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The week leading up to the wedding was somewhere between "stressful" and "unmitigated hell". My mom got here the weekend prior and we immediately started running around buying a bunch of last-minute stuff and ordering flowers for the arrangements she was making. I had to work Monday and Tuesday the week of the wedding, which gave me a bit of a respite. Various family and friends trickled in that week and we were able to squeeze in a little bit of socializing, which was nice.
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By Friday, however, the caterer had taken over our kitchen, the house no longer felt like ours, and S. and I parted company on the eve of our nuptials not speaking, this after a fight over I-can't-even-remember-what stupid detail. (We were arguing outside the house while my mom, sister and nieces were inside working on flowers. I came in red-eyed and my 19-year-old niece calmly looked up from what she was doing, waved her flower shears menacingly and said, "Is it something we need to take care of?" Have I mentioned how much I love that girl?)
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By Saturday, all was well. I went and got my fancy lady hairdo and went back to the house to get dressed with my mom and sis and adorable wee niece, who was the flower girl. About a half-hour before the wedding was to start, guests started arriving. About ten minutes before the wedding was to start, the lightning, rain, and hail arrived. This prompted an end-run by the catering staff to move all the seating under the huge tents we'd rented. At exactly ceremony time, the rain suddenly stopped. We decided to go ahead with our plan to be married in the open, which meant our assembled guests stood in the wet grass as we pledged our troth. I liked it better that way - people were close to us and to each other, rather than sitting.
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S. actually bothered to write out vows, I did mine completely off the cuff and everyone agreed they were lovely. Our Justice of the Peace was a small, intense woman who startled both S. and I by asking if anyone "knew any reason why these two should not be joined in matrimony" - thankfully, none of my smartass family piped up, and we were in fact wed.
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Digression: When S. and I applied for our marriage license we were given a booklet published by the Attorney General of Texas entitled "What Is Marriage?". Apparrently, the licensing clerk is legally mandated to give this fine booklet to all who apply. It has a question-and-answer section that contains such questions as (and I quote directly here): "My fiance's ex-girlfriend has a child which she claims is his. He says he never wanted a child and it isn't his. Can she cause trouble for us after we're married?" That and the fact that S. and I had to swear in front of a notary that we are not related by blood made me so proud to be living in this fine, fine state of Texas.
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The wedding crowd mostly behaved - my dad only managed to make it through about an hour before asking my younger brother to take him back to his hotel. Of course, as soon as they were in the car, Dad asked him to stop at a liquor store. Oh well, better drunk at his hotel than at the wedding. At least he spared us that. The only other glitch was looking out at where the kids were playing and seeing some guy I'd never laid eyes on, clad in a t-shirt and shorts, playing Frisbee with some of the kids. I immediately grabbed S. who didn't know the guy, either. He turned out to be a friend of one of S.'s friends. A friend who called this guy and told him to "drop on by". Sorry jackass, this is our wedding, not a kegger. S. had him escorted out.
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Stay tuned for...pics and honeymoon tales.
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thisaway - thataway