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Wedding Week: Day I

Well, we did it. 

In front of 165 friends and family, we said our vows and signed the dotted line.  Of course, the actual ceremony was only 25 minutes out of five days of parties, dinners, brunches, scavenger hunts, booze cruises, caravanning and rubbing elbows with (almost) all of our favorite people conveniently gathered within the same three-mile radius, so it's going to take me a bit to get to it.

It all started on Thursday.

Actually, scratch that.  It all started on Wednesday, when the Mother & Co. pulled into the Girl’s – the Wife’s!? – parents’ driveway in Amherst after the 21-hour drive from Iowa.  (Actually actually, it really all started the weekend prior, when the then-Girl now-Wife trekked out to the Cape for some downtime with the bridesmaids, but whatever.)  We had driven out from Boston the day before to wrap up last-minute details and, honestly, to decide that some things needed to fall off the Wedding Wagon (like the welcome baskets we were going to put in each hotel room) if some scrap of sanity was to be preserved.

I think my brother had been in town fifteen minutes before he started asking about golf courses in the area.  This is approximately fourteen minutes longer than I thought he’d last, and almost eleven minutes longer than it took him to turn the conversation to the color and consistency of recent household poops.  Thus, shortly after their arrival he and my uncle hit the links, the rest of the crew hit the hotel, and the then-Girl now-Wife and I got back to business.  Which is to say, she curled up in the fetal position and practiced breathing exercises while I gingerly sipped my fourth large soy mocha (from Rao’s) and designed the reception menu and wedding program (see below -- no, really, see below -- I am ridiculously proud of these).

A few hours later they were all back on the deck while my Impending In-Laws served up what anyone else would call an Elaborate Banquet but they advertised as a Light Supper.

And then I got back in the car, hit the turnpike, drove the 90 miles back to Boston so I could finish cleaning our soon-to-be under siege apartment and pick up Jake, a groomsmen, and his wife Casey from the airport (whose flight landed just after midnight).

I finished the menus and programs somewhere around two o’clock in the morning, crashed shortly thereafter in the middle of our new, massive king-size bed (how do I love thee, let me count the ways…), and woke up at 8:00 to grab breakfast with Jake and Casey before dropping them off at the start of their exceedingly touristy stroll down the Freedom Trail.

From Faneuil Hall I hit Barmakian Brothers – one of the Armenian jewelers downtown – picked up the then-Girl’s now-Wife’s wedding band and, having left them with roughly 90% of the contents of my beleaguered checking account, high-tailed it back to my apartment so I could start preparing for the evening’s promised bachelor debaucheries.

That was the first exhausting 24 hours, and technically we hadn't even gotten started yet.

Seating charts are grossly overrated.

For that matter, so are chairs.

After trying to approximate groups of guests, I finally decided to appeal to my visual-spacial skills.  I took several sheets of paper, cut out circles and a few big rectangles, used a folder as a place-holder for the dance floor, and turned our coffee table into a model. 

It took about an hour.  Not too shabby.

Anyway, with less than a week to go, I'm a little dizzy thinking about how much work we have to do.  On the counter is a list -- "This is Fucking Urgent" -- with about a dozen items requiring our attention this afternoon.  All of which needs to be done before we get to Amherst today.

Well, what can be done, will be done.  And whatever's left clearly wasn't critical. 

I've only actually stressed about a few things during the 12-month process that is Wedding Planning.  The first was the guest list and invitations.  I think the second was the seating chart.  In retrospect, neither was all that horrifying.  A perverse function of our relationship is that the more freaked out the Girl gets, the calmer I tend to be.  But, as one of the bridesmaids put it, at least it's a function.

The way I see it, the Wedding Machine began moving this weekend -- with the Girl's bachelorette weekend on the Cape -- whether or not we were ready for it.  Family and friends start trickling in tomorrow (well, tomorrow it's a trickle -- by Friday it's a flood).  Can't stop the wheels from turning, may as well enjoy the ride.

Mr. Sandman Cometh.

So I lied.  We did not, in fact, intend to go to Jordan's Furniture.  That didn't stop us from going.  It wasn't until we'd been driving for half an hour that we realized it was Bernie & Phyl's that had the deals (and mattresses) we were looking for.  So we called the Girl's mom and got directions from the parking lot.

And, I'm happy to report, SUCCESS!

 

We didn't qualify for a free TV, but we did get $700 off the Stearns & Foster gateway to heaven.  I have a bottle of champagne chilling in the fridge, which I intend to break on her bow on Thursday, right after I name her.

Suggestions?

Once more unto the bed.

My harddrive is shot.

This is a particularly obnoxious brand of frustrating, because less than a month ago I reformatted the damn thing and spent hours reinstalling software.  Now I get to do it all over again.  The only upside is that my external drive has almost all of my personal files on it -- because I was able to plan ahead last time -- so at least I didn't lose much material.

Except, of course, for the master guest list, with its neatly delineated columns of dinner selections, shuttle reservations and various bits of wedding information.  Took me all of Saturday afternoon to reproduce last week's work.

Anyway. We met with our wedding venue coordinator this weekend. After patting ourselves on the back for getting so much done, we were promptly issued a reality check as he spent an hour and a half outlining just how much left we have to do over the next two weeks. My advice to any newly engaged couples?  ELOPE.

Kidding. Mostly.

We also got a sample of the chef's specially prepared pilaf, and I could taste his dedication to our very particular recipe.  The Girl apologized for our being so picky (after our initial menu tasting, we produced two full pages of sharp self-proclaimed foodie critiques), but he dismissed her concerns.  "Trust me," he said. "You're not picky.  You're specific."

I rather like that.

In other news, we're going mattress shopping tomorrow.  We have a hither-to-unheard-of brand we bought practically new a few years ago from the Girl's former roommate and soon-to-be bridesmaid. I wish I could say it has served us well.  Truth is, I sleep half of most nights on the couch, so cratered and lopsided is our bed. I close my eyes in constant fear of rolling off the side, the slope is that ridiculous.

But the feud between our pillowtop and my spine is about to see its end.  We spent an hour at Macy's scrutinizing several brands, and now that we've settled on Stearns and Foster, I think we're going to trek out to Jordan's Furniture for a better deal.  Free delivery?  Yes please.  Free removal of the POS we sleep on now?  Well thanks!  Free flat-screen TV from Best Buy for spending a pretty penny on a decent night's sleep? Sounds good to me.

I feel like being able to sleep at night might be a good way to start married life.

The Cheechakos and the Sourdoughs.

You know, it's actually not half-bad as verse.