Chapter Eleven* The Day Before the Wedding

I know I’m skipping ahead here, but I realized today that it’s taking me so long to finish writing out Our Story because I started writing about all the details of the wedding, and stopped writing about us… and while the details are fun and interesting, they aren’t what Our Story is really about. I last wrote about my adventure in finding my wedding dress, and if you are interested in learning any more details of how we planned a wonderful wedding for 185 guests for $2000, I’d be happy to share. Just let me know.

For those of you new to my blog, I’m about to finish the story of how my husband (the Hubster) and I went from not knowing each other, to being engaged and married in less than 8 months. If you’d like, you can catch up on all previous posts HERE, where you can read about everything from how I had to chase him down, to our first date, first kiss, and soon after, his proposal.

Friday, August 19th, 2005

The summer before we got married flew by. I was spoiled rotten by the five wedding showers I received from family and friends and we anxiously waited for our wedding day to arrive. The Hubster and I found an apartment we both loved and began moving our things to Senior’s City at the end of July. My mom and I were busy with wedding preparations as the responses to our invitations poured in and our final number grew to 186, much higher than either the Hubster and I had ever anticipated.

I didn’t see the soon-to-be-Hubster the week before we got married. Before your eyebrows start raising in question, this was not some religious or cultural belief we shared. We had lived apart for the previous four months—he with his family, and I with mine. We did our best to visit every weekend, but sometimes two weeks stretched between visits and I missed him terribly. The weeks leading up to our wedding were incredibly busy as we were both working, as well as planning our wedding and moving into our soon-to-be new home. We each had our respective “lists” of things to do: I had been up up late every night finishing wedding favors, table numbers, and other small details, while the Hubster was busy working and moving our things to Senior’s City, where we have been living for the past three and a half years. The two weeks before our wedding were insanely busy and we each had things to complete where we were. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been disappointed at the time—as I hated being away from him—but I knew that we’d be together so soon. (The fact that his allergies to my family’s cat had made him sick also complicated the matter somewhat… haha!)

I had originally planned to work right up until the Friday afternoon—the day before the wedding. It never occurred to me that this week would be full of things to do and never enough time to complete it. Thankfully, I had the world’s best boss who scheduled me to work all day, every day until Saturday evening (this meaning I’d have to skip my wedding) as a practical joke, but in reality refused to let me work past Wednesday at noon, letting me off early to get things done. With the help of an amazing woman we know in B-Town (and a few strong missionaries and young men) we got the risers, tables and chairs set up on Thursday evening, leaving Friday free to do all the decorating. I was absolutely exhausted when my head hit the pillow on Thursday, but I was so excited that the next day was my “Wedding Eve”.

Friday, August 19th, 2005 was perhaps the busiest day of my life. I woke up early, and my mom and I loaded up the Vanimal (our big blue family van) with decorations and headed over to the church. I was nervous to decorate as I had no idea what a wedding reception should look like–aside from my cousin’s wedding that I attended as a little girl, the first wedding reception I attended was my own. Thankfully, my mom had assembled an amazing team that I still don’t feel as though I’ve thanked properly for the amazing job they did. Several friends, aunts, cousins, my sisters and especially my mom worked tirelessly to transform a simple gym into a… well, wonderland for me. It was exactly what I wanted—just simple and pretty. It took a few hours, but we managed to have the bulk of the cleaning done by 3 or 4pm. My maid of honor, Telly, arrived early that afternoon to help with the decorating and to rehearse the musical piece I had asked she sing at our reception. She stayed by my side from the moment she arrived.

I think we were all exhausted by the time the hall was decorated, but that was just the beginning of things to come that evening…

Shop Girl*