Wedding day!

The wedding day kind of passed in a blur. There was so much to do! It was a busy and bustling day, and it seemed like everything was laid out on a fast-paced timeline that just propelled us through the day.

Saturday morning started off with a shower (it's my wedding day OMG this is no normal shower shower), then my sister and I went to the hair dressers to have our hair washed. Cheryl didn't want us to wash our hair ourselves, because she wanted to be sure that our curls started drying properly to avoid frizz. So she washed our hair, and put product in them, and then put these metal clips in to hold our roots up so that when the hair dried, it'd have more volume on top.

When we got home, it was brunch time. There were a lot of people in the house, so it was awesome to have them see me in my mom's ugly button-down shirt and my hair all crazy. The bridal party and their dates, and some of James' friends and family were there, along with the pastor and his wife, and some friends of my parents - the house was pretty crowded! It was really nice to get to hang out with people before the wedding, and to meet some of James's friends for the first time.

I was getting worried about the weather during the brunch... either it was raining or threatening to rain, I forget which. Anyway, it was raining off and on all day and I was worried about rain during the wedding, since it was planned to be outdoors and we didn't want our guests to get wet, and we wanted to get photos outside because the setting was so beautiful. Photos inside at Auletto's would not have been as nice. A bunch of people comforted me, told me that it was just getting it out of its system so it could be clear in the evening, or that it's good luck to have raindrops on your veil. And I tried to keep a positive, "it is what it is" kind of attitude, but deep down I was really hoping it wouldn't rain.

During the brunch, my bridesmaids slipped away to get their hair done, and came back looking fabulous. It was so exciting to see the transformation from casual to glamorous begin! That really made the "The wedding is happening TODAY" idea sink in.

Sometime after the brunch, the flowers arrived. I was so excited and giddy as I opened up the boxes to see how they turned out. My bouquet was gorgeous, but there was a problem with the bridesmaids bouquets. My idea was I have white and pale pink flowers, the three bridesmaids have light pink and darker pink flowers, and the two maids of honor to have the same bouquets with the addition of hot pink roses to make them stand out. We got that - but each of the bridesmaids bouquet also had dark dark pink peonies. So dark they looked purple. The purple-y peonies really clashed with the hot pink roses of the maid of honor bouquets, and they destroyed the color scheme I had going because there was no progression from white to dark pink anymore. I was upset, but I figured, what the hell, it is what it is, I'm not going to freak out and be a bridezilla. Then my mom found out, and we looked at the flowers and decided the maid of honor bouquets really didn't work, so the delivery guy took those two back to the shop to have the florist people take them apart and remove the purple flowers.

Then my dad found out, and I tried to downplay it, but he persisted. "Is this really okay? If you don't like it, we'll fix it somehow." That sort of thing. So eventually I relented - I really hated the purple, I have an aversion to purple in weddings for some reason, and that shade of purple would really clash with the bridesmaids dresses. We talked to the florist on the phone, he said he'd send someone over to fix it, but they didn't have many flowers to substitute. He had lilies, but I sort of hate lilies. They make me think of funeral arrangements. So my dad and I went over to our neighbor, who has a hot pink hydrangea bush, and asked if we could use some. She happily donated almost every blossom on her bush, insisting that we take more. It was so incredibly sweet of her. We went back home with handfuls of flowers, and my parents also figured that they could take apart the arrangements that decorated the house if the florist still needed more blooms.

So with that crisis hopefully averted, Carrie and I went to get our hair and makeup done - I forgot my veil, though, and had to drive back to the house to get it! I loved how my hair and make-up turned out, and getting the veil placed on my head was a magic moment: suddenly, I was a bride! It was fun to drive myself home wearing a veil. Something so ordinary was suddenly special and exciting.









Surprise photographer attack!




When I got home, I was surprised to open the front door and have a camera in my face - the photographer had arrived! It was a bizarre paparazzi moment. While I was gone, the florist came and fixed all of the bouquets. He was just about to leave when I got home, and he had all the finished bouquets waiting for me on the back porch. And they were perfect. Just perfect. They were exactly what I'd imagined, and the addition of our neighbor's hydrangeas made them even more special. I just loved them, and I was so happy to see them go from something that just wasn't right at all to exquisitely perfect, I was overwhelmed. I got teary when I thanked the florist and hugged him, and I could tell that he was really touched by how happy I was.












The fixed bouquets - gorgeous!







Another fun surprise when I got back from the salon was seeing all my bridesmaids in their gowns! I hadn't seen any of the girls actually wearing the gowns before, and they looked fabulous. They're just such a pretty bunch of girls, and I think the dresses looked good on all of them.

