Before the wedding
Me & my dad, waiting to walk down the aisle; photo by cork_dork
This recounting is going to take a couple of posts. :-) And it's only a couple of weeks late!
My mom found me passable shoes at PayLess on Thursday evening (May 29); white wedges, size 9 wide. They weren't the perfect shoes, but they fit and they looked nice and they would last four hours so I was pleased.
cork_dork came in later that night, and after we spent a lot of time hugging and arguing with the morons at the car rental stand, he told me that the two big non-wedding things he wanted to do while in to California were:
1) Go wine shopping.
2) Get an In-N-Out burger.
So, deciding that there was no time like the present, that night he and I and craymore shared a delicious white (Cakebread Sauvignon Blanc) with our Double-Doubles and fries. cork_dork will have to remind me what one it was. :-D I don't think it was the original idea, but it was a fabulous way to kick off the fun.
The next day cork_dork went off to his work-based excuse for flying cross-country, and I spent the entire day panicking to bits. I got out to Costco, and to my last dress fitting (Leslie had to measure me with the shoes and hem the skirt) and a couple of other errands in the morning... but the fitting took an extra-long time while we fixed a problem with the corset, and by the time I got home in mid-afternoon I just felt paralyzed by everything left to do. My mom and fireopal88 really came to the rescue, there, and got me through a couple of beauty routines before we all whisked off to the rehearsal.
The rehearsal and dinner went lovely, and smoothly. I saw my ring for the first time, and my dad told everyone he could get ahold of its history. Which is, in short:
My great-grandfather Carl Baker gave this diamond ring to my great-grandmother Catherine at their wedding in 1914. They divorced years later, after my grandmother (my father's mother) was born; after Catherine died, Grandma Caryl had the stones reset into a necklace and wore it for many years. But at news that craymore and I were planning our wedding, she offered both stones and the original setting to me if I wanted them -- and if I didn't want the original setting, she'd have it reset however I wanted. Well, I love the original setting and so that's what I have (resized, because Great-Grandma Catherine had teensy fingers). I understand that my Dad went on about the cut and clarity and whatnot of the diamonds, but I think it's a wonderful ring just for the history behind it and I'm honored to have it.
(craymore's ring, in the same pic, belonged to my dad; he wore it for his short-lived second marriage, and gave it to us with his simple wishes that it brings us more joy. Not as awesome a story, but still a nice ring.)
I wish I could remember more of the dinner now. It was a wonderful time with close friends and it all just kinda blends together into one happy blur.
After dinner cork_dork took me to pick up the wine for the wedding, and craymore and half the bridal party went to A-1 Comics... and while I wouldn't have passed up the errand I was on, I did kinda regret not getting to go with them. Which really, really says a lot about us as a group.
Then home again, to (not) sleep before the big day.
The next morning I actually made cork_dork play bridesmaid for an hour by taking me to my makeup appointment. Hey, he was there, willing and able; he had a car, and wasn't in a hurry to get his own hair or makeup done! He also took pictures and was generally awesome. Then barelyproper and karleeneedsleep appeared like magic and whisked me off to get dressed, and then to my dad's house for the ceremony.