Sunday, August 31, 2014

Wedding Update: I Got Married (with photographic evidence), part 1

Remember (over) a month ago when I got married? And remember how I promised a wedding post? But I was waiting to get the photos because I know that's the part everyone is more excited to see? GUESS WHAT? We got the photos and I even managed to scan them in* so LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!

To keep you in suspense/pad this so I can get 2 posts out of the topic, this one will focus on the whole getting ready and first pictures bit.

The morning of the wedding was fairly relaxed. We didn't do the whole "Don't see each other" deal and just stayed at our house. Along with the best man, his wife, and the maid of honor. Full house.
Maid of honor (Michelle, I'm giving names cos there are going to be a lot of people and describing each of them is going to take way too long) and I had to be at the hotel to get ready around noon so Tom was going to drop us off before he and and his wedding party people headed to the driving range.

We had the wedding and ceremony all in one place which was awesome because that meant I didn't have to work out any transportation. The venue is next door to (and affiliated with) a hotel and we got a room for Tom and I included. Unfortunately, we couldn't get into that room until 3. Fortunately my mom was staying in the hotel Thursday night so we could get ready in her room. Tom and his crew got to get ready in ours and I'm glad I didn't see the room until that night cos maaaaaan his room was nicer than ours. He totally had the prettier getting-ready room.

I hired someone to do hair and makeup because while I'm decent at doing my own makeup, my entire repetoire of hairstyles consists of "down" or "in a ponytail" or "in a bun that's going to fall down in 30 minutes". Professional help was needed. We also decided to have them come to us even though it was slightly more expensive because lazy. And also this way we don't have to worry about getting anywhere late cos HEY we're already there.

It was all very relaxed. Various family members filtered through the room. I only had 3 bridesmaids and only 2 of them were there getting ready (the third wouldn't get there till later) so we hung around watching Four Weddings and just generally hanging out. People kept commenting on how calm things were but I wasn't nervous to marry Tom. We'd already been together roughly 11,000 years (or like 9+) and bought a house together, so the whole "spending my life with this person" thing isn't really a big leap. That's not to say I wasn't nervous, but it had more to do with "falling on my ass" which is a pretty common worry of mine and I'm not normally in a gown and heels.

One of my bridesmaids (Lauren) did have an incident that could have resulted in a lot of stress if it a) hadn't happened the day before and b) if she wasn't such a kick-ass problem solver. So, the day before the wedding she was trying on the bridesmaids dress and...the zipper got stuck. And then after her boyfriend tried and tried (and tried) to get the zipper to move, it broke. She called around to a bunch of David's Bridals trying to see if any of them had the dress in her size and color but no dice. Her boyfriend told her she should let me know what happened but NO, she didn't want to stress me out. So she bought a whole bunch of zippers, figured out which one would work best, and then sewed it into the dress. So instead of being a severe source of stress I ended up laughing hysterically while she told me this story.

When it was my turn to get my hair done I said I didn't want anything with curls (I had done a trial elsewhere and while the hair looked really nice I decided curls aren't my thing) and I wanted to sort of a messy bun, but done pretty. She started with that and said "Yeah, this isn't going to work. Your hair. You have...too much of it" which I wasn't surprised about. Hell, when I did the trial she asked me if I'd be willing to cut any hair to make the style work better. And I chopped off 6 inches before the wedding. I just have a lot of hair which is awesome 98% of the time and also the reason I know so few hairstyles. Anything beyond those requires multiple bottles of hairspray and roughly a metric ton of bobby pins. Which was what was used to do the "much less messy but still unfussy" bun we went with.

After that it was makeup time. I described how I did my eyes before (neutral colors but enough so it shows up and looks pretty in pictures) and as for the lips I told her "I have no more lip stick or gloss or anything, so let's go with something that's going to look fine when it all wipes off in an hour and I don't reapply anything." And she was totally for it and everything was pretty. YAY.

Now my makeup is done, my hair is done, the veil is in and...I'm in shorts and a button down shirt waiting for the photographer. The third bridesmaid (Holly) made it and they were all dressed but I was told to wait so he could get the getting-ready pictures. Which meant I spent a bunch of time pretending to be a super hero with my cape hanging out of my hair instead of off my shoulders. Because I'm an adult.

Then the photographer showed up and it was time! (Meaning you get to see pictures!)


