Irie mon...

In Jamaica it's ALL good. Loved being there and just getting the "relaxed" feel from everyone and everything. Not just because it was a resort and we were there to be pampered, but because Jamaicans are really just like, "No problem mon... whatever." We were in quite a few taxis during the week for different excursions, and there were many times I thought, "Holy cow, if someone did that at home fingers would be flying and horns would be honking!" But they didn't care, that's the way they roll.

Thoroughly enjoyed having a pina colada with ALMOST EVERY meal, laying in the sun with my new hubby, and listening to the reggae beats. Let's see if I can remember the highlights...have you grabbed a snack yet?

Day 1: Monday the 28th

• Our flight left Cincinnati airport at 7am before the SUN was even out of bed. We woke up and got there at a time that's just TOO early for any human being to be hauling around luggage and comprehending the phrase, "Do you have any liquids in your carry-ons?" The hotel breakfast didn't start until 6am, but they were nice and let us choose some fruit and cereal to eat before taking the shuttle to the airport, so I at least had some sustenance.
• Upon landing at the Charlotte airport, as soon as the wheels hit the ground and the breaks were applied, we SWIFTLY turned to the left as if we were a race car in the Indy 500. Everyone was shoved to the right and the right wing must have been INCHES from the ground as we veered around the curve! The flight attendant came over the speakers to say that we had landed in Charlotte, yada yada yada, and she started laughing! She said something like, "There seem to be complaints from the cabin about the driving...please stay seated and we'll try to get everyone off the flight without whiplash." HAHA! Apparently our pilot was in training! As we were walking off the plane, the attendant said that no matter how long he's been flying he still thinks he's driving a car. Good thing we arrived safely, and found out that he was in training after we landed!
  
• We had bagel sandwiches for lunch in Charlotte, and I felt like I was eating at Bagel Cafe again. Memories of jobs passed...
  
• After arriving at the Montego Bay airport and making our way to the luggage belts, we were in for quite a treat. Since the conveyors were so small, whenever luggage would come in it was put in rows on the floor. Dan searched all over the place for our bags. After a while of searching we figured our luggage was lost and went to the service desk. As soon as Dan mentioned that our luggage didn't arrive, they pointed behind us and there were our bags! What the?! Long story short, our luggage came in on an earlier flight.
  
• We were offered drinks by the Couples representatives and took a shuttle for two hours to the resort. By the time we got there, I think Dan and I were the only ones who hadn't fallen asleep - there were three other couples on the shuttle.
• We checked in around 3pm and found our room with a garden view. We took pictures and made reservations for a few things during the week. Once dinner time rolled around, we headed out to the buffet and remembered what it was like to eat all the food we wanted! Oops, there went those Weight Watcher points...it's our honeymoon, who CARES! I think there were as many desserts displayed as all the dinner food combined. :)

Day 2: Tuesday the 29th

• We caught up on SLEEP!
  
• We did the buffet for lunch (everyday because it's the only thing open for lunch), and only a couple hours passed before it started to storm. Man! It didn't last long, but the sun hid behind the clouds for the rest of the day. We talked to another couple and realized that it wasn't just us and our horrible luck with weather when we travel. Apparently it rains everyday in the afternoon. This was the beginning of a learning experience - if you want to do anything regarding the sun, you must get your lazy behind out of bed at SIX IN THE MORNING before the afternoon rains come along. Pish-ah, as IF! On vacation, let alone in the real world, six in the morning does not exist to me. Okay, so maybe on Wednesdays it does when I have to work early...but I digress.
• This may have been the day I discovered the free-flowing soft-serve ICE CREAM machine! Not like a fountain, since that would've been weird, but it was free just like everything else...the food, the pina coladas (and other drinks, but who cares about those), everything. Yummmm.
  
• We had reservations for the French restaurant, Le Gourmet, that night. It was odd to go to a restaurant and order five different courses without batting an eyelash about the price, or whether or not you could actually eat it all. It didn't matter. The appetizers were very cool because they were served how they SHOULD be served - small! Here in the good old US-of-A, when you order an appetizer you have to bring along four or five friends to eat it with you. But these appetizers were juuuuust right, single portions.

