This is berlies's Orange Wedding!

The day didn't go perfectly, but it went as well as could have been expected.

The one thing I noticed was how calm and cool I was. I expected to be a nervous wreck, with no appetite, stressing about how the day would go. With the way I was acting, it could have been any normal day.

My hair and makeup lady, Kacee, arrived with an assistant at around 10:45 to start working on me, my two moms, and 4 bridesmaids. Not only did they finish an hour early, everyone looked fantastic.

Being done an hour early only made me more anxious to get to the venue and start getting ready. We ended up going there early so that my Mom could get the flowers from the florist for my cake.

Getting there early was probably the best thing I could have done. I ended up spending way too much time running around, directing people, trying to find things, helping OTHER people out. By the time I actually got in my dress, it was too late to go and take photos of me around the property and me with the girls, because our guests, and most importantly Josh, had arrived. Bummer!

It wasn't too much longer until our coordinator came in and told me it was time! The nervousness still hadn't set in, which I was surprised about. My Dad came walking up, and he just started clapping. It was really sweet.

Finally it was my turn to walk down the aisle. It is a fairly long walkway, and as soon as I began walking down, the back strap of my shoe slipped down my foot, and my veil was threatening to fly away at any moment. My dad and I concocted a plan to tuck the side of the veil in between our arms. It worked!

When I was finally able to see Josh, I could see the tears swelling up in his eyes. I was afraid of this, because once I get going, theres no stopping - and man, am I not pretty when I cry. Luckily, we were both able to compose ourselves.

Apparently there was some commotion going on with the kids in the bridal party as Josh and I were saying our "I do's". I was completely oblivious to this - and pretty much everything around us. My Dad gave a wonderful speech during the ceremony talking about Josh and I as kids, and together as adults. Of course he didn't forget to tell little embarrassing stories of our childhoods. It was a nice touch to the ceremony.

After the ceremony we rushed to take pictures. I don't think I realized until then how large our party actually was, and spent a good chunk of time doing pictures of family and the wedding party. When Josh and I were about to begin the pictures of just us, we were already 5 minutes late doing our grand entrance. Oh well. We spent about 20 minutes taking some pictures of just us, that I think turned out really well. But if I were able to go back and do it over, I'd probably do less wedding party and more of us.

Then off to the reception - we did our first dance right away, and then sat down. My two maids of honors, and Josh's two best men both gave their toasts, and then Josh's granny gave the blessing before dinner. Now these were the real tear jerkers. At least the pictures were over.

Don't expect to enjoy dinner too much - we had people coming up to us left and right to talk to us, which was great, but man did that food look good. We were able to get in some rounds at the tables before it was time to start the rest of the festivities.

First was the Father/Daughter dance. At some point during the dance I looked over at my Mom sitting at her table, teary eyed, and realized that she should be up there with us. I called her up there and Me, Dad and Mom all danced together. It was a really sweet moment and I think she really appreciated it.

After that was of course the Mother/Son dance, our anniversary dance, and the cake cutting. I had warned Josh many times that if he smeared cake on my face I was going to be very angry. The photography suggested that if I went first, and was nice, that he would have no choice but to be nice too. Yeah, not so much. He got me, so I promptly loaded my fingers with some frosting and chased him until I could get a good smearing in.

The rest of the reception was a lot of fun. I danced the whole night. Neither Josh and I had time to partake in the open bar, but hopefully everyone else did! The reception shut down at 10:30, and most people had gone by then since it was a Sunday night, but a good grouping of us went over to Pechanga Casino and Resort nearby to get some drinks and just hang out. Josh and I booked a suite that night there so that we didn't have to worry about driving. It was a gorgeous room!

These are just some of the pictures our photographer posted on her Facebook. We should be getting to see ALL of them early this week and I can't wait.

I finally have a few minutes to actually talk about the wedding (kinda - I'm using up work time, shhh).

So our wedding was on Sunday, May 2, but it all really began on that Wednesday. That was the night we would make the 2 hour drive south to where the wedding was taking place in Temecula.

My Mom had rented a house and had arrived there earlier in the day with my Aunt and cousin who had driven down from Washington state. The day was spent running last minute errands, getting my hair cut, dyed, and having my eyebrows waxed.

While I was doing this Josh had gone to pick up his tux. This turned into quite the event. He had driven to the Mens Warehouse where his tux was supposed to be, only to find out it was at another location, about 20 miles away. He drove to that one, only to see their truck there unloading the tuxes. He decided to wait until the truck was unloaded, figuring his tux was somewhere in there. When he got out of his car and locked it, he realized his keys were in his car, and called AAA to come unlock it. In the meantime, he went inside to try on his tux. During his fitting, AAA showed up so Josh went outside to meet them. The alarm had gone off when the door was unlocked so Josh rushed to turn it off, and no sooner had he taken one step in front of him, his feet went flying out in front of him and he landed HARD on his arm. He had the wind knocked out of him, hurt his arm so bad he thought that it might have been broken (luckily it wasn't), and had ruined his tux shirt. In the end he was fine, and was able to pick up a new shirt in Temecula.

Then - the packing! Luckily we had brought most of the decorations down to my sisters a couple weeks before which left only the essentials.

