Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Going to the chapel...

...and we're gonna get mar-ar-arried.

[Warning: I would suggest a hefty snack and drink before committing to this post. If you already have a snack and drink, I suggest going to get reserves. You were warned.]

Here are some details of our big day to set the stage...

  • You may remember in the beginning that we chose purple and green as our wedding colors, with light blue and light yellow as accents. In February when I decided on the bronze and pearl metallic invitations, the blue and yellow pretty much went out the window. Our wedding colors were lilac and sage. Our stationery colors were bronze and pearl, with lilac and sage font touches throughout.
  • Our bridesmaids wore long sage dresses with light ivory sashes, while our groomsmen wore black tuxes with sage vests and ties. I wore a light ivory (pearl) wedding gown with a sage sash, and Dan wore a light ivory vest and tie with his black tux.
  • We decided early on, with the save-the-dates, that we wanted to have our storybook love theme...a true fairytale in the making. Everything would make reference to our love story, how we met and were writing a story of love together, that our family and friends were all a part of our love story, and we wanted them to help us celebrate our next chapter and our happily ever after. And, of course, stories are a scrapper's passion. ;)
  • Our invitation was simple, yet beautiful. Besides the text, a custom "R" monogram topped the 4x9-inch invite, and our "victoria&daniel 5.27.07" was carried over from our save-the-dates and placed at the bottom for continuity. We printed on the pearl metallic paper, and framed it with bronze cardstock. Instead of a response card with a smaller envelope, we opted for a response postcard. Again, printed on pearl paper, but matched exactly with the size of the bronze paper for backing and durability while traveling the snail mail system. We also included a double-sided pearl sheet with directions and a map. Our envelope was the size of a standard mailing envelope, but opened from the side rather than the top, very cool. It was also made of pearl metallic paper. Loved every bit of this stationery goodness.
  • Our program was the best of all. It was put together like a book. The cover was a sheet of bronze cardstock folded in half, with a 2-inch circle punched near the top for our "R" monogram to show through it. The inside was one sheet of pearl paper folded in half, printed on both sides. The thing I loved about our program is that we designed it like a playbill. Our love story was to be performed with "special love story guests" for our audience. Genius! The wedding was Act I. We listed out all of the scenes and included an intermission between the ceremony and reception. The reception was Act II and included a dinner theatre and chance for the audience to meet the cast. All of the characters were listed inside the program with their roles in the love story, and special thank yous were written to the cast and audience. By the way, I don't think I mentioned this, but our rehearsal dinner was termed a "cast party" on its invitation. Totally fun.
  • Something else we wanted to give out to guests were either bookmarks or magnets. Once I saw a few other people posting custom tickets on their blogs, I had to get in on the action. They were perfect to go with our playbill. I did a little recoloring to make them lilac and sage, and printed them myself on magnet sheets. Everyone loved them! Our photographer even took a couple and stuck them on his fridge.
Now to the story...

The day, May 27th, 2007 to be exact, started out like any other...I didn't want to get out of bed when the alarm went off at 8am, but knew that I had to. After showers, packing, and checking-out of the hotel, we were a few minutes late for our 10am appointment at the hair salon. Oops. My mom met us there with my "holy" veil and scissors, but we'll get to that later.

Sheri and I were first for our up-dos, and sweet Mandy went to get us muffins and drinks at a store within walking distance. About the time I dug into my blueberry goodness, Patrick the photographer showed up ready for action. Everyone rotated between hair and makeup and the time flew past us! Around noon my younger brother, Rob, showed up to have his hair styled (he does like his grooming), and I said to him, "What are you doing here so early?!" And yet, he was right on time. We, on the other hand, were not. Patrick enjoyed taking a few shots of Rob and his girlfriend. Before Patrick left to head toward the church, he wanted a final group shot. My makeup lady was rushed for time and refused to lose a second, but we did it quickly anyway. Wedding photos, lady! Wedding photos! ONCE in a lifetime photo opportunity here.

I had already paid for our stuff in advance (another gift for my bestest girls), but I wanted to buy a lip gloss in the shade of lipstick I was wearing. After that, we were out the door! Rob's appointment must have ended right after we left. As soon as we got onto the highway (and saw a cop sitting in the median like it was his job) we noticed Rob flying by us at some outrageous speed. In my mom's car, no less. I immediately gave him a holla' on the cell phone and told him he better slow down! Aren't big sisters the best? I told him he could follow us to the church if he didn't really know directions, so he did.

