Today's the day...

14 years ago today at about this time, I was running over to the hotel where we were having the reception to go and decorate the hall.

When we (Mom, MIL to be in a few hours, Maid of honor & her sister) got there we found that the carpet in the hall that we were promised would be brand new or at least shampooed...was FILTHY! Almost black. The tables were already set and the room was supposedly ready for our reception, as it was supposed to be.. The table clothes had not only stains on them but had actual remains of food on them. Glasses that were set at the tables had lip stick and or water rings on them. So seeing that the only thing that we could decorate was the gift table, Maid of honor & her sister stayed to decorate that while the rest of us headed over to the office.

The person that had set up our event was not there, her day off. So we had to deal with the manager who was at first shocked that we did not approve of the hall. But the rest of the staff had seen the mess and had already started taking care of things. The table cloths were removed and clean ones were rented at no charge (funny if we had chose to go with colored table cloths they would have had to be rented...but since we didn't want the extra expense we chose the hotel's white! I should have demanded they get me the colored cloths! But my brain wasn't working all that well because of the stress.) I still to this day wonder how in the world they thought they were going to get away with that. The manager promised me that his staff would help with the decorations since I couldn't stay to do it and instead of a regular room that we had reserved I would be staying in a suite that evening.

They began to clean the carpets but since there was an all day insurance class next door and they began to complain about the noise, the cleaning had to wait until lunch break...which meant the carpets were still very wet by the time our reception started.

Well since I couldn't decorate anything, we left the decorations with MIL & Maid of Honor & her sister. I had to trust that they would take care of everything and they did.

Mom & I headed to the hair dresser to get our hair done. And Mom decided to pay for it after I started writing out the check. LOL, she's like that.

We went back to our house and still frazzled, I took a bath. My mom offered to get me a valium from one of her friends. AS IF! I was not going to be drugged out on my wedding day with a drug that I've never taken before that wasn't prescribed for me. I know she was just trying to calm me down...but seriously!

After my bath I did my nails, having to apply a few fake nails because some had broken that week when my car's battery decided to short out when I gave my friend a jump and she didn't replace the cover on the terminals. I think I had 2 fakes on each hand. LOL

My friend came over to do my make up for me, she did Mom's too. Then I left for the Church. I got there before the guy with the key, but he showed up soon afterward and informed me that Lutherans are never on time. I laughed because I'm "chronically early." My therapist told me later that this was a problem because I stress out big time if I'm ever late.

I got to wait around for a long time in the bride's room as I got there early. My photographer got there early too. He was very sweet and got me a bottled water at the conveinence store next door. My attendants arrived and we started getting dressed. I found out that after my Mom had sabotaged my efforts to have all the attendants wearing their hair in the same style, two of them (the ones that Mom had talked to) had gone and had their hair done together anyway! I vowed to only do what my child askes me to for her wedding...nothing more.

We had to wait to start the wedding because... my grandmother who had asked me to invite my one uncle to the wedding so that he could drive her, needed my brother to come and get her because said uncle didn't show up. So brother goes to get her and we are waiting for them to arrive in traffic... Meanwhile I'm sweating in my gown...great.

Finally only 30 minutes late (remember my "chronic earliness"?) they arrive and we can begin the wedding.

I remember white knuckling my bouquet and that my tissue (in case I cried) was plastered into the handle of it. I remember the pastor starting with "The Peace of the Lord be with You." and the rest of the congregation says "and also with you" while I said "Amen." Luckily I wasn't wearing a mike. The rest of the ceremony, I don't remember much of... but my co-workers reported back to me that while I was saying my vows and I came to the part "...before God and these witnesses..." there was a very loud crack of thunder. It was also reported to me later that I was kinda spining on my knees...I didn't lock my knees 'cuz everyone said I would pass out if I did that. So I was from the knees up rotating in a circle. So glad the video camera's battery had died at that point...