Day 3: Wednesday the 30th

• Another day of sleeping in...oops. We took an hour snorkeling lesson around 11am and a boat left right after that to take us and other snorkelers out to the reefs. We were equipped with our waterproof camera, but didn't end up with very clear shots. Still VERY cool. Note to self: while snorkeling DO NOT turn your head to look at something to the side of you...inevitably, you will end up inhaling salt water.
  
• Even though we had some light afternoon showers after lunch, we took out a kayak. No problem! We learned to kayak in Maine and have been hooked since.
  
• My wedding manicured nails were chipping beyond belief, so we made an appointment for Dan and I to have pedicures together and I had another manicure. I was quite impressed that he wanted to have a pedicure and actually enjoyed it.
  
• We had reservations for the Italian restaurant that night, Bayside. Very good meal and equally delicious dessert. Beautiful view also, since the restaurant was literally ON the water looking toward the resort and ocean. Our photos didn't turn out too well since it was in the evening, but we managed to get some good ones.
  

Day 4: Thursday the 31st

• The one and only day that it didn't rain...that morning before lunch we took a sailing lesson and I let Dan be the captain. He rocked.
  
• Horseback riding on a plantation! I had never been on a horse on my life, so this was a new experience for me. Pretty fun, though kinda scary when my horse would lose its footing on a muddy hill, but no one fell! My horse's name was Easy King, and Dan's was Charlie. And we had a guide that looked like Snoop Dog. In the middle of the ride, they stopped us at a clearing and a guy climbed one of the coconut trees... a Jamaican monkey... and then told us about all different types of Jamaican fruits and flowers. In case you didn't know, for the men, coconut water will "put lead in your pencil." Who KNEW?!
  
• We tried the remaining restaurant at the resort because it didn't require reservations. Delicious as well! Loved the decor also, with fabric draped across the ceilings and everything in pink, red, and white.
  

Day 5: Friday the 1st

• That afternoon we got to take a shopping trip into town. A taxi van dropped off a group of us and came back after a couple of hours. We were told to barter with the store people and to watch out for followers and drug dealers...awesome. We had a good experience overall, and I think we Dan bartered pretty well. We shopped in two different stores, only bought a little drum from one of them, and from the other store we got quite a few t-shirts and souvenirs for only $45. Go Dan!
  
• At the end of the shopping trip it started POURING. We got into the van just in time. We were scheduled to have a Catamaran Cruise (why not just call it what it is - a booze cruise) around 3pm, but it was rescheduled because of the rain. Boo-hoo.
• Since we didn't know what else to do back at the resort, Dan went to the bar for a few to-go drinks, and we ran through the rain to take advantage of a forest hot tub. Good way to spend a rain shower - in a hot tub listening to the rain on the roof and trees.
  

Day 6: Saturday the 2nd

• The Catamaran was rescheduled for 3pm this day, but was gosh-darn canceled for good because of a rain shower that didn't last very long! By 3:00 we could've been boarding the boat in the sunshine - with pina colada in hand.
  
• Instead, we just relaxed the day away laying on the beach and taking pictures.
  

Day 7: Sunday the 3rd

• Dunn's River Falls. No need to say anymore, but I will. Our video guide for this was hi-LAR-ious! Also looking a little like Snoop Dog (I'm noticing a trend here), he called himself Big Poppa...or Big Papa, not sure. Anyway, he gave us a little pep talk beforehand, along the lines of "I'll be your camera man and I like it SPICY, YEA?! We are a TEAM! We hold hands and stick together! All for one and one for all! If somebody falls, what do you do? (Enter group here saying, 'We fall too!') HELL no! You let them GO!" We had regular guides for the walk climb UP the falls, and then we had Big Poppa following us around motioning for us to do different things on video because he liked it spicy. And every once in a while he'd look at a girl and touch his chest real quick to motion like her top had fallen down...just for good video measure. On the way back out to our taxi van we were able to check out some of the "shops." This was where we really got sucked in - people coming up to us from every direction telling us they had free things for us, or that they would follow us back to the resort if we didn't have money with us, etc. And when you would ask where the exit was, they were super sneaky in telling you the WRONG WAY! We finally found the exit and got our booties out of there... after we bought some cute dolls.
• We also had a half-hour couple's massage since it was our last day. It was heeeeeavenly and complementary.
  
