Wedding Re-Cap Part 1

Ok here goes....

The blur begins about two weeks before the actual *big day*. Burnt out on work, and always the procrastinator, I decided to take the two weeks BEFORE my wedding day off from my "real" job in order to devote all of my time and energy to my new "job"... a.k.a. wedding planner extraordinaire. I pretty much gave myself 14 days to finish all the stuff I had been putting off for my entire 13 month engagement. In those brief, and unbelievably hectic two weeks I:

• Hired 2 limos for the day of the wedding
• Wrote my vows, the opening prayer for our ceremony, and an outline for the rest of our ceremony
• Scheduled hair stylists for my 8 bridesmaids
• Made the decision to do my own make-up (which led to me having to stalk every MAC counter I came across asking for tips)
• Selected ceremony music
• Made a "must-play" list for the reception
• Picked out a design for and ordered the cake
• Selected all the flowers I wanted
• Made the decision to just get the D*mn Chiavari Chairs
• Bought outfits for the welcome BBQ, the rehearsal dinner, and the farewell brunch
• Rented ceremony chairs, chair sashes, and table number stands - from three DIFFERENT rental companies
• Made out of town guest welcome bags
• Made 150 escort cards, 16 table numbers, and half a dozen other cutesy little signs
• Switched freakin hotels!
• Planned the entire rehearsal dinner
• Ordered presents for my bridesmaids, the groomsmen, and our parents
• Ordered flip-flops for my guests so their heels wouldn't sink into the grass (a HUGE hit, by the way)
• Put together what I can only describe as the worlds most awesome bathroom basket ever
• Ordered a fancy engraved silver cup/chalice thing that Kyle and I used for the wine blending portion of our ceremony (which by the way, was ALSO a last minute decision) and had it shipped to my house on the DAY BEFORE THE WEDDING! (UPS and Fed-Ex saved my butt about a million times during these two weeks!)
• Ordered 7 different sashes to potentially wear with my wedding dress (p.s. I didn't end up wearing any of them)
• Bought all the wine for the rehearsal dinner
• Made a Card Box
• Sized and re-dipped my wedding ring and engagement ring
• Finalized the linen rental
• Cleaned my house top to bottom
• And probably about a million other things that I'm forgetting now!

It was absolutely NUTS. In fact, if I had it to do all over again, that is one of the only things I would change. I would not procrastinate NEARLY as much. Oh well. I was up until midnight the night before the big day, still putting last minute stuff together, but everything that I wanted to get done, got done. I was so pleased. :)

I absolutely COULD NOT have done it without my bridesmaids. They were rock stars! On the Friday before the wedding, my sis helped make my out of town gift bags and my escort cards. She also fed me - which was VERY important, b/c about 4 days before the wedding I simply stopped eating because I was so busy/stressed. Seriously, it was all she could do to get a PB&J sandwich down my throat! Lucia and Alina went to the flower market for me, picked up flowers, and made 5 GORGEOUS flower arrangements for the reception - while I was out running errands. They also picked my dress up at the cleaners and checked into my hotel room for me! And Alina gave me a necklace to wear as my "something borrowed". (Seriously, 20 hours before I walked down the aisle, I had NO IDEA what my something borrowed would be - sheesh!) Emily and Sophie broke into my apartment in the middle of the night to retrieve my "something old" (my Dad's pocketknife) and my "something blue" (a Go Blue! Michigan garter) - I had forgotten to pack them before I left for the hotel. Sara glued card stock together for my table numbers - but only after warning that she wasn't especially crafty and that I shouldn't expect them to be perfect. (They totally were!) Kim lent me her sister to assist in my make-up dry-run (yes, the night before the wedding was when I did my first dry-run of my wedding make-up.) And Erica, magically, wonderfully, miracle of all miracles, fit into her bridesmaid dress with absolutely no alterations necessary, which I attribute to her fervent prayers. (Erica's dress was lost in the mail and we had to order her a new one at the last minute... it arrived to my house a few days before the wedding and so Erica, Kyle's sister who lives in Boston, never had a chance to try it, let alone get it altered! Each of my other 7 bridesmaids needed to have their dress EXTENSIVELY altered. My sister had to take it to her tailor TWO TIMES! Erica arrived at my house, tried the dress on for the first time, and it fit like a glove. It was an absolute miracle and I absolutely believe that Someone was smiling down on us.)

On the day of the wedding these 8 amazing women dressed me, buttoned allllllll my buttons (it took FOREVER!), fed me, drove back to the hotel for me to pick up my computer (my vows were on it, and I had forgotten to bring it with me!), copied my vows from my computer to a piece of paper for me to read from during the ceremony, helped me pee, cleaned split (Red!) wine off my wedding dress, helped me switch from heals into flip flops, and just were pretty much at my beckon call all day long. Seriously amazing. I love them all and am eternally grateful.

:)

Ok, part 2 to follow... stay tuned.