We got the car packed pretty easily. My dress took up the entire back seat as we didn't want it getting wrinkled since it had just been pressed. The car was packed by about 5, though we didn't plan on leaving until 7 after the traffic had died down.

The drive was pretty easy and there wasn't much traffic and we got there around 9pm.

That night I had the worst dream! I dreamt that the Photographer, DJ, and Photobooth never showed up. Josh's best man didn't come because they got in a fight, and I had sores all over my legs. All I could think was that I had spent all this time planning the wedding, and it turned out to be a disaster. All our guests were just wandering around, not sure what to do. I woke up around 3 and was unable to go back to sleep. Luckily, that would be the worst night.

The next morning Josh and I had a lot of errands to run, first of which was getting our Marriage License. The office was empty, and the process was fairly simple and we were out of there in about twenty minutes. Then we had to go find a park to hold our rehearsal dinner (picnic) at. Luckily, the first one we found was perfect. There was a pavillion available to reserve (which ended up being our next errand).
Then we went to Panda Express to order the food for the picnic, and picked up Josh's new tux shirt. THEN we went to a Nursery and bought the tree for our tree planting ceremony. THEN we had lunch at Subway. All before 11am. We felt accomplished.

Josh's Granny and Papa and his Uncle Lloyd all arrived that day in San Diego, so Josh and I decided to drive another hour South to surprise them. It was a lot of fun to surprise them at baggage claim, and we were able to have dinner with them that night.

On Friday, we were supposed to have a girls morning and get our nails done and get lunch. It was just supposed to be me, my sisters, and my Mom - but somehow my Grandma, Aunt and cousin all came. In addition to pedicures, my aunt and cousin decided to get acrylics done. The nail salon was also short staffed. We ended up being at the nail salon for 3 hours waiting for everyone to be finished. Then there was lunch - and by now I was just in a horrible mood. I hate wasting my day and only getting a couple things done.

When we got back, Josh picked me up and we moved over to the house that his Mom had rented, since she arrived earlier in the day. This house was HUGE!!! We went to the grocery store and got some Sweet Tea Vodka and Lemon Jello to make some shooters, and spent the rest of the night playing scrabble and drinking. We're crazy people, I know.

Then there was Saturday, the day of the rehearsal and picnic.
I arrived there at noon with Josh, his Mom, his uncle who was a best man, my friend whitney who was a bridesmaid, and two of the groomsman. We were missing my mom and dad, my sisters who were the maids of honors, and all the kids. First off, they were all 30 minutes late. To top it off, my mom invited my entire family. There must have been 15 people there who DID NOT need to be there. My brother, whose 3 kids were in the wedding, also showed up an hour late and missed the whole thing. I couldn't believe it. Regardless, we got through the rehearsal farily well, and our coordinator was able to run through it real quick with my brothers kids.

After that Josh and I ran to pick up the food for the rehearsal picnic. Now is when the fun and relaxation began. We had such a good time, and it was nice doing something so informal that everyone that was around could come. We were even able to claim a baseball field for a couple games. The kids got to play and our families got to meet and it was a lot of fun.

After the picnic we all went back to Josh's Moms rental house for more hanging out and drinking and eating. My Mom, who had been working on the cake, brought over some taste tests for everyone. OMG - it was so good.

Around 8pm, it was time to say goodbye to my fiance - since I wouldn't see him again until I was walking down the aisle.

I ended up sleeping on an air mattress that night, and was more calm than I expected to be. I always thought that I'd be too wound up and nervous to go to sleep but it was the complete opposite. I slept VERY soundly.

The rest will come in my next recap of the wedding day!

The past week has been such a blur, and was so crazy, but the day couldn't have gone any better. Sure, I might have changed some things in hindsight - I spent too much time running around getting everything ready that I didn't have time to have pictures taken of me around the venue before Josh got there, and really pushed pictures after the ceremony - but can't sweat the small stuff.

It ended up being a gorgeous day, and all the decorations and flowers really came together and it was so pretty and exactly what I had imagined.

I'd post more pictures, but it took 2 minutes for this picture to load.

We're off to Disneyworld tomorrow, and our flight leaves from L.A. at 7:55am. It's 10:30pm and we're still not packed.

Oy!

Despite what my profile says, I have 7 days until my wedding. 1 week, and man, things are getting busy.

All the projects are done, and getting ready to get packed up.

I pick up my dress tomorrow, and have all my "getting ready" appointments in the next few days.

Even though the wedding isn't until Sunday, we're driving down to Temecula on Wednesday night, which about 2 hours South of L.A. We have tons of family coming in and it'll be nice spending the last few days just hanging out.

I got scared because the 10 day forecast has rain Thursday through Sunday in the forecast as of Friday - which would pretty much ruin everything. I checked it again today, and it had changed! Few Showers on wednesday, and then clear through Tuesday. Phew!!

My appointments coming up:
Monday: Pick-up dress, final testing at bootcamp
Tuesday: Dentist appointment, eye appointment, nail appointment
Wednesday: Infrared Body Wrap and Hair appt

I'm going to be tiiiiiiiired, lol.

