wedding!

 

This is going to be a quickie post - I'll share more tomorrow but yes, we are officially married!

It was a lovely day and we were blessed to have almost all of Chris's children and 4 members of my family with us along with our dearest friends and that's a blessing.

Were we disappointed by some people? Absolutely but now we know.

Did things go wrong? Oh yeah but the ceremony was perfect and that's all that really counts.

It was a whirlwind weekend from the time my family arrived on Thursday afternoon until we had a goodbye breakfast with them Sunday morning and I can't wait to tell you all about it - hopefully tomorrow.

It's been a helluva roller coaster these past 4 years, hasn't it? And now my "new" life begins which is actually just a continuation of the life I've been living for the past 2 1/2 years but now we get to get used to saying 'wife' and 'husband' and I wonder how long that will take. LOL

dress

 

After months of waiting, it finally happened

My beloved wedding dress is finally back in my arms and in my house. Oh the joy and relief.

I took the dress to be shortened back in late June. The dress fit perfectly, almost as if it had been custom made just for me, except when it came to length. It was way too long and I'm to0 klutzy to deal with that, it had to be shortened.

The alterations lady assured me it would be a fairly easy process so I left it with her. She said she had a big wedding for the middle of September but she should be able to get to my dress right after that.

I wasn't thrilled with having to wait all the way until September because why couldn't she do it in July or August but I really had no choice.

The middle of September came and went and I was trying hard not to be a bridezilla but I finally texted her on September 26 for an update. She said it wasn't finished yet but she'd get with me soon.

Her definition of *soon* and mine must be very different because I heard nothing from her during October until I finally broke down and texted just a week away from the wedding and still my dress wasn't ready but she promised it 4 days before the wedding.

4 days!?!

Yesterday I showed up at her house at our appointed time and no one was home and I really started to panic. Had she flaked out at the last minute? Her husband came from around the back and told me that she wasn't there and he thought she'd left to do a painting job. That didn't sound good but when I called her she assured me she was on her way home and would be there within minutes and I started to breathe again.

She had the dress on a mannequin in the front room and I started to tear up when I saw my dress again. It looked so vintage and elegant and beautiful, exactly the way I want to feel on my wedding day.

I've got to tell you, I've been in love with this dress since the moment I saw it. I didn't have a whole Say Yes To The Dress moment in a bridal salon, I didn't have an entourage come with me to pick it out, I didn't even go anywhere to pick it out. I found it online at a discount site and I held my breath and bought it just hoping it wouldn't be ugly. I was lucky, it was perfect and, as I've said, it fit perfectly. It's vintage and boho and flatters my figure. I can't stop smiling whenever I put it on and that's how I know it's the perfect dress. Even with all the upheaval in our wedding planning process, I've always known that I would wear this dress no matter where we said our vows and I wasn't going to be cheated out of that moment.

So I tried on the dress to check the length and she did a great job. I may not have enjoyed the process but I can't argue with the outcome. It's the perfect length, I won't trip over it and she even remembered to leave the train. Quite frankly the train is my favorite part of the dress, I just love the way it sweeps along the floor, and if she'd accidentally removed it I probably would have had a total meltdown. I've only had a couple of meltdowns in my life and believe me, they ain't pretty.

And wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles - it still fits! That had been an irrational fear of mine all summer, that somehow I'd balloon up and the dress wouldn't zip up anymore. I don't know why I was worried about that, all my other clothes fit perfectly and I haven't been overeating but nevertheless it was quite a relief when it zipped up without a problem. I didn't try to lose weight for the wedding. I've been a big girl all my life but since losing Taz I also lost weight and I'm ok with my body the way it is now, it may get even smaller in the future but I didn't need that for my wedding and luckily the dress is ok with that too. I figure if Chris likes my body, I should as well.

I paid, snatched the dress and got out of there. I'd been so worried that something would happen to take the dress away from me so I wasn't taking any chances. It's in my closet right now, will hang in my sister's vacation rental house on Friday night until I put it on Saturday afternoon.

countdown

 

We're so close now - only 4 more days until the wedding!

Since our theme is Halloween we've been spending most of our free time buying Halloween decor at Dollar Tree. Luckily they have so many things to choose from so we can indulge and not spend too much. Even so, it's adding up so I'm glad we only have a few more days.

