The Wedding Adventure

My greatest adventure yet... Getting married. Here is the story. 

Our wedding week was in the midst of so so many events, and so so many feelings. I want to record some of them now, because I don’t want to forget a single second.

I graduated from college on Saturday, May 19^th. My entire family (two brothers, a sister, mom, dad, cat, dog) arrived on May 17^th and were staying in our two bedroom apartment. They helped celebrate our daughters 2^nd birthday on Friday and Sunday and then wedding week sprung into action. Old friends of ours were there on Sunday for Victoria’s birthday, because they are amazing and love her immensely.

The week was crowded, and busy, but wonderful. Dunte, a single child from a quiet house, was patient and wonderful; even when we fed 17 people pizza in our apartment on Wednesday evening. At one point Dunte and I were in our bedroom, with our entire wedding party, minus one best man. One of my maids of honor and my brother were practicing a song they would perform at the wedding. It was breathtaking having so many people we love in one room. And they all came to middle-of-nowhere West Texas, for us. Talk about humbling. But since this is real life, not the movies, in that same room with all our best friends we realized that there were two typos on the programs. The magazine editor in me was kicking myself over and over. Office Depot, god bless them, reprinted just for the cost of the paper. Their amazing reason, “Weddings are stressful enough.”

On Thursday, I packed and organized everything to go to the venue. But I spent most of the day with my bridal brigade at the beautiful Ocean's Spa in Lubbock. Oh my gosh, it was amazing. I was so so relaxed and thankful for my wonderful friends. We had a fun and talked but mostly relaxed oh so thoroughly. That night I printed lists and made pretty spread sheets (with help from apracticalwedding.com). We shopped for the rehearsal dinner. I got everything ready to go for the all girls hotel stay on Friday night. There was a little hiccup Thursday night when my bedroom door locked on its own. I was making shirts for the girls, so the iron was on and we couldn't get it to unlock. Thanks to our amazing apartment complex maintenance guy, it was fixed within the hour. 

Tori's windy face

Drinks in the lobby

Friday came, and it was windy. When it is windy in West Texas, it is dusty. We were sitting on bags of chips and trying to keep from blowing away at the rehearsal dinner. We went back to the hotel and my uncle bought all the girls cosmopolitans at the bar. We went upstairs and drank wine, gabbed about old parties and good times. Then we went to sleep, I woke up several times throughout the night. 2 am, nope not time yet. 4 am, not time yet. 6 am, ehh not time yet. 7:15, time to wake up.

Drinks in the room

Dunte picked me up downstairs, and we went for our couple and baby breakfast. I had expected to make pancakes or our usual fare. Instead, Dunte surprised me with good breakfast from a local grocery store. We ate; my mom and dad came by, donning their lists and synchronized watches.  I went to the venue to help setup. I walked into the most beautiful piece of furniture I’ve ever seen. My uncle had made it, shipped it to Lubbock and assembled it before 9 am Saturday morning. I was flabbergasted. In addition to beautiful furniture, we found 30 mile per hour winds. This put most of our preparations outdoors on hold. When I left shortly later, we had put a pin in the decision to move the ceremony inside.  Our amazing day of coordinator, Dawn (also fondly known as my raceo mom) would make the call at 4. I didn’t think about it again.

 I went back to relax before it was time for Jenna was supposed to do my hair. During this time was my only wedding freak out. I needed to shower and was kind of throwing a fit. I had obviously been taking mental notes from Tori, because I made it clear that “I didn’t wanna.” And “I’ll do it later.” My mom had ordered us food to be delivered. An unusually tall man brought it in, saw my wedding dress and said, “Pretty dress, somebody getting married?” I grinned and identified myself, still not really owning the title “Bride” comfortably. Jenna cautiously asked, “Do you want to eat?” I complied, defiantly. We ordered a movie on demand, ate, and I then I was ready to shower.

This set things into motion and it was off to the races from there. I showered, and Jenna started on my hair. My sister and the maids of honor came back, hair beautifully done and headed off to the first round of make-up. Jenna, Mia (other maid of honor) my mom and I followed shortly after. Everyone was getting their make-up done, except me. It seems that another bride accidently took my appointment. She embraced her bride title, and the make up lady at the Clinique counter was happy to do any bride’s make up. So, my make up didn’t start until well after we were all supposed to be getting dressed. All the other girls went back to the hotel, my uncle (and photographer) stayed behind to snap some photos and drive me back to the hotel when it was done.

Girls waiting, looking so lovely.

The make-up was finished and I trotted up a very small section of highway because Uncle Chuck couldn’t drop me in the hotel parking lot due to construction. I scurried up to the hotel room, and everyone was dressed. They all looked stunning. In a matter of five minutes I was in my dress, I had a couple correcting curlers in my hair, two people were tackling the 3 dozen buttons on the back of my dress, my mom but on my necklace. Soon enough I was walking out and stuffing myself into the car.

We were 40 minutes late, so pre-ceremony pictures were cut short. But I checked my phone on the way to the venue, and the reminder I set in my phone 6 months ago said, “Get married, be Zen.”

And so I did.

The ceremony was quick, very quick. But powerful. I made the biggest promises I’ve ever made, in front of 50 people that love us. It was really windy, but we were outside. Just like we had always envisioned it.

First kiss, will never forget it.

Next came a few tearful, smiley moments to ourselves before more pictures, I felt rushed to get to the party and celebrate. And when we got there, it was fun the entire time. It was non-stop smiles and dancing and food. The pizza was causal, and the drinks were good. Dunte and I had a choreographed dance that I was nervous about, and we nailed it. The dance ended and everyone, literally everyone, danced in a circle around us to “Shout!”

You know you make me want to SHOUT!

Dunte and my maids of honor gave amazing speeches that brought tears to my eyes. Then my dad gave a funny speech, he is always spot on, just the right thing for the situation. While he spoke a peacock climbed the tree behind him, who knew peacocks could climb trees?

The dancing continued until it was time to go, then we went to our favorite piano bar and closed the place down. There was a conga line, many drinks, Dunte on a piano, and pure joy. The whole night was a blur of hugs and dancing and tears and friends.

Other amazing things to remember:

·      The shot of jack with the entire wedding party before we walked down the aisle.

·      The amazing musical collaboration. My oldest friend Becca played the processional music on the clarinet. AJ played the guitar while Koko sang a great song. And Krista, Becca’s sister, manned the ipod for the rest of the ceremony music.

·       Dunte dancing with his mom, I’ve never seen her smile so big.

·      The boys wore amazing hats, the girls wore amazing shoes. They all rocked

·      As we were leaving and everyone was blowing bubbles, my brother stalked us out of the venue sneakily blowing bubbles behind us… until the wind turned and they blew back into his eye.

·      At the end of the day, I was married to an amazing man.

Waiting for the cab at the end of the night. Just me and him, forever (=