Wedding post, finally
Now that we finally have a computer desk I am ready to write a detailed wedding day post. It's very long, you've been warned
Sometimes I get disappointed when I read things like 'everything was perfect' and 'the weather was beautiful' because I basically had my anti-wedding. So many little things went wrong to the point I cried about it the other day. I'm slowly getting over everything because, hey, we're still married right?
We still had our rehearsal bbq at my house. We put the grill under a giant umbrella and shoved everyone inside. It was a good time. A little awkward since my husband's parents are divorced and in the same house. They said very quick hello's to each other and ate in separate rooms. We had the rehearsal in the garden in the rain because I was still holding out hope that it would not rain on our wedding day. It wasn't raining hard, it was more like mist so I just wore a hoodie and went on with it. One of the flower girls had a little tantrum because she wanted to stand at the altar with us but I wanted them to sit down. She's autistic and has always seen flower girls standing up there so she was confused. She yelled 'that is NOT how it's going to go!' It was at least amusing. It lasted about an hour because it was cold and wet and we still had to decorate the reception hall. I let everyone know we were going over there and helping wasn't mandatory but we'd like it anyway.
My 2 bridesmaids, the MOH's boyfriend, and my flower girls and their parents came to help us. Will's groomsman booked it out of there. If they had been there it probably wouldn't have taken as long but I did say it wasn't mandatory but you'd like the whole bridal party would help. I gave the flower girls the job of putting candy in baskets and said they could keep one. I had a talk with the girl who wanted to stand up there and she seemed to understand what I was saying. They put more candy in theirs than anyone's, lol. Their father and Frank (MOH's boyfriend) went up and down the latter putting up the paper lanterns. We filled vases with water and cut flowers, put my handmade table numbers on the tables, rearranged chairs, put candles everywhere. Then Will and I practiced our first dance a few times because we hadn't in a while. I got quite frustrated so we stopped after the 3rd time through or so. We also paid our food bill that night and realized that I never took the vegetarian meal off the list because the person it was for wasn't coming now. $16 already down the drain! It still wasn't as high as it would have been at our original venue so we still saved a little money. I told the woman there to get the room ready for the wedding just in case it is raining tomorrow.
When I woke up in the morning I realized, oh joy of joys, my period has come on the wedding day! This wouldn't have been a huge deal if we'd had sex before the wedding but we had saved ourselves for that night and... yeah. We go get breakfast and I made a waffle. Turns out the waffle batter had gone sour but I realized that only after taking a huge bite. I went with cereal after that. Can't get food poisoning on the wedding day too! The hair and make up girls show up with a surprise, my BFF from high school that moved to Japan after college! I knew she was coming to the US but it was supposed to be when we were on our honeymoon. She couldn't stay for the ceremony though but I at least got to see her for 2 hours. Shortly after the photographer showed up with coffee for us (she also works at Starbucks) and she started shooting. She's very funny so she kept me at ease. Until people kept calling me and asking where the wedding was going to be and I hadn't made a decision yet. It was raining at that time. Looked up the forecast and rain allll day long. Hair and make up is all done so it's time to pack up my stuff and get to the house at the garden so we can get dressed.
At this point my stomach hurts and I'm upset about the rain. My friend who did my bouquets is there and she shows me the flowers and I love them so much! She can tell I'm upset and asks what my backup plan is and I tell her begrudgingly the reception hall. Photographer is trying to convince me we can still have it outside but my bleeding heart cannot force 100 people to sit outside in the cold and rain. I seriously considered going to the dollar store and buying 100 of those cheap ponchos. Flower friend says 'Why don't you have it in here?' I said 'uhhhh I don't think they would let us'. She goes to find the person in charge to ask. She comes out and says we can but the safety code number is 80 people. I start to get upset again because have over 100 coming. She adds 'personally I don't mind but if someone gets hurt it's on me. It's up to you' I say 'ok' and everyone starts working like mad to move the couches and chairs out of the Alumni House living room because it's after 2 and the wedding is at 3. It's actually 2 rooms, 1 is a large living room and the other is a small room with a fireplace so we decide to make the fireplace the altar. A small doorway connects them. It would have been perfect if the doorway had been larger but we made do. I run to the bathroom because I'm so upset I have diarrhea now, yippy!