We even stopped at a local thrift store 5 minutes before they closed and scored some spooky stuff including a cake knife that's perfect for our theme.

We've taken care of most of the important details like getting the marriage license. In Florida there's a 3 day waiting period but then the license is good for 60 days so, as of October 23, our license was ready to go. My new sister in law is a minister and she's going to officiate the ceremony which is a really special detail I'd never planned on but it's perfect. As I've said before, I'm thrilled that my brother has found love again so including his new wife just seems right.

I've put together playlists for pre-wedding, ceremony and then the Halloween party afterwards because I can't imagine a party without awesome music and spooky Halloween music is the best.

We spent Sunday morning out at our wedding venue taking measurements and making plans. We had found these cute little glass pumpkins on Saturday and planned on having 6 of them on either side of the altar but Chris came up with the idea of lining them all along the railing which surrounds the covered deck since we figure people will spend most of their time outside. I love this idea, it's going to be so romantic to have flickering lights surrounding us and since the pumpkins came from Dollar Tree buying 11 more wasn't going to make us broke.

We still haven't been inside the venue but it's basically a big room with brick walls and hardwood floors. It has 2 beautiful wooden tables where we can put the food and 8 folding tables for people to sit at. We'll put most of those tables outside but have a couple inside. We have a great Nightmare Before Christmas backdrop for pictures along with cute props so that people can take selfies. We can't afford a professional photographer so we're hoping our guests will take lots of pictures. Having beautiful wedding photographs was important to me but it's a dream I had to give up so we'll just have to find alternatives.

The wedding beauty prep has begun! I made appointments for my sister, sister in law and me to have our nails done on Friday but I went ahead and got a pedicure on Sunday and I just love my black sparkly toenails! My wedding shoes are sandals (with skulls!) so my toes need to shine.

I have given up the dream of having my hair and makeup done professionally and I'm just going to do my best. I tried to put on false eyelashes this morning and it was a laughable fail so I guess I'll just pile on the mascara. LOL

I finally get to pick up my wedding dress today! When I took the dress to the alterations lady in late June she said she had a big wedding the middle of September so she'd start on my dress after that. I emailed her at the end of September for an update and she said it would be ready soon, then crickets for almost a month. I finally texted her Saturday morning (1 freaking week before the wedding) and asked if it was ready and she said no, could I get back to her on Tuesday which, to me, meant that she hadn't even started it yet and was giving herself a few days. Luckily when I texted this morning she said I could come this afternoon. I can't wait to get that dress back in my hands. I didn't freak out too much because I actually have a backup dress. I don't love the backup dress as much as I LOVE my real wedding dress but I like it well enough that I could have been ok if it had been my only option. Luckily it didn't have to come to that though.

The only item hanging out there is the wedding food. My stepdaughter offered to do the food for us and I left all the decisions up to her but she won't be in town until Thursday and I have no idea what she's going to make or how/where she's going to do it but I'm just trusting that it will all be lovely. I know she's very talented and that's enough for me.

I'm taking off work Thursday and Friday to do last minute things. My family gets into town Thursday afternoon and have rented a vacation house near us. I plan on spending as much time as possible with them and I'll be sleeping there Friday night. Chris will be busy coaching basketball Saturday morning (he loves it so much and he's now coaching 2 different teams) but I plan on having a lazy quiet day with my family until it's time to get ready and leave for the wedding.

It's happening! It won't be the wedding I dreamed of but it'll be the wedding of my dreams.

dream

 

I'll be doing 2 posts today including a wedding post (4 days!) but I had a weird dream last night and I just wanted to write it down.

I dreamed I was out with a friend of Taz's, kind of a mercy "date" because he probably felt sorry for me. It had to be that because I don't think he actually likes me in real life. I was living with 4 roommates and we all know how much I hate a roommate situation so, in the dream, he probably wanted to help me get away from that for a few hours.

We were walking and talking and suddenly I asked him if he'd heard from Taz lately because I'd been trying to call him and got no answer and it had been a long time since I'd talked to him. In the dream I remember thinking this was unusual because he usually called me at least once a day when he was traveling.

In the dream it never occurred to me that Taz was dead but when I woke up I remembered immediately and the whole dream left me feeling quite sad for a number of reasons.

