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...