you know how they say you don’t get the time to eat at your wedding? Yea, you don’t get time at your rehearsal dinner either.  Now I am a lady (sorta) and will not go into disparaging details but I definitely paid for it in the morning- my WEDDING morning- bride fail of epic proportions!

 

 Nonetheless it was definitely the right thing to do at the time Off we went at the end of the night! And yes, Jeff and I shared a room the entire duration of the wedding weekend.  The reasons of course being that to separate we’d either have to 1) cough up $300 for another room (NO) or 2) crash on a cot in someone else’s room.  This worked out much better.  I also couldn’t imagine NOT hanging out with Jeff that night- I mean, we were getting MARRIED the next day! I always thought we’d be up all night giddy with excitement, but in reality we were completely beat and I was asleep the second I snuggled under that heavenly hotel bedding.  Ahhhh sweet, sweet hotel beds!

 

Next up… 6/5/2010 is upon us! EEE!

Wedding Rewind: 6/3/2010

Ahh Thursday.  The day that separated the men from the boys.

Thursday I wore black shorts with this great, loose black and white striped top.  It doesn’t sound like much, but is actually a very 90′s-chic get-up when worn together, for realsies!

This will be a good time to introduce the Thursday-Saturday dress siege.  Probably the closest I came to outright wedding disaster.  See, I had gone to the wedding “salon” place back in April to pick up my dress after having its alterations done.  In the back of my mind I noticed something a bit off on the side seam where the waist had been taken in- just a little pucker/budge of excess fabric sticking out of the side.  At the time I was so in love with the dress and busy getting to know it, I didn’t read too much into it- and the alterations broad brushed it off as “boning.”  RIGHT.  Boning my boney butt, LADY.

Unfortunately none of this had occurred to me yet.  However, my uneasiness did grow as I tried it on a second time when Jeff was out of town at his bachelor party over Memorial Day.  It occurred to me that for an extremely simple dress with NOT a lot going on, every component of it kind of had to be a slam dunk for it to work.  AKA, the tumor of chiffon jutting out of the side of me might, actually, be sort of a problem.

STILL I took no action.  When I made it home on Wednesday, I tried on the dress for a third time in front of my mom and sister, asking them if they thought I should be worried about my little bulge issue.  I expected I big old “NAH! Bridal over-analysis, SILLY BRITCHES!” and instead got that sharp intake of breath through the teeth with accompanying raised eyebrows.

RUT ROH.

So, Thursday I threw the dress in the car and set out to fix this dilemma.  First, I dropped Jeff off at the spa for some epic groom pampering- actually my birthday gift to him (which was about 2 weeks before the wedding!).  He still has no insecurities telling everyone what a content recipient of a massage, facial, manicure, and pedicure he was.  This is a special the spa marketed as the “the gentleman’s special,” which Jeff also delighted in referring to as “the gentleman’s package.”  What a winner, I tell you! : )

I considered driving the dress back to the salon, but with it being close to an hour away, nixed the idea.  Instead, I became possibly the first bride in the history of the universe to drop off my dress at the dumpy neighborhood dry cleaners for alterations three days from go-time.  The very nice seamstress lambasted the original butcher of my dress and told me to come back Friday night for it.  Good enough for me!

From the parking lot, I had my last check-in with the band to go over final details.  Then I called my mother and we got in a fight over the groom’s cake.  Then I stopped to get my engagement ring cleaned and switched over to my “decoy” e-ring, putting the real thing in a clean quarantine until the rehearsal.  I went back to the spa to check in with Jeff (they fed him a gourmet lunch between treatments… being a groom is hard work, I know).

And off I went again! By now it was a sunny afternoon and things were starting to feel closer : ) Bridesmaid Kim arrived in town.  I drove across the river to get a sneak peak from the florists, after having received an ominous call while drying my hair that morning that the flowers were in, and “possibly not what you were envisioning.”  Sure enough, I was a bit disappointed to find buckets full of MAGENTA flowers instead of blush pink, and PEACH flowers instead of light peach-y pink.  And YES I know I sound ridiculous saying that, but there is a BIG difference between light, blush, pastel peachy-pink and PEACH.  SALMON peach.  CREAMSICLE peach. 

