T Minus 4 hours

Shortly after we got home from make up, my hairdresser called to see if I was ready for her to come over.  In the mean time, my aunt and cousin stopped by for a minute to say hi.  My hairdresser came by and began the process of making my hair look good.  A little later, my mom came by to help me get ready.  And before I knew it the photographer, videographer, one of the florists, and my bridesmaids were here.  My hair was done, photos had been taken, the dress was on,  and then it was time to check that everything was cleaned up and put away (I was staying at the hotel that night and wouldn't be back 'til the next day).  A side note on the florist:  Forever ago, I think I mentioned some flower drama.  We used the included centerpieces, but one of the groomsmen has a girlfriend who does flower arrangements so she did all the flowers for the wedding party and I'm biased, but I think she did a really nice job. Back on track here, suddenly, I was on the look out for the limo.  I got a little nervous because it was late, but he made it and then it was time to board the limo bus--our wedding party was too big for a regular limo, more pics and video, and off we went to my parents' house (they live around the corner from the church) for family pictures.  The limo ride felt long and short--if that makes any sense.  I was excited and nervous, but glad to be with my girls.  (Mom had gone back home to finish getting ready so it was just my bridesmaids and me.)  Now my home is approximately 10-15 minutes away from the church.  We did not get any rain, but apparently, it rained there (and at my parents') a few min before we got there, but it had stopped by the time we were there.  We were all like, why is the ground wet?  (We're smart, huh?)  We took some pictures at my parent's house.  Pics with my parents, pics with my grandmother, and pics with the fam and girls.  My brother couldn't be there because he was a groomsman so he was at the church.  So we all went back to the limo and rode the approximately 2 minute ride to the church, where everyone was allowed out except for me.  I have to say it was a little weird to be sitting there all alone watching everyone.  I was kind of excited to see friends/family arriving, but it was weird to not be allowed to go say hello.  And then a couple of minutes later, they let me out and it was ceremony time.  

The Morning of the Wedding aka Don't Look Now!

When I finally gave up on falling back to sleep, Kate came in and we hung out for a bit, then she went down the street to get a coffee.  I am not a coffee drinker so I had nothing to offer.  I tried to fall back to sleep when she was gone, but no luck so I finally got up.  I don't remember everything that happened that morning.  I know there was some TV watching, some chatting with Kate, texts and calls, Facebook (so strange to see people posting about me on Facebook), and breakfast.  And it wasn't long before it was 12:00 and time to go get my make up done and drop off the last minute stuff at the reception (the make up place was in the same building as my reception so that made it quite convenient).  The building is also a hotel and my future in-laws, the groomsmen, and my husband to be were all staying there.  I didn't think any of them would be around, but it was almost noon and I suspected they'd had a late night so they could very well be congregating for lunch.  I made Kate go first to check to make sure the coast was clear (you know because the bride and groom aren't supposed to see each other on the day of their wedding until the actual wedding).  She said we were good to go.  I spotted some groomsmen down the hall, but no fiancé.  So I started to walk in--WAIT!  He's there, hurry, hide!  Okay, I don't think those were her exact words (it was 11 months ago), but you get my drift.  I went and hid behind a pole.  Then my in-laws popped up out of nowhere and my future father-in-law and wanted to know what I was doing hiding behind a pole.   It was kind of funny.  Eventually, the coast was cleared--for real.  I dropped off the stuff I needed to drop off (my computer for a slideshow) and I sent Kate to give Mike his wedding gift from me.  Kind of ironically, we got each other similar gifts.  The night before he gave me a necklace and I gave him a new charm for a necklace because his broke a while back. 
Then it was off for the possibly nerve-wracking process of having my make up done.  It didn't end up being so bad this time.  Thankfully, there was water proof make up this time so my eyes did not look crazy!  No baseball or raccoon look this time.  And the make up lady was so patient with me as she knew I had issues with eye make up, but she said I did much better.  She did a great job and then it was back home to get my hair done.  Only a little over 4 hours until wedding time! 

Pictures

So I finally figured out how to get the pictures from my old phone onto my computer from the rehearsal dinner.  So here they are...

In case you were wondering, this is what approximately 175 mini loaves of bread look like.  (We dropped these off at the reception the day before the wedding.)  Below are pictures of friends and family at the Rehearsal Dinner. 