• After the massage we walked around the resort to take more pictures. When we were about done taking the shots we wanted, I remembered that we saw a Hard Rock on our way back from Dunn's River. Hard Rock means collectible bears and I really wanted one from Jamaica. I mentioned the idea to Dan and we went to guest services to see how much a cab would be. We also had them find the phone number for us to see how long the shop was open on a Sunday. It was about 5:20pm when we called and the shop was going to close at 6:00! We weren't going to make it if we had to wait for a cab to get there and take us. By some funny chance a van had just pulled up with new guests to the resort, and the guest services lady asked the driver if he would take us. She would call a cab to pick us up from Hard Rock. Awesome! We jumped in the van and were taken to get a precious collectible bear, along with some t-shirts and a pair of drumsticks for my rockin' little brother.
  

Day 8: Monday the 4th

• Our nice, relaxing, reggae-filled vacation had come to an end. Again, had to be up way too early and have our bags outside the room door by 6am. Tried to eat some cereal before getting on the shuttle at 7am. Two hours and we were at the airport, going through security and checking the shops for last minute souvenirs and gifts - including some Jamaican Rum, can't leave without that.
  
• Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 11am, so we had an early lunch at Jimmy Buffet's airport restaurant. The flight to Charlotte was pretty good, but somehow we were delayed getting in and had to RUN to get our luggage and get through customs. We made it to the gate on time, with time to spare actually. Just a matter of time until we were back in good old Cincy. Or not. The pilot took us off the runway and said that a bad storm in Cincinnati wasn't letting planes fly in or out. And he would check back with us in a half-hour to give us an update. WHAT? A half-hour, water and bag of pretzels later...we get to wait another half-hour. Another half-hour later...we get to wait one more half-hour and see what Cincinnati says. Our flight was supposed to arrive at 7pm... and it arrived around 9pm instead. Never a dull moment!
• My dad waited for us the entire time. I told him in Charlotte to go home and we would get a cab. We only live five minutes from the airport anyway. But he refused. Tear-jerkingly sweet. It was good to see him when we got off the plane.
  
• Upon getting to our apartment and Dan trying to unlock the door, he dropped a bottle of Rum he was carrying in his arms. One down, three to go. Luckily they were still wrapped up and in a box somewhere. And we got our last whiff of Jamaica for the night, right outside our front door.
  

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is my final installment of these crazy long wedding posts! I'm glad to be done and moving onto new things - but what could be more fun than daily novels of my wedding? Right...

Photos are still up at photos.rye-designs.com!

P.S. Who's watching HGTV's new season of Design Star? Why did they put that long, blond-haired guy on there? (Todd?) Honestly. He's going to have Eiffel Towers and glitter all over the place, no contest with him!

Next in line...

...is the reception. But before that, let's talk about this BIG thing in the works. Did you figure it out yet? Dan and I started our own website! We bought the domain on June 18th after Dan got back from his boys' weekend. I was in limbo on where to post the honeymoon photos and wedding photos so friends and family could download them. Back and forth... It was just the PUSH we needed to get our butts in gear on the site/business and server space ideas we had rolling around. After checking through quite a few domain names that were already taken, rye-designs.com was it.

So a lot of designing has gone on around here. I'm pulling up the designing end of this show, and Dan is obviously taking care of the programming end (with some surprising design work from him also.) We'll learn him some Photoshop yet! That's about it on the big news... things just coming together, looking cool, and will be up soon. MUCHO exciting! Still a lot to do before we're really "in business" like more samples, contracts, documents, documents, and more documents.

Little funny from the other day:
Dan: I'd like to have the first phase of our site up by Friday...
Vicki: Friday?! Yikes, you run a tight shift!
Dan: You mean a tight ship?
Vicki: Yeah, that too...
Dan: You remind me of the foreign girl from NCIS...

[Back to your regularly scheduled program.]

I don't think I mentioned anything about our guest book in the wedding post. Instead of a traditional book for guests to sign, we wanted something different there as well. We found a white wooden wishing well on sale at Hobby Lobby and decided to make cards out of metallic paper that said, "Wishes for the couple..." The guests wrote special messages and tossed their wishes into the well. Loved it. To save the cards and display them, we're going to take each card and match it up (hopefully) with the corresponding photo from our photographer, and put them all together in a 4x6 album.