While I don't know the official storyline here, Dan was busy all morning making sure that our flowers were divided, putting together our unity candle materials, and who knows what else. He even had a problem finding the corsage pins (because I had them), and sent his Best Man out to Michael's to get more pins. After hearing about his stress and all the things he had to do, I wish we would've delegated more tasks to our ushers, greeters, and parents. But, we knew the tasks best and weren't really sure how to delegate them. Now I get to warn Mandy of things like that for her wedding.

When we got to the church, Sheri called Dan and told him to go into LOCK-DOWN mode. We had landed and were about to enter the building! The paparazzi...I mean...Patrick was waiting and snapped photos as we walked in the door. We got to our room and shut the door. Dan called a few minutes later to make sure everything was clear. Sheri went straight to work on my veil. She found an index card that was exactly the right height and used it as a guide for cutting off the bottom part with the hole. Mandy used the scissors after that to cut my sash from a spool of satin ribbon. Since my mom went home to get dad after the salon, they weren't to the church yet with my dress. They didn't take too long, though, and soon after the rest of the party and parents arrived. Getting my dress on was fun considering I wasn't wearing a slip with it and Patrick wanted to take photos of Sheri putting it over my head. I left my capri pants on and changed into the bra for my dress. Sheri stood on a chair and put the dress on over my head. Then, I shimmied the pants off and Mandy pulled them out from under the dress. Hopefully that sentence doesn't show up on any dirty web searches.

The remaining hour or so was spent putting on jewelry, getting things together, and making sure sashes looked okay, etc. We did have a slight scare when Sheri couldn't find Dan's wedding band and thought it was in her car! Rob's girlfriend went out to get Sheri's husband so he could get her bag. He searched through her bag and didn't find a ring box. I was apparently as calm as ever, just like the veil incident. Dan found out that we didn't have his ring when he saw Amy talking to Sheri's husband. Oops, he wasn't supposed to know! Then, Sheri said that she remembered laying the box on the table, and I soon realized that I stuck it in my bag! I thought it was the box for my earrings. Double oops! The ring was found and safe again. With a half-hour or so left to go, a couple of my aunts came in to see me, and my dad did also. I thought that would be a tear-jerking moment for me, but it wasn't. No tears. We took a couple pictures and practiced our walk.

Finally, 2:30 rolled around. Just a little bit longer to make sure guests were seated. I took the tic-tacs out of my purse and poured some into my mouth, and then passed them around. I kept holding my arms up to make sure I wasn't sweating on my dress (nice visual, eh?). Then, the time arrived. My mom was escorted by Rob, and Dan's mom was escorted by him. The bridesmaids were matched up with their groomsmen and told when to walk down the aisle. I couldn't see any of this because I was still around the corner in the dressing room, waiting for the right time to walk out into the hallway. When it was clearer for me to walk in the hallway, I could hear "Canon in D" playing from the chapel. The double doors to the chapel were closed once the wedding party made it to the altar.

As I heard Cinderella's "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes," I knew it was my turn. Dad wanted to wait until everyone was ready and the doors were opened for us, but I didn't want to be late to my song! We both started walking and the double doors opened to my handsome, smiling groom, our wedding party, and friends and family standing at my arrival. Once I heard my song and knew what was going on, I felt the tug on my heart-strings, but stayed smiling and it soon passed.

In the middle of the ceremony, after our vows and exchange of rings, we wanted to light a unity candle in our own creative way. When Jack Johnson's "Better Together" started playing, both of our moms walked up the altar steps to light the outside candles. We all watched as my mom and Dan's mom stuck their matchsticks into altar candles to get a flame.

[Warning: the next part can really only be described by watching the video we have, but I'll try to do it justice by describing what happened in the video. ]

We all watched as my mom spent a good 30 seconds with her matchstick down in the altar candle. Once she brought the matchstick out and carried it over to light our outside candle, it was like clockwork the way everyone had the same facial expression. Mandy started with an "oh" face and gave Sheri a look that said, "Ha, are you serious?!" Sheri then proceeded with an "oh" face herself. Mike on the other side is just slightly smiling the whole time and gives a small "oh" face before going back to smiling. And I have a huge smile on my face, about to laugh watching my mom and her crazy flame. The next thing we know, my mom is trying to shake the matchstick to put out the flame, and part of the fire goes flying down to the ground...right underneath Dan's mom's dress! By now, Sheri has her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing loudly, and she points to the ground with an "OH!" At the same time, Sheri, Dan, and our officiant all leap toward Dan's mom, and Dan stomps out the fire with his shoe. Then they all return to their places while everyone in the room is laughing at what just occurred. I'm not even sure half of the guests know what happened since we were all standing around the scene. Some people thought Sheri had fainted and Dan was lunging forward to catch her, which is a good story in itself!