Then I had to get changed, and the fabulous Kelly Barrows helped me into my gown. It was amazing to put it on and see myself all done up to be a bride with awesome hair and makeup. When I went downstairs, there was a flurry of photographs, then we were off to Auletto's. We piled into my dad's minivan, and I think we got some looks from other drivers who were surprised to see a bride stuffed into the passenger seat!

When we arrived at Auletto's, we headed for the bridal suite, and I was just about to go in when something alerted me to the fact that James was inside! I'd gone all year without him finding out what the gown looked like, I didn't want to spoil the surprise right before the wedding! I hurried off and hid while they cleared the men out of the bridal suite (I'm still not sure why there were in there, seems like the bridal suite should be a safe place for the bride to hide!). Then there was a bunch of waiting around to do, and pictures to take among ourselves, and complementary champagne to drink. Every once in a while someone would pop in and report that it was pouring outside. Ack! But at that point, I was pretty chill about it. I mean, I was getting married no matter what, so who cares about a little water?!

And then it was time. It was time to get married!! Craziness. We all lined up in the processional order, then went out and joined up with the groomsmen. The rain was thankfully trailing off, it was just drizzling very lightly as we walked over to the the garden. It was amazing to see all those people waiting under the tent, and to hear the music that we'd selected for the prelude floating through the air. And then the Auletto's people were telling us to go, and one by one all the bridesmaids and groomsmen walked down the aisle. Then it was my turn! I took my poppa's arm, told him I loved him, and we were off. I was doing good, smiling and happy walking down the aisle, but once I got close enough to catch a glimpse of James, I started tearing up. (So in most of the pictures after that, I'm making an ugly emotional face. Oh well!)

Standing at the front of the aisle with my dad, waiting to be given away and locking eyes with James, was an amazing moment. His eyes were filled with tears, and it was just magical. The ceremony was over in a flash, I giggled and cried my way through it. James and I made jokes to each other while we were up there, and I got a little teary at different points in the ceremony. Especially when the minister pronounced us man and wife - I just burst into tears!

After the ceremony, we got caught in an unplanned receiving line as we waited for the pictures to start happening. Then we took a bunch of photos with the bridal party and immediate families. Thankfully the rain ended during the ceremony and the sun actually poked out briefly, so we got some great photos!

After the photo session, we headed in to the wine cellar and mingled a bit. Kelly handed me a glass of white wine (no red for me, not it that big white gown!) and it was wonderful but I hardly had a chance to drink it. Then they ushered us upstairs for the reception. When we made our grand entrance as husband and wife, the band leader introduced us as "Mr. and Mrs. James Ryder!" Haha!

The reception was wonderful, tons of fun and definitely not long enough, though we were plenty tired by the end of it. We talked to every table, though not necessarily to every person. We asked for one each of the meal choices so we could try it all, thinking we'd get three servings total. Well, we got three servings each! That was way too much food, but it was nice to sample each of the main courses. We got to taste the chocolate fountain, which was delicious, and we wish now we'd had more of that good yumminess. We did the bouquet toss, and the cake cutting, and the special dances - and suddenly it was over. We made our grand exit as planned with the guests holding sparklers, but the Auletto's people lit the sparklers too soon and a bunch of them burned out before we made it out the door. But still, walking through the crowd of people with sparklers was a magical experience (if a bit intimidating - those sparklers were everywhere, and I felt very flamable!) that we'll always remember.

After we came out from the crowd of guests and sparklers, we stuffed me into my parents' best car (a Corolla) and James drove us to the hotel. We weren't checked in yet, so we had to stand around in the lobby waiting for the verrrry sloowww guest services dude to check someone in in front of us. And then guests from the wedding started showing up, and we felt kind of ridiculous waiting in line! Our guests were really surprised to see us, and it was a little embarrassing - I'd think if you had a bride and groom waiting to check in, you'd hustle up and get to them ASAP. Whatevs. It was fine. We were married!! And it had been a wonderful, unforgettable day.

The day before the big day!

Friday was a seriously busy and pretty stressful day. It began with a breakfast at my house for the bridesmaids. We had an appointment at the nail salon at 10 am, so I wanted to make sure everyone got fed before we left. The girls, Josh (Phyllis's date), and Andrew (Kelly's date) came over I guess around 9, and we had breakfast - bagels with cream cheese, cereal and yogurt. I gave the bridesmaids their gifts, and they got a kick out of the emergency kits I included in each bag - hair pins, oil absorbing sheets, advil, pepto, bandaids I think, safety pins, water bottles and snacks, and the like.

