Weddingbee Blog

WHERE WE HAD LEFT OFF:

• The wedding schedule is thrown off by late makeup appointments
• I come home to find that all of our bouquets are dead, after our florist put them into the freezer instead of the fridge!
• Bridal portraits begin, I begin to doubt my choice in photographer
• Bridal party portraits begin, the photographer embarrasses my family and friends
• Mr. Shortcake and his groomsmen get ready with the help of a ping-pong table
• We leave for the chapel, and the rain (and our nervousness) begins!
• The ceremony begins, and I take the biggest (shortest) walk of my life!
• We will, we do, we did: the ceremony
• Taking care of business: the freezing rain forces us to take the family portraits indoors - in a gymnasium!
• The wedding party photos go awry when our photographer goes AWOL

NOTE: As usual, my recap photos are from a variety of sources. All post-processing has been done by me with each individual’s consent and permission.

***

Not appreciating my directions, the photographer stalked off. Not appreciating the thousands of dollars wasted on him, I grabbed Mr. Shortcake and pulled him towards my number one wish-list location—the 1950s soda shop. I wiped my furious tears and sniffed at my new husband,

“I don’t care where he goes. I’m going to get a milkshake, whether or not we get photos of us!”

Meanwhile, back at the train station, the photographer had told our bridesmaids to go back and wait in the limo.
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WHERE WE HAD LEFT OFF:

• The wedding schedule is thrown off by late makeup appointments
• I come home to find that all of our bouquets are dead, after our florist put them into the freezer instead of the fridge!
• Bridal portraits begin, I begin to doubt my choice in photographer
• Bridal party portraits begin, the photographer embarrasses my family and friends
• Mr. Shortcake and his groomsmen get ready with the help of a ping-pong table
• We leave for the chapel, and the rain (and our nervousness) begins!
• The ceremony begins, and I take the biggest (shortest) walk of my life!
• We will, we do, we did: the ceremony

NOTE: As usual, my recap photos are from a variety of sources. All post-processing has been done by me with each individual’s consent and permission.

***

NOTE: Some readers have expressed their disappointment in how glum some of my posts are. As a blogger, I am trying to accurately tell the story of my wedding. Not everything was perfect, and many things went wrong. However, as in any good story, a happy ending is happiest when it comes after a plot crisis. And, in the words of G.K. Chesterton,

“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

Take my posts as an example of what things can and do happen at weddings, but take it also to heart that is possible to have everything go wrong - and still remember your wedding day as one of the greatest days of your life.

***
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I’m seriously contemplating the idea of renewing our vows for some upcoming anniversary - five years maybe? I’d love to do it over, without the same stress, without all of the fanfare, just with us and a spectacular photographer.

We won’t be redoing our wedding photos this summer after all, because, well, I no longer fit into my wedding dress! If you remember, I lost a lot of weight the summer before our wedding because of stress and a very tight budget, and dropped down to a very unhealthy size for my height. After suffering two miscarriages this year, I’ve been doing my best to gain back the twenty+ pounds and settling into a healthier, more fertile BMI. But, as a result of those efforts, my wedding dress no longer zips up past my now-ample bosoms. Whoops.

Surprisingly, I’m not so terribly sad, despite my disappointment over our wedding photos.
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This brings a whole new meaning to “dancing in the aisles”, don’t you think?

WHERE WE HAD LEFT OFF:

• The wedding schedule is thrown off by late makeup appointments
• I come home to find that all of our bouquets are dead, after our florist put them into the freezer instead of the fridge!
• Bridal portraits begin, I begin to doubt my choice in photographer
• Bridal party portraits begin, the photographer embarrasses my family and friends
• Mr. Shortcake and his groomsmen get ready with the help of a ping-pong table
• We leave for the chapel, and the rain (and our nervousness) begins!
• The ceremony begins, and I take the biggest (shortest) walk of my life!
• We will, we do, we did: the ceremony

NOTE: As usual, my recap photos are from a variety of sources. All post-processing has been done by me with each individual’s consent and permission.

