OK.
Here's what I had.
We're all like, married 'n stuffs!
The short of it: The days leading up to the wedding were incredibly stressful, as were the hours immediately preceding. Mostly because of -- you guessed it -- the family, and my undermedicated anxiety. But the wedding from then was pretty much a breeze. I think I owe that fortune mostly to our choice of venue, something I was very thankful for.
***
Honestly, it's all such a blur by now and hell, was by a week ago that I'm sure this won't end up being very long at all. (OK, I lied.)
We flew in Wednesday and crashed in a Mission Valley hotel around 9PM, too tired to even stop for food despite being famished. It was an early day the next day, as we had the four-ish-hour-drive up to Visalia and had to be there in time for the kittens' vet appointment, after which we took off for Fresno to pick up Matt's tux and wander around the Fashion Fair Mall. Just getting out of town after having had to spend time with Mom was a blessing.
I didn't really get a chance to get away from everyone on Friday. We were meeting in the early afternoon to put together flowers. Matt and I got in a bit of a tiff (our only on the trip) about where to drop him off while I was doing stuff with my friends. I was trying to offer him the car, since I was sure my friends would drive if we went out. He didn't want it, but didn't want to have to walk from my friends' house to Borders (where he planned to spend his time). But by that point we were almost there, and he also didn't want me to turn around and drop him off at Borders. Stupid the things people end up in fights over. That ended up resolved when I missed the last turn to the Lees' house, and decided just to head back to Borders for him while I had the opportunity.
We only got about half done with the flowers before we had to leave for our appointment for manicures and pedicures -- which was definitely a nice treat, the first time either Kim or I had them done. I had no idea what was going on, but the chance to relax and not have to talk to anyone was a nice break.
When we left to go back to the Lees' house for the rehearsal, I made three discoveries, in this order: 1) Matt had already been at the Lees' for about an hour, having grown bored at Borders. 2) Neither of my brothers was going to come to the rehearsal, only my mother (not that any of them had any role in it anyway, but I wanted to make them feel included). 3) The man who showed up to run our rehearsal was decidedly not the woman I had hired! It turned out to be her husband, who runs their company with her, and while he was a pretty fun, sociable guy, I was a bit disappointed -- Misty (our planned officiant) was a cool lady and I was a bit more familiar with her. Not only was she not there to run the rehearsal but, we found out, she wasn't going to officiate our ceremony either: that would be Jeremy, someone they "had worked with a couple times before, he's pretty good." Uh, that sounds great?
Anyway, we ran through the rehearsal a couple times (during which time Mom had to throw in -- yell, really -- a passive-aggressive comment or two about the fact that I wasn't having her give me away), then off to dinner (without our not-really-officiant). David & co. did show up for that, and they were pretty much the stars of the show. It was a good dinner (I had been craving good Mexican food which, as you can imagine, is rare if existing at all in western PA), with good company, at least until David started rambling on a bit too long and a bit too incoherently at the end, when everyone was kind of obviously itching to leave, especially me.
I had to be up early on Saturday just to give myself time to wake up before I could start getting ready. Matt got up, showered, and had to leave around 8AM to pick up our desserts from the bakery and set everything up at the restaurant. I wasn't expecting anybody until after 8:30, so after washing my hair, brushing my teeth and getting dressed (in Matt's sleeping shorts, note, as I had no other comfortable non-jeans bottoms) I set out to wander around the motel grounds, both to search out good spots for group photos and just to kill time. I ended settling on a gazebo by the pool and spent some time moving tables and chairs out of the way, then moving some garbage cans out of the way of the "view."
While I was doing so, I heard a meow. It startled the hell out of me and I started to wonder whether I was going crazy, but when I turned around, there was a pretty brown tabby cat ambling up the walk toward me with friendly eyes, obviously looking for some attention.
Perfect distraction!
Quite honestly, I doubt I would have been quite as sane on the wedding day had that cat not shown up. I spent a few minutes on the grass petting it, after which my friends drove up and I had to go greet them.
That break with the kitty was also a Godsend considering what came next -- the revelation that not only my mother, not only the mothers of my friends, not only my sisters-in-law, but also my brothers and nephew were showing up at the hotel. I don't know how I managed not to panic outwardly. Inside I was, of course. But I just stepped into Family Management Mode and went on.