After breakfast, we all trooped downtown, where we dropped the guys off at a coffee shop and then continued on to the nail salon. I wanted to give my ladies a little pampering before the big day. I treated everyone to a French manicure (without fake nails), which they all appreciated, and everyone's hands looked so pretty! (On Thursday before the bachelorette party, I went to the same salon and got a pedicure. I wanted to give everyone a mani/pedi, but I couldn't afford it. So rather than me getting a pedicure while everyone else gets just a manicure, I decided to do it ahead of time. I hope it was less awkward that way.)

After our pretty nails dried, we walked back to the coffee shop and picked up the boys. Some of us got coffee, I got a mocha for James. We walked back to my house, and I went to wake up my groom. With Carrie, Steve and Leif also staying at my parents' house, all the good beds were full, so James had to sleep on the creaky old hide-a-bed couch in the basement. Which meant, of course, that he didn't sleep well, so when I vacated my bed in the morning, I put him in it so he could get some real sleep. I brought him his mocha in bed, but he had no interest in waking up yet. I put the mocha on the bedside table so he'd find it when he did wake up, but he didn't and the mocha was still there when I went to bed that night. Oh well.

Shortly after we got back from the nail place, we girls had to head out again for the bridal luncheon. The mothers were supposed to come with us, but then Jeanne called and bailed, so my mom said she didn't want to be the only mother there and bailed too. So it was just the girls, which was fine, but I was disappointed I didn't get to treat my mom and future mother-in-law to lunch, too. We had lunch at a yummy, small Italian restaurant in a nearby town. At some point I made a little speech saying thank you to my bridesmaids, and I teared up a bit. Aw. I'm getting a little teary thinking about it!

Sometime during lunch, I called James and had him take the welcome bags to the hotel and other stuff to the caterer. This was a poorly planned effort and it made him late to the rehearsal.

The rehearsal was at 2:30 in the afternoon, which is a strange time for a rehearsal in my book, but it was necessary because the caterer has Friday evening weddings. Pretty soon after we got back from the luncheon, we got changed and left for the rehearsal. It was a kind of stressful time getting everyone into cars and assembling everyone at Auletto's, especially with James late, when we had only a half hour to run through everything.

But eventually everyone was there and we were running through the ceremony. It was surreal to be practing the wedding, knowing that tomorrow - TOMORROW! - it would be for real. I teared up a bit during the ceremony part, but we didn't actually run through the vows, so I was spared from the waterworks that my sister had during her rehearsal. I think the vows are what get you. It was a beautiful day, and everyone loved the location, which was nice because we knew the next day it was supposed to be rainy so we were glad that our families and closest friends got to see our setting at its best.

After the rehearsal, we drove back to my parents' house for a cocktail hour to kill the time between the rehearsal and the 6pm rehearsal dinner. James' people weren't there, so my parents were freaking out about having too much food, but it worked out. Anyway, I wanted it to be a low-key cocktail hour with wines and a few nibbles, I couldn't help it that my mom went crazy and made a ton of appetizers.

Shortly before 6, we all piled into cars again and went to the rehearsal dinner. My parents were still griping about my lack of organizational skills and the fact that James' family wasn't at the cocktail hour (my mom does NOT know how to let things go), and I started getting upset. James pulled me aside before we went in and we had a little venting/calming down session outside.

James' family WAS at the rehearsal dinner, though. It was a nice little get-together. James made a little speech saying thank you to everyone for being there. I don't remember if there were any other speeches. Dinner was good, I think, but I don't think I ate much of it. I think I had the chicken. It's kind of a blur. Anyway, we went around to each table to say hello to everyone, and it was so nice to meet James' extended family and to see his parents again. My sister went around taking photos of the tables, which was really nice because no one else was.

There was a bit of a drama with my sister's gown for the wedding, too: the shop down the street from our house still had the dress! The day before the wedding! And the shop was about to close! And it wasn't going to be opening up in the morning! I made a frantic call to my neighbor to see if they could run down and get it before the store closed, but my dad ended up driving back to get the dress. It was pretty crazy to think that my matron of honor wouldn't have her dress for the wedding! Hooray for my poppa saving the day :)

Eventually, James and I were totally beat and falling asleep, so we said our goodbyes and went back home. I don't remember anything that happened after we got back. I doubt that I went straight to sleep, though. Huh.

Aaaand we're back!... The Pre-wedding Week

A lot has happened in the last three months! It's time to catch up.