Oddly, I wasn’t all that worked up about it.  After a year and a half of fussing over every little wedding detail, I kind of had a “the die is cast” attitude by three days out.  Peach flowers, magenta flowers, WHATEVS.  The show would go on.  We were getting married! (suckahs.)  Oh also going behind the scenes at the florist was super cool.

That was it for the errands.  I fetched my preened and polished groom and back home we went.  Thursday night was absolutely one of the best parts of the weekend.  I sat around my parents’ dining room table with my mama, sis, auntie, and Bridesmaids Kim and Michele.  We finished putting together the programs, made cones for the petal toss, and then sat up till 11:00 making the big flower initials.  So, so fun!  All the boxes and decor and crap got labeled and lined up for tomorrow, when we would load up for the hotel!

Wedding Rewind: 6/2/2010

Recording all the details of our wedding is something I’ve really, really been meaning to do.  Since today is our one year anniversary, I figured it would be the perfect time to start! I thought I would have forgotten everything at this point, but I really find that most of the details are still clear a year later. I’m sure to some extent they always will be, but in the interests of being on the safe side/perpetuity, I’ll document them : )

So- the Wednesday before our Saturday wedding! A good place for our story to begin…

Our fearless heroes started off the day in DC, doing half days at work before heading up to Pennsylvania.

I wore gold ballet flats, khaki crops, this great green floral tank from the BR outlet, and a white cardigan.  Loved that outfit.

I was hysteric finishing up at work.  Leaving work for a week+ is really unnerving even when it doesn’t involve your wedding, isn’t it?! I am always just overcome with the dread that there’s something I must be forgetting about.  Sort of like the McCallister parents on the plane to Paris.  “…………KEVIN!”

Jeff came to pick me up at work and of course at our designated meet time, I was still upstairs flitting about and finishing a few things.  After five years together and a year of marriage, the Jeff-is-picking-me-up-from-somewhere-and-I’m-not-ready-when-I-said-I-would-be situation is probably our biggest source of squabbling.  So, when I finally made it down, we had a few minutes of huffy-ness in the car.  Just keeping this account honest! : )

The reason for this was that Jeff was singularly focused on getting our marriage license- Wednesday was the last day we could apply for it in the legal window, and we had to get to the Dauphin County Courthouse before it closed.  By the way, chicks- this is a GREAT thing to stick the man with.  Flowers and colors are FUN, but who the heck wants to bother with institutional legalities?! The reverse of this is true for men, I think.  As I recall, Jeff had about 3.75 wedding tasks: license, honeymoon logistics, clean our car, and I would have given him the full 4 for the tuxes, but I had to put a little effort into that project myself.  Ahem.  Anyway.  This was his baby and BY GOD we were getting that license!

Of course, the drive went fine and we made it to the courthouse in plenty of time.  There was a really sweet sentimentality to walking around downtown Harrisburg and picking up our license just a few blocks from the building where we first met and go to know each other four years ago.  We made our way inside and went through the legal song and dance.  I always figured it was just some form that you signed, but we got mega-drilled on our every demographic detail, our parents’ occupations, if we were related, and even had to raise our hands and swear to everything.  Yikes! And with that, we were off- signed, sealed, and officially licensed to wed, SUCKAHS!

Wednesday night would be the last time I ate normally for the next week and a half.  Sadly the one thing I will always remember about the wedding is how viciously the nerves affected my poor delicate constitution.  Well, nerves and a few too many Tequila sunrises on Friday night.  But THAT is another story… the story of Friday as a matter of fact, which we’ll get to! But Wednesday my family ordered Carraba’s and camped out on our patio, and this bride blissfully gorged on eggplant parm and other delights.  Muffled sounds of Jeff screaming at the Flyers on TV could be heard from inside.  It was a good night.

Next up… it’s Thursday and the heat is on! To be continued…