The next bit of stress came when Matt called from the bakery. He'd successfully found his way there, at least, but it turned out that the desserts weren't ready to be picked up until 10AM. I had quite explicitly been told by the owner that they'd be ready at 8AM that day, but apparently that didn't come to be. No problem, I said, it sucks, but just tell them to have them delivered -- an option the bakery had informed me of earlier, and that we'd have to pay extra for, but it would be better than nothing at all.
No such luck. After some wrangling, Matt called back to tell me that they were too swamped to deliver. But he had to be back up to the hotel soon for group photos, so he couldn't exactly wait around 'til ten for them to be ready. AHHH!
We did end up working it out -- Debbie's husband would pick them up, and I wrote them a check to cover the costs.
Amid all that confusion, I took a look at Ally's work on Kim's hair and just about melted: it was exactly what I had wanted done for my hair (but hadn't wanted to pay for. Yes, I am a cheapskate). I asked her if she could do the same for me if I washed and blew-dry my hair, and she agreed. Score!
While I was in the kitchen washing my hair, I heard some cooing from the main room. It appeared that kitty had wandered its way in the open door. Of course after I finished up, I had to bend down, still toweling off my hair, and give the cat a little more attention. While I made my way back to the bathroom to blow-dry my hair, the cat continued its antics, running across our copy of the vows as the photographer was trying to get a good shot of them, etc. Eventually we had to shoo it back outside so it wouldn't get my dress all furry.
Matt arrived while Ally was working on my hair (which she did a beautiful job on). After we were all done getting ready, he changed into his tux, then me into my dress, and we wandered off for some solo pictures with the photographer. Of course, my sisters-in-law tagged along -- until the photographer asked them to leave, giving an excuse of something like "it distracts them" etc. etc. -- but we were just happy to have some time away from them at that point.
We did find out, while Matt was standing outside chatting with my brothers, that the left rear tire on our rental car was low. Gordon took a look at it and found a screw nestled in there, which Matt had apparently picked up sometime that morning. He replaced it with the spare (thank God for a mechanic brother!) and we decided to ask one of our guests -- the guy who had actually booked the rental for us -- what we should do when we got to the wedding itself.
Anyway, pictures pictures, etc. etc. Then we loaded ourselves into our respective cars for the drive up to the restaurant. This was possibly the most un-stressful time of the entire day: just ten minutes in the car with Matt, talking to each other, completely isolated from everyone else. And a scenic drive to boot.
We arrived at the restaurant, where we hung out in the bar area for a little while, waiting for all the guests to get there and settled down so we could start the ceremony.
And then...
Walking down the aisle was a little awkward, given that I had no idea when to start down, when to stop, how fast to go or anything like that. (This wasn't your typical wedding ceremony in the chapel. I was wearing a floaty dress and lace-up sandals and walking down a wooden deck between tables set with plastic chairs. There was no "Here Comes The Bride" or any music at all.) Anyway, I got up there, and we set about the ceremony.
Um, except for the fact that apparently the officiant was a complete n00b. He was a nice d00d, and it wasn't like he was terrible, but he had a bit of trouble getting through the ceremony, the papers kept trying to blow out of his hands (Matt and I were both trying to decide whether to stop holding hands and reach up and hold the papers down for him), and he rattled off the entire "Now Matthew, repeat after me..." paragraph without pause, leaving Matt no room to repeat anything. But hey, it got done!
We made our rounds to greet everyone while waiting for our food. To be honest, I don't remember much of the reception clearly enough to type much about it. The food was excellent. I didn't get enough iced tea. The desserts, for all our trouble getting them there, were equally excellent. I'm kind of afraid we spent too much time with our internet friends, although there is the fact that they kind of drove 5+ hours to get there, so we were just a bit obligated to entertain them anyhow. But, well. They were also just a lot of fun to hang around. :)
After everything was over, Matt and I headed back to the hotel to change out of our stuffy clothes, and then we had to head back down to Visalia to get our flat tire fixed. We wandered around a few stores on Mooney while we were waiting, which was nice at least for me, just to blow off steam and get my mind out of "performance" mode. My anxiety was understandably pretty high and it was nice to have a way to decompress a bit.
Early morning Sunday as well -- we escaped Mom's house with nary a guilt trip, surprisingly! The cats yowled the entire drive down to LAX. We stopped in Valencia/Santa Clarita for a smoothie and for me to give Mitsy and Buddy their kitty Valium (as the vet so aptly called it) for the flights. Buddy was distressed during the ascent on the first flight and spent a few minutes yelling, and a half hour or so bumping around after that, but after we brought them up (in their carriers) on our laps and zipped the carriers down around our arms so we could pet them a bit (Mitsy for me, and Buddy for Matt), they calmed down and were quiet the entire rest of the way -- in fact, they slept from the second flight onward.
