Advice:
Add in an hour of buffer time into your timeline! I added in 30 mins of buffer time to my timeline. Despite that, I arrived at the venue 1 hour and 15 minutes later than timeline stated. Partly due to MUA arriving 30-40 mins late (not entirely her fault – her car brakes were not functioning when she was a few miles from home so she headed back and swapped her car, then she didn’t know 405 was closed and I forgot to mention that to her, so she had to detour). Needless to say, with Make-up and hair to be done for multiple people (4 total) add in extra buffer time!
The peeing in your dress by sitting on the toilet backwards totally DOES work! MOH held my train for me, but beyond that, I was able to be fairly self-sufficent.
Things will go wrong! CPs were not quite as I’d envisioned (someone decided to put a cloth napkin under the leaves and the monstera leaves were twice the size of the samples the florist showed me so they make the CP bowls look tiny).
We forgot our marriage license. So technically, we aren’t married. Yet. That will be fixed tomorrow. Yeah, we go back to sign the paperwork, I turn to DH and say “Where’s the license?” And he asks me “I don’t know, you didn’t give it to me.” Apparently, he was going to text me asking about it the day before but “didn’t want to bother me.” Umm…yeah….ANYWAY, bummed we didn’t get those pics, and for some reason didn’t get the pics with our officiant. L But I plan us to have pics with him at a future gathering.
Due to my lateness, I sent MOH ahead of me and I thought I would make it in time to bring the pretty hanger for dress pics – nope. As stated, I was over an hour late, so Jenny had to take pics of my dress on the plastic hanger thing. But it looked like she got some gorgeous ones that sort of block out the hanger, so I’m looking forward to seeing those.
You stop caring about all the minute details after a certain point. I told my dad a while ago to wear a black suit. My dad showed up in a navy blue suit, orange tie, and black sneaker-like shoes. Awesome. My mom showed up wearing the red dress she was going to wear and a blue hair thing. To this day, my parents are unable to match clothing in a good way. Whatever.
I warned everyone on FB that if they were attending and had allergies to take meds & bring stuff, yet my brother decided to ignore that. So he showed up with red, bloodshot eyes due to his allergies. Hopefully his eyes in the family pics will be less noticeable due to distance.
People will not show. We had one couple that we had to bug to find out their answer whether or not they were attending and they said yes – total no-show. We also had a few different people who RSVPed with guests who came alone.
The day goes by FAST! We ended up having to wait 15 mins to start the ceremony to wait for more people to arrive and then after the ceremony, we went to (try to) sign the marriage certificate, chilled for 5 mins, then MUA wanted to touch-up my makeup, I scarffed down some apps to get my blood sugar back up, next thing you know, as soon as we were announced, it was serving food time! I couldn’t help but try to figure out where the 45min-1hr had gone! We wanted to use the cocktail hour to greet people, but it just didn’t happen and then once we ate, it moved immediately to toasts, then cake, etc. Wow! Soak up as much of it as you can!!
Emotions will be running high. When we did the reveal, DH actually got teary eyed which totally surprised me (in a good way, but still shocking). I started to get teary eyed when my parents and I got close to the guests, and our officiant started choking up towards the end of the ceremony. But I could NOT have done it without the support and help of my two awesome local BMs. MOH was amazing and my other local BM totally helped save my sanity.
Now for the Rant:CA BM was a snot. Not entirely, but pretty much. She kept running late for things, i.e. going to pick up my dress the day before, I told her we had to leave AT 10:30 and MOH was driving since she has an SUV the dress could lay flat in. At 10:20, CA BM decides it’s a good idea to walk to the QFC across the street to get some food and something to drink. My phone had died so MOH called her and CA BM said she’s be right up, but she had to go to her hotel room to get her hat. She walks back to the hotel at 10:35 and gestures to the door like she needs to go get her hat and I say NO. We’re leaving NOW. She whined about the hairstyle (DH and I ended up paying for the girls makeup and hair) I had them with (half up, half down) and apparently was being a total crybaby when she was getting her hair done (I was not at the room at that time) and was COMPLETELY unhelpful at all the day of. Oh, and the ONE thing I asked her to do on the day of: give my bouquet and the BM bouquets to the DOCs, she didn’t do. So DH and I go to sit at our sweetheart table and we didn’t have a CP because my bouquet was MIA. She just stuck it back in the buckets they arrived in. Awesome. Needless to say, I was VERY disappointed in her.CA GM had the audacity to ask if he could spend the night at our home the night of our wedding and get a ride with us to the airport in the morning. This is the same GM that we didn’t know if he was even going to be able to attend the wedding because he didn’t purchase his plane ticket until 2 weeks before the wedding. DH called me the night before the wedding to ask me “There’s an extraordinary circumstance and I wanted to see what you think” because GM needed to find a way to the airport in the morning. ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME?? Take a taxi!! So I run through the logistics with him: your GM is going to ride with us from OUR wedding to our home and spend the night with us on our WEDDING NIGHT? Granted, we didn’t sleep that night because we had to pack and head out the door by 3am for the HM, but still. I’m sure you can imagine how UPSET I was when DH mentioned this to me. I mean, if it was any other wedding, sure whatever, but, um…hello? This is OUR wedding! My other local BM ended up having to call DH and talk to him about the situation and it got resolved, but SERIOUSLY!?? All in all, it was an amazing day. If I could re-do things, I would have nixed CA BM getting her hair done (actually I wouldn’t have chosen her to be in the BP), checked a couple things more carefully, and added in more buffer time. But I can’t wait to see more pictures to help relive the day. J
Family fall photo session with Ashley Hoyle Photography
Married 7/10/10
Wedding Planning Bio - Updated 6/13/2010