After my bathroom fun I go into the office to start getting ready. My girls start helping me into my dress and my photographer shows them how to lace up the back. I get emotional a few times during the process. People are coming in and out of the office (my people, not random people haha). Videographer comes in for a brief moment to tape us. Grandma comes in because she'd never seen the dress on me and she's amazed. I'm so glad nothing happened with the dress. It was one of the few perfect things of the day. My friend Taffi is the musician for the occasion. Just her lovely voice and guitar filled the house with music. Pastor Danny came in and said her voice was beautiful. She got lots of compliments! I'm so glad I asked her to play. He comes in again to say that we're just waiting on Will's Grandma because she's running late. I'm ok with this because I refuse to start without her, that woman is awesome.
She gets there so we start heading into the hallway, Ashly pushes me back because Will is around the corner. I hear the processional song start and I can't see anyone walking. I just know they're headed down the aisle. It's around a corner so I didn't know when they got to the end. I watched a video of the processional and my bridesmaids and groomsman walked on the wrong side! I was so pissed. How could 4 adults not remember that girls are on the left and guys are on the right? I guess the Best Man made a funny face when he realized his mistake because everyone laughed. The flower girls go and I just stand there with my Grandpa waiting. We decide to go and I start this weird half crying/noise making thing. It only lasted a few seconds, lol. There was a nice 20 second gap between the flower girls and me, I wonder if people thought I wasn't coming? Grandpa and I squeeze down the aisle and I turn the corner and there's Will smiling away. I was hoping he'd cry but a smile is good too :) Taffi finishes her song and we get started. I ended up letting the flower girls stand up there with us because it was so cramped it didn't matter. They were stuck behind my bridesmaids anyway. They were perfectly quiet the whole time. And nobody brought their kids! For once I didn't stumble with my words and said my vows perfectly. Pastor Danny talked about things not going the way you want them to because of the rain. It was a short and sweet ceremony. We did our unity sand, kissed, and went back up the aisle as Mr. and Mrs. Kaye!
We did the receiving line in the hallway because it was wet and cold outside. Gave lots and lots of hugs. My friends Amanda and Shaun, who were married 4 weeks before us, told me that Amanda has to miss the reception because of work. Apparently that meant Shaun had to too so there's already 2 meals paid for and uneaten. I'd also realized that my brothers never showed (pissed and worried at the same time). It was so confusing that the ushers didn't escort anyone to their seats but that's ok. We take a few pictures outside with the photographers vintage umbrella collection (this woman is so awesome, let me tell you). People start putting the couches back as we found them. Our families had left so we had to do group pictures later. Will and I leave almost last in our rented Cadillac (that nobody even saw us in or took pictures of, dammit!)
We get to the reception and I immediately have to go to the bathroom. My 2 girls hold up my dress and my diarrhea from before wasn't done so they had the pleasure of being around while that happened. It was funny and awful at the same time. It was also the hardest thing ever to change a tampon in! I told them when they get married they can get me back. I come out and someone informs us that some people have ignored the seating chart and sat where they wanted. This was bad because we gave the hall a list of what dishes go to what tables. My Uncle has to make an announcement for people to go to their correct tables. I make sure the photobooth is there and it is! The whole left side of the room has been using it over and over and practically filled the scrapbook before the other side even knew it was there. I had to go around and tell that side about it. We ran out of scrapbook pages. Oh well. People were loving it and that's what it was there for. I asked my friend Jon to bless the food and when he started praying the table in front of me (which was our family!) kept yakking on so there were some very loud 'shhhhhhh!'s going around the room. Ugh. I guess they couldn't hear him talking? Food comes out, it's so good, very happy about that.
Everyone is pretty much done eating so I tell my Uncle we should do the dances now. We start our dance (Your Guardian Angel by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus) and there's a group of people at the photobooth not paying attention to our dance. I hope they stopped what they were doing and actually watched. Will surprised me with a kiss in the middle of our song and screwed me up. He had good intentions but I was mad that we paid money to learn this dance and he messed it up. Rest of it goes smoothly until the very end when we did the cuddle and tuck and spin. In the spin I stepped on my dress and yelled 'Wooo!' because I started to slide haha. Grandpa and I danced next to Forever Young by Rod Stewart. He has a bad hip so we just went in a circle to the right. I told him if he couldn't do the whole song we could stop. I said 'It's almost over' and he said 'you said that 10 minutes ago'. He's funny and he lasted the whole song. Will and his mom danced to The Wonder of You by Elvis. The party got started after that with the Cupid Shuffle. My aunt even got on the dance floor to try it out. Turns our my cousin Kyle loves to dance which I never figured because he's a total country boy (he showed up wearing jeans, a shirt with American flags and bull skulls on it, and a cowboy hat, lol). At one point he started break dancing and did a head spin! I didn't even get to see it, I was probably in the booth. It's probably on the video so I'll see it then.