We discovered back at Pittsburgh International that our checked bag was unfortunately not there to meet us. Luckily, it wasn't lost, just delayed, and it was delivered to us the next night. The kittens were absolutely terrified when we let them out of their carriers and spent that night hidden under our bookshelf/former TV armoire. The next day, Mitsy had settled in enough to venture out, but Buddy was still scared as hell. I took a nap that evening and while Mitsy slept at the top of the couch near my feet, Buddy came out while I was asleep and took up residence under the couch. Progress. ;)
They're both doing really well, and so are we.
***
I do have a few photos from Mom, Kim and one of our crazy-internet-friends. The professional photos that we got to see were just AMAZING. She'll be sending me a link to a slideshow within a week or so, and I will definitely post it here when she does. So, here are the photos I have.
I'll try to post in chronological order.
Making the flowers (the hydrangea ended up, um, very droopy by the wedding. Tip, kids: If you don't want to pay for an actual florist, suck it up and use silk)
All of us after our manicures and pedicures:
Me and Kim and my broken-bow-bouquet from my bridal shower
Rehearsal dinner (yummy Mexican food!):
Getting ready the morning of:
The dress is on!
"Look, ma, I can tie my own shoes!"
"OK, guys, are we done with all these pictures yet?"
While we were off having solo pictures taken:
Ally, Trish and Kim
Gordon and Tina
David, Elvira and Max
Trish, Debbie and Kim (the Lees), and Tracy and Ally (the Garners). A real family.
Coming back...
On the way...
At the ceremony...
The rings...
The kiss!
Um, we didn't do a recession. We were supposed to file straight into the head table. Only problem... my family had managed to sit at it. So we had to figure out a way to tell them "Um, hey. Move your asses!" only politely. ;) The amateur photographer on this one captioned it with "Matt, you'd better get used to this look..."
At the table:
Trying to get used to that thing on his finger:
Some group shots:
The group of internet crazies
And friends
***
And the update for today -- our photographer has a slideshow of photos up on her website. Check it out.
We're all like, married 'n stuffs!
The short of it: The days leading up to the wedding were incredibly stressful, as were the hours immediately preceding. Mostly because of -- you guessed it -- the family, and my undermedicated anxiety. But the wedding from then was pretty much a breeze. I think I owe that fortune mostly to our choice of venue, something I was very thankful for.
***
Honestly, it's all such a blur by now and hell, was by a week ago that I'm sure this won't end up being very long at all. (OK, I lied.)
We flew in Wednesday and crashed in a Mission Valley hotel around 9PM, too tired to even stop for food despite being famished. It was an early day the next day, as we had the four-ish-hour-drive up to Visalia and had to be there in time for the kittens' vet appointment, after which we took off for Fresno to pick up Matt's tux and wander around the Fashion Fair Mall. Just getting out of town after having had to spend time with Mom was a blessing.
I didn't really get a chance to get away from everyone on Friday. We were meeting in the early afternoon to put together flowers. Matt and I got in a bit of a tiff (our only on the trip) about where to drop him off while I was doing stuff with my friends. I was trying to offer him the car, since I was sure my friends would drive if we went out. He didn't want it, but didn't want to have to walk from my friends' house to Borders (where he planned to spend his time). But by that point we were almost there, and he also didn't want me to turn around and drop him off at Borders. Stupid the things people end up in fights over. That ended up resolved when I missed the last turn to the Lees' house, and decided just to head back to Borders for him while I had the opportunity.
We only got about half done with the flowers before we had to leave for our appointment for manicures and pedicures -- which was definitely a nice treat, the first time either Kim or I had them done. I had no idea what was going on, but the chance to relax and not have to talk to anyone was a nice break.
When we left to go back to the Lees' house for the rehearsal, I made three discoveries, in this order: 1) Matt had already been at the Lees' for about an hour, having grown bored at Borders. 2) Neither of my brothers was going to come to the rehearsal, only my mother (not that any of them had any role in it anyway, but I wanted to make them feel included). 3) The man who showed up to run our rehearsal was decidedly not the woman I had hired! It turned out to be her husband, who runs their company with her, and while he was a pretty fun, sociable guy, I was a bit disappointed -- Misty (our planned officiant) was a cool lady and I was a bit more familiar with her. Not only was she not there to run the rehearsal but, we found out, she wasn't going to officiate our ceremony either: that would be Jeremy, someone they "had worked with a couple times before, he's pretty good." Uh, that sounds great?