***

After the ceremony finished, Mr. Shortcake and I stood together outside in the pouring, freezing rain. The sky had opened up its black clouds and it was absolute misery. But, the bells on our two hundred year old chapel were ringing, and we were married. Married! Woot! Woot!

For those of you who have commented on how serene I appeared in photos, here’s a candid that’s a little more indicative of my emotions during the beginning of the day:

Quick! Someone tell that bride not to hike her hoops up so high!
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You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment.

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I finally bought a DVD ripper so that I could tear apart the footage from guests’ home videos and put them back together. Here’s the processional from last week’s recap:

The embedded blogging version of this video is of pretty poor quality - so make sure to press “HQ”!

WHERE WE HAD LEFT OFF:

• The wedding schedule is thrown off by late makeup appointments
• I come home to find that all of our bouquets are dead, after our florist put them into the freezer instead of the fridge!
• Bridal portraits begin, I begin to doubt my choice in photographer
• Bridal party portraits begin, the photographer embarrasses my family and friends
• Mr. Shortcake and his groomsmen get ready with the help of a ping-pong table
• We leave for the chapel, and the rain (and our nervousness) begins!

NOTE: As usual, my recap photos are from a variety of sources. All post-processing has been done by me with each individual’s consent and permission.

*Feel free to play our processional song while you’re reading this post (my entrance was at 2:00)

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WHERE WE HAD LEFT OFF:

• The wedding schedule is thrown off by late makeup appointments
• I come home to find that all of our bouquets are dead, after our florist put them into the freezer instead of the fridge!
• Bridal portraits begin, I begin to doubt my choice in photographer
• Bridal party portraits begin, the photographer embarrasses my family and friends
• Mr. Shortcake and his groomsmen get ready with the help of a ping-pong table

NOTE: As usual, my recap photos are from a variety of sources. All post-processing has been done by me with each individual’s consent and permission.

***

High heels on, hair in place, and umbrellas in hand, it was time to leave for the church. Our photographer had gone on ahead of us, so we had a moment to breathe.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Once that single moment was over, all hell broke loose as people scrambled to find their belongings and rides to the little chapel. My bridesmaids and I, of course, were traveling together in a stretch S.U.V. limo. Not so very vintage, but my hoop skirts necessitated something that could accommodate my dress without squashing it a la Princess Diana in her wedding day carriage. So, a S.U.V. it was, and it had been lovingly decorated by my mother for the occasion. Unfortunately, we all clambered into the vehicle so quickly that no one noticed the decorations, and no one thought to take any pictures of it. Whoops! Sorry, mom!

Meanwhile, Mr. Shortcake and his motley crew had arrived at St. George’s Parish, and were nervously awaiting our arrival.
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WHERE WE HAD LEFT OFF:

• Wedding schedule was thrown off by late makeup appointments
• I came home to find that all of our bouquets were dead, after our florist put them into the freezer instead of the fridge!
• Bridal portraits began, I began to doubt my choice in photographer
• Bridal party portraits began, the photographer embarrasses my family and friends

NOTE: Excepting the flower photo, all of the photos in this post are courtesy of Mr. Shortcake.

****

MR. SHORTCAKE:

Fifty minutes of driving time away, the other half of the wedding party was slowly getting ready after an evening of margaritas and cards. The morning began with some homemade Egg McMuffins and a couple of beers to take the edge off. Nothing says, “I’m getting married today!” quite like breakfast sandwiches and a pint! Because almost none of my groomsmen had been in a wedding party, there was a definite nervous energy in the air - it wasn’t just from me!

Our videographer (a friend of mine) arrived at my parents’ house at around 8 AM to take a few quick clips of me handing the rings to my best man for safe keeping. After staying for our breakfast of champions, he too was off to visit the bridal party. It was now time for me to do the two things that a groom has to do at a wedding:

Get dressed, and show up!

