18 Days and It Feels Like Months Ago

BF and I got married 18 days ago and it's been a crazy hurricane of events ever since!  Also, I realize that I can no longer call him BF but it's such a habit and nothing else has a good ring to it... so it'll change when I become clever and figure it out.

Anyway, so the last you heard from me it was a couple of days before the wedding and I mostly wasn't stressed out except for a couple things that ended up working out, but I got over it all and everything went so extremely well I couldn't hardly believe it.  Thursday afternoon BF and I packed our cars full of suits and dresses and center pieces and pomanders and, of course, our luggage.  We had to drive separately to fit it all and then I drove across town to pick up the bouquets and boutonnieres from our florist which were AMAZING and fit perfectly our venue and the attitude of the wedding.   I had forgotten that there was a music festival happening the same weekend as our wedding at Edgefield and was wondering why there were masses of dreadlocked wanderers bedecked in tie dye attire roaming the streets and the McMenamins property so it made for some fun people watching the entire weekend. We checked into McMenamin's Edgefield Hotel and lugged all of our stuff to our room.  We then changed for the rehearsal dinner, met with our family and the Reverend and then ate some awesome food! We decided that since some of our friends were staying at the hotel that night we would go out with them for a bit to catch up.  I don't think we stayed out that late because we knew Friday was going to be long, so we called it a night after a few drinks and a round or two of pool.

Friday morning was an early one!  We got up and ate a hearty breakfast around 7am and I met with my hair and make-up magic-maker, Courtney, at 8:15am.  She got to work on me while BF and the boys played the short course (golf) at Edgefield.  I spent my entire morning sitting very still and trying to not blink-cry as Courtney delicately placed individual false lashes on my lids (not something I could do very often) and then as she expertly airbrushed my make up on.  My Matron of Honor, D, awesomely brought me some sort of hot chicken sandwich and fries which I was so thankful for but then only ate 4 bites of because I was a bit jittery.  I want to say that in my case, I wasn't at all nervous to actually get married, but I was nervous that things wouldn't work out the way I wanted them to... but I think I'm so used to being in control of events at work that letting other people handle things for me was really what stressed me out about it all.  So the morning kind of crawled by because I had to be still for hair and make up, but it was so worth it because it turned out amazing!  Our photographer showed up to take "getting ready" photos of the girls around 2pm and that's when it started to feel real.

After the pre-wedding ceremony photos I about died of boredom because I had over an hour to wait before I could do anything at all.  My mom stayed in my room with me while the bridesmaids rounded up the groomsmen and got in their places and ready to walk.  I finally got to walk up to the area where our ceremony was and wait in the hall;  I got all sorts of congratulations from the masses of hippies wandering around which helped distract me from being bored and nervous.  The music and our processional finally started and then I surprised myself and got super emotional!  I don't even know why, but walking down the aisle with my dad was really hard... and I have never really been a daddy's girl and I haven't lived at home for YEARS so I don't know what it was.  We finally made it down the aisle and then the ceremony started.  Because BF and I worked with the Reverend ahead of time we already knew what he was going to say, which made it feel super slow to me, but everyone else thought it was a pretty quick ceremony.  I was afraid to make eye contact with BF for a couple of reasons, 1) because I was a little emotional 2) because I was afraid he would made a weird face and make me laugh inappropriately 3) because I sort of caught him looking at my cleavage and 4) because the sun was shining at an angle that made it hard to look that way anyway.  I think it was a good thing I couldn't look because I had a hard time making it through part of the vows (oh, emotions) so the Reverend told me just to nod which got a few chuckles, but worked! A few times throughout the ceremony we were serenaded by the music festival sound checks which was pretty funny and then a plane took off during our reading of "Oh, The Places You'll Go" by Dr. Suess and went straight up behind us (we were told it looked really cool, but we didn't get to see it) so it was a memorable ceremony.

Finally the ceremony ended and we were off to sign the license, take more pictures and get back to our guests.  We LOVED LOVED LOVED the reception.  Not only did we have BBQ chicken and brisket for entrees, but we had pie and cake!  I cannot tell you how much I love pie (too much, in fact).  My friend Paul was our awesome DJ and a couple of my high school friends came and played an hour of live music (including our favorite The Darkness Song, which was so awesome I couldn't stand it!).  I did a quick change into my "party" wedding dress which was just longer than knee length and a lot lighter so I could dance more freely.  All in all it was an incredible wedding day and we were exhausted by the end of it all.  

We drove home after another hearty breakfast on Saturday and spent the rest of the weekend recovering at home and trying to get ready to go back to work on  Monday.

Pictures to come soon (hopefully) and more about our hectic few weeks! It definitely does not feel like it's only been 2 weeks, but marriage has been good so far and we cannot complain.