So....for those of you who went, you know that my wedding was LOTS of fun!! We had a wonderful ceremony by an awesome pastor who did a fabulous job....then we moved on to the boogie down reception! Just to prove it, you should check it out at this link. "A Bride and Her Stanky Leg Father"
Anyway for all you Brides out there who think it's all peaches and so lovely, I have another tale for you! First let me explain to everyone who is reading this that, if you have a great wedding party, as well as amazing parents, as I did..... you as a "Bride" will not have to worry much about all the details that go wrong.
Here is a list...most of which I didn't know about until my Mom told me afterwards...of all the things that went wrong and the great lengths that were taken to fix them for me:
1. We wanted to have a 15 passenger van to shuttle the wedding party from the barn to the church and back. After many calls to rental companies, we found one! – and as a plus, it was also only minutes from the barn. However, just a few days before the wedding, we got a call from the company saying they were unable to provide the van – they had called everyone before letting us know because they had hoped to find one, even if from a competitor.
So the problem here is that they substituted two vehicles for the same price; which was great, except that meant we needed two drivers instead of one – and worst of all we got stuck with an Expedition and a MINI VAN!!!
2. Because the facility owner would not let us cater the "Bridal Brunch" at the barn like we had planed, Mom had to make and bring all the "snacks" (we had to call it "snacks"....if we called it a "Brunch" we would have had to pay even more because it was considered "an extra event") for the bridesmaids and groomsmen and have it all set up at the barn early on Friday morning, which if you remember....Friday was the DAY OF THE WEDDING!!
3. After Mom and Dad left the barn, after leaving home before 7 a.m., they had to go to the rental company for the vehicles.....halfway there she realized she left her driver’s license in her car (at the Barn) and had to go back for them because, as you know, you can’t rent a vehicle without proving you have a valid license. Oh yes, they found out that the "close rental company" had closed down that location and had moved into town across from none other than "KIA OF GREER"....those from South Carolina will know those crazy LOUD commercials that are so annoying.
annnnyway.......
After all this mess, Mom and Dad rushed home to get ready in time to be back at the barn for bridal party group shots. Mom had to be there first for the “getting ready with the bride pictures", so she left Dad at home since he had to be there later for the guy pictures.
4. To Dad's dismay, the rented vehicle had a flat tire when he started to leave our house (with his tux already on). He then had trouble finding the spare (it was a Nissan and they had it hid behind AND between the two front seats)….. Papa Charles came over to help change it in the June mid-day heat. Dad says he and Papa looked like the NASCAR pit crew. He finally made it to the barn just in time to pick up the Bridal party and head to the church for the ceremony, but too late for the "group" pictures. This makes me want to cry because it reminds me of that stupid movie "Father of the Bride" that ripped my heart out so long ago.
4. Okay, here is where I come in...The girls and one of the photographers rode with Mom in the rented Tahoe. Mom drove carefully back to the church because of course the worst thing that could happen would be to have a wreck with the bride in the car....ha! I got carsick. I mean SICK SICK....turn white and sweat and not talk for fear of throwing up all over the Bridesmaid's dresses. It was actually probably a combination of lack of sleep, migraine medicine, too little food for the day, too much coffee, and riding in the passenger seat behind the driver....whew. In any case, I could barely make it from the van to inside the church when we finally arrived.
The funny part about this..... Mom was cool and cheerfully settled me in the bridal room, turned out the lights, and told me to “rest”. I felt kind of silly and quite dramatic so I kept saying, "I'm fine, tell Tyler I am okay". Well, later I found out that immediately after exiting the room with me, Mom turned from calm- chirpy- cheery- to "GIVE ME A PHONE, I NEED TO CALL JERRY!!!" HA! She told me later that she immediately called Dad, since he left behind us, so the groom couldn’t see the bride – and barked out orders to bring me a Mt. Dew and some crackers from the store. Dad protested that he needed to drop off the groomsmen first because they need to be there on time....well, she let him know quick that "she needed those snacks NOW!!!" (With a lil' red in her eyes I'm sure). Mom then proceeded to go upstairs in search of anything in the church kitchen that might revive me.
She and Dad both arrived back in the Bridal room at the same time with drinks and snacks – she turned on the charm while she happily poured me a drink and told me to eat the crackers and take my time. She also just in passing said "whew it's stuffy in here"...as she just smiled and exited the room. She closed the bridal room door and turned on Dad (as he describes with FIRE in her eyes) and at a yelling whisper ordered him to “find a fan – quick!” Dad started questioning where to find a fan and she told him she didn’t care where, just get one. They both said I was very pale, and the bridal room was very hot. Dad met up with Terry Randle and they got me a fan (which did help a lot – along with the Dew and crackers). I revived and was fine for the rest of the evening.
5. Tyler was having his own case of butterflies upstairs as he waited for the service to begin. He kept asking about me (since he was in the van when Dad got the call about needing the drinks and crackers), but everyone kept telling him I was “fine”. Oh by the way, did we mention that there was NO seat for him in the mini-van?? He had to sit in Don's lap the entire way to the church....it was lucky HE didn't get car-sick because he does very often....just ask the baseball team.
6. Another issue was the music on the wedding day. Justin (our sound guy) had informed me at the rehearsal dinner that the music for the bridal party entrance was skipping. In all the hustle and bustle of the wedding I forgot about this until I heard the music playing in the actual wedding! I was so pleased to find out that Tony (our Choir Director at Whitefield) had worked with Justin to fix the issue and purchase a new song off iTunes and replace it.....all in about five minutes before the wedding started.