Anyway, once the moms were done lighting our outside candles, they went to their seats. Dan and I walked forward to light our candle. We had two tall vases on each side, mine filled with dry purple wax and Dan's filled with green. We took turns pouring our colored wax into a larger candle vase with a wick, creating our own unity candle with layers of purple and green. After we lit our creation, we went back to our spots.

The ceremony finished and we all marched out of the chapel to the "Wedding March Recessional." Our officiant started an encore and the guests stood up again and clapped as Dan and I skipped back up the aisle, bowed at the altar, and dismissed our guests. We dismissed everyone row by row and our greeters gave them bubbles and lined them up following our wedding party. It's hard to explain, but we had to walk around through the hallway and exit a different set of doors where everyone was lined up with the bubbles. We got into our limo, snapped some more photos, and we were off! .... around to the other side of the building! We went back into the church and met our parents and party for pictures.

I think I need to stop my novel right here before it goes a half mile down the page. I need to go to a detailoholics anonymous club, my goodness. If you've made it all the way to the bottom, even by skimming, I'll tell you that there's something BIG in the works right now! You'll all find out about it soon enough...some sooner than others...and you'll know at least one piece within the next couple days. Mandy and Sheri, you pretty much already know, sorry to get your hopes up. ;)

I have the wedding and honeymoon photos up (at least the wedding ones we've received from Patrick so far), so look for an email from me with the link. Oh, and today Dan and I have been an old married couple (as Mandy would say) for one month! Where does the time go?

Friday, June 15, 2007

The final countdown...

"Do-do-DOO-doooo, do-do-DO-DO-doooo...the FI-nal COUNT-down..."

You know, the only thing wrong with associating my blogger with a new email address and starting from scratch is that I don't have my old comments anymore. Now I have to gain new ones. You guys better start throwing the comments left and right! I already got one from Michelle yesterday, thanks Michelle! :)

[Weeks]
In the weeks and days leading up to the wedding, Dan and I were doing something every night related to the wedding. If we weren't shopping at Hobby Lobby or Target, or shopping for honeymoon clothes, we were scanning photos, designing and printing things, or trying to cut down on our major to-do list. Our officiant, Lori, suggested early on that we take at least a day each week to be together with no wedding planning. HA! Too bad we were stuck too far into the planning muck to waste any time on togetherness stuff.

[Days]
Every day seemed to bring new ideas, which was really cool. Each idea brought our dream wedding theme closer and closer. During the last week we still had to make our programs, our love story CD (slide show), and put all of our ideas into reality. People would ask if we had everything done and, of course, the answer was no. But I knew I had put together our complete invitations within a few days, so programs would be no problem for my cutting-and-craft-loving hands. Double HA! On the Friday before the wedding, my parents came down to pick up my dress from being steamed at the cleaners, and his parents/grandparents came down to bring him some more baby pictures for the slide show. That night we had all of them putting together our programs and other things. I had printed most of the inside pages during the week while Dan punched 2-inch holes in the covers and creased all of them, so the big parts were done already. We had a regular old assembly line on our living room couch. I trimmed the inside sheets and creased them, my dad lined up the inside sheets with the covers and punched holes in them for ribbon, my mom cut the ribbon and laced it through for tying. We made 120 programs in a few hours. Our flower vases were also ready to go, our wedding party gifts were wrapped, and who knows what else. Thank goodness for family. (That's right girls, I really didn't wrap your gifts. The secret's out!)

[Rehearsal day]
Saturday the 26th was rehearsal day. We had already sent out invites for that a few weeks before and they matched our wedding invites. Everyone met at the church by 1:00p for the "rehearsal for the big performance." I was somewhat hit with the idea that I was getting married, but it still didn't seem real. As Dan and I stood at the altar and he looked me in the eyes so seriously, all I wanted to do was laugh. We had asked his friend, Sonya, and my cousin, Jenny, to be greeters about a month before, but I wasn't really sure what all of their duties were so I let Dan handle most of that along with the ushers' duties. Maybe I should have been more in tune there...maybe? Maybe.

After rehearsing twice, we walked to the other side of the church for a late lunch. Yes, our church has "other sides" it's so huge. We had a catered meal from a guy that does a lot of our church functions, and the food was delicious! We gave our party and parents their gifts after lunch. All of my girls received canvas tote bags with their first names, in their favorite color. I even received one myself, wink wink. All of Dan's guys were given silver cuff links with their initials engraved. And the parents and grandparents were given candles in vases that we personalized with messages. Our officiant was also given a candle with a special message. Loved all of the gifts we chose. Hope they were loved just as much.