Like I've said, as we get closer to the wedding I have been thinking about Taz a lot and now I'm even dreaming of him in a roundabout way. It's unsettling but natural, I suppose. I'm about to embark on a whole new life without him and I miss him. I guess I'll always miss him.

changes

 

First things first - we came through the hurricane just fine. The storm went well south of us so we got a little rain and wind but nothing scary. One huge tree branch came down, unfortunately it landed right on Chris's fixer upper truck smashing the windshield, breaking the dashboard and denting the driver's side door, which isn't great but at least it didn't come down on our main vehicle. Chris is pretty sad and it's going to cost a fair amount to repair but it's so much better than a tree coming down on the house.

We never lost power so basically all we did during the hurricane was eat snacks and watch TV. Chris tried to get us to do a cleaning project but I informed him that was not how hurricanes are done, it's a time to goof off and eat and so that's what we did.

And now for some really exciting news - big changes coming to the wedding! Yes, we've got less than 4 weeks to go and yes, the original ceremony site is all set BUT it's no secret that I was less than happy about having the after party at our house. It's completely safe to say that I was most UNhappy about it until I got a great idea to check and see if there were any REALLY inexpensive places here in town where just the space could be rented out and we'd provide decor, food and music.

And by inexpensive, I meant CHEAP. There was one rental space owned by the town, near the park and it was ugly, just a plain conference room/community center but the price wasn't bad at all. I called this morning and was told it wasn't available because of early voting but then the city clerk said "we do have another rental space in town, it's new so I'm fairly certain it would be available on your date." 

And then she told me the space was the old train museum, a 1927 restored depot with brick walls, old wood flooring and a huge deck overlooking a park. OMG, every word of that screams Jonni, it's exactly what I would have gone looking for if I'd known it existed. I mean, I knew about the museum but had never been there and had no idea it had closed down a year ago and they decided to rent the space out. It rents for half of what the community center does (which was already a good deal) and it's just the perfect size for our group.

I had to pick Chris up from a doctors appointment so I figured we should run over to the museum (which isn't too far from our house) and peek through the windows although I had already decided we were moving the party there, sight unseen.

But when I looked through the windows I literally did a little dance because it oozes charm and character. It's my perfect wedding space and it'll be easy to make it a little spooky for a Halloween themed party.

The huge deck is perfect to put up our inflatable Jack, Sally and Zero (from Nightmare Before Christmas, our wedding theme) and we can plug in our fog machines too just to make it extra creepy.

After we looked at it Chris wanted to go right down to City Hall to ask a few questions and get the whole thing under contract. I had thought we'd rent it for 4 hours but Chris wanted to add a couple of extra hours in there for decoration.

Chris's oldest daughter has expressed an interest in doing the food and I'm going to let her roll with it. She is already baking our wedding cake and she's uber talented. I'm hoping she can use pictures from our wedding to market her own business doing party favors and cakes.

Now the big question is - should we skip the ceremony up in Orlando and just have a simple ceremony at the train depot? It would definitely make things easier from a logistical point of view because we wouldn't have to drive almost 90 minutes to and from. We could have the ceremony on the big deck, it would be gorgeous and then go right into the party. We could play music from our speakers and there are plenty of Halloween playlists to keep the music going all night and it wouldn't even be all night because we have to shut everything down by 9pm. LOL

No matter what we choose, I am SO much happier not having to worry about getting the house ready for a party!

hurricane

 

There's a hurricane (Ian) headed this way so that's been consuming my thoughts lately.

Yesterday the track looked like it was going to come right over our town which was of great concern. Our county ordered a mandatory evacuation and I wasn't even sure what we were going to do.

I had decided that my office in Orlando was the safest place but Chris's job as a first responder requires him to stay and help evacuate nursing homes and hospitals so he wasn't going to be able to drive an hour to my office in case he was needed here. Plus the kids will be with their mother when the storm hits and he didn't want to be so far away if they needed help.

I didn't want to evacuate all the way up there without him so my next option would be shelters but I really didn't want to do that by myself either so it was a great relief when the storm track started to shift today and now it looks like it will be hitting land further south of us and while we'll probably get a lot of rain, it won't be going right over us.

Fingers crossed it stays that way!

So to distract myself I'm going to talk about wedding stuff.

