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Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Wedding Story, Part 1
I have to say, first and foremost, that I loved my wedding. It was exactly what I wanted, and I wouldn't change a thing--even the craziness of the last few days leading up to it.Jason and I headed to Easton on Thursday, the 22nd, to start getting everything ready. We stopped by the courthouse to get our marriage license, and cracked up at the fact that we were asked if we were "in any way related." Evidently, Maryland still allows cousins to marry. Who knew.
Once the paperwork was taken care of, Jason headed to Salisbury to pick up his tux and I went on a panicked, mini-shopping trip in town to find a silver money clip to have engraved as his groom's gift, then met Ashley and Jackie to go get our feet prettified. I had never had a "real" pedicure before and have to hope that the place we went to wasn't an indication of what they're usually like because, while my feet still look nice, it wasn't a fun experience.
Thursday night, amid mom's marathon cake baking madness, Christine stopped by to visit and we all munched on grilled foods and fruit, and talked and caught up before calling it a night.
Jason and I got up stupid early on Friday morning probably partly because of excitement, but also because of the stinking bright sun and loud country birds in my parent's yard. We made a quick run in to town to take care of some last minute errands. By the time we got back, my Aunt Susie and the bridesmaids had arrived at the house. Ashley and Liz were busy in the yard with my aunt, arranging flowers cut from mom's garden in large tin pains and white baskets. Cristina was busy inside helping mom with the cake. I wandered in and out of the house, alternating between hiding from the bugs and writing thank you notes and helping with the flower cutting. I had forgotten that Susie used to arrange flowers professionally, and was shocked how nice all the arrangements turned out.
At the last possible minute, we all got ready for the rehearsal and dinner and managed to be the last ones there. At least they couldn't start without us. The rehearsal went fairly quickly, though we managed to forget several props that might have been nice to have. I think the only bad thing was that the "Friendly Presence" that the meeting house sent to supervise us made me a little crazy. She was a lovely older woman who first tried to tell em the day before the wedding and after the mom's tied 150 little bundles of birdseed that we weren't allowed to toss anything. It was the second thing they vetoed at the list minute (the first being wine) without warning us up front that they weren't allowed, and it really wasn't the thing to tell a frazzled bride. Luckily, mom's friend Jean (the impromptu coordinator) swooped in to rescue me and made everything right. Then, the lady got a little out of hand with semantics when I was trying to ask her questions. All I wanted to know is if I could use the back door to a building. She refused to answer me until I called the building my its proper name...but kept changing the name that she wanted me to use. Holy cow, it made me crazy.
The actual rehearsal went quickly, though, and we all moved on to a dinner hosted by Jason's dad at the Rustic Inn. I wouldn't recommend the place for large groups again (though its always been great in the past), but we all had a good time. Jason's dad had vinted wine to celebrate our wedding, so he handed that out, we all got to catch up and chat, and my brother made a toast that made me cry. Jason and I handed out gifts to our parents and the wedding party, too. We had put together framed baby pictures for our parents, with a slot let to be filled with a wedding picture. Jason had gotten iPod shuffles for the guys, and I had the amazing Lex design jewelry for the girls.
Jason and I went our seperate ways after dinner. He was staying at the hotel with the guys and a good chunk of family. I was staying at Mom's with Liz and Ashley. When dinner was over, the bridesmaids, Christine and I headed to the reception hall to try to work out the seating chart. I was a little puzzled walking in--it wasn't set up at all the way I expected, but once I got past that, we got the tables numbered fairly quickly. (It wasn't until the next morning that I realized I totally screwed up one table's placement, isolating some cousins from their immediate family, but they fixed it on their own and all was well. I figure if that's the worst I did, it wasn't that bad.)
Once the tables were numbered, I though we were done...until I noticed a crepe paper bell hanging in the window. Then another. And another. And....they were everywhere. I can only imagine that someone decorated with the awful things for a reception and no one bothered to take them down. Now, I understand that crepe paper bells have their place, but in my opinion, that place is kitchy bridal showers or fire halls. Not ballrooms. I think I had been very good about not going bridezilla about anything up until that point, but those bells were coming down. We took them out of the windows, and then I noticed some hanging in the main doorway. I thought they would be too high to reach, but Liz disappeared to exterminate them...and came back with an armload of the things. I have never in all of my life seen such an overwhelming number of any tacky decoration in any one place. It was seriously out of hand. We were afraid to turn the lights on in the foyer because surely the bells were like cockroaches. When the light came on, they would flee to dark places we would never get them all. Christine said that if we weren't careful, there might be a change in air pressure and bells would drop from the ceiling like oxygen masks from an airplane. That was all it took to send us into hysterics. We were all pretty punchy, and the bells sent us right over the edge.
It took us longer to de-bell the place than it did to set up the seating chart. In the end, we hid them all under the vanity in the powder room. Bell jokes flew around for the rest of the weekend.
We went our seperate ways after that, but Liz, Ashley and I stopped at WalMart to procure umbrellas, as it was supposed to rain the next day. They bought the cutest striped umbrellas for the bridesmaids to carry (they matched the dresses!) and and huge golf umbrella for Dad to carry as he walked me from the common room to the meeting house.
I don't remember what we did when we got home again, but sometime between midnight and 1 a.m. we crawled into bed thinking that we could get a good night's sleep before the wedding.
Posted at 12:33 PM ::