The rehearsal was over before I knew it, and we didn't get to toast/thank the friends and family or anything. A little bummed about that, but I had thank you cards to give the next day anyway. Dan parted with his best man, and I went with Mandy and Sheri back to my apartment to finish packing and finalize things. When we got to the apartment, I realized I didn't have my gate opener with me because Dan drove that morning. Oops...well all we had to do was call Dan on the call box and he would let us in the gate! Mandy called and said (in a manly voice) that she was the stripper on order for me, and a very confused Dan said "What?" I don't remember if he actually opened the gate for us, or if someone else was driving by, but we were successful! Then, Dan called me on my cell phone and I thought he was going to ask me about the stripper, but instead he reminded me that if I didn't have my gate opener I didn't have my keys either, which meant I wasn't going to get into the apartment anytime soon. DOH! So we drove back down to the front office and caught the office girl getting in her car to leave. I was able to get a spare key, and while the gate was still open we darted through it. "Roll out!"

Where am I going with this story? Well, I started to pack up my things, get bachelorette photos from Sheri, and try to get my head together. While in the bathroom I saw that the shower curtain was halfway open and remembered my veil was hanging up to de-wrinkle. I pulled back the shower curtain...no veil hanging. I looked down in the tub...amongst pieces of kitty litter from my little darlings' feet was my veil...with holes in it. AAAHHHH! Sheri and Mandy were immediately on guard. No sooner had I showed them the veil, Mandy was on the internet looking for places with veils in stock. I had to finish packing, so I did that while they were making phone calls. Dan came home soon after that and we didn't say a word about the veil. We just said goodbye in a hurry, and I told him he had to finish packing my Jamaica suitcases. What a good man he is.

David's in Florence was the first stop since they were going to close in half an hour. We flew in that place, women on a mission. "Get out of the way people, stat!" I found a veil pretty quickly and asked an employee if it was in stock. Granted I only paid $15 for my first veil, and this new one was $70, I was fine with the price hike. It had pearls on it and I was desperate! The girl came back and told us that they didn't have anymore in stock so we'd HAVE to take the one off the rack. Umm, did you even look at it? It has holes in it just like mine does! No sale, goodbye rude girl.

There was a Wendy's bridal down the street, but it was closed so we went to Hobby Lobby. Good old Hobby Lobby...we went straight for the bridal aisles and found basically my exact veil on sale for $6. Hallelujah, let's go! We made a Starbuck's run and headed up to our hotel to check in. Once we got to the hotel, I looked at it and the girls and said I would be fine finding a different place to stay, lol. It was in a nice area, just not very nice looking and a lot of (excuse my stereotyping) drug-deal-looking people standing around outside. Buuuut, it was a holiday weekend and we only checked out one other hotel before deciding that we weren't going to find another place and I'd be charged if we cancelled. Ho-hum. So we stayed together like glue and held our bags close, locked the car doors, and made a dash to our room. It was on the nicer side of the hotel, facing the pool, so that made us feel better.

We weren't there long until we had to meet my mom and junior bridesmaids at the nail salon for our manicures and pedicures. None of us had ever been to that nail salon so it was an interesting experience, but fun to have everyone together doing girly things. Speaking of...there are pictures of us somewhere...I think Sheri's hoarding them.

After the nails, my dad met me, mom, Sheri and Mandy at O'Charley's. I had a nice accident involving a strawberry daiquiri and a to-go cup, and the waitress probably thought I had a little too much. ("...And some funny navels...I mean fuzzy navels!") I also took my new veil along to give to my mom so she could steam it at home. Yippee to that! Until we got back to the hotel that is. My mom had already been home and tried to steam the veil with her iron, and called me to say that she burned a hole in the bottom of it. *Sigh* What else could go wrong on rehearsal day, huh? We figured I wasn't meant to have a veil on my wedding day. I told her to bring the veil and a pair of scissors with her to the salon in the morning and we would work something out of it. The hole was at the bottom anyway, it was our only option at that point.

Back at the hotel I wrote out my party thank you cards and called Dan to tell him about our veil mishaps. The poor boy was still working on our slide show and other things. Sheri perfected her speech with Mandy under the covers of their bed so I wouldn't hear. Hmmm...yeah. I don't remember what we did, but somehow I didn't go to sleep until after 1:00am. The bride needed more beauty sleep than that! And the next morning we had to wake up and be at the hair salon by 10:00am.