James and I were scheduled to be back in New Jersey one week before the wedding, so we closed up our house and left on Friday, June 12. Actually, I closed up the house: James had to work that day but I was on vacation as of noon on Thursday, so I stayed home and got us packed and turned off the water and locked up the house. It was strange to leave the house for a month after only living in it for a week. I gave a set of keys to our neighbors, Shirley and Manny, who must be pushing 80, and asked them to keep an eye on the place. They said they'd go in once a week to make sure everything was okay inside. I felt a bit weird asking these perfect strangers to look in on our house, especially when it was so disorganized and just-moved-in, AND we had our bed in the livingroom until we had our bedroom set up. (We scrubbed a bunch of walls in the house and primed our bedroom walls with Killz during that first week.)

I picked up James at work and then we drove back to NJ - we were going to only drive three hours to Connecticut, get a hotel, and drive the rest of the way on Saturday, but since I was able to pick up James around lunchtime, it didn't make any sense to quit driving at 4:00. So we kept driving, and by the time we reached the top of the NJ turnpike, about 2 hours from Pitman, something funky happened with the car. When we went slow in traffic, it felt like the car was limping. We'd been going stuck in bad traffic for a while, so it was easy to think that it was just the road or something. Then the traffic picked up and we were cruising at 60 again, and the car went from limping to vibrating - and it kept getting worse! We were rattling pretty badly when we got to a big rest area where we could pull off. We drove over to a service station in the rest area and had one of the guys there look at the tires - one of which was all warped. The belt inside the tire had somehow shifted, and one area of the tire was now bulging out like crazy, which was causing the limping/rattling. James put on the spare tire, and I called my parents to let them know what happened. They were thinking we'd be arriving on Saturday, so they were pretty surprised to get a call from us with car trouble on the NJ turnpike! Finally we were back on the road and we made it to Pitman without any more drama.

Saturday was my brother's 30th birthday, and even though the house was still decorated with white flowers and tulle and pink crepe paper bells from the bridal shower (my mom just left it up to keep the house festive for the wedding), my brother had a big birthday party with his friends. It was a lot of fun, Kristi and I were wearing the same top from Target, the food was excellent (catered by a local Italian restaurant), the cake was yummy and the icing turned everyone's tongue blue. Carrie and Leif arrived from Norway at some point that evening, and it was so great to see them. The party was a fun time, but it was a bit odd to have all the girly decorations around for my big brother's birthday party.

I had my hair trial on Monday, and we decided that I'd get my makeup done at the salon, too - along with my sister. I was pretty surprised my mom sprang for this, but I was so glad she did. I was going to attempt doing it myself otherwise, and it wouldn't have turned out as lovely as it did. Carrie and I had appointments together - she got her hair cut and I had the hair trial. We ended up decided that I'd have my hair up. I'd been thinking I wanted it down and curly, but Cheryl said she couldn't guarantee that the hairstyle would still look good at the end of the day if it was down, but she could if it was up. Plus, it seemed more elegant and easier to deal with if it was up - that way I wouldn't have to

worry about curls deflating or frizzing up. And a lot of the hair styles I'd brought as examples were actually up-dos, so I guess I really wanted that all along. I told Cheryl I wanted my hair to still be curly, and I wanted the hair style to be elegant and romantic and not at all like prom hair. The slicked-back hair with the super-curled pile of shelacked curls piled on the back of the head - that's not for me. What Cheryl came up with was absolutely perfect. Carrie and her husband Leif and I went out to get pizza at our favorite place in town afterwards, and invited James to join us. I was kind of nervous about him seeing the hair style but he was really impressed with it!

The rest of the week passed in a blur - James and I worked extremely hard getting everything ready. Even though we'd been working on wedding stuff for a long time, there was still a ton left to do, and now it was crunch time:

We had to finish the programs, which meant stamping each cover, assembling the cover with the two inside pages, folding them all together and punching two little holes in them for feeding a length of ribbon through, and then tying the ribbon in a bow. The brand new hole puncher actually wore out on us, so punching the holes got more and more difficult. I think I actually bruised the heel of my hand doing it, and I had to have James and my dad work on it for me.

We had to assemble the 200 jars of peach jelly for the favors. My parents made the jelly, and James and I made 200 circles of pink and white fabric beforehand. We put the fabric on the jar and used the screw-on lid to secure the fabric. Then we wrapped a ribbon around the lid, slipped on a charm that said "thank you," and tied a bow. It was a very long process. And we ran out of ribbon... we made multiple trips to craft stores that week.

