I woke up at 4AM on the wedding day. Nerves, I’m sure. While the rest of the household slept. I started warming the chicken bits and meatballs in the crockpots. Once they were all awake, we went out to breakfast, then came home and loaded both cars with everything but the perishables.
The day before, I had bagged various items according to their use – Head Table, Cake Table, Arch, etc – and I’d labeled all of the bags – go me! Turns out it was a smart thing to have done.
Anyway, when it was time to go, my in-laws put the address into their GPS and left ahead of us, since we had to go to Publix to get the cake. **FCD ** and I were dressed in grubbies since we had setting up to do, and our wedding duds were in our car. Just to give you a visual.
We got to Publix and went to the bakery. I announced that I was there to pick up the wedding cake. I got blank looks from the workers there. The cake had been ordered a month before and paid for a week before. It was supposed to be ready at 11:30. We arrived at 11:45. There was no cake. Yeah.
They shuffled thru some papers and found our order form. They asked when and where I needed the cake and promised to have it there in time. I gave them directions (not an easy thing to do since I’m not from there) and we headed to the venue. By the time we arrived, MIL, SIL, and assorted others were already at work setting things up. Thank goodness for my labeled bags!! We sent our clothes upstairs to the changing rooms, unloaded the car, and set about doing what needed to be done.
I directed people to set up the chairs and the tables. My FIL and one of my daughter’s friends set up and decorated the arch. My mom arrived and she and my brother’s SO joined the kitchen crew in getting the food ready. Somewhere in this confusion, I went upstairs to see my kid as she got dressed. She wanted me to give a message to the DJ, so I headed downstairs again. What follows is not necessarily in order, since things got sorta, um, insane.
I tried to find the DJ – he was bringing stuff in, so I had to wait. I asked about the flowers – turns out the person who was supposed to have done the flowers had her phone cut off 3 weeks prior and no one knew what became of her. No, I have no idea why my daughter never followed up with her. Anyway, the fiancé of one of the groomsmen took off in search of flowers. I found the DJ to discuss what my daughter had asked me to pass to him – he had no idea what the processional songs were supposed to be.
So let’s summarize – less than an hour before the wedding, and we have no cake, no flowers, and no processional music. Fortunately, the bride had the processional songs on her iPod, and the DJ was able to extract them to his computer and get things set up. Then the flower shopper found a little bunch of white roses to serve as the bride’s bouquet. And since the groom had brought the bride some roses earlier, that bouquet was disassembled to give each attendant a rose to carry, plus flowers for the groom and the flower of the bride.
I got dressed and was photographed with my daughter in the bride’s room. I saw a few of the pics – the photographer was great and there are some really good ones among the ones I saw. Can’t wait till he uploads them all for our perusal. Anyway, after he was done with the photos, I headed back downstairs to see how things were coming along.
Somewhere along the line, I found out the kids decided to change our entry slightly. Both mothers would come in holding a lit candle with which we’d light candles that the kids would use to light the unity candle. Did you follow that?? Plus instead of moseying down the aisle alone, I had asked my nephew to escort me. He was so cute, and he did a great job. But I’m ahead of myself.
We were all ready to go, but the cake still hadn’t arrived. And it was getting late – it was supposed to start at 1:30 and it was creeping closer to 2.
And suddenly the cake was there. So we let them come in and set it up, and by 2 we were ready to start. Cue music – This is the Moment from Jekyll & Hyde. Mother of the groom and her husband went first. As she was lighting the first candle, I was walking down the aisle with my nephew. As I lit the second candle, the groomsmen started down, and when the music rose to a dramatic crescendo, the groom made his way to the front. Then the music changed for the girls – I can’t recall the name of the song, but it was sung by Celtic Women, and it was beautiful. It was paced out so, again, when the music hit a very dramatic point, we all stood and turned to watch my baby enter on her dad’s arm.
She looked amazing, and I managed not to blubber like a ninny.
The officiant did a wonderful job – he even gave me a copy of the vows printed out on some really nice paper – suitable for framing even! Anyway, it was beautiful and touching, and I swear the groom had such adoration on his face, if I had any doubts about him, that pretty much erased them.
Once the ceremony was done, some of us adjourned outside for photos, and the rest put the hall back together and set the food out. The rest of the reception had many of the typical traditions (in o particular order) – first dance, daddy-daughter dance, chicken dance, apron dance (aka dollar dance,) cutting the cake, tossing the garter and the bouquet, the toast (the best man went on and on…) Oh, and remember that dream I had about running out of food? We pretty much ran out of food, even after my daughter and I made another hundred or so meatballs. And her mother-in-law had made over 300 fried wontons. All we had left were a few scraggly bits of veggies, a couple dozen meatballs, and the 2 top tiers of the cake.
One of the nicest things, assorted family and friends worked their respective asses off cleaning up for me – doing dishes, gathering trash, generally doing the crap I was planning to do. About 5, everyone started scooting out, and I changed back into my grubbies. Then I came back downstairs and finished the cleanup and checked that everything was being left in order. We kissed and hugged the newlyweds, who headed off to the afterparty, and we were on our way back by 5:30.
Oh yeah, and I only took a few pics before dropping and breaking my camera. And yes, in the one pic, that’s my son-in-law’s brother wearing shorts and a polo shirt. :rolleyes:
We stopped at Publix to return the cake stands and get my deposit back, then back to the house to finish packing. We decided to spend the night in Ocala with my inlaws rather than drive and try to find a hotel. We got there before 9 and had a decent sleep before hitting the road at 5:30 on Monday. We got to the house here shortly before 9.
So that sorta brings you up to date. We drove to FCD’s work today so he could get his car, but he had taken the day off. I’ve done some laundry and we did a little unpacking. I get to go back to work tomorrow. Rah.
Any questions??
Still, a lot of folks around here (where I am now) seem to think it’s a big deal.
It’s over three years old, so I was kind of expecting something bad to happen sooner or later - this is by far the longest I’ve had a cellphone without it dying or breaking. However, on the list of things which I neither want nor can afford to replace right now, the celly ranks pretty high. It’s a Motorola SLVR L7, just like 