The Night Before the Wedding

With a title like that I feel like I should be rhyming, Twas the Night before the wedding, and the bride couldn't fall asleep.  She was so tired, she wanted to weep.  She just settled down for a nice summer's nap, but no sleep would come, she could have probably gone and run many a lap.  Okay, I'll stop before it gets any worse...
I don't know if anyone is even still reading my blog since I've been out of blog land for SOOOO LONG.  It wasn't always on purpose.  True some nights, I just didn't feel like blogging.  I preferred to read a book or watch tv, but other nights, I really couldn't blog.  Other nights I had a TON of work to do.  Then I was away for one week in April, which at the rate I'm going, you'll probably hear about next April.  Then work got busy in late May through the end of June and my computer broke AGAIN!  So I finally had free time to blog (time off in June) and NO computer.  Such is life, right!  Then I just hasn't blogged in so long that I wasn't in the mood, but here I am again.  I know I told you I would pick up from my rehearsal dinner and post pictures, but the pictures were saved on my old computer (which broke ages ago) and I'm just too lazy to hook up my scanner and scan in the pictures.  I even spent the past half hour trying to get them from my old phone to my computer. No luck!  So I tried to e-mail them to myself, well, the e-mail on my phone keep freezing and closing.  :-(  So if it ever works, I'll post in a future blog, but for now my apologies.  That'll teach me to wait 5 months to finish a blog! 
I did my best to mingle with people.  It was good practice for the wedding--trying to get around to see everyone!  I think I did fairly well though.  My brother was quite the schmoozer too.  He hadn't seen some of my friends in years, but he made the rounds, met the in-laws, met the friends he didn't know, etc.  I must have done quite well because I LOVE dessert and I didn't get any because I never saw them bring out the dessert tray because I was chatting.  Anyway, I thought dinner went well, the food was good (well, one person didn't like it, maybe two, but I THINK and HOPE everyone else did, many people told me they liked it so I hope they were telling the truth, but why go out of your way to tell someone the food is good if it's not? Wouldn't you just not say anything?  So maybe it was just that one guy).  I think my parents secretly enjoyed hanging out with my friends because they used to see some of them like every week, but now that we're all grown up, they hardly ever see my friends any more and so it was nice for them.  And they finally met my friend Natalie who they'd never met before because she lives far away (and they still sing her praises!).  I think it was a long day for my grandmother, but she seemed to enjoy meeting everyone.  I was thrilled she was able to make it because she lives a plane right away and has had a few health issues over the years so I was a happy girl to have good friends and good family surrounding me.  I wrote a little thank you speech for the evening as a prequel to the gift giving.  I think it went mostly well, despite my fear of public speaking.  I rushed a bit to make it not as long, but I mentioned everyone who was there--even the spouses of people in the wedding--they got a kick of that.  So yeah, and then way too quickly the dinner was over and people began leaving.  I had  great time though!  The groom and groomsmen all had big drinking plans and some of the girls had families to get home to so we were done before 10:00. Thankfully, I did not have to go home alone. My maid of honor wanted to stay with me.  When she first offered, I thought wouldn't she rather stay in a comfy bed in her mom's house instead of my semi okay futon in the guest room, but in retrospect I'm glad I had a good friend to hang out with me the night before the big day.  So after dinner, Kate and Natalie came over.  Natalie had never been to my house before (remember she lives far away) so I made sure the house was clean.  :)  (Okay, that wasn't the only reason, I knew people would be coming by and of course there'd be picture taking and bridesmaids getting ready so I was extra careful about cleaning the place up).  Anyway, we had a great visit and Natalie even blogged about it.  If I were smart like her, I'd put a link to her blog here, but I'm not tech savvy.  :-)  She left a while later and Kate and I hung out for a bit, checked some last minute wedding stuff, and then started to watch 27 Dresses (or what some people refer to as the story of my life, but that's a story for another blog post, maybe next time I have a brain freeze on blog topics, I'll blog about that).  I figured if we were going to watch a movie, it should be a good wedding one.  I had a plan to watch a bunch of wedding chick flicks in the days leading up to my wedding, but I was too busy to watch many.  I started getting tired so I called it quits part way through the movie and went to bed, BUT I got VERY LITTLE SLEEP.  I was tired so why couldn't I sleep?  I even got up around 1am or so to see if I had Benadryl or Nyquil or something to help me sleep.  No luck!  I kept looking at the clock, closing my eyes, not falling asleep.  I don't think it was nerves because although I get nervous about everything, I didn't feel that nervous.  I was excited, but I was tired too so I don't know if I was too excited or too nervous or what!  I think I only got about three hours of sleep, but much to my amazement I was NOT exhausted at wedding time and I did not have big bags under my eyes--thank goodness!  And all of a sudden it was my wedding day! 

Wedding Rehearsal

So let's rewind to the day before my wedding.  When I left off in my last pre-wedding post, I had just gotten my nails done.  My now husband was upstairs hanging out with his groomsmen.  So I went upstairs to see them.  I hung out with them for a few minutes, then it was back home to get ready for the rehearsal dinner.  Time to change--I even ironed and I really don't like ironing--and make sure all the thank you gifts were good to go.  We loaded up the car and off we went to the church.  I was so excited when I got there.  And I was even more excited to see some of my friends all ready waiting for us.  I was especially excited to see a friend who had flown all the way in from Arizona.  :)  She came all the way from Arizona and got there before me, I wasn't late for a change, but others were early ha ha.  After some greetings, introductions, (an excited me!), we rounded everyone up--well, nearly everyone, there were some late arrivals due to traffic, but they made it, the rehearsal began.  The woman in charge was a little intense, but she kept us all in line and the rehearsal went well.  I couldn't believe in fewer than 24 hours I'd be getting married!  But for now, it was off to dinner and time to celebrate! You'll just have to wait for the next post to see that--mainly because I have a few pictures that I want to upload, but I've never uploaded any pictures to this computer since it's newish so I have to figure out how to do that.  I'm hoping it's as easy as my old computer.  :)      

