Weddingbee Blog

The day before the wedding, I woke up at the *glorious* hour of 3 AM. And couldn’t go back to sleep. It was as if every nerve in my body was on edge with adrenalin and I just had to get up and do something…which is why my father discovered me in the kitchen 3 hours later at 6 AM, finishing my second bowl of cereal and attempting (and failing) to get started on decorating 112 cupcakes.

Thankfully, my parents eventually convinced me to get dressed, and go into town with Dad to pick up Bridesmaid M from the airport, and the seven cheesecakes for the reception. While we were doing that, Mr E took the opportunity to have a haircut in the backyard…

Yeah, I know…classy. The birds enjoyed it

I have no idea why, but during that entire morning I was ravenous. Luckily for me, the owners of Chocolate Velvet must have noticed because they chucked in a few date scones with my cheesecake order.

We were back to the farmhouse by 11AM, and lo and behold, my mother, grandmother and sisters had decorated all the cupcakes for me! Bless them. We loaded them, the cheesecakes, and any other last minute essentials into the van and headed off to the venue again.

Now, a major downside of having your wedding ceremony and reception outside in a semi-public area is that you can’t do any setting up until the morning of the wedding. YUCK. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do any setting up on Saturday, so instead the job was delegated to Mr E and his men, a “decoration coordinator” (i.e. friend from church), and a “food coordinator” (ditto). But before they could do their jobs, I spent a large part of Friday organising everything into (hopefully) logical piles in the venue owners’ house and giant fridge to make it as simple as possible for everyone. This is where things started to go downhill.

Feeling overwhelmed…

…so much stuff! At least all our teacups to be washed, picnic rugs, and cushions were laid out neatly…

My sister, mother, and I were doing most of the sorting. And that was working fine. Unfortunately…certain others *cough* futureinlawsandotherrelatives *cough* were getting bored waiting for us to finish, and wanted to lend a helping hand as well. It was very kind of them, but at this point I was so stressed and just wanted to get the job done quickly. It would have taken more effort to explain how I wanted things to be done than it would take me to actually do the job myself. This fact wasn’t quite understood by some.

So, while I was sorting reception decorations, and fielding questions like, “Why do you need that? Couldn’t you just put that there?” I was steadily growing more frustrated and anxious about the time. Then we found out that the glass drink dispenser I had spent too much money on, but just had to have, had giant crack in it. Which wasn’t our fault (the faucet attachment had been screwed in wrong at the store) but that wasn’t really the point.

It was the final straw. I burst into tears over this silly drink dispenser, and just plopped down into a chair, declaring that I had given up. In came Mr E’s dad to the rescue. Ecstatic to finally have something helpful to do, he rang the store, explained that he had a frantic bride on his hands, and then drove to the store 45 mins away with Mr E to get their last remaining model as a replacement. Crisis averted!

Meanwhile, I was whisked away to the shopping mall for a late lunch and to get my nails done. I think my family figured someone filing my nails was the only way to get me to sit still. With all my anxiety though, I still managed to muck up the lovely job the manicurist did on my nails not once, but five times! She patiently repaired it each time, and in the end all of us girls had gorgeous nails, even if the rest of our bodies felt tired and crappy:

I’m the one with the really pale hands

And then it was time to pile back into the car and go back to the garden for a rehearsal. You know that saying that goes something like, “If the dress rehearsal goes badly, then the real thing will be great”? Well, I can say that, in our case, we definitely hoped that saying was true!

It was stinking hot at 3PM in the garden. I wanted to have the rehearsal in the shade, but our officiant said it was better to have the whole thing in the exact location we would have our real ceremony. I agree with this in theory, but it really isn’t a good idea to have a bride panicking about sunburn the day before her wedding, and almost fainting because the heat is too much. In the end we resorted to covering me with a cardigan, my dad’s hat, and an umbrella (thanks MOH! You went above and beyond). It did work, but all that heat didn’t make me a very happy camper.

Not to mention that our rehearsal was interrupted every few seconds by people wanting me to make decisions on really tiny, insignificant things. Grr. OK, OK. Sorry for being a grumpy-pants. I honestly don’t remember much from the rehearsal except that it didn’t go well, and I was hungry and hot. Despite that, holding hands with Mr E while we went through the ceremony details still could make me smile.

What a handsome guy

There was one more (kinda) small crisis that unfolded before the end of the day. Our chairs were supposed to arrive at the venue at 10AM. If I had remembered this, then my anxiety would probably have been tripled because they didn’t turn up until 3PM. Thank goodness I had forgotten every single thing about our chairs arriving until my mother ran up to me during the rehearsal to tell me that they had arrived. She had noticed they weren’t there earlier, but everyone had kept this information from me because they didn’t want to make me panic! I am very, very thankful to them all for that!

By 6PM, I was done. I had handed over every piece of information our helpers, relatives, friendors and vendors could possibly need. The reception stuff was neatly set out and labeled with instructions. There were things that hadn’t been done, but I decided to conveniently forget them. And I was still hungry (what is it about stress that makes me starving?!). It was time to go home, stuff a chicken wrap down my throat, take a sleeping pill, have a bath, and go to bed. I knew that we had all done everything we could to ensure the next day went smoothly, and all we had to do now was just let it go and look forward to the morning.

Anyone else feel miserable the day before their wedding?

*All photos taken by friends & family

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So far in our midsummer dream…

• We welcomed our guests with pizza on Wednesday, and DIYed our flowers on Thursday