Wedding Day

The only pictures I have right now are snapshots that various people have sent me. Most are pretty good and give a pretty good idea of the ceremony. This will do nicely until we get the professional ones.

I'm probably not the one to give an account of this day since it is kind of a blur. People kept joking about Valium and Xanax, but I didn't get anywhere needing to take anything to be calmer. It wasn't that kind of stress. It just came so quickly, and things came piling up until I was standing upstairs looked at a far-from-ready Emily when someone said, "You know, it's 6:00."

I thought the day started off nicely because, in spite of getting word that one of Em and Ryan's cars had been broken into the night before, I had gotten a good night's sleep, made final plans with Millie and Kathy, and headed to pick up the main flowers. I was proud of myself for finding the Trader Joe's where we had ordered them and walked in confidently, having checked with them only the day before and verified IN THE ORDER BOOK that we had 2 bouquets of white lily mixes and two bouquets of spring flowers. We figured we could pick up any more we needed after that. So when I went to the little stall where we had ordered them, I was met with blank looks, "Who?" "What flowers?" "Lilies?" I tried to describe the guy who had taken the order - and confirmed it - but I couldn't very well describe him as have a moussed baby topknot hairdo and wearing a tropical shirt (as they all do in there), so I did my best, and all I could gather is that he didn't use the correct "protocol" and failed to tell anyone else of this ordering. So I guess they sold our flowers in the 10 minutes before I got there. They were pretty concerned and nice, and I didn't even lose it. They helped me get some similar things together - which were beautiful - and I was satisfied. The police were there in front of the house when I got there, but that was expected, so I was still holding up fine.

I think with all the help we had, things went smoothly that morning. Once again, I felt like I did nothing of substance except worry out loud about something and have someone jump in and do it for me. The lemonade got made, the caramel cake got cut, the flowers got arranged. The caterers came and got busy. The cake got delivered. People worked outside making miracles happen. People went off for facials, manicures, pedicures. People brought ice and more flowers. Folks arrived from out of town needing to be directed somewhere and hugged and exclaimed over. It's all just a blur. Then the photographer was there, and most everyone had gone back to the hotels to get ready. I hurriedly put on my clothes for a few pictures, thinking I myself would have time to go back and shower and dress seriously, but somehow it didn't happen that way, and I pretty much looked for the wedding like I looked when I left the hotel that morning - except tireder, more disheveled, and with less makeup.

I'm sure all these things are part of it, and others probably have some horror stories, but I honestly can't imagine a wedding coming together any smoother than this. We had so much help and so much cooperation from everyone, and it was a happy day!

So here are a few pictures of the ceremony. Some of the ones I have would not enlarge. I'll work on that later.

This will do for a start. More tomorrow.