Wedding week

I've decided the best way to document the week is to take one section at a time. I will do several entries instead of just one super long one. Let's start here...

Months and months of planning and preparation finally came down to the final week. I had prepared extensive lists to schedule everything I needed to get done for each day of the week. On Saturday, April 12 Mom Shirley went and picked up all the cake ingredients and delivered them to our house as I was "scheduled" to start baking on Sunday. Believe it or not I was able to follow my time line pretty closely. I really can't comprehend how people function without making lists.

So Sunday through Wednesday I baked all the cakes for the wedding (9 2-layer cakes in 3 flavors). Thursday was the designated as cake decorating day. In the meantime, I had to work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday which was very difficult because I obviously had a thousand other things on my mind. But I survived. And each night I came home and baked and got various other tasks accomplished. Monday night I had a small breakdown, just being overwhelmed with all that I had to get done that week. Luckily, by Tuesday I was back to normal, relatively speaking, of course.

Dave was busy all week doing household chores to help me keep my sanity - things like vacuuming, washing clothes, cutting grass. Thursday, April 17 was my first official wedding day off from work, but by no means was our schedule free. I had a Dr's appointment first thing. Then I met Barbara to get a car full of bows that she'd made for decorating the church. Then I went to the floral wholesaler to pick up all greenery and filler for bouquets, arrangements, etc. Then I went home to find the roses delivered to our doorstep. Dave and I opened up all rose boxes, trimmed all roses and put in water, packed the car with flowers and fillers and bows, and drove to Cameron to deliver said bows and flowers to the church so that they wouldn't get crushed or wrinkled and so I would have space in my car for cakes, clothes, etc. on Friday. Then we stopped at Mom's house for a while to open some gifts. Then we went back home to start decorating all the cakes. Dave helped me come up with how to decorate the cakes and provided lots of encouragement and support. We had to make sure to label each cake as it got decorated so that we'd know which cake was which flavor.

We were pretty wiped out Friday morning after staying up until about 2 am to decorate all the cakes. But there wasn't time to sleep late. Friday was filled with lots more tasks. We got up early, gathered gardenia branches to use for corsages, etc., loaded car with all cakes, clothes, reception items, etc., and then I headed down the road to Mom's house. Anitra arrived shortly and she and I went over to gather magnolia branches to use for the church decorations. Aunt Nancy drove us around hers and Aunt Penny's yards to find the best magnolia tree for cutting branches. Meanwhile, Aunt Penny and Uncle Bill had a crew of helpers getting her yard and shed ready for the rehearsal party later that day.

From there Anitra and I went to the church and unloaded the cars so we could go pick up all the plants for church and museum. The rest of the day progressed like much the same. Melissa arrived and she, Anitra and I did as much as we could to get the church decorated until Barbara and Stephanie came in to work their magic. We moved things around in the church, placed all the plants, and got the pew clips ready. Mom, meanwhile, went to Santee to deliver hospitality bags for our out-of-town guests and pick up lunch for us. Then we went back to Mom's house and had lunch together with the girls. By now it was time to start getting ready for the rehearsal and rehearsal party. Dave, who had been home getting some things done, arrived and it was time to head to the church for the rehearsal.

I was in disbelief at how fast this time had passed to get to this point. I was not feeling nervous. But everything seemed sort of surreal.