Weddingbee Blog

OK, here goes. I’m officially kicking off my recaps! *Squee*

Whittling down the photos has been a horrifically daunting task. Partly because there are thousands of photos to sort through. Partly because I’m obsessed with every image and detail with the kind of hopelessly googly-eyed love that a mother has for her child. It’s freaking hard to choose between your children!

I figure I’ll do an overview post of each main stop along the way, and then follow up with the relevant detail posts, and move on to the next event, and so on. All aboard, the Magic Carpet ride is about to commence!

But wait! Proper theatre nerd that I am, we cannot begin “the show” without giving props to the rehearsal, right?

The day of the rehearsal was, like all other days leading up to the wedding, a hot hectic mess. After running errands in the morning, MaPo, sister Kim, and I went for mani/pedis before the rehearsal, and my mom and sister Dawn met up with us there. I chose a sheer, shimmery frost for my nails after leaving at home the color I had planned to wear (rosy future by OPI). I shook it off and refused to let the brief disappointment harsh my marital mellow.

It was a brief respite of calm before we raced off to change at MaPo’s hotel room and get to the ceremony site, where my future in-laws had been diligently trying not to lose their minds by pruning all the dead leaves off the ginormous manzanita trees that would soon serve as our altar markers.

It was so exciting to be there. This was the first time everyone was all together, some seeing the space for the first time, and everyone pitched right in to get the site set up before we began the rehearsal. The weather was stunning, a very good omen for the following day! It was an overwhelming moment, the first of many to come.

It was amazing to see all the details come together, after trying for so long to imagine how it would look! We were blown away at how transformed the empty space became. What was a lovely lawn overlooking a garden became an enchanted and romantic hideaway. The colors of everything went together perfectly, and the layout of it all was exactly what we had dreamed.

Groomsman Nick carried in our ceremony box….

Our florist Sarah broke out the butterflies for the trees…

The men carried the beverage table shelter over like it was a parade float

Aw, MaPo! My best lady was just one of many helpful lovelies present.

We just cut those sashes from bolts of fabric our DOC happened to have in stock!

Wedding Fairies! No rehearsal is complete without them.

I remember it being so hard to hold it together when my dad and I practiced our route down the aisle. All of a sudden, it was happening! There I was, (in my swoon-worthy rehearsal dress that I had bought nine months previous, and had hidden from Hunter until that day), walking down my aisle with my father.

“Bang a louie at the base of the stairs, yo.”

All of a sudden, there we were…

Um, what comes next?

When I tell you how last minute things were, believe me. We wrote our vows the day before this. I was still emailing Billy, our officiant, changes in the ceremony text and order until the morning of the rehearsal. So getting through the thing in order was a bumpy road. Everyone seemed nervous, except us. We knew that come tomorrow, Billy would have it all set.

Note the “we’re married” acting the fresh hubby is mackin’

Then we wuz outta there! I heard margaritas calling my name and I could not resist them any longer! I let it wash over me that it was done. We had set it up, run it through, and now all we could do was show up tomorrow and make it official. There were, of course, some more things on the to-do list… but for the most part I rode the wave knowing that it would take me to shore eventually. We were getting married, yo!

Stay tuned for details from our rehearsal and then… celebrating with the ones we love the most over melty cheese and margaritas at the festive rehearsal fiesta!