Awhile ago we had decided to have all the boys (the two ring bearers, and the flower girls escort) wear high top converse with their tuxes, and I thought, hey, why not have the flower girl wear converse too!

So we bought her these orange converse to wear. I bought them from zappos yesterday, and they are being delivered today! I love them!

Side note, 11 more days!

It is now officially less than two weeks until my wedding. So much is done, but there is so much left to do.

I had a mini-meltdown yesterday when all I wanted to do was sit on the couch and watch TV and not do a thing, but aside from wedding stuff, we had our normal clean house, do laundry, go grocery shopping to do list. I was exhausted.

After work on Friday I went over to my Moms house to try and get as much of the DIY stuff done as possible, so we could get it packed up in the car and drive it down to my sisters house, who lives only about 30 minutes away. We were there until 12:30 that night, painting, glueing, assembling.

On Saturday, we woke up at 7:30 to take Josh's car to the shop since his check engine light came on. Of course, his car picks now to have a problem, lol. Found out that its the transmission, though it doesn't need to be fixed right now. Then Josh went and got his hair cut, and it looks really nice. Guys have it so easy.

Then, we went to Robbins Bros to drop off our rings. His needed to get sized and mine needed to get soldered. We found out that Josh's ring couldn't get sized, even though they told me it would be NO problem. To special order the ring in his size would take 4-6 weeks, which doesn't really work when the wedding is in 2! So they started doing a search for any other store that had it in a size 8, and what do you know? They had it there in their store. Crisis averted. We both had engravings done, but they will be a surprise to the both of us on the wedding day.

It feels so weird to not be wearing my engagement ring. I feel naked!!

After Robbins Bros we rushed home, hopped into my wedding filled car and drove down to Long Beach to meet with our Pastor for our last counseling session and rehearsal run-through (since he won't be able to make it down for our rehearsal). Josh teared up as we were saying our vows, and I just know the actual wedding is going to be a major tear jerker.

After that, we drove the rest of the way to my sisters house and dropped off tons of boxes and all the pinwheels at my sisters. It was a huge relief knowing that all that stuff was done, and down there and I doon't have to think about it until the wedding day. There was no way we would have been able to fit all that, plus our bags, and my wedding dress all in one trip, so I'm glad we took most of it early.

Wow, I've rambled.

13 days!! Eeeek!

Awhile ago when we were at Davids Bridal we found the cutest headband with an oversized flower for the little girls (Flower girl and Jr. Bridesmaid) and thought how cute it would be for everyone to have headbands with flowers.

After much searching, I finally found a seller on esty (snippetfairy) to make the wonderful headbands for me.

My two bridesmaids that are in orange floral dresses will be wearing the orange headbands, and my two maids of honors, that will be wearing solid clover dresses, will be in the green headbands.

I'm so excited to get them - so pretty!

Here's a couple pictures of my veil. I discovered while taking pictures that its very hard to get a good picture of yourself in a veil if you're taking it by yourself.

I had the bridal shop ship it to me, so of course it was all crinkled and wrinkled, but I've had it hanging in my shower and is now crinkle-free.

I literally picked this veil out in about 5 minutes when I went to go pick up my dress while Josh was sitting in the car outside. It was probably one of my most decisive moments throughout this whole wedding planning process.

Josh and I were pretty scared for awhile that we would be over our expected guest count. Our contract with the venue was based on 100 people, and we had 155 on our guest list.

It turns out that a lot of people aren't going to be able to make it, and we only have about 70 RSVPs so far, and maybe 5-10 more that we're still waiting to hear from.

Because we thought we were going to be over, we really restricted our list to family and close friends. There were a few people from work that I wanted to invite but just couldn't.

Now that I know we'll have room at the wedding, i want to invite them, but how do I invite them without offending anyone.

It would take too long to collect addresses and mail them out so I am planning on just leaving them on their chairs/desks or handing it to them directly. But I'm afraid of offending those that I invite because they weren't originally invited.

What to do?

I realized I hadn't done a proper post about our location. We're getting married at Falkner Winery in Temecula, CA.

The first picture is the entrance to where our Ceremony and Reception will be. The building there is actually their restaurant is, the Pinnacle Restaurant. It's a gorgeous room with 180° windows and a balcony overlooking the valley.

If you go inside the restuarant and go down the stairs, you are taken into their barrel room, and through a door which leads to a long path down to our ceremony site (Picture #2)

The third picture is of the ceremony site from the parking lot above it.

The fourth picture is the site set up with chairs.

The fifth picture is taken from the ceremony site looking up towards the tasting room, and the building where all the wine is actually made.

The sixth picture is the balcony attached to the tasting room. I am very much looking forward to taking pictures here - sooo pretty!

The seventh picture is of the steel frame pagoda that we'll be getting married under. There will be three large floral arrangements decoration the top center and each side, with tulle draped on each side.

Suspended behind us will be this heart formed branch (which still needs to be decorated with some flowers), and the bird houses that I've decorated. They will be suspended from the pagoda so that they will be hanging behind us.

We'll also have bird houses lining the walkway, but I don't have pictures of those.

I hope all my decorations/ideas really come through and have a concrete theme!