[wedding] [planning] [beyond]




About Page Recap kandekisses

RECAP INDEX
Everything up until this point can be found in kandekisses, the online journal that I recorded my wedding plans and thoughts in...
Recap of Activites Before | Recap of Wedding Weekend | Recap of Wedding Day | Recap of Formal Pictures | Ceremony Recap | Reception Recap | Honeymoon Recap
You can click on any of the pictures to view a larger and more detailed version

<- part one--

The final weekend before the fairy tale...

Friday the 11th:
This was the day that I knew would be stressful. From when we first started planning, we knew that there would be a certain number of things that would have to be completed on the last day. Pastor Lutz called me bright and early in the morning to confirm what time we'd be dropping off my dress. We had figured out that it would be best to get the dresses, and then go right over to Hockinson to drop them off, so I shared that info with him. Right before that, I had been painting my toenails, and when I answered the phone, my nailpolish hit the edge of the wall, and bounced under the bed, so far that I couldn't even reach it to stop it from falling all over the place. And this all happened while I was trying to have a coherant conversation with Pastor Lutz!!!!!!! So I got off the phone with him, and grabbed some Klennex, but to no avail - this stuff was NOT coming out. I'm guessing we'll have to pay to have the carpets redone in this room now, but there was really nothing I could do to get it out. So I tried to laugh it off because I had too many other things to stress about this morning.
Megan and I started breakfast, but I don't know if either of us actually ate anything! I know the cinnamin rolls smelled good, and I'm hoping that the other girls ate before they left. Megan searched for her keys because off and on this whole end of the week, she'd been misplacing them. You'd think she had something on her brain besides her keys or something! >smirk< Karen made sure I had her cell phone number before she left to do other stuff for the day. I had two more purchase orders to type at work before I was done with work for the week, so I stopped over at work. My giant box of flowers from freshroses.com had arrived right before I did. I decided not to open it until we got to CAA a few hours later. Dad had me go over all of the food that needed to be picked up on Sunday with him, and I finished the purchase orders just in time for Lorna, Nancy, and Kathy to show up to use the Locatis Leather kitchen to cook the rehearsal dinner lasagnas in :-). I quickly said my goodbyes when Megan pulled up, having found her lost keys and picked up Amy's minivan. My family's neighbor Amy had graciously agreed to let us trade Meg's car for her minivan for the weekend because we had so much transporting to do. This waas SUCH a lifesaver!!!

We made it back home to pick up Lisa and Rina, who were up and ready now. Kellie was ready to go home, too, so we loaded up the car with the essentials we would need for the day (ie, Cherry Coke for Kristine!) and we were off! We dropped off Kellie, and headed to Touch of Silk. We made it there just when they opened, and picked up the dresses. The three bridesmaid dresses were pressed and my dress was pressed and in a side room stretched out. We put it back in its dress bag (I wished I had called before hand to find out how the dress would be when we picked it up - we brought sheets in case it needed to lay out in the back of the van) and the ladies there wished me luck and said I should come back with pictures later on :-)

We jetted the newest backway that Megan had found from downtown Vancouver out to the church, and weren't more than a little bit late to meet Pastor Lutz to put the dresses in. We found a side bathroom with a curtain rod to use for stretching my dress out on, and hung the girls dresses up next to it. I just could have stood there for hours and admired my dress - it looks so beautiful! But we walked through the back of the church again to get a feel for where we'd be putting stuff (Megan and I had already gone through and picked out what rooms would be for what people) We worked out a time table for Saturday and Sunday and shared that with Pastor Lutz before we went to our next destination.

So next, we made our way to the cafeteria of Columbia, where they have huge counters, big sinks, and a terrible smell, we soon found out. Someone had left a container full of nacho cheese in the sink, probably since the end of the school year. Oh, I can still smell it, it was SO yucky! Megan finally took it outside, and we put a bunch of soap in the sink to kill the smell. We used the other sinks after that LOL! We got out the giant box of flowers, all of my supplies, and tried to make ourself at home. We opened the flower box, and started pulling things out! We had such a pile of stuff!! There was Baby's Breathe, and a beautiful filler, and ivy vines, and lavender (blue bird) roses, and white (bridal white) roses, and a ton of long daisies. For more detail on the actual flower arranging, check out the Flower Page. While we were arranging, it got to be lunch time, and so Megan went to the slow Subway in Battle Ground to get us some food. I think I ate all of 5 bites of my sandwhich LOL! I was having a hard time concentrating on eating while there was SO much to do before our next stop. When we finally got done (the last stuff was done VERY quickly!), we locked up and headed out.

