Weddingbee Blog

When I woke up on Thursday morning, I could hardly believe that it was actually the day that we would be starting all of our wedding events! Mr. Cardigan and I were both incredibly excited, and we were bounding around like 5-year-olds for pretty much the entire day.

As I mentioned in my last post, I forced myself to finish every single project by Wednesday evening before our wedding. That way, Thursday and Friday could be filled with nothing but relaxation and happiness! I’m so incredibly glad I did this and I highly recommend it to everyone. It made a huge difference in my stress level. Because my to-do list was completely empty, Mr. Cardigan and I had absolutely no plans on Thursday. We woke up, loaded up his car with all of our wedding stuff, and headed out for some breakfast.

The car was stuffed full!

As a side note, I plan on going into a little more detail on the escort cards once I get a bit further into my recaps, but I just feel like I should give a BIG GIANT shout-out to Mrs. Socks, who made all of the flower pins for us. Yes, she made them all. For us. For free. Because she’s abso-freaking-lutely amazing like that. And I big puffy heart her.

Anyways, once we had eaten some fabulous breakfast tacos, we headed over to Sister Cardy’s house so that Sister Cardy and I could go get our nails done. I LOVE having manicures and pedicures, but I very rarely get the chance to get them, so this was a bit of an indulgence for me. It was absolutely wonderful. While I was getting pampered, Mr. Cardy took care of some last minute errands that I wanted nothing to do with.

It was so incredibly relaxing to just be able to hang out with my sister and get some bonding time in. It’s kind of strange, but I wasn’t stressed or anxious about the next day at all—I was just totally blissed out, calm, and excited about what was coming my way! I’m not usually the type to be able to sit back and relax when big things are coming, so I’m really glad I was able to somehow find the ability to remain calm!

As we were finishing up at the nail salon, I got a text from some extremely special friends who had landed at the airport and were heading into Austin. Mr. Cardigan and I were beyond excited to see these friends and decided to meet them for lunch. Who were these super special friends?

Mr. & Mrs. Socks!

We are so glad that they were able to make it to our wedding, all the way from Philly! It was amazing to have them there, and we were really excited about getting to spend some time with them before the wedding festivities began. It was their first official trip to Texas so we decided that they HAD to try some real BBQ and met them at our favorite barbecue joint in town for lunch. Then, since they didn’t have any plans (and we didn’t either!) we all headed to our wedding venue to settle into the hotel and hang out for a while before the rehearsal.

I think it’s safe to say that our time hanging our with Mr. & Mrs. Socks was my absolute favorite part of the day before our wedding—the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner were fun, but it was so nice to get to hang out with our friends and relax for a few hours before everything got started. We got to take a walk around the venue, hang out, and chat for a while before the craziness started. It was perfect!

A peek at the view from my room. Gorgeous, right?

But, before we knew it, it was time to get ready for the rehearsal.

Now, I feel like I was a pretty calm bride for the most part. I got stressed a bit in the week before, but once everything was done I was really able to let go and just take things as they came. However, there was one and only one time during any of our wedding events that I got a little crazy. I had been focusing very hard on making sure that I was staying calm, relaxed, and happy, but when people started arriving at the hotel for the rehearsal, it seemed like all hell broke loose.

I suppose I hadn’t been very clear beforehand that I really wanted the suite to be a private space for just me and my bridesmaids, because suddenly Mr. Cardigan’s mom arrived at the venue with a truck full (literally, the WHOLE back of the truck was FULL) of stuff that needed to be brought in. My suite was very close to the entrance of the hotel, and suddenly it became a dumping ground for a lot. of. stuff. It was already a bit crowded with all of the wedding stuff, and suddenly it was even more crowded with drinks and fans (??) and who knows what else. Messes and clutter really amp up my stress level, so this was not fun for me.

In addition to that, I had been under the impression that the next day, one of MIL Cardigan’s friends would be bringing us sandwiches from the place she works for lunch. It had been a very generous offer and I was excited about it. However, as all of this stuff was getting unloaded into my room, I noticed that there was food. Lots of random food. I had no idea what was going on, and when Mr. Cardy asked about it we found out that the plans had changed and MIL Cardigan’s friend wouldn’t be able to bring food. So she had decided to bring sandwich stuff herself.

Now, this was very thoughtful of her. Really. I don’t want to sound like I wasn’t grateful for her thinking of that and for trying to be helpful. But. I was very frustrated that this had not been brought to my attention a few days prior, when it had actually happened. Had I known, I would have told her that I didn’t want her to bring us stuff. I wanted sandwiches from an actual sandwich shop, not Oscar Meyer lunch meat. I know it sounds petty, and maybe it is, but I felt like I should have been consulted on what I would be eating for lunch on the day of my wedding. On top of all of the clutter in our room, this was very frustrating to me. There were also a few more things that happened, but I think you get the idea.

I stayed calm on the outside, but I was absolutely freaking out on the inside. I quietly pulled Mr. Cardigan aside and explained why I was so upset, and he understood completely. He reassured me that it would all be taken care of and then talked to his mom about getting the stuff out of our room ASAP. Once I knew that it was all going to be going away soon, my mood lightened considerably, and my bridal freak-out moment subsided.

Luckily, I was able to get back to a happy place pretty quickly, because our wedding party was rapidly arriving! We hung out in our suite and waited for everyone to get there. I think this was the part of the day where I really started to realize that it was all actually happening. These people were here for our wedding!

We only had a few minutes to hang out in the room before it was time to go. Our rehearsal was officially beginning!

Did you have any moments in the days before your wedding that totally stressed you out?

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Need to catch up?

• The Week Before