I'M MARRIED!!
Sunday, Oct. 13, went beautifully. We couldn't have asked for a better day. I spent the night at my parents' house (we got married in my hometown), while DH spent the night at the hotel with his GM.
He had given my mom a card and a gift (pearl stud earrings) for her to give to me on our wedding morning. (I had given his BM the cufflinks and card I wrote for him to give to him that morning, too).
The salon visit went smoothly, and we actually got done early. It was nice -- everything I had budgeted for, time-wise, took LESS time than we thought it would, so we never felt rushed.
At one point the priest was running late and called in a frantic panic, 'Could we get someone to be a sacristan and set up communion?' My godfather, blesshisheart, is a Eucharistic minister, and they had gotten to the church early to just be on hand in case we needed anything, so he set up communion.
DH and I did a first look, and I was SO GLAD we did. I was nervous, and people freaking out on me that the priest was late and that DH's parents showed up and wanted to be seated in the family pew despite being told no didn't help me.
My dad cried as he walked me down the aisle, but told DH, "I love you," when he gave me away, so that was sweet. The organist (who had shown up to the rehearsal without ANY music) did play the right music, YAY!
The homily was beautiful -- the priest started with a joke, and the rest was very serious and solemn, which I loved. The Mass itself went beautifully, too. I had made programmes for all of the non-Catholics in the audience, and since I'm a writer and DH is a writer, they were long and funny. They were a HUGE hit -- through the receiving line, people kept saying, "I loved your programmes, they were so great!"
We had done most of the photos pre-ceremony (other than the ones of DH and me together), and that made AFTER the ceremony much easier, especially for my two-year-old nephew, who was one of the RBs.
DH surprised me by renting a car to take us from the ceremony to the reception, which I LOVED -- I loved having that time alone with him to kind of just catch our breath and be together.
The reception was beautiful -- the DJ was great, the food (what I ate of it) was wonderful, everyone had a good time. We drank all the alcohol we'd ordered, so that was awesome, and everyone seemed to have a good time.
We only had five no-shows: my cousin and her husband had their baby the day before the wedding (Saturday), so they didn't come; one of DH's first cousins and her husband didn't come because his brother died very unexpectedly early Sunday morning; and one of DH's co-workers didn't come because her basement flooded in the torrential rain Central PA had late last week.
We went on a mini-honeymoon to my family's cabin in the northern part of the state, and ALLLLLL of my thank-you notes are written and mailed!
Happy to be an Old, Married Hag!!
I'm gonna go with 'not my circus, not my monkeys.'