Those are not always easy tasks for some of us - especially certain ones who still need someone to tie their ties for them! In true “man” fashion, we set up camp in the basement, laying our “James Bond tuxedos” on the Ping Pong table alongside our beers.

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WHERE WE HAD LEFT OFF:

• Wedding schedule was thrown off by late makeup appointments
• I came home to find that all of our bouquets were dead, after our florist put them into the freezer instead of the fridge!
• Bridal portraits began, I began to doubt my choice in photographer

NOTE: As usual, my recap photos are from a variety of sources (father, family, friends, florist, me, and some from the “photographer”). All post-processing has been done by me with each individual’s consent and permission. You can see an example of a “before” picture here.

~~~

Gingerly stepping over the pre-wedding debris littering the stairway and every floor, we picked our way downstairs. Already doubting the skill of my photographer (he was chosen, long-distance, on the recommendation of a friend at the very beginning of my engagement when I didn’t know any better), I selected the living room and asked my bridesmaids to open all of the blinds and curtains on the lower floor. Light is SO important to photography; I knew that if I was going to have a chance of saving the photos after the wedding, I was going to have to combat the increasing gloom outside first. I asked our ’photographer’ if we could do some of the getting ready shots that I had suggested in previous emails (complete with sample photographs). He looked at me blankly. Someone hadn’t done his homework. I asked him to take some photos of my bridesmaids doing up the buttons on my dress, and he obliged, peppering his workflow patter with sexually harassing comments.

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Where we had left off:

• Wedding schedule was thrown off by late makeup appointments
• I came home to find that all of our bouquets were dead, after our florist put them into the freezer instead of the fridge!

NOTE: As usual, my recap photos are from a variety of sources (father, family, friends, florist, me, and some from the “photographer”). All post-processing has been done by me with each individual’s consent and permission. You can see an example of a “before” picture here.

~~~

I left the florist on the front porch, where she continued to try and salvage what was left of our bouquets. I’m sure that at that point, had my pulse been taken, it would have resembled the rat-ta-tata of a jackhammer. I. WAS. STRESSED. I tried to calm myself down by breathing.

HEEEEEEEEEEEE… HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO… HEEEEEEEEEEE… HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…

I Lamazed my way up to the master bedroom, where I would be getting dressed, and was dismayed to find that my carefully organized command center had become the repository for everybody’s belongings. I couldn’t find my accessories! I couldn’t find my shoes! Where was my timetable and photo shoot list? My blood pressure rose to dangerous levels. I tried breath control again.

HEE HOO HEE HOO HEE HOO HEE HOOHEEHOOHEHEHE

It wasn’t working.

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Anxious and behind schedule, Sister Shortcake and I returned home. My bridesmaids had already arrived, as per my elaborate timetable, but I was too harried to say more than a brief hello.

{my best friend from high school - such a beautiful bridesmaid!}

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Ooh! You may have seen this wedding before, but just in case you haven’t, I just thought I’d alert you to this fabulousness:

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There were so many loose ends to tie up on the day before the wedding. Even with my extensive planning-ahead and persistence on doing as many things as early as possible, “real life” in the form of ’mandatory’ family events interceded in the weeks before the wedding and threw me off schedule. So there I was on the day before the wedding, with not enough time to do anything, saying, “whatever,” and, “I don’t care,” and, “don’t bother me with this anymore.” I was one grumpy-cake, and were I to do it again, I would:

a) be nicer

b) put my foot down and say “no,” knowing that not going to events would stress me out far less than having a bunch of un-finished items on the to-do list would.

c) finish as many items on my to-do list even EARLIER, so that I could take some time to relax in the week before the wedding. And sleep. I didn’t get any of that.

So, mini-rant aside, where was I? Ah yes, being tired and grumpy on the day before the wedding. I have no recollection of what I actually did on the day before the wedding, I was that busy.
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