It's getting late and we still hadn't done family pics so we go into the hallway to do them. It didn't take long but I'd been dancing and felt sweaty and gross. Hopefully I looked ok. Then I realized we hadn't cut the cake and some people had already left. We were nice and just fed each other. Although Will just held my piece down while I had his up, I had to tell him we do it at the same time. He joked 'I've never been in a wedding before!' We couldn't cut down to the chocolate layer because the ribbon was blocking it and we couldn't find scissors. I found a spare piece of cake later and ate a little bit of it. At 7:45 there's still a lot of people there and that's when the photo booth is supposed to stop. I ask her to stay another hour and Will goes to grab a check. I'm so glad that it worked out. It was expensive but well worth it. My photographer realizes that we didn't get pics with just me and my girls so we do a few quick ones on the dance floor. Too bad at that point my MOH, who I told to get COMFORTABLE SHOES, had taken her super high heels off and was wearing brown flip flops. I didn't notice so in the pics she has on the wrong shoes! I'll just cut our feet out of the pictures, ha.
We dance some more. Turns out my friend Ashley knows the Crank That dance so we're up there doing it, pretty funny. My friend Zaniah brought this guy Jimmy who was a dancing maniac! It was crazy, I'm so glad she brought him. We do the bouquet toss and Taffi catches it. Jimmy caught the garter after 3 failed attempted at throwing it. They don't have good velocity I guess? We get the 10 minute warning that our 4 hours is almost up. I was like 'What? 4 hours already!?' My Uncle announces something about a special dance or something but Will is in the booth so I'm just standing there alone, haha. He comes out and we dance to Awakening by Mae (our processional song). Only we danced to it which was strange, I guess people thought it was just for us. Shortly after he does the last dance. My friend Bryndon had told me to save a dance for him so he's up there and waves to me. I go over there and of course he dips me and I scream. That was the end of that, lol.
We clean everything up but the lanterns were still up. We made the groomsman come back the next day to do it, hehe.
Now that I wrote it all out it doesn't seem that bad. If it hadn't of rained I would have been happy as a clam. I told Will that next summer we're sneaking into the garden and taking pictures, haha. Maybe in 25 years we'll renew our vows there.
Hopefully I'll have the rest of the professional pics in 2 weeks or so!
ETA: I talked to my brothers later. They decided not to come because one of them was sick and didn't want to get my Grandparents sick. Just wish they had told me that BEFORE the wedding and not after.
Sometimes I get disappointed when I read things like 'everything was perfect' and 'the weather was beautiful' because I basically had my anti-wedding. So many little things went wrong to the point I cried about it the other day. I'm slowly getting over everything because, hey, we're still married right?
We still had our rehearsal bbq at my house. We put the grill under a giant umbrella and shoved everyone inside. It was a good time. A little awkward since my husband's parents are divorced and in the same house. They said very quick hello's to each other and ate in separate rooms. We had the rehearsal in the garden in the rain because I was still holding out hope that it would not rain on our wedding day. It wasn't raining hard, it was more like mist so I just wore a hoodie and went on with it. One of the flower girls had a little tantrum because she wanted to stand at the altar with us but I wanted them to sit down. She's autistic and has always seen flower girls standing up there so she was confused. She yelled 'that is NOT how it's going to go!' It was at least amusing. It lasted about an hour because it was cold and wet and we still had to decorate the reception hall. I let everyone know we were going over there and helping wasn't mandatory but we'd like it anyway.
My 2 bridesmaids, the MOH's boyfriend, and my flower girls and their parents came to help us. Will's groomsman booked it out of there. If they had been there it probably wouldn't have taken as long but I did say it wasn't mandatory but you'd like the whole bridal party would help. I gave the flower girls the job of putting candy in baskets and said they could keep one. I had a talk with the girl who wanted to stand up there and she seemed to understand what I was saying. They put more candy in theirs than anyone's, lol. Their father and Frank (MOH's boyfriend) went up and down the latter putting up the paper lanterns. We filled vases with water and cut flowers, put my handmade table numbers on the tables, rearranged chairs, put candles everywhere. Then Will and I practiced our first dance a few times because we hadn't in a while. I got quite frustrated so we stopped after the 3rd time through or so. We also paid our food bill that night and realized that I never took the vegetarian meal off the list because the person it was for wasn't coming now. $16 already down the drain! It still wasn't as high as it would have been at our original venue so we still saved a little money. I told the woman there to get the room ready for the wedding just in case it is raining tomorrow.