Well that's all of my novel you get to read for today. I'll have the wedding day details up soon enough. How's that for suspense? I need to finish making my wedding thank you cards! Please tell me I get a month after the wedding to send these things out...

Another teaser...

Must. write. something...

I know that my few faithful readers (ha) have been missing me, so it's time to jot down some memories before I forget them. Dan and I have been back from our honeymoon for almost two weeks, and I have yet to decide where I'm going to post my photos. I love my photosite for the personalization and color (and because I'm chunking out the cash for more photo room), yet I love my google album because it is so crisp and clear, and I can upload at full resolution (but has limited space). Decisions...maybe I should rethink where my money is going. It would be nice to have wedding and honeymoon photos on the same site and at least have our photographer's photos at full resolution for people to download. Ok, shut it Vicki, let's move on and stop boring readers.

[May 18th]
On the 18th I had my bachelorette party, and it reinforced the fact that I'm not and will never be a party gal. I wanted a party that would be more "me," and not "last fling, let's all get plastered." It was a lot of fun just to be with the girls, eating dinner at Bar Louie, and knowing that we were all going to play games at my apartment afterwards. Well...the first thing my co-worker Kathy did was buy everyone a tequila shot. Tequila...hello? I don't think so. I'm a fruity-mixed-drink-kind of girl here. I refused it while everyone else drank up and that didn't make Kathy too happy, so in the middle of the meal I gave Sheri half of my shot and she took it with me. Here's a photo of that event... you like the get-up that Sheri shoved on me provided?



I think good times were had by all, especially when Sheri broke out the bachelorette party playing cards and had the girls doing random things. It was classic when our waiter was at the computer putting in an order and Erin quickly walked past and pinched his butt. CLASSIC! We were rolling on the floor, and our waiter was such a trooper. Mandy went up to some table full of guys and made the manliest guy there tell all of his friends that s*x didn't matter to him! And I got a picture with another waiter wearing my antennas. I think I'll keep that picture to myself for that poor guy's anonymity. Here's a photo of Sheri and Mandy getting ready to do a yager bomb together. Did I even spell that right? I'm alcoholically challenged over here. Notice Sheri's tongue sticking out to say, "Mmmmm!"





Since two of the girls didn't come back to the apartment to play games with us, Kathy diverted us to a nearby sports bar. We walked in and everyone cheered! We sat at the bar next to some balding guy who proceeded to tell Mandy about his ex-wife, his living arrangments, his mother, and other liquor-induced rambling. Poor Mandy, lol. Although, we did have a good laugh when he pervertedly said, "The carpet doesn't have to match the drapes!" I don't remember now what caused that comment, but we all had a good look at each other like it was time to go, lol. Four shots or so later, a couple more bachelorette playing cards down, and me about to hurl, we decided to leave.

Sheri planned some fun, dirty games for us to play and also had cake. After stepping in the door and going to the bathroom, all I wanted to do was lay on the couch in my sickened state. Once I feel sick, I'm useless. Look what you girls did to me! :) No cake for me, but I tried to play some games from my spot on the couch. I wasn't moving for anything! Dan eventually came home and babied me with crackers, water, and advil until I took another bathroom break and passed out in bed. Let me give you some advice, okay? If you ever have four or more sweet shots in one night, before passing out make sure to brush your teeth! I woke up the next morning and went to brush my teeth, only to feel like the enamel had been drilled off my top teeth at the gums. *Shivers* Other than that, I felt great! Just saying...

[May 19th]
On the 19th, Dan had his bachelor party thrown by the best man and groomsman. They all went paintballing during the day and went to a bar that night. Here's the handsome groom in all his drunken glory...



My dad went to the bar portion of his party for a little bit with his video camera. I got to watch the footage and I'm sure it'll bring good memories in the future, especially if our kids watch it... priceless. "Look kids, your daddy had pretty girls writing dirty things all over his t-shirt and taking shots out of his lap! Doesn't that look like fun?!" Dan put this photo in our "love story" slide show at the reception and everyone cheered when they saw it. Men...

Speaking of the reception, and wedding for that matter, I'll write more on those topics this weekend. Otherwise this post will keep me up late into the night and be a mile long. What's new, right? Dan left tonight to spend a camping/boating weekend with the guys, so it's just little old me with a ton to keep me busy.

Here's a teaser. Everyone say it with me, "Aaaaaahhhhhh."
(That's a nude island, by the way...)

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Don't be afraid...

If you've noticed that the old blogger's a little bare, have no fear! I'm just switching email accounts, starting fresh, and moving the old posts over here. Ahhhh...new name, fresh start, I like it! ;)

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