We've been busy picking up decor items for the wedding/Halloween party. We've decided to give people cups to take home with the plates, all decorated with sugar skulls.

I have my bouquet, Chris's bout and bouquets for all the bridesmaids ready to go.

I found these Nightmare Before Christmas shoes for Chris yesterday and, surprise, he actually likes them and wants to wear them for the ceremony. That's the theme of our ceremony so the shoes are perfect and will probably be quite the conversation starter.

I have these cute shirts for us to wear the day before the wedding when we host our families for a bbq the night before. I saw them months ago and knew I had to have them because they go so perfectly with our theme.

Speaking of families, Chris's brother and family (10 people) called the other day to say none of them would be able to make it. It was a huge disappointment for both Chris and me but I can't dwell on it. I'm really not happy about the decisions they've made but I can't change it.

That's our cake topper - I just love it! Chris's oldest daughter is going to make our cake. The design is going to be her surprise for us and that's just dandy with me because she does lovely work. I can't wait to see what she comes up with.

I had worried that Chris's older kids wouldn't make it to the wedding because his daughter is out on the road with her trucker boyfriend and his son might not make it a priority but I've been assured that both of them will be there. The younger kids have no choice because they will be with us - ha ha ha.

I'm just about ready to order wedding clothes for the kids - purple polo shirts for the boys and a pretty purple dress for my younger stepdaughter which mimics the neckline on my wedding dress.

Speaking of wedding dress, I texted the person that has had my dress for alterations since June and she said it wasn't completed yet but she would get in touch with me soon. I hope it's very soon, I want the dress finished and safely with me.

And we've had one little bump in the road - kind of a big one really. The person that was supposed to marry us had to back out because of a mandatory work event. I asked someone in my family if they would consider doing it because it's so easy to get "ordained" by the Internet and all they'd need to do is sign the marriage license but they seemed to think it was too complicated and so I withdrew the request and said I'd make other arrangements. I must admit, I was kind of ticked off that they were making it more complicated than it really was. But now I've been told they "hustled" to get their real ordination papers and would like to marry us. Well great but why didn't *they* tell me this? The last communication I'd had was that they thought I should make other arrangements and they hoped it wouldn't be too complicated for me. Never once did they say that they were working on getting their papers because they really wanted to do it.

The petty part of me wants to just turn them down and find my own officiant but that's pretty stupid of me and would just cost more money that we don't have so I'll just let it go. I wish there had been better communication and that the person involved had actually TOLD me they were still working on being able to do it. The way they left it with me they clearly didn't want the hassle and just wished me luck finding somebody but apparently lots of communication was going on between everybody else.

I'm not going to worry about it anymore, I have a bunch of things to deal with before the wedding - the hurricane, of course and then right after that on Saturday we're throwing an 8th birthday party for James with 18 8 year olds and I can't get out to order the cake or make plans until Friday because of the hurricane. It will be awesome no matter what. Can't wait to share pictures.

I'll visit again after the hurricane moves through, hopefully I'll still have power!

family

 You know what's really fun? When your fiance gets a call from his brother to let him know that none of his family is coming to the wedding - not the brother, sister in law or his 3 kids still at home or his two adult kids with their husbands and children.

That's over 1/3 of the guest list gone. 

I don't care that the wedding attendance is smaller, heck, I LOVE small weddings, but I DO care that Chris's family can't do this for him, be there for him. If they wanted to they could find a way.

I fully expect that other members of Chris's family will pull out at the last moment as well. Thank goodness my little family of 4 are excited about coming and already making big plans with their costumes. I appreciate them so much.

I have friends that haven't been able to make it and I totally understand that, it's not the same situation as Chris's family knowing about this for over a year and then backing out at the last minute.

At this point it's only going to be my family, Chris's adult kids (fingers crossed) and my best work friend along with a couple of friends of Chris's from his work...although at least one of those people is notorious for making plans and then not showing up so who knows.

The good thing is I will no longer have to pay an overage charge for having more people than the package allows for at the ceremony venue AND it's such a small group I think we might be able to pay for lunch after the ceremony before we head back for the Halloween party AND because we just fed all those people we can cut way back on what we serve at the party so really win-win.

Except Chris has to live with the fact that he wasn't important enough for his family and that sucks and I'll never forget it.