Which brings up another thing. DF & I did NOT want our wedding video tapped. But Future FIL & Future MIL insisted on doing it anyway. And Future FIL knew that the battery was getting low in the camera, but he had forgotten to change it out. So due to the lateness of grandmother, the video that we have shows everyone of my guests arriving. I had only put the reserved ribbon on the very front pew for the parents. All the rest of my family were expected to sit in other pews. However, being the very smart people that they are, they had all tried to cramm into the first pew...a pew made to hold 4 people MAX. So in the video you get to see my family trying to figure out how they were going to fit both of my grandmothers, my uncle, my grandfather's cousin, my brother and then my mom and her boyfriend. I would have to look at the video again, but I believe that it ended up just being my grandmothers, the cousin, my mom & her boyfriend shoved into the pew. The rest of the family had not realized the boyfriend was supposed to sit there too and I don't know why in the world the cousin felt that she was entitled to sit in that front pew... none of them had received any of the cards that you're supposed to use to indicate they get to sit there. My mom reported that she had gone up to light the candal and was led to the pew and shocked to see them all sitting there. The video stops right after I get to the front of the Church, and you can't see that happen because everyone is standing. LOL.

We had a military wedding with the tunnel of swords. As DH & I were leaving I feel something that feels as if someone had lightly pulled on my dress. It took just moment to realize that was my sword slap, so the photographer caught me laughing about that.

It had started raining while we were waiting for the ceremony to begin. So we had a really hard time getting people to leave the Church. Instead of shaking hands and hugging our guests, DH & I were kinda shoving them out of the Church because we still had to get in to get our pictures done. We were taking our pictures and the photographer kept saying "Watch the birdie" while flipping the bird IN MY CHURCH! I was getting ticked off and it probably shows in the pictures. It also didn't help that the attendants kept walking off and chatting instead of being good little soldiers waiting to take their pictures in an orderly fashion so we could get out of there.

The limos that DH had hired were not happy that we were running late. And our driver was speeding to get us dumped at the hotel so he could make it to the next gig that he had. But our best man kept telling him the wrong directions to get a longer ride out of him. So imagine driving at 50 plus miles per hour through the hotel complex...it was a wild ride! About 4 minutes after we left the Church (okay, maybe it was 15 min, but it sure felt like only 4) we arrived at the hotel banquet hall. And one of my co-workers' husbands was holding the door for us to enter. I at first had thought that he was a hotel employee so my thanks to him wasn't all that nice. Poor guy. I explained it all to his wife and appologized later.

The reception went off pretty well except the hotel staff hadn't briefed us on how the food was to be served. So we got up to start the buffet line only to find out that no the salad would be served at the table. They had also provided dessert when we specifically had told them not to because we had our own cake...needless to say we had a ton of wedding cake to take home with us because no one ate it after having the hotel cakes.

Oh and remember the wet carpets? Well they stained my gown & shoes.

I don't remember how I had my car keys, but my brother went to the Church and got my bags out of my trunk and brought them back to the hotel. Then DH & I headed off for our room/suite. DH didn't get to hear about what all had happened earlier that day. His mom had decided that he had enough to worry about so she didn't tell him. So when we got to the suite he was suprised. I was suprised too because it was a smoking room...blech! and someone had spilled bleach on the carpet downstairs. But the rest of the room was fine. The hotel had left us a bottle of champaigne... but at that point I was too tired to enjoy that.

The sad part was that we had to get up early the next day because check out time was at 11am and we couldn't afford another night in that room. So we were up at 8am after getting to sleep at something like 3am. I was so bushed!

After breakfast at the hotel's dining room, blech! We headed over to a party held for us at the In-Law's friends' house. We opened all of our wedding gifts and had a very nice lunch with both families...including all of DH's aunts & uncles. It was incredible how many of DH's family traveled to FL for this wedding where my family who lived in FL couldn't be bothered to attend.

After lunch we headed off for our honeymoon at Walt Disney World. We had a very nice hotel room at Dixie Landings which I see has now changed it's name. Our room looked similar to the one in this picture, but we had a king bed.

The rest of our honeymoon was very relaxing, we even took the river boat "cruise" (it's actually part of the Disney resort transportation system). The "boat captain" decided to rename the trip the "honeymoon cruise" after he found out that we were newly weds. It was cute. We were also given a free mini-bottle of champaigne that I still have the empty bottle from...it's stored in a place of honor in my pantry.

So what's on for this evening? As far as I know DH is coming home early from work (he couldn't take off because of some big project that he's in charge of) and we are heading up to Steak & Ale for dinner. The rest is a suprise. I need to go wrap up DH's gift of a new dress shirt that he asked for.

Of course you'll be updated on what all (well almost all) happens.