cutemore: All My Love, All My Life: Commence Panic!

Hi folks (*blows kiss, takes deep breath.) This post has been kinda hard for me to write (hence my blogging absence lately) because it involves some moments of the wedding where I acted, um, how shall we say? Less than favorably? I'm not saying my breakdown wasn't justified but I'm still not proud of it. Don't judge.

Anyways, where were we in my crazy wedding saga? Oh right, I'd hopped in my mom's rockin' Subaru station wagon to be chauffeured the short ride up to the venue, blithely, innocently unaware of the chaos waiting for me ahead. I arrived on schedule, ready to take all the bridal party and family portraits before the ceremony, which was set to begin at 4:30 pm. What I found was not the organized bustle of our vendors putting together the wedding as scheduled but rather pure and utter madness.

Thanks to the rain, both our rental and catering companies were very, very behind setting up. I witnessed my dad, still in his work clothes, frantically hanging cafe lights and lanterns. I saw our caterer still arranging the bar and our DOC desperately trying to arrange two large tables in a room only big enough for one of them that were to hold the guest book/card and cookies/lemonade tables, both of which were supposed to be set up outside. Our florist (who had all our bouquets) was nowhere to be found. And then...

My heart sank when I looked at the tent and my mom approached me with a look that was half sympathetic and half mildly crazed despair and told me that somehow the dance floor was about half the size we had requested.

Oh, F*CK.

She was currently on the phone with my MOH's parents, who live in town, to ask them to drive half an hour out to Home Depot to buy plywood to fill out the dance floor since the ground was so wet from the rain, not to mention the band needed a dry space to set up their equipment. Our rental coordinator was calling every other rental company he knew, trying to get more dance floor pieces.

* PANIC (AND NAUSEA) ENSUED!

I had a knot in my stomach the size of a corn dog at a county fair in Texas as I literally watched the wedding I had been planning for 15 months crumbling in front of my very eyes. Believe me when I tell you, folks, it was bad.

Kevin from Aviator Rentals, who clearly felt horribly when he saw my face collapsing, assured me they'd come up with something to make the dance floor work and to go wait out of the rain in the Tannery (ceremony site) so Kelly (our photographer) could start taking photos.

It took every ounce of self control and lots of deep breaths for me to listen to him but I followed his instructions, praying something would work out and hoping that this would be the worst of the drama.

Closed Circle Photography

Dodging rain drops :)

Yeah, right. I walked back up to the Tannery and was consoled a bit by my dear, dear bridesmaids. Then my bouquet was offered up to me by the florist, who had finally arrived.

And this, my friends, is where it gets kinda ugly; I looked at the bouquets and promptly burst into tears, turning my back on the florist and walking out of the room. Yeaaaaaah.

*embarassed blush

What, might you ask, did the tear-inducing, drama-causing, fury-spawning, offending bouquet look like?

Closed Circle Photography

I know. I know. Now you all think I'm absolutely nuttybonks.

The bouquet is actually quite lovely. It was really just the combination of everything going wrong at the same time; the bouquet was simply the straw that broke this bride's resolve to stay calm.

However, in my defense...it's not anything close to the pictures I had emailed for inspiration. To prove I was not a completely psycho bridezilla, here they are:

(Source)

Ohhhhh me oh my, I still get a bit wistfully jealous when I see beautiful, colorful bouquets like this...

You see what I'm talking about? Yup, there's no color. I really wanted (and had expressed this desire to the florist) bright pops of yellow in my bouquet and what I got was an almost all-white, traditional bouquet. And to add insult to injury, I thought (and still think) it was really small. All in all, a complete disappointment.

Sadly, the bridesmaid's bouquets were also upsetting, as once again, they were nothing like the inspiration photos I had provided. Pretty, yes. What I had envisioned and pictured? Not even close. Siiiiigh....Can you tell I'm still a little bit bitter about the whole thing?

I am happy to report that my bridesmaid's somehow managed to pick me up off the floor and set me straight. It took about five minutes of crying and comforting before I was able to get over it (because I had to) and come to terms with that fact that while things were far from perfect, it was still my wedding and I would make it work like Tim Gunn on steroids, dammit!

Looking back on the day, I totally regret not being able to rise above all the stress and mishaps but at the time, I just couldn't. And yeah, it still super-duper-mega sucks that I cried unhappy tears at my wedding but hopefully, I made up for it with all the joy and happiness at both the ceremony and reception.

That's the good thing about the low points on your wedding day, there are so many high points to make up for everything else, I was able to get back into the spirit of the day after a few minutes.

While Kelly snapped detail shots of the ceremony, I peaked out the window at everyone still furiously, franticly setting up, wondering how the rest of the day would fare and praying the rain would stop so Mr Trail Mix and I could have our first look outside as planned...