Another special touch was our wedding favors. I looked and thought for months to come up with the perfect wedding favor. Since our theme included storybooks and happily-ever-afters, things like bookmarks and personalized candy tins (just because I liked them) topped our list. One day at church we were talking to someone about our favor dilemma and she mentioned the charity ideas she had seen at weddings lately. Dan and I had never discussed charity ideas, but it started to make sense. And it must have been the direction we were supposed to take, because soon Dan came up with the best idea ever. We decided to buy one children's book per guest... bought post-it papers... and asked guests to stick a special message inside each book. The best part of all - the books would go on the next mission trip with our church to Mamelodi, South Africa. For those children. And they would read the special messages. Soooooo precious!

If you've seen the photos already, there really isn't much extra to explain of the reception. It seemed to fly by in a flurry of music, food, dancing, talking to guests, and more dancing. As hard as I tried to really stop and take in the special moments, we were paraded from one event to another. Totally fun, but has left us looking at photos saying, "Wow, were we really there?!"

We had a limo for us and our four main party members (no juniors), and started the festivities with champagne. Once we got to the reception hall, our wedding party walked in to U2's "Beautiful Day" and we walked in to Duran Duran's "Sunshine." Such a fun song. The entire wedding party lined up on the dance floor so guests could take photos if they wanted. The rest of the night unfolded as follows...

1. FOOD - I inevitably dropped asparagus and sauce on my dress and Sheri used a Tide-to-go pen on it. We should've had our video camera making a commercial out of it.
2. Toasts - Best Man (Mike), Matron of Honor (Sheri), and my dad. I think Mike and Sheri had the audience laughing, while my dad had them crying.
3. Love Story - Too cool how Dan included a clip from our proposal video into the slide show
4. Cake Cutting - (Sarah McLachlan "Ice Cream") cut to ("Hit Me With Your Best Shot")
5. First Dance - (Jimmy Wayne "You Are")
6. Father/Daughter – (Heartland "I Loved Her First") At the end of this dance, my dad motioned for Dan to come to the dance floor so he could give me away. Such a tear-jerker when they hugged...there's a photo of that.
7. Mother/Son - (Taylor Hicks "Do I Make You Proud")
8. Garter Toss - (Justin Timberlake "Sexy Back") Had to put this song somewhere, and it was perfect! Dan gave me a personal dance, too hilarious. His friend, Alex, caught the garter.
   
9. Bear Toss for boys - Dan's little brother, Kris, caught it.
   
10. Bouquet Toss - ("Girls just want to have fun") Rob's girlfriend, Amy, caught it. My mom said, "Uh oh, Rob!"
    
11. Bear Toss for girls - A friend's daughter, Madison, caught it.
    
12. Money Dance - ("If I Had a Million Dollars") A ton of fun dancing and twirling!
    
13. Anniversary Dance – Multiple songs, Dan's grandparents were longest married!
    
14. Get the PARTY STARTED!!!

Once the reception was over we had to collect the things we wanted and divide them between parents. Our cake top, extra cake, charity books, our wishing well, whatever. Rob and his girlfriend drove us to our hotel near the airport. About halfway through the drive I seriously thought Rob would have to pull over, and I had Dan undo and pull out my bra so I could breathe! I felt better after that. Once we got in the room, I also had Dan pull out my zillion bobby pins so my head could breathe too!

All in all, it was a wonderful day and I wouldn't have asked for anything different (except the addition of more time). We have all of the video and photos to remember our big day forever, quirks and all. Just perfect. And if I've forgotten anything, I'm sure I'll hear about it from Dan or in the comments. ;) Can't thank our wedding party and families enough for all they did, for being there, and for making our day that much more memorable.

Another little funny - Dan told me the morning after that the reception was a huge blur for him... he didn't really hear the music or people talking to him, nothing. But while he was sleeping the entire reception played in his head. All of the conversations he had, all of the songs, our first dance - it all played back like he recorded it as he went along. I think his addiction to DVR has finally gotten to him. ;) At least he got to experience the whole reception, even if it was hours later, lol.

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?