Why I've been MIA

Did you like how I said I would have more time to blog and then I disappeared?  Nice huh?  Well, I can assure you it was not on purpose.  My computer broke!  Thankfully, unlike some other broken things around here, it was still under warranty.  Is it just me or do things seem to break all at once?  We'll get to that later.  Let's start with the computer.  It was really slow one night after it allegedly made some updates, but such is life.  The next day I tried to turn it on.  Nothing happened.  Tried a few more times then gave up.  Tried again the next day and still no luck so I called the customer service number.  45 minutes later--yeah, I was late for my dance class, it was still not working after following all of their suggestions.  Long story short, they told me where to get it fixed and just under  two weeks later all is well. Yay!  It was kind of annoying not having a computer--remember the days before we had computers?  But I got through it.  I'm sure glad to have it back though. 
Also, annoying, but maybe not as annoying or maybe more so depending how you look at it, was not having a functional dryer.  It could be worse though.  At least I could wash my clothes and air dry them.  I do that with a few items of clothing anyway.  A couple of years ago, my washing machine was broken.  That was worse because I had to go elsewhere to wash the clothes.  The other stuff was minor--one of the closet doors is broken.  It's functional, but some day when we can nicely ask a friend with a truck to help us, we'll get a new one as a new door will not fit in my car or my husband's car.  My ice dams are finally gone so the "joys" those brought seem to have passed.  Now it's on to finding long term solutions so they don't cause problems in the future.  And of course the car, always the car.  I think I was due for a car issue anyway.  I guess I need new struts.  Mine are leaking.  Let's not talk about how much that will cost.  Let's just say my husband and I really wanted to go to Italy (maybe me more than him since he's been there before), but we couldn't really afford to go when I wanted to (August) so we didn't book it.  But we came close.  I finally convinced him we should do it, he said we'd be broke, but fine, he'd go because he knew I really wanted to go.  I finally did the math and good thing I didn't book the trip since we've had all these unexpected expenses.  Isn't growing up fun?  But at least the computer works now, and the dryer, and with a little luck (and the sound of me crying as I empty my checking account) in another week or so I will get my struts fixed.  Sometimes I want to move to a city with public transportation and not have to deal with cars anymore.  But then I remember how cold waiting for public transportation can be in the winter. In them mean time I guess I can always dream about Italy... 

One Day To Go: The Morning and Early Afternoon

I'm back!  I started this post before the 30 days of pictures and never finished and posted it, so here it is. I have some semi-funny winter posts along with wedding and maybe finally honeymoon posts to get to in the next couple of weeks. 
This one was going to be a bit long so I decided to break it up into a couple of posts.  To say I was tired on the day before my wedding was a bit of an understatement.  Staying up 'til midnight and then getting up at 3am, then going back to bed to get and getting up at 6:30am is not smart many nights and it is especially not smart so close to your wedding.  I like my job and all, but if I were to get a redo on my wedding stuff, I would NOT have worked the day before my wedding.  Work wasn't bad and I'm not sure I really had a lot I could get done during that time of the day anyway, but I could have used some more sleep.  As you may remember, my brother arrived a little before 3am and then I had to get up for work at 6:30.  Somehow I made it to work on time, had a decent day, and my boss let me leave a few minutes early.  I was home by just after 1:00.  I had time to come home, finish last minute favor assembly, make sure all the wedding party gifts were good to go, pack a bit, eat lunch and then head to the hotel where we were having our reception to drop some stuff off including the favors. Wow, that was a run on sentence. My English professors would not be proud.  Sorry!  I had wanted to go to the gym, but there just wasn't enough time so no gym for me.  My fiancé took a half day off from work so he got home as I was in the midst of all this and he helped me get things loaded into the car and ready to go.  Then we headed off to the hotel in separate cars.  I got there as his parents were checking in, which turned out to be perfect timing as they were able to help my fiancé and me unload the car and then they sent me in to get my nails done (there is a salon in the hotel, the same one where I'd had my pedicure and make up trial) and they finished unloading the car and then parked my car for me.  The lady who did my nails was the same one who had done my trial make up.  She was nice and we made small talk.  While I waited for my nails to dry,  I realized it was the first time I'd really had a chance to sit and relax that day.  I kept thinking of the last minute things I had to do, but in retrospect it was also nice to have a few minutes in hiding and not have to do anything besides just sit.  I'm not that good at sitting still doing nothing, but I had allowed myself enough time so I wasn't constantly watching my watch and I wasn't feeling too stressed at that point.  :)  Soon my nails were dry (and if I may say so myself, they looked good). 
Next up:  Rehearsal and Rehearsal Dinner