We had to print up the menus, because I wanted the menus to match our wedding stationary. The menus Auletto's would have pr

ovided were ugly, with Auletto's name at the top and some ugly little olive green and yellow design. So on one of the trips to a craft store, I bought a swirly kind of abstract design stamp, and we used that to stamp the top and bottoms of the menus. But first, of course, we had to finalize the design of the menus and print them all out and cut them all.

I had to finish the 150 or so crepe paper flowers, and tie a ribbon on each one so that the caterer could tie them on the napkins. And even though I'd been working on these for a long time, there were still a lot of flowers to make. And tying all of those ribbons! It took a lot time and I began feeling a bit ridiculous spending all this time on such a little detail, but I think the end result was worth it. They looked great on the tables.

We had to make the table cards (I finished all the place cards during my time off before we left for NJ - thank goodness!), which should have been as simple as setting up a template and printing it out on our printer, which we carted with us from Boston. But the printer had been

abused by all of our printing for the wedding stationary, and it wouldn't print pictures anymore - they came out looking all funky. So we had to use CVS's Kodak printer, but if we used our template, which was a full page, it would cost $7 per table, with 16 tables... it seemed ridiculous to spend that much for simple table cards. So we got a bunch of 4x6 prints for much cheaper and glued them onto the backing. It was a long project, and messy, and our gluey fingers smeared the ink a bit, but eventually we made all the table cards and I think they turned out really well.

We had to assemble the out of town welcome bags, which didn't turn out as nicely as I'd hoped. They were the one thing that kind of got overlooked in all of this, and I think it showed. They didn't have any maps or brochures for local sights like I'd wanted, and I'm not sure they got to the hotel at the right time. And I'm not sure that everyone who stayed at the hotel got one - the woman at the hotel who gave me the names of the guests who were staying there didn't give me everyone, I don't think. Grr. That was annoying. We had to go shopping to pick up all the snacks and goodies and water bottles, and then we had to assemble the bags and get them to the hotel. James took them to the hotel the day before the wedding, which turned out to be a bit of a mess because it made him a little late to the rehearsal. But the one good thing was, while we were out shopping for the welcome bag snacks, I suggested picking up a Crayola activity thingie for James' youngest cousin. Somehow that kit wound up at Tommy's table, and his mom later thanked us profusely for it. Tommy was the only child there under 10, so we didn't have a kids' table, and his parents were really grateful that we thought of him. So that was nice.

Thursday was the combined bachelor/bachelorette party, so all the wedding production stuff stopped at that point. Luckily, we got it all done. James was supposed to spend the afternoon with his brother(s) and my brother, paintballing or bowling or something. It was raining all day, which cancelled the paintballing, and then David called and said he was in Philadelphia and wasn't going to be getting to NJ until the evening, so that cancelled all the bachelor pre-party activities. It actually turned out to be a good thing, though, since James and I used that time to finish up wedding stuff. People started showing up at the house, mostly my bridesmaids, and we girls had a little pre-party in the family room. The girls gave me lingere and dressed me up in a bachelorette sash, a tiara, and a plastic penis necklace. It was a lot of fun, and it was especially fabulous to have so many of my favorite people all together. The only sad thing was that Phyllis's flight was delayed, so she couldn't join in on the fun until later. Then we all went out to dinner at a Cajun restaurant that my sister picked out. The food was so good! James's brothers David and John, and John's girlfriend Unique, joined us at the restaurant. It was so great to see them again (and to meet Unique!). After dinner, we went out to a bar and the bartender gave me a shot called a blowjob, which I guess is bailey's with whipped cream on top. At the bar, we met up with Phyllis and her date Josh, whom my dad had picked up at the airport. Also, my friend Leigh from high school joined us, which was nice.

I ended up having a bit too much... people were giving me drinks and I had some delicious pink foamy martinis, but eventually - and very suddenly -I was trashed. Which wasn't awesome. Lots of drunken conversations and spilling of drinks. I started crying at some point, which was even less awesome. I remember bawling in the car on the way home. But anyway it was a lot of fun, despite the strange way it ended. The funny thing was, the guys wanted to get James drunk, but he didn't even get tipsy as far as I could tell, and I ended up getting sloshed. Apparently I was really worried about everyone and made James text all my bridesmaids to make sure they got to their hotels okay, and I felt bad that I hadn't said proper goodbyes, and I was worried about losing my iPhone and things even though James had it all under control. Anyway we got back to the house and someone, probably James, tucked me into bed. I don't remember. I'm not sure if we made a lot of noise when we got home, if we woke my parents or if they were still up, or if they know how drunk I was or anything. But the good thing was, when I woke up on Friday I wasn't hungover. Woo!