Our next stop - to get our nails done. After going to my cousin Laura's wedding, we decided that hers and the bridesmaids nails had looked so nice, and we girls really wanted to not worry about how our hands looked the whole time. I have a compulsive fingernail biting problem anyhow, and knowing that I didn't have to worry about that problem so much was a real relief. So a few weeks before, Megan had called quite a few area places, checking on prices, and their procedures, and we went with a fairly inexpensive place that sounded more trustworthy in their use of chemicals for the acrylics. Unfortunately, we didn't know *exactly* where the place was, and we were about 10 minutes late anyhow, so by the time we found it, we were about 20 mintues late. The ladies were really nice anyhow, and they had called in enough people so we could have them done at the same time :-) Lisa, Megan, and I had decided on the french acrylic nails, and Rina decided to just get a french manicure. The whole process really was relaxing after our stressful day, and I think there was only one time during the grinding that it hurt my finger. They looked SO wonderful. We spent the rest of the evening relearning how to use our hands and counting on Rina to do things because none of us other girls were used to having such long nails!! :-)

outside the old spaghetti factory - look at nails

We ended up finished with the nails a little earlier than we thought, but we headed to our next (and final) destination anyhow. The guys had to go and be fitted and pick up their tuxes over at Mr. Formal, and so we had decided to meet for dinner around 7 at the Old Spaghetti Factory. We girls were speedier than that, so we went to Target to pick up some tape, look for needles in case we needed them to attach things to the wall, and a print cartridge. I found the CUTEST frog, and decided that it would make a nice companion to Eric's present. (We have a thing for cute frogs, apparently - each of us have a Smoochie Beanie Baby on our computer!) We went over to the restaurant and put our names in and sat ourside for a while. It was a beautiful day, and that was really nice to have for such a busy time!

They seated us girls, and we let them know that we had a whole bunch of guys coming to meet us :-) After sitting there for a while, the guys showed :-) It was so nice to see Eric again after being apart for a whole two days {giggle}. And I hadn't gotten a chance to see Brian, Robert, or Greg since last December when we had visited Southern California last time. This was my first chance to meet Gabe, and that was a fun thing :-) Craig showed up later - he had found a date beforehand :-) We had *such* a fun time! The guys all decided that Eric should do his elbow trick and spent a whole bunch of time convincing him to try that. Our dinners were excellent, and it was just fun to sit and laugh with everyone. Gabe decided that the waiter needed to know that we were getting married, and they made us stand on a chair with a birthday candle in our spumoni while everyone sang something to us. It was thoroughly embarrasing :-) As we were getting ready to leave, Eric finally gave in and did the elbow trick, and we all talked about the plans for tomorrow before Eric climbed in the van with us to go home, and the guys left in their car. The girls dropped Eric and I off at home, and went on to their house to get some sleep - the end of a very long day!

Saturday the 12th:
Eric and I got up and got ready for church. We had all decided to go out to Hockinson church for the service since that's where we were getting married THE VERY NEXT DAY!!! I had already been up stressing, wrapping some presents for people who were helping, and working on lists by the time Eric got up. I wrote an update email to the wedding mailing lists I was on to let them know that I was SO excited that it was finally my turn to get married :-)

On our way to church, we saw Amy's van on its way out there - my whole family and Kellie were all on their way too :-) We got out there, found a nice long row, and were seated just in time for a rather boring sermon. Many people for our wedding showed up :-) I felt kinda bad to drag everyone out there, thinking that Pastor Binus would be speaking and found a not-so-interesting alter-call type of sermon instead.