Anyway, we ran through the rehearsal a couple times (during which time Mom had to throw in -- yell, really -- a passive-aggressive comment or two about the fact that I wasn't having her give me away), then off to dinner (without our not-really-officiant). David & co. did show up for that, and they were pretty much the stars of the show. It was a good dinner (I had been craving good Mexican food which, as you can imagine, is rare if existing at all in western PA), with good company, at least until David started rambling on a bit too long and a bit too incoherently at the end, when everyone was kind of obviously itching to leave, especially me.
I had to be up early on Saturday just to give myself time to wake up before I could start getting ready. Matt got up, showered, and had to leave around 8AM to pick up our desserts from the bakery and set everything up at the restaurant. I wasn't expecting anybody until after 8:30, so after washing my hair, brushing my teeth and getting dressed (in Matt's sleeping shorts, note, as I had no other comfortable non-jeans bottoms) I set out to wander around the motel grounds, both to search out good spots for group photos and just to kill time. I ended settling on a gazebo by the pool and spent some time moving tables and chairs out of the way, then moving some garbage cans out of the way of the "view."
While I was doing so, I heard a meow. It startled the hell out of me and I started to wonder whether I was going crazy, but when I turned around, there was a pretty brown tabby cat ambling up the walk toward me with friendly eyes, obviously looking for some attention.
Perfect distraction!
Quite honestly, I doubt I would have been quite as sane on the wedding day had that cat not shown up. I spent a few minutes on the grass petting it, after which my friends drove up and I had to go greet them.
That break with the kitty was also a Godsend considering what came next -- the revelation that not only my mother, not only the mothers of my friends, not only my sisters-in-law, but also my brothers and nephew were showing up at the hotel. I don't know how I managed not to panic outwardly. Inside I was, of course. But I just stepped into Family Management Mode and went on.
The next bit of stress came when Matt called from the bakery. He'd successfully found his way there, at least, but it turned out that the desserts weren't ready to be picked up until 10AM. I had quite explicitly been told by the owner that they'd be ready at 8AM that day, but apparently that didn't come to be. No problem, I said, it sucks, but just tell them to have them delivered -- an option the bakery had informed me of earlier, and that we'd have to pay extra for, but it would be better than nothing at all.
No such luck. After some wrangling, Matt called back to tell me that they were too swamped to deliver. But he had to be back up to the hotel soon for group photos, so he couldn't exactly wait around 'til ten for them to be ready. AHHH!
We did end up working it out -- Debbie's husband would pick them up, and I wrote them a check to cover the costs.
Amid all that confusion, I took a look at Ally's work on Kim's hair and just about melted: it was exactly what I had wanted done for my hair (but hadn't wanted to pay for. Yes, I am a cheapskate). I asked her if she could do the same for me if I washed and blew-dry my hair, and she agreed. Score!
While I was in the kitchen washing my hair, I heard some cooing from the main room. It appeared that kitty had wandered its way in the open door. Of course after I finished up, I had to bend down, still toweling off my hair, and give the cat a little more attention. While I made my way back to the bathroom to blow-dry my hair, the cat continued its antics, running across our copy of the vows as the photographer was trying to get a good shot of them, etc. Eventually we had to shoo it back outside so it wouldn't get my dress all furry.
Matt arrived while Ally was working on my hair (which she did a beautiful job on). After we were all done getting ready, he changed into his tux, then me into my dress, and we wandered off for some solo pictures with the photographer. Of course, my sisters-in-law tagged along -- until the photographer asked them to leave, giving an excuse of something like "it distracts them" etc. etc. -- but we were just happy to have some time away from them at that point.
We did find out, while Matt was standing outside chatting with my brothers, that the left rear tire on our rental car was low. Gordon took a look at it and found a screw nestled in there, which Matt had apparently picked up sometime that morning. He replaced it with the spare (thank God for a mechanic brother!) and we decided to ask one of our guests -- the guy who had actually booked the rental for us -- what we should do when we got to the wedding itself.
Anyway, pictures pictures, etc. etc. Then we loaded ourselves into our respective cars for the drive up to the restaurant. This was possibly the most un-stressful time of the entire day: just ten minutes in the car with Matt, talking to each other, completely isolated from everyone else. And a scenic drive to boot.