When I woke up in the morning I realized, oh joy of joys, my period has come on the wedding day! This wouldn't have been a huge deal if we'd had sex before the wedding but we had saved ourselves for that night and... yeah. We go get breakfast and I made a waffle. Turns out the waffle batter had gone sour but I realized that only after taking a huge bite. I went with cereal after that. Can't get food poisoning on the wedding day too! The hair and make up girls show up with a surprise, my BFF from high school that moved to Japan after college! I knew she was coming to the US but it was supposed to be when we were on our honeymoon. She couldn't stay for the ceremony though but I at least got to see her for 2 hours. Shortly after the photographer showed up with coffee for us (she also works at Starbucks) and she started shooting. She's very funny so she kept me at ease. Until people kept calling me and asking where the wedding was going to be and I hadn't made a decision yet. It was raining at that time. Looked up the forecast and rain allll day long. Hair and make up is all done so it's time to pack up my stuff and get to the house at the garden so we can get dressed.
At this point my stomach hurts and I'm upset about the rain. My friend who did my bouquets is there and she shows me the flowers and I love them so much! She can tell I'm upset and asks what my backup plan is and I tell her begrudgingly the reception hall. Photographer is trying to convince me we can still have it outside but my bleeding heart cannot force 100 people to sit outside in the cold and rain. I seriously considered going to the dollar store and buying 100 of those cheap ponchos. Flower friend says 'Why don't you have it in here?' I said 'uhhhh I don't think they would let us'. She goes to find the person in charge to ask. She comes out and says we can but the safety code number is 80 people. I start to get upset again because have over 100 coming. She adds 'personally I don't mind but if someone gets hurt it's on me. It's up to you' I say 'ok' and everyone starts working like mad to move the couches and chairs out of the Alumni House living room because it's after 2 and the wedding is at 3. It's actually 2 rooms, 1 is a large living room and the other is a small room with a fireplace so we decide to make the fireplace the altar. A small doorway connects them. It would have been perfect if the doorway had been larger but we made do. I run to the bathroom because I'm so upset I have diarrhea now, yippy!
After my bathroom fun I go into the office to start getting ready. My girls start helping me into my dress and my photographer shows them how to lace up the back. I get emotional a few times during the process. People are coming in and out of the office (my people, not random people haha). Videographer comes in for a brief moment to tape us. Grandma comes in because she'd never seen the dress on me and she's amazed. I'm so glad nothing happened with the dress. It was one of the few perfect things of the day. My friend Taffi is the musician for the occasion. Just her lovely voice and guitar filled the house with music. Pastor Danny came in and said her voice was beautiful. She got lots of compliments! I'm so glad I asked her to play. He comes in again to say that we're just waiting on Will's Grandma because she's running late. I'm ok with this because I refuse to start without her, that woman is awesome.
She gets there so we start heading into the hallway, Ashly pushes me back because Will is around the corner. I hear the processional song start and I can't see anyone walking. I just know they're headed down the aisle. It's around a corner so I didn't know when they got to the end. I watched a video of the processional and my bridesmaids and groomsman walked on the wrong side! I was so pissed. How could 4 adults not remember that girls are on the left and guys are on the right? I guess the Best Man made a funny face when he realized his mistake because everyone laughed. The flower girls go and I just stand there with my Grandpa waiting. We decide to go and I start this weird half crying/noise making thing. It only lasted a few seconds, lol. There was a nice 20 second gap between the flower girls and me, I wonder if people thought I wasn't coming? Grandpa and I squeeze down the aisle and I turn the corner and there's Will smiling away. I was hoping he'd cry but a smile is good too :) Taffi finishes her song and we get started. I ended up letting the flower girls stand up there with us because it was so cramped it didn't matter. They were stuck behind my bridesmaids anyway. They were perfectly quiet the whole time. And nobody brought their kids! For once I didn't stumble with my words and said my vows perfectly. Pastor Danny talked about things not going the way you want them to because of the rain. It was a short and sweet ceremony. We did our unity sand, kissed, and went back up the aisle as Mr. and Mrs. Kaye!
We did the receiving line in the hallway because it was wet and cold outside. Gave lots and lots of hugs. My friends Amanda and Shaun, who were married 4 weeks before us, told me that Amanda has to miss the reception because of work. Apparently that meant Shaun had to too so there's already 2 meals paid for and uneaten. I'd also realized that my brothers never showed (pissed and worried at the same time). It was so confusing that the ushers didn't escort anyone to their seats but that's ok. We take a few pictures outside with the photographers vintage umbrella collection (this woman is so awesome, let me tell you). People start putting the couches back as we found them. Our families had left so we had to do group pictures later. Will and I leave almost last in our rented Cadillac (that nobody even saw us in or took pictures of, dammit!)