Eric's parents graciously decided to host a dinner at Sweet Tomato following church, and many people that they knew showed up at dinner as well. It was kind of a stressful dinner for me because I knew I had so many things that had to be accomplished before the rehearsal dinner that night. I'm sure the food was good, and I'm sure people were enjoying themselves, though :)

After Megan and I were done with dinner, we started to get antsy because she hadn't brought her own vehicle out to the church. So we decided that Eric's car would have to be ours for the afternoon because we HAD to get back to the house. Eric would come with the guys a little while later and run some errands at Safeway for me before the rehearsal. So that would work out fine for Megan, Rina, and I to take his car and start on our stuff. Everything that was going to be at the church for decorations needed to be out there, and we had very limited time to finish putting it all in boxes. I wished that would have been accomplished earlier in the week, but that was one of those things that I kept putting a star by on my lists and not getting to. We came to my apartment, and I started throwing things together and in boxes to come. I had many lists that were put together at this time to bring out the church, and printed a few more copies of the schedule to give to people who needed them. I wished I had printed one off for each person and highlighted stuff to give out - I didn't have an ink cartridge on Thursday when I had planned to do that, and then there wasn't time after that. After being at home for a little while, we realized that the guys were not getting here when they said. That was a little worrying to me, but I went ahead with what I was doing anyhow. I drug out my picnic basket and called to remind my dad about needing the little cooler, and they reminded me that Lisa was over there and was wondering why we hadn't taken her. I attempt to resolve this issue, but I think that they were all just a little on edge. After a little while longer, Eric still hadn't shown up, and so we started to stress about how we were going to get Amy's van back from my mom's house. She unfortunately was taking a nap, and so we had to wake her up and have her come over here. Megan went over and got everything they needed from their house and they came over with the van. I had everything at the doorway for them to load up when they got back, and they put it in the cars (I found out later that they had put a bunch of stuff in Eric's car, too). We dropped Mom off at home, and headed to the church. We saw the guys on the way, and stopped on the corner to tell them that the door wasn't locked and that they needed to bring his car. I definitely wasn't super happy that they never showed up when they said, but later on, Eric appologized a whole bunch and told me how they had gotten caught up in something.

We got to the church about 15 minutes late, and they explained to us how to use the hot water and we started unloading our piles. Come to find out, the girls had put the more essential boxes of decorations that I needed in Eric's car. So we unpacked *some* of the things we had in the designated classrooms, put up some signs, and basically stressed around until Eric arrived about an hour later. Annette came up with a great idea of how to make the pew bows be less wrinkely (they were all made of tulle) - the went in the bathroom with a shower in the back of the church, turned on the shower and put the pew bows in there to steam for a while!

(This worked very well later with my veil, too!) Once I had the fishing line, they started putting up the pew bows in the sanctuary for me.

The food in the kitchen was starting to smell amazing by this time, with Eric's family and friends cooking and arranging things for the rehearsal dinner. I was still running around, getting things organized, looking for lists, and making more lists. It was kinda fun being the person that everyone had to come to when they had a question, except that I wasn't able to get much done myself that way! We went into the reception room when they came to tell us that dinner was ready, and the food was delicious - and the decorations were so cool! They worked hard to make everything so nice for us :-) I don't remember much about the actual conversations and stuff that night, but it was nice to sit down for a bit - I think that was the only time that night!!

After dinner, the strong guys moved all of the things off of the front of the church so we'd have all of the space to practise. Then I got out my sheets of who was doing what for the ceremony (Wedding Day schedule), and gave copies to the key people. We two run-throughs of the ceremony, and Megan got to practise her song (which was beautiful!) The girls practised wearing their shoes, which made them all totally taller than me :)

While the rehearsing was going on, Karen was leading other helpers in rearranging the reception room and putting all the tableclothes and candles and stuff out. I ran back and forth as much as I could, but left most of it to Karen with the diagrams. After we were done rehearsing and most everything was done, we started to let people go home. I finished sorting out some of the boxes and made a few more lists of last minute things for Sunday. Eric and the guys finally left, with my final admonishtions about getting some sleep and a kiss for the man I was about to marry :-) Finally, it was just me, Megan, Lisa, and Rina, and we got as much done as we could before turning the lights off and closing up the church. We made the drive home, and were very tired by that time! We set the girls up for bed, and Megan sat in the bedroom with me for a while during my stressing about not being totally packed for the honeymoon yet. I think I finished putting it all together in the suitcases before Megan and I climbed into my bed to sleep.

The Wedding Day - continue....

[index] [about] [ceremony] [reception] [events] [wedding party] [pictures] [messages] [resource center] [details] [about page] [journal] [recap]