I think I'm ready to talk about our wedding.
I knew writing about it would be difficult. I expected the wedding to live on inside my body, a pulsing, shining, winged thing. I knew even before it happened that I would struggle to translate it into words. I instinctively felt that I wanted to protect it, cherish it, and maybe--yes--hoard it a bit.
Now I find that I'm struggling to write about my wedding, but not for the reasons I expected. My relationship with my mother--already fragile--has been deeply damaged in the aftermath of my wedding. And no matter how hard I try I can't separate the two things. I feel as though someone scribbled over my wedding memories with a sharpie marker. Obscuring everything light and beautiful with heavy, erratic lines. I thought when the professional wedding photos came in, they would help me preserve my memories as they should be, and at first that's what happened. Until one of the photos sparked another issue with my mother, and the whole thing started all over again.
I think waiting for the perfect time to write about my wedding is a mistake, because I don't think a perfect time will ever come. I don't know if I'll ever be able to think about my wedding without a tinge of sadness regarding everything that happened afterward. But I still want to write about it. (FYI: I will not be writing about what happened with my mother. At least not here, and not as part of these recaps. I'm going to try to write about the wedding as I experienced it at the time, and that perspective does not include any of the drama).
So, this will most likely be in multiple parts, and
very picture-heavy. (note: I promise the pictures have been resized. I don't know why they are so huge right now!)
BEFORE
We woke up the morning of our wedding together, in our own bed. Truthfully, I had barely slept the night before, so popping out of bed at 4:00am was very easy for me. David and I both showered (I didn't bother to wash my hair, since they'd be taking care of that at the salon for me) and piled into the truck to go to the farmers market to eat breakfast together and pick out flowers. People insisted I was crazy to do this. "This" meaning all of it. The staying at my own place with David. Getting up at 4:00. Going to the farmer's market. Making my own bouquets. They couldn't have been more wrong. The morning was wonderful. Giddy and private, and--because we routinely go to the farmer's market on weekends--deliciously normalizing. We waited in line to get breakfast sandwiches (eggs, ham, cream cheese, cheddar, and tomato on a toasted sesame seed bagel--wedding dieting did not exist in our house) but we were there SO early we had to wait for the bagels to actually arrive!
Waiting
Waiting
Where are the bagels?!
(Once we actually got the bagels, we were too ravenous for photo ops).
After running around and buying whatever flowers happened to catch my eye, David dropped me off at the hotel where my family was staying, and we said goodbye until the ceremony.
I went up to my mom's hotel room to start making bouquets. My mom and her husband were there, and my sister, who was half asleep. My best friend Julie was wide awake, though, and came to join us. Making me laugh and keeping me both distracted and focused, respectively (she is basically the best best friend). She took some photos of the bouquet struggle.
And it was a struggle. I made many, many practice bouquets over the summer, without any trouble. Each one prettier than the next, and all of them far better than my bridal bouquet on my wedding day! Every flower that I chose had a head that naturally drooped down or curved outward, making in IMPOSSIBLE to get a round bouquet. All three of mine were vaguely conical. I didn't understand what was happening or why until halfway through the first bouquet, and by then my mother had invited virtually my entire extended family into the room and was forcing me to make polite small talk with them while trying to make three bouquets on a limited timeline. It was frustrating to say the least, mostly because everyone had spent so much time telling me that making my own bouquets was stupid and I badly wanted to prove them wrong. I don't regret doing it at all, and had I chosen flowers with more care I think I could have rocked it out. As it was, I think they photographed relatively well, though in person that were absolutely a wonky mess! Still happy I did it.
After that we had to head over to the salon, which was also mostly stressful. I still wasn't sure on the hairstyle we'd settled on (I did end up going back to the salon and reworking the entire thing ahead of time, and I'm glad we didn't stick with the first plan). Hair for four of us and makeup for me took over three hours, which brought us to around 12:30pm or so, and I was starting to get very anxious. I also felt like my makeup (which included fake eyelashes) looked distinctly drag queen-ish, although everyone assured me that it looked great, and that it was just because I never wear makeup that I felt it was too much. That, and also it's because
it looked a little drag queen-ish. At least more so than the "natural" look I requested.