7. There was another problem that sounded like a musical issue but it wasn't. At the end of the wedding the bridal party rushed out of the church to start taking pictures so we wouldn't be late to the reception, in the hurry of that everyone forgot about the grandparents and the parents sitting there in the church. It wouldn't have been that bad except the "exit" song we picked out was a techno song, sung by Cascada called "Everytime We Touch." Here it is in case you are curious....it just kept looping loudly, "DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DAAAAAAA DA, DA DA DA DA DADA DAAAAAAA DADADA!!"
8. The caterer had called Mom on Thursday to let her know that all the pies ordered for the pie display did not come in. Turns out the chocolate pies had been "discontinued", but the supplier had not informed the caterer of this prior to ordering. We used Sticky Fingers for our reception caterer, and PJ Wells was the lady in charge, and she was awesome. She actually stayed up until late that night and baked a LOT of chocolate pies from her own recipe so that I could have all the pies I had ordered for the reception. She was the kind of caterer that “had your back” at every turn.
9. When Tyler went to get his tux, along with some other of the groomsmen’s, from Gregory’s, he discovered they didn’t have HIS tux! The groom’s tux had not been delivered! Tyler had to sit in the Tux place the DAY OF THE WEDDING for an HOUR, for them to scrounge around and find all the pieces to his tux.
10. After this, Tyler brought Dad’s and Jonathan’s tuxes to them. Both their shirt sleeves came up to their elbows, and Jonathan was missing the cuff links. Gregory’s had to call Greenville to get the correct shirt sizes, so that meant that Dad had to go to Greenville the day of the wedding to pick up the correct ones – in addition to getting the vehicle rentals, and subsequently having the flat tire experience.
11. Did I mention that on Friday morning – early, when Dad and Mom left in their own seperate vehicles to go to the barn and drop off the food for the wedding party (and then go together to get the rental vehicles)…..that a BEE was in Dad’s truck and stung him on the neck as he drove down the road? He was pulling the trailer behind the truck, so it is miraculous that he didn’t wreck – not many people hate any insect that stings more than my Dad. So he had to wear his tux, button-up shirt, and tie with a bee sting on his neck! (He could make his own "Father of the Bride" movie!)
12. When we drove back to the barn after the wedding, we had planned to have wedding party introductions made from the driveway – so the rented vehicles were parked in front of my Jeep. We forgot about moving them until right before Tyler and I were leaving – so our Jeep didn’t get any “going away” decorations since it was basically hidden.
13. We had pre-arranged to have Daniel Simpson and his BIG awesome truck to wait on us at the church that is very close to the barn. Mom dropped Tyler and me off at the church so that we could come in on the big truck after the bridal party introductions. But thanks to all the music that I had to have in our ceremony and to the pictures afterwards, poor Daniel had been waiting almost an hour in the hot parking lot on us. Thankfully he didn’t give up on us, and we loved coming down that long driveway in that awesome truck for our “grand entrance”. Thanks Daniel!! Daniel’s mom and stepfather allowed us to use their farm for our “trash the dress” photo shoot – so thanks to that whole Collins’ family!
14. It was hot, hot, hot at the reception -- especially inside the barn where all the dancing was going on. PJ (our caterer) came over to Mom while Tyler and I were doing our bride/groom dance and told her the cake would have to be cut SOON or it was going to MELT off the table and into the floor!! They worked it out with the DJ to have the cake cutting right after my Dad and I danced.
15. Anyway, we were able to cut the cake before a major disaster, but the ice cream couldn’t be saved. I had some huge containers of vanilla ice cream from Callaham’s to go with the cake and pies, but the heat was just too much – even though they were frozen in tubs of ice. Maybe a few people got to enjoy the ice cream before it became milk shakes.
16. Some pre-wedding day disasters mostly involved poor Jonathan. He worked so hard on both our rehearsal dinner video and our wedding ceremony video and both had technical problems. Somehow, I have no clue how, he worked it all out so that, just in time, the reception video was ready and the wedding ceremony video was rendered. Somehow during the wedding ceremony the timing of the pre-ceremony video got off and it played in the middle of the "Grandparent's Seating" but at least it was viewed. Another funny pre-wedding day disaster was with Stacy, my "Maid of Honor." We all went Thursday before the wedding to get our nails done. Well, right when we arrived they asked us to pick out colors...hehe....Stacy picks out a really pretty pink polish, the only one on the shelf. About two minuets into the "shaking of the finger-nail polish" to prepare it for painting Stacy drops the bottle and it BUSTS ALL over the floor, the wall, her leg, her pocket-book, the bottom of her foot, ect. It was hilarious.
17. Okay, while we are discussing Stacy....and since I love her so much, I got a phone call from her Thursday night around 12 or 1 a.m. and she was freaking out. She started the conversation with; "Bekah, we have a problem." She had started to iron her dress and burnt a HUGE hole in it around the bottom part. I didn't know what to do about it and neither did she, but her Mom tacked it up like a champ and in the end you couldn't even tell anything was wrong with it.
Whew...so I know that was long, but I just thought all the Bride's out there about to get married should know that everything doesn't go according to plan, but with a crew like I had taking care of business, there is nothing to fret over.
