Shortly after I got there Christina's friend, Dawn, arrived from Indiana. Dawn was one of her roommates in Hawaii. We stayed up talking until way too late, but it had been years since we'd seen each other.

Friday began the pre-wedding craziness. It started early by trying to download The Wedding March song. Stupid Windows. That's all I have to say about it.

The 3 of us eventually made our way over to E'town for a little shopping and last minute errand running. We found jewelry, flowers, film, and some other things I can't remember. Late afternoon we had to get back to the house to meet up with Christina's family who came in from all over the country. We piled into the cars and went to Ryan's for dinner.

Back at the house we mingled (12 people requires mingling) and eventually Christina put her dress on for all the women folk to oo and ahh over, and then fix. That's right, fix. The night before the wedding.

[Read more?]

The lady she took it to 3 weeks ago to alter it somehow 'forgot' about it and then thought she lost it! So when it was found, she had one day to make some adjustments. And what she did almost wasn't worth it. In the end though it worked out ok. We only had to pin it in one spot. Pretty frustrating though.

Most of us didn't go to bed until 2 or 3, so when the alarm went off in the morning, yup, you guessed it, slept right through it. Doh! With 12 people and 2 bathrooms, I had decided to take a shower the night before. Good thing because Christina was anxious to get going. She and I left about 8:45 to run some last minute errands and pick up her friend, Jennifer who came in from Ohio. Jennifer is someone she met and went to school with in Hawaii. Isn't it funny how a bunch of us who met each other in Hawaii were now all in Kentucky? And that we lived close enough to drive to KY? Gotta love military life :)

We eventually got to the wedding location, The Brown Pusey House. It's an old Georgian house from like the 1860's or something. The wedding was to be held in the gardens out back. Since it had been pouring Thursday night and was pretty chilly on Friday we were afraid the weather would force us to move indoors, but it turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day.

A bunch of us started setting up for the reception with really no direction on what to do. I think we all just made it up as we went along. And so began the insanity. Rehearsal was supposed to happen around noon. The wedding was at 3, so that shouldn't have been too bad, just a quick run-through to get the timing down. Uh uh, didn't happen. At 1:30 Amanda (Christina's sister) and I were still wiring ivy to the arch to have outside. At 2 we finally made it upstairs to get dressed.

But of course by 3, we were all ready and waiting on the magistrate. (Who ended up being a little late). Confusion really set in when we couldn't get everyone who was helping set up, out of the reception area. Someone outside started the music, but we couldn't hear since we were at the other end of the house. The song for the bridesmaids was half over before we realized it. Then the flower girl got stage fright and wouldn't walk out there. The maid of honor tried to walk with her, but that didn't work, and in the process dropped the grooms ring in the lawn.

Agh! What a day it had been. After the ceremony, the entire wedding party, and guests were walking the lawn, trying to find the ring. Believe it or not, someone did! So we did pictures and went inside to eat. From then on it went pretty smoothly. Christina and Toby left around 6:30, so the rest of us cleaned up and headed back to the house.

We spent the rest of the evening talking, watching movies and looking at the pictures. Jennifer came over and brought her 2 little girls, Megan and Zoe. I had little shadows all night. :)

I ended up leaving Sunday morning about 10:30, and made it home in 12 hours. No rain or accidents made it a pretty decent trip. I'm really glad she lives this close, and now I know how long the drive is, maybe we can get together a little more often than every 2 years.

My advice to anyone planning a wedding (Lauren & Mike!): plan, plan, plan.

Lauren, I know you will have every last detail taken care of way before the actual day, and I say that is an excellent idea. Mike, give her a break let her keep making plans and arrangements so early on, because the more she does now, the less you'll have to do later.

Pictures to come later, since I won't get them back until Saturday.