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?