We arrived at the restaurant, where we hung out in the bar area for a little while, waiting for all the guests to get there and settled down so we could start the ceremony.
And then...
Walking down the aisle was a little awkward, given that I had no idea when to start down, when to stop, how fast to go or anything like that. (This wasn't your typical wedding ceremony in the chapel. I was wearing a floaty dress and lace-up sandals and walking down a wooden deck between tables set with plastic chairs. There was no "Here Comes The Bride" or any music at all.) Anyway, I got up there, and we set about the ceremony.
Um, except for the fact that apparently the officiant was a complete n00b. He was a nice d00d, and it wasn't like he was terrible, but he had a bit of trouble getting through the ceremony, the papers kept trying to blow out of his hands (Matt and I were both trying to decide whether to stop holding hands and reach up and hold the papers down for him), and he rattled off the entire "Now Matthew, repeat after me..." paragraph without pause, leaving Matt no room to repeat anything. But hey, it got done!
We made our rounds to greet everyone while waiting for our food. To be honest, I don't remember much of the reception clearly enough to type much about it. The food was excellent. I didn't get enough iced tea. The desserts, for all our trouble getting them there, were equally excellent. I'm kind of afraid we spent too much time with our internet friends, although there is the fact that they kind of drove 5+ hours to get there, so we were just a bit obligated to entertain them anyhow. But, well. They were also just a lot of fun to hang around. :)
After everything was over, Matt and I headed back to the hotel to change out of our stuffy clothes, and then we had to head back down to Visalia to get our flat tire fixed. We wandered around a few stores on Mooney while we were waiting, which was nice at least for me, just to blow off steam and get my mind out of "performance" mode. My anxiety was understandably pretty high and it was nice to have a way to decompress a bit.
Early morning Sunday as well -- we escaped Mom's house with nary a guilt trip, surprisingly! The cats yowled the entire drive down to LAX. We stopped in Valencia/Santa Clarita for a smoothie and for me to give Mitsy and Buddy their kitty Valium (as the vet so aptly called it) for the flights. Buddy was distressed during the ascent on the first flight and spent a few minutes yelling, and a half hour or so bumping around after that, but after we brought them up (in their carriers) on our laps and zipped the carriers down around our arms so we could pet them a bit (Mitsy for me, and Buddy for Matt), they calmed down and were quiet the entire rest of the way -- in fact, they slept from the second flight onward.
We discovered back at Pittsburgh International that our checked bag was unfortunately not there to meet us. Luckily, it wasn't lost, just delayed, and it was delivered to us the next night. The kittens were absolutely terrified when we let them out of their carriers and spent that night hidden under our bookshelf/former TV armoire. The next day, Mitsy had settled in enough to venture out, but Buddy was still scared as hell. I took a nap that evening and while Mitsy slept at the top of the couch near my feet, Buddy came out while I was asleep and took up residence under the couch. Progress. ;)
They're both doing really well, and so are we.
***
I do have a few photos from Mom, Kim and one of our crazy-internet-friends. The professional photos that we got to see were just AMAZING. She'll be sending me a link to a slideshow within a week or so, and I will definitely post it here when she does. So, here are the photos I have.
I'll try to post in chronological order.
Making the flowers (the hydrangea ended up, um, very droopy by the wedding. Tip, kids: If you don't want to pay for an actual florist, suck it up and use silk)
All of us after our manicures and pedicures:
Me and Kim and my broken-bow-bouquet from my bridal shower
Rehearsal dinner (yummy Mexican food!):
Getting ready the morning of:
The dress is on!
"Look, ma, I can tie my own shoes!"
"OK, guys, are we done with all these pictures yet?"
While we were off having solo pictures taken:
Ally, Trish and Kim
Gordon and Tina
David, Elvira and Max
Trish, Debbie and Kim (the Lees), and Tracy and Ally (the Garners). A real family.
Coming back...
On the way...
At the ceremony...
The rings...
The kiss!
Um, we didn't do a recession. We were supposed to file straight into the head table. Only problem... my family had managed to sit at it. So we had to figure out a way to tell them "Um, hey. Move your asses!" only politely. ;) The amateur photographer on this one captioned it with "Matt, you'd better get used to this look..."
At the table:
Trying to get used to that thing on his finger:
Some group shots:
The group of internet crazies
And friends
***
And the update for today -- our photographer has a slideshow of photos up on her website. Check it out.