Weddingbee Blog

The day-after was almost as surreal. In fact, it might have been even more so.

Pic by Right Angle Images from his hotel room.

On wedding day, I didn’t spend much time doing normal things like eating brunch—or eating, period—checking my phone, getting on transit, and walking up the stairs to our apartment. Today, I did. I woke up in a hotel suite two miles from home, then went about my day in a thrashed wedding dress (\m/) with people I see once a year, at most. Imagine if Cinderella hailed a cab or made plans while wearing broken-in glass slippers. It’s kind of like that.

On the itinerary today:

• Brunch with family.
• Day-after photos.
• Pick up card box and a few gifts, entrusted to May Bride S/May Groom M.
• Update relationship status on Facebook (!)
• Change for a techno dance party on a boat (?)

After waking in our “marital bed,” as Thumbs called it, we charged through Day-After Recommendation #1: making the rounds to hotel rooms for goodbyes, if you’re still in town yourselves. This is just a nice thing to do, I think, for people you’ll see in a week to people who live 3,000 miles away. I am historically a loooong goodbye-er, so this probably took much more time than it should have.

I mentioned rehearsal dinner issues a while back, noting that family brunch, also hosted by my MIL/FIL, was the compromise.

Brunch pics by my Uncle Leonard.

If your hair is stick-straight like mine, you probably enjoy milking curls for all they’re worth. This is a look I like to call, “Slept with some errant bobby pins and haven’t showered yet.”

My parents live less than 30 minutes away, but the rest of my extended family (and all of his) live in Maryland, Indiana, and Texas. So, it was really nice to have everyone together in a smaller group after the wedding. I worried I’d have a stress-induced brain aneurysm otherwise. If anyone has similar concerns, this Day-After Recommendation #2 is for you.

We got back into our wedding clothes for picture time, Day-After Recommendation #3 and Husband Task numero uno: bustling my dress. He figured it out, which was fortunate, as I certainly didn’t know how.

Since we did an engagement shoot with our friend Kevin/Right Angle Images, we had some extra time with Ashley and used it for a next-day shoot. It functioned like a trash-the-dress session, but with more wandering-scruffy instead of trashing—lots of fun and far less pressure than the day prior. We decided to traipse around a BART station and train, an alley, and a nearby parking garage.

Appropriately scruffy in a scruffy BART station. That there is mostly day-old makeup, yes. All pics by Ashley Forrette unless otherwise noted.

We lay down on the floor of the station for these pics, something else worth doing. OK, not the station part, but doing something fun in your wedding clothes is just fun+1. Call that Day-After Recommendation #3.5.

While Ashley snapped away, the BART station agent went on the loudspeaker and asked if the people on the ground needed medical attention. She was clearly looking at us on a camera because she laughed into the mike when we sat up, looked around, and said, “Uh…no!” to no one in particular.

Buttons by the awesome buttonempire on Etsy.

Bummed commuters…are bummed.

After we picked up the card box and updated the all-important Facebook status (I was still wearing my dress), we got ready to head to the water. One of our twin groomsmen is a DJ based in Berlin; I mentioned his arrival in the getting-ready recap. He could only swing the wedding if he also worked that weekend in SF. Hence: a Sunday-evening boat party in SF Bay. We can’t thank his agent enough. Bonus: all of the friends who attended this event live out of state, so we were grateful for the extra time with them.

Friend pics.

We stopped by a taqueria for food on the way home, and continued marveling at the mundane, though suddenly exciting tasks. We are sitting here eating TACOS (!), and we are married people going about our business in our neighborhood on a Sunday evening. We’ll do that very thing—going about our business—for the rest of our lives, even if the neighborhood/city/state/country/planet changes someday. Together, we went from an engagement that started on the floor of our apartment (not like that) half a mile from this spot, to this: an unplanned taco dinner, a walk back to our apartment, and the start of many very good things to come.

Are you also a rabid must-cross-it-off-my-to-do-list-NOW sort of gal (or guy)? If so, might appreciate how we already have our professional photo album in hand. Archival-photo-page pr0n is up next.

Catch up on the journey from regular to supreme:

• Things that went “wrong” and petting the sweaty.
• After the party is the after party.
• Little things from a big day.
• Po-po-po-poker face po-po-poker face.
• Journey should have been at my wedding.
• DIET STARTS MONDAY.
• Wedding peeps make like Gaga and Just Dance.
• The formal-group-portraits thing
• The nice, naughty, and cardboard among us enjoy the photo booth.
• Introduction to the Snot Wall during toasts. Then we commemorate our real love with “Real Love.”
• Led Zeppelin and The Beatles kick off a rockin’ buffet dinner hour.
• Cocktail hour, just-us time with the photographers, and life-size cutouts, you say?
• Ceremony: “comedy hour,” not falling, and a snub-nosed flower girl.
• First look, bridal-party wanders around Civic Center.
• Official start of recaps, as we get ready for showtime with sandwiches and mimosas.
• Best of the Phone Cameras, some of the first pics we actually saw.
• Early lessons learned, two weeks into Mrs.