jonathan and i made plans with our breeder weeks ago to drop owen off with her for the wedding weekend so that he didn't get in the way and cause more stress on family, since he's so young and pretty much needs constant attention. the day before we planned to leave, jonathan recieved an email from the breeder saying that her daughter had to have an emergency surgery and she had to drive all the way up to michigan. she seemed like she was trying to work it out with us, but we felt like it would be a burden to make her change all her plans for us. i tried to see if another friend of mine would be able to keep him instead, but she was going to be involved with all the march madness basketball semi-finals and such over the weekend (basketball is big around here).
so, we thought we'd have to force owen to make the long car ride (which he hates) and he'd have to be alone for the majority of the weekend. but wednesday, our breeder was frantically trying to get in touch with us, calling the vet, the church, etc. trying to find out our number, which she finally found on the contract, to let us know that her husband would be there and that he would be able to care for him before she got back. it was awfully nice of her and definitely helped us out a lot! i'm sure everyone would have loved to have meet the little guy, but after a couple hours, i'm sure he would have just been in the way.
so after that chaos settled, jonathan and i packed in a hurry, dropped owen off at the breeder's home, went to church, and then left for georgia. we didn't get in until about 1 am. but it was really nice to be there in the morning and be able to help out first thing.
my first assignment was to make all the seating charts for the tables. I was a bit frustrated with it, since everything seemed to become crooked, the gold spraypaint kept smudging, and the boards looked huge and empty. i resolved most of the issues, and i think they ended up turning out alright. that took the majority of my day. around 7 pm people began arriving for the dinner my mom put on for becca's bridesmaids and michael and his famliy. we had italian wedding soup, as we did before my wedding. always a good way to get people there to help out with the last minute details of the wedding! we packed the items into bags for each table so it would be easy to set up in the morning. jelly beans, favors, decorations. we also put together all the bridesmaid bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages.
her flowers ended up looking really pretty...lots of different kinds of yellow flowers. we made more arrangements with watering cans and other vases for the table centerpieces. again, really cute :).
when we were pretty much finished up and everyone left, i got started on making table numbers and embossing them with stamps. another pretty tedious project. becca left that evening to go back up to atlanta...i was sad because i was assuming she'd stay the night.
anyway, friday morning everyone was trying to gather things together. jonathan and i picked up the sound system because jonathan was responsible for dj-ing her reception. dad had to rent a u-haul to bring up all the potted plants and tables and flowers....everything...up to the venue in atlanta. we were running a little late for the rehearsal at 4:00 because there was so much to load up, but jonathan and i got there only about 15 minutes late.
the rehearsal went pretty smoothly...jonathan had to be the stand in minister and we had to play music from an ipod to get an idea of when we were doing what. we had one of the bridesmaids mom helping us out and it was great! we didn't have a wedding planner, so she was our last minute stand in. so that went smoothly, it took us all forever to get up to the rehearsal dinner, that went too late to allow us to unload things that night into the venue, which made the family have to get up even earlier to get things set up the next morning.
so after the rehearsal, becca and i went back to her and michael's new house so we could help michael get a list of things he needed to pack for the honeymoon. the day before, yes, he hadn't packed! so i unloaded the dishwasher for them and around 11 pm, we all went to kroger so michael could pick up some last minute items like sunscreen, flashlights, etc. i felt like i failed at my matron of honor duties because we ended up being out until like 12:15 am, when becca needed to be up in only 6 hours.
well, at 4 am, i woke up as becca was crawling back into bed. i asked her what she was doing up and she said she was having all kinds of nightmares about the water and power in the house being shut off, the makeup/hair artist not being able to find her house in the morning, all kinds of crazy scenerios. i tried to reassure her...i wish we had gotten her to bed sooner so i could have knocked her out with some benedryl. that helped me alot before my wedding!
she finally fell back asleep by 5:30 and only got another hour of sleep before the alarm woke her up. i was frantically trying to get myself ready, while at the same time trying to pack for becca and make sure we had all the important things like her jewelry, the wedding bands, marriage certificate...all the big things. i also had to make sure she had her honeymoon bags packed, the computer for the dj music, her purse. agh. it was a lot to remember. christina was kind enough to steam all the wrinkles out of my dress and take it to the venue for me so it was one less thing i had to take care of.
i also failed to get becca to the wedding site on time. man. thats pretty bad. the hairdresser took way too long to get becca done, so we didn't end up leaving until 8:30, which is when we were supposed to be there, dressed, and starting pictures. but i had to remain calm, reassuring her that all was fine, even though it was totally stressed. i hate atlanta roads...i almost had someone drift over into my narrow lane because i was in their blind spot and they didn't bother to check. it would be really horrible if i was responsible for the bride getting into a car accident hours before the wedding! but, i got her there by 9 am unscathed. thankfully.
we got dressed quickly and started pictures by about 9:30 am. that went well and we had plenty of time to get all the wedding party pictures done beforehand and were anxiously waiting in the back room by 10:20 am. time ticked by pretty slowly...i didn't have anything to eat except half of a chicken biscuit. the setup for everything looked great. mom and dad and the whole family did a great job capturing the rustic style that becca was going after. the girl getting married after becca paid for the big white backdrop, which really made a nice alter area. the watering cans on the tables were adorable, along with the miniature pails filled with jellybeans and little pipecleaner bumble bees (which was really cute because becca and michael are both georgia tech grads).
the ceremony was beautiful. the strings were great. becca looked gorgeous and michael looked so happy as she walked down the aisle. they were really sweet. when they lit their unity candle, i was trying really hard not to laugh because there was a little black spider running all over it trying not to get burned! jonathan did the master of ceremony-ing and dj-ing, so he was really busy through the whole thing. i'm not a public speaker and was pretty nervous about giving my toast to 180 people. i had it written out on my iphone so i didn't have to write out note cards or hold a huge sheet of paper to read from. i got a lot of comments from people about that. kinda funny.
we enjoyed our jelly bean favors, the photo booth, and the bubbly exit (complete with the wramblin' wreck fight song). i ran around like crazy just before their departure, trying to make sure i got all of becca's bags into the best man's car so he could take it to their hotel room along with the gift basket jonathan and i made up for the newlyweds. we left about 30 minutes after they departed because we had a 5 hour drive. it came and went really quickly, but turned out to be a beautiful and happy day :).
No comments:
Post a Comment