The Wedding: PART 1

You know what I was thinking today? I was thinking how I never actually “finished” my blog. I mean, this is a WEDDING blog, and I never even wrote about the wedding. My last entry was 11 days before the wedding, and not another entry was made. Mostly because pure crazy began from that point forward. And if I truly want to print this blog out into a memory book of some type then I need to finish it, right? So grab some popcorn ladies (and gentlemen??) because this will be a long one. I present to you: The Wedding: PART 1

I’ll actually start two days before the wedding. That is truly when it all began. I woke up super early that morning and my sister came and picked me up. We had several stops to make – picking up the last minute rentals, buying last minute things for the reception and the rehearsal dinner, etc. So we started our morning at Bryant’s Rent-All. And y’all know they messed up our order, right? I mean, do we all remember my wedding planning process? Do we remember the Kountry with a K bitch?! I had paid ahead, but when I went to pick it up they showed me owing a balance. And by that point in the game, 48 hours before my wedding, the mere IDEA of something going wrong was enough to make me climb a counter. But I maintained my cool and we were able to come to an agreement. And by agreement I mean they admitted it was their mistake. They loaded our stuff into the back of my sister’s SUV (note: without counting or doing inventory of ANYthing we were taking, which didn’t occur to me to be nervous about until like 6 hours later…)

After a massive haul at the grocery store and a few other quick stops we were on our way to Bethel. We arrived at my mom and dad’s house first where upon I realized that we had approximately 17 billion items to take to the reception hall. And, because life is awesome, it was FREEZING cold, and the wind was blowing out of control. We were shaking it was so cold. We all made it to the hall where the cleaning ladies were already hard at work. We had considered cleaning it ourselves a few days before, but after a considerably short cry session with my soon-to-be hubby he promptly decided that paying two women a hundred bucks was a MUCH worthwhile investment when the other option was to having a stressed out sneezing bride. Good call babe!

We mostly spent Thursday just trying to get everything to the hall and get it cleaned, and to ultimately decide on how I wanted the tables arranged. God bless my daddy and my “little” nephew Aaron for moving those tables about a hundred times while I waved my finger around.

Fast forward to Friday morning. T-minus 24 hours until WEDDING DAY!! This was truly GO DAY. I had scheduled pretty much everything but the wedding to happen on this day, and a huge arrival of guests was beginning to happen. And by guests I mean all of my friends that I commanded sweetly encouraged to arrive early and help lest I cut hug them. 

I was blessed with an allergy attack that morning, so I spent the first hour of the day curled up on my momma’s chair with a cold compress on my head while Leslie and Bobby ironed table cloths and my mother ran around in circles. Then we made it to the hall and it began. Matt (who arrived the night before at some ungodly hour and I made Andrew pick him up at the airport with an ale-8 and a hug so I could get my beauty sleep), and his PHENOMENAL MOTHER JANE LEONARD DOER OF ALL THE THINGS began their flurry of decorating while Bobby and I worked on the table settings. It wasn’t until about 2-3 hours in that I truly began to see it all coming together. I mean really SAW it. My heart swelled up a little bit because not only was it coming together, but it was coming together precisely as I had imagined it. Every detail was what I wanted. That hadn’t happened in like….17 years.  

Bobby and I finished up the tables for the most part, and Becky arrived as a pinch hitter to save us from going cross-eyed. I think at some point in there we did all stop and take a break, because everyone was starving and despite my plan to work everyone to death they made a valid point that I needed them to be alive for the wedding. So we ate soup and sandwiches at mom and then returned to the hall. Upon returning, Bobby and I were given one task. Just one. Jane had made this beautiful burlap set of letters that spelled “Micha & Andrew”. All we had to do was attach the letters to a piece of string and hang it. We joked endlessly like “Oooo girl, don’t mess this up!” and “Hey girl!! You know how to spell Micha, right?” and “Bitch please, I could do this in my sleep.” Well, after a good solid hour of lining up every single letter perfectly, and developing a genius partnership of hot glue gun operator and letter holder, we were SO relieved to have finished the project. We stood up, took a nice loooooong stretch, and enlisted Becky to help us pick it up delicately so as not to disturb our amazing work. Then we decided to hold it up and admire it before hanging it. And, voila!!

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Yep. I distinctly remember at first wanting to cry, then laughing SO HARD that I peed a little. Just a little though. To this day, it is one of my absolutely happiest memories of the wedding planning process. It brought so much laughter that day I wouldn’t have it any other way. And shout out to Becky for banning Bobby and I from the crafting table and redoing the project for us along with Andrew’s sister Cindy. 

After a looooong day, we actually finished the hall. I took a step back. The lighting wasn’t set up yet, and the DJ wasn’t there, and there was no food or people yet. But when I looked at it, I saw all of that and more. I saw my wedding reception! I was SOOOO happy. My little vision of burlap and lace and purple and love had come to life. It was happening! Eeek!

BUT not before the rehearsal dinner. Which we had approximately 13 seconds to spend getting ready for. Matt and his mom retreated to their hotel and the rest of us back to Mom’s. Can I also just say HUGE shoutout to my amazing mother?! She hosted a minimum of 20 people at any given moment for about 3 days straight, fed us all, AND was making my wedding cake. That woman is a Southern saint. 

The rehearsal dinner was great. We just ran through the ceremony at the church, lots and lots of family and friends were there. I wore a beautiful purple dress and purple Coach shoes I had selected for the occasion, and Amy had curled my hair. So I felt blessed and happy all around. We had a simple dinner of spaghetti, garlic bread, salad, and homemade pies with sweet tea and lemonade. Everyone seemed full and content, and it was just simple and quiet. Andrew made a quick speech, and then so did I but I mostly cried. We passed out a few gifts, cried some more, and just felt SO LOVED. It was one of those moments that leading up to it I hadn’t really put a lot of emphasis on it. I thought it was just one more thing to do before the wedding. But in hindsight, it was one of the calmest, sweetest, most quiet moments I was able to have before the wedding. Andrew took me aside in a private room and gave me a special pre-wedding gift and we were able to have that beautiful moment together. That night was great in so many ways, and I wasn’t expecting that, but I am grateful for it!

Andrew and I went home that night to our house and stayed just the two of us. It was our decision to do that, even though I know a lot of brides traditionally stay away from their husband-to-be right before the wedding. I wanted to be with him. He is my safe place, my happy, my calm, my present, my future. My everything. That is who I wanted to be with, and I was. 

Stay tuned for tomorrow kids.