Here I am all fancy on the head and just...no where else. My mom and I were trying to pull all of the paper out of the dress (there was a LOT) and also get it hung up over the bed for pictures. In addition, I was trying to not step on the veil. I failed. Several times. As did everyone else.

Eventually it was time to get the dress on, which I swear, it always seems so easy in theory. When I went for my second fitting I went by myself, cos the only time they had availability was right after work during the week and how many other people can I have come with me? None, that's how many. But the seamstress was like "Umm, so you're going to have someone come with you for the final one, right?" and I realized I should probably see who's available. Luckily Lauren (to the rescue again) works slightly earlier hours than 9-5 AND works in Manhattan so she was able to meet me at Kleinfeld's for the final fitting and learn how to tie the dress.

I can't remember exactly, but it's possible at this point we were talking about if the photographer would end up seeing my underwear during the getting ready pictures and me saying that jokes on them, I'm wearing bike shorts. A friend who got married a couple years ago said to get bike shorts that are made to wick away sweat and that they are a LIFE SAVER so I said "Hell yeah!" and told Tom to forget any sexy underwear that night. He just laughed and shrugged his shoulders and said whatever is comfortable.

Then everyone was dressed and we did a bunch of pictures in the room and with me trying to look relaxed on the bed but ha HA this dress, while very pretty, does not allow for a lot of "relaxed lounging. It does, however, have a kick ass flower on the ass which was a big reason I liked this dress.
That lacing looks so simple, doesn't it?

When it came to the dress, I originally didn't want anything satin. But hey, look what I went with! It was just so pretty and fit me perfectly. I have to hand it to Kleinfeld's. Everyone there knows what they're doing when it comes to dresses. Oh, you want to see a picture from when I first picked out the dress, cos I couldn't share that before lest someone (Tom, it's Tom) see the dress before the wedding?
I look super tall in this picture but that's only because I'm in heels and on a pedestal. And the dress is still sort of pooling on the ground. It's a Pnina Tornai and they SAID they thought maybe they priced it wrong cos usually her stuff is way more and I feel like this is a selling technique but I ALSO really liked the dress and it was in budget, regardless of the reason so whatever.

Back to the wedding day.

We take some staged photos of me with each of the girls and with my mom, some of just me** and then it was FIRST LOOK time.

See, Tom and I didn't want to wait until the ceremony to see each other. Mostly because we wanted to make it to as much of the reception festivities as possible and we can't do that if we have to take all of the family photos then. So we decided we'll do all this stuff before the ceremony.

Tom's waiting in the hotel lobby and I'm supposed to walk down the stairs and tap him on the shoulder. I totally almost wipe out walking down the stairs because OF COURSE I DO. But I held it together. All of the family was there as well, which we said is what would happen but I forgot that there'd be a zillion people there. A bunch of people (not the photographer) were telling me to slow down so they could get pictures but I was just thinking "But but Tom is RIGHT THERE so yeah, I'm just gonna hurry on down." And I did. And it was awesome.

I feel bad for anyone at the hotel who WASN'T part of our wedding cos yeah, the lobby was pretty much out of commission at this point. Sorry, other guests. But we didn't take too long and then it was off to the venue for 4000 family photos.

The place was right next door so we just had to walk there. I was, however, still getting used to moving around in a dress that weighs way more than my normal t-shirt and jeans.
This was my "I think someone is stepping on me.  Yup, yup, definitely getting stepped on." face.

I won't bore you with all of those photos (again, see Facebook note below) but here are some fun ones
Me and the bridesmaids
Best man & maid of honor
The whole party
Just the 2 of us
EVERYONE WAS SO PRETTY. Tom had 5 people on his side, cos he's more popular than me. (When I told Tom this he smiled and said "Yeah, I am.") Four groomsmen and one groomswoman. In case you're wondering who the other lady is in the pic.

I think I've gone on long enough for now. Next time will be even longer, since that will cover both the ceremony and the reception. It will also involve a lot more pictures. And then there will be a couple honeymoon posts. Oh man, I bet I can milk this through the end of the year...

Till next time!

*We're getting a CD with all of the photos once our order is complete. Right now we just have the proofs and we have to pick out images for the albums, prints, etc. Hence all the scanning. You know, like an animal.
**I won't bore you with all of those here but I'll probably be putting a whole bunch up on Facebook cos that's pretty much what that is for, right? Plus I LOVE when people put up wedding photos because I never remember to take pictures at people's wedding, so I always just grab the professional ones.