We get to the reception and I immediately have to go to the bathroom. My 2 girls hold up my dress and my diarrhea from before wasn't done so they had the pleasure of being around while that happened. It was funny and awful at the same time. It was also the hardest thing ever to change a tampon in! I told them when they get married they can get me back. I come out and someone informs us that some people have ignored the seating chart and sat where they wanted. This was bad because we gave the hall a list of what dishes go to what tables. My Uncle has to make an announcement for people to go to their correct tables. I make sure the photobooth is there and it is! The whole left side of the room has been using it over and over and practically filled the scrapbook before the other side even knew it was there. I had to go around and tell that side about it. We ran out of scrapbook pages. Oh well. People were loving it and that's what it was there for. I asked my friend Jon to bless the food and when he started praying the table in front of me (which was our family!) kept yakking on so there were some very loud 'shhhhhhh!'s going around the room. Ugh. I guess they couldn't hear him talking? Food comes out, it's so good, very happy about that.
Everyone is pretty much done eating so I tell my Uncle we should do the dances now. We start our dance (Your Guardian Angel by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus) and there's a group of people at the photobooth not paying attention to our dance. I hope they stopped what they were doing and actually watched. Will surprised me with a kiss in the middle of our song and screwed me up. He had good intentions but I was mad that we paid money to learn this dance and he messed it up. Rest of it goes smoothly until the very end when we did the cuddle and tuck and spin. In the spin I stepped on my dress and yelled 'Wooo!' because I started to slide haha. Grandpa and I danced next to Forever Young by Rod Stewart. He has a bad hip so we just went in a circle to the right. I told him if he couldn't do the whole song we could stop. I said 'It's almost over' and he said 'you said that 10 minutes ago'. He's funny and he lasted the whole song. Will and his mom danced to The Wonder of You by Elvis. The party got started after that with the Cupid Shuffle. My aunt even got on the dance floor to try it out. Turns our my cousin Kyle loves to dance which I never figured because he's a total country boy (he showed up wearing jeans, a shirt with American flags and bull skulls on it, and a cowboy hat, lol). At one point he started break dancing and did a head spin! I didn't even get to see it, I was probably in the booth. It's probably on the video so I'll see it then.
It's getting late and we still hadn't done family pics so we go into the hallway to do them. It didn't take long but I'd been dancing and felt sweaty and gross. Hopefully I looked ok. Then I realized we hadn't cut the cake and some people had already left. We were nice and just fed each other. Although Will just held my piece down while I had his up, I had to tell him we do it at the same time. He joked 'I've never been in a wedding before!' We couldn't cut down to the chocolate layer because the ribbon was blocking it and we couldn't find scissors. I found a spare piece of cake later and ate a little bit of it. At 7:45 there's still a lot of people there and that's when the photo booth is supposed to stop. I ask her to stay another hour and Will goes to grab a check. I'm so glad that it worked out. It was expensive but well worth it. My photographer realizes that we didn't get pics with just me and my girls so we do a few quick ones on the dance floor. Too bad at that point my MOH, who I told to get COMFORTABLE SHOES, had taken her super high heels off and was wearing brown flip flops. I didn't notice so in the pics she has on the wrong shoes! I'll just cut our feet out of the pictures, ha.
We dance some more. Turns out my friend Ashley knows the Crank That dance so we're up there doing it, pretty funny. My friend Zaniah brought this guy Jimmy who was a dancing maniac! It was crazy, I'm so glad she brought him. We do the bouquet toss and Taffi catches it. Jimmy caught the garter after 3 failed attempted at throwing it. They don't have good velocity I guess? We get the 10 minute warning that our 4 hours is almost up. I was like 'What? 4 hours already!?' My Uncle announces something about a special dance or something but Will is in the booth so I'm just standing there alone, haha. He comes out and we dance to Awakening by Mae (our processional song). Only we danced to it which was strange, I guess people thought it was just for us. Shortly after he does the last dance. My friend Bryndon had told me to save a dance for him so he's up there and waves to me. I go over there and of course he dips me and I scream. That was the end of that, lol.
We clean everything up but the lanterns were still up. We made the groomsman come back the next day to do it, hehe.
Now that I wrote it all out it doesn't seem that bad. If it hadn't of rained I would have been happy as a clam. I told Will that next summer we're sneaking into the garden and taking pictures, haha. Maybe in 25 years we'll renew our vows there.
Hopefully I'll have the rest of the professional pics in 2 weeks or so!
ETA: I talked to my brothers later. They decided not to come because one of them was sick and didn't want to get my Grandparents sick. Just wish they had told me that BEFORE the wedding and not after.