Married!

WELL. It's official. I am a MARRIED woman!  So with that being said....let's do a quick recap of the wedding weekend for those of you who were not in attendance....

Friday night the rehearsal (for the most part) and rehearsal dinner could not have been more perfect....let me say that when I talk about the dinner being more perfect than the rehearsal itself, it is only because my crazy wedding coordinator did not attend.  WOW, talk about flipping a switch....she sure did.  Anyways....I loved, loved LOVED hanging out with all of my family and closest friends while celebrating our upcoming marriage.  Everyone was SO amazing and excited for us, I could not have left the rehearsal dinner feeling more blessed.  To top off the night my MOH and bestie, Alicia, forfeited a night with her boyfriend, who does not live in the same town as her anymore, to stay with me before my wedding night.  Seriously. Blessed.

Saturday morning, I woke up surprisingly calm, and Aimee, my MATRON of honor picked Alicia and I up and we started our morning at Starbucks....and up to no good.  I am going to leave that as an inside joke to my bridesmaids and I, but just know....best wedding day EVER.  So after checking out the work the Country Club, Gary's Floral and our linen lady had done on the reception venue....we headed up to the church to start getting ready!  So with this being my first only wedding, I just want to say that the day leading up to it, went beautifully. (minus the best man being 30 minutes late...shout out, BENNETT)  I had an AMAZING time just being around 7 of my very best friends, my mom and some of my friend's family.  We ate, we gossiped, we schemed and we got gorgeous.  And by gorgeous...I mean GORGEOUS.  My bridesmaids were literally the best looking group I have ever seen...and when you threw in the boys....GREATEST looking wedding party in the history.  Sorry, just had to brag on them a bit :) 

Anyways, they were all OVERLY amazing and helpful in keeping me calm and making my day so easy and flawless.  Maybe I am biased, but my friends are. THE. best.

So, it's 3:00 and picture time....Jason did amazing as usual and made everything go smoothly (even though I do believe I snapped at him a couple of times....sorry Jason for letting bridezilla peek out once or twice).  Then after pictures me and Gerad did what was called a "first viewing".  We did this for a few reasons, the first being that we wanted to be able to take as many pictures as possible BEFORE the wedding and spend less time on it after.  Secondly, although I had held myself (and my tears) together really well up until ceremony time, I knew once I saw Gerad I would probably lose all composure altogether.  And boy was I right.  Jason set it up to where I was walked down the aisle halfway by my dad and then walked the rest of the way on my own.  Once I got to the alter I tapped Gerad and he turned around to meet and see me.  The feelings I had standing behind Gerad, facing his back, were indescribable.  I was overcome with SO many emotions including anxiety, nervousness (not about getting married though), joy and excitement.  As soon as he turned around, the tears (of joy) started flowing....but because the man I married is SO amazing, he immediately calmed me down and reminded me I probably wanted that eye make-up to stay intact :)

After pictures, there was a little time to touch up make-up and hair....to rest...and then it was go time.

So here is where the comedy starts....

First things first, Aimee, my beautiful (and sometimes clumsy Matron Of Honor) didn't quite make it up the stairs so gracefully, or so I have heard, I am still waiting to see the footage on that.  There may or may not have been a trip, a recover and another trip....oops.  I am sure she still looked gorgeous!  Moving on....during the middle of the call to worship and charge to us as the couple, we heard a few gasps and saw a look of somewhat surprise on our officiants face.  We turned to see that our flower girl had tumbled (literally) backwards down the stairs from the top and was laying flat on her back at the bottom of the stairs, legs spread eagle in the air, dress up to her waist....looking equally shocked.  At this point, complete concern took over me, and then when I realized she was fine, it took everything I had to not giggle in the middle of him speaking and re-compose myself, and keep in mind I didn't even know about the previous misstep.  The rest went fairly smooth....until we reached the candle lighting.  Isn't that where it always goes wrong?!

Well the morning started with us realizing the candles we ordered would not fit in the candle holders....that was easily solved with a butter knife and a little whittling action by Aimee and myself, she mostly just gave me moral support.   However, seeing that me and Gerad needed to use those to light the unity candle, I made sure to tell him to hold the base and the candle when we picked it up due to it either being lodged in there or barely in there.  What neither of us realized while looking at the candle set up was that the unity candle...didn't have a wick showing.  So when it came time to light this candle, in front of 300 plus people....Houston, we have a problem.  After trying for about 30 seconds and proceeding to melt the wax around where the wick SHOULD be, Gerad decided to use his finger to dig around in the hot wax and pull it up.  Well this worked (kinda).....and supposedly didn't hurt that bad. So we got the candle lit and then waited as our song (which was too long for Gerad in the beginning) to finish.  About halfway through the song, the flame flickered and then went out (the length of the song started looking pretty good about now).  We quietly discussed whether there was time to try again and decided that it was bad luck to leave it out.  Luckily the wedding coordinator had left a votive burning behind the set up because we had blown our individual candles out.  Gerad picked his individual candle up and re-lit it using the votive, then as he picked the unity candle up to re-light it, he forgot the two hands rule...and before we knew it, the heavy solid silver base crashed down onto the table, spinning and rolling and making about as much noise as one would think.  Cue the uproar of laughter from the audience.  As we discreetly laughed about the incident, Gerad also chose to use that time to tell me about Aimee "eating it" up the stairs....oohhh man.  A ceremony that I am sure won't soon be forgotten. 

After that we headed to the reception for such a GREAT night of family, friends and fun.  I love that SO many people came to support us and our marriage, it truly means the world.  However, I never dreamed that as a bride and groom you would be in SUCH high demand....but what do I know, I have never been a bride.  I knew we would make our way around the room and visit with all of our guests...but never did I dream there would be people that I (or we) never even got to speak with.  If that was you, or I barely acknowledged your attendance, I am terribly sorry and please do not think the guilt did not follow me straight to our honeymoon in Riviera Maya. 

Well, that is about all I can give you for now....I have a BEAUTIFUL sleeping baby Maltese in my lap and I am jealous she is the only one getting some shut eye.  Honeymoon and our new member to the Morris family to come soon....and TONS of pictures! 

Also, one last things....PLEASE everyone go to this link and comment on my bridal blog (if you have anything you would like to say that is)  Jason does WONDERFUL work and I try to market him whenever and wherever I can....I may or may not have given his website out in Mexico....I love him and his work, what can I say?

http://jasonmcd.squarespace.com/blog-work/2011/3/3/stormey-bridals.html

GO COMMENT!