This is when I started having what I can only describe as anxiety attacks. We were heading back to the hotel for a little bit before making our way to the venue, and I tried to calm myself by taking awkward photos of my face and trying to convince myself that the make up looked normal.
Needless to say, it didn't work.
We were at a traffic light about two blocks away from the hotel when my entire extended family herded along across the crosswalk directly in front of our car. Somehow they didn't notice us. My stepfather asked if he should honk the horn and let them know we were there. "NO," I yelled. I really did yell it. The idea of having to sit in the hotel with my entire family again made me sick to my stomach. I wanted to see David, badly, but if I couldn't have that, then I wanted to be alone. By the time we made it to the hotel, my family was walking into the lobby. I'm sure they saw me, but my sister whisked me up the elevator and spirited me into her hotel room, locked the door, sat me down on the bed, swapped out my lipstick for a better color, put on some random cooking show on the tv, and left me alone to breathe frantically while she put on her own makeup in the bathroom. I have never loved her more fiercely, or felt so close to her than in those moments. She just HANDLED it. And it was freaking AWESOME.
Eventually my mom came in and cinched me into my longline strapless bra. With my brief period of tv zoning over, I started to get a little hysterical again. I kept saying, "I'm freaking out. I am freaking out." Which my mother interpreted as meaning that I didn't want to get married. DEFINITELY NOT WHAT I MEANT. I was just so....
freaked out. I wanted to get to the venue. I wanted to get going. I wanted to get married already! I really, really, really wanted to see David. I felt a little claustrophobic and weirded out at being the center of attention. I wanted to do something to make me feel normal again, but I still definitely wanted to get married! Unfortunately, I wasn't really able to articulate that in the hotel room. I just kept saying, "I am freaking out!" with more and more urgency. Luckily, my sister knew what I meant. Another surge of fierce love for her.
I don't know that I can go into detail about the car ride over to the venue without raising my blood pressure too much. My parents were supposed to drive us, but at the last second decided to rent a car. Luckily, David had already taken our dresses and everything over to the venue in the morning. The driver did not speak English, and was confused about our destination. He kept pulling over and saying he wouldn't take us where we needed to go. This, on top of the fact that I get carsick, was NOT FUN. Eventually he called in to his office and they managed to straighten everything out, and he agreed to drive us there, but we still couldn't relax, because he insisted on making wrong turns, even though I was directing him very clearly. We got lost. It sucked.
When we FINALLY arrive at the apple orchard and I stepped out of the car, waves of relief washed over me, and I instantly calmed down. We made our way through the tent first, and I actually gasped. It looked so beautiful, and it was so amazing to see what I'd been imagining in my head for so many months come to life!
[From this point on, all photos are by the wonderfully talented KNG Sommers Photography unless otherwise noted]
Our sweetheart table.
My mother made all the napkins.
Guestbook table. My mom made the bunting, too!
Wine corkboard for place settings. Pinterest should have warning labels about projects that take OVER FOUR HOURS TO COMPLETE!
This sign is probably the best thing I made, hands down. I'm a big fan of instagram, and I knew most of our guests were as well. Since people would inevitably be instagramming pictures of the wedding, supplying a hashtag grouped them all in one place, and encouraged people to post more. As a result, David and I had an instant mini wedding album to look at on our honeymoon. It was awesome.
Seeing the rest of the venue was just as wonderful.
Programs!
Where the magic will happen!
And then we finally made it to the tent, where the next round of waiting began.
I'm going to stop there for now. Up next is the waiting, letter-exchanging, and the ceremony!
(I know this is obnoxious, probably. But I feel like I spent SO much time on here, talking about the bad stuff. I wanted you guys to see the good side of this whole wedding business, too. Thanks, as ever, for indulging me).