This is sapphire2009's Blue Wedding!

Like a lot of brides, I decided to grow my hair out for the wedding so that I could have an elaborate updo if I decided to. I grew it for 2 years and ended up having about 4 inches trimmed off it in June as it was so long that the stylist couldn't do what I wanted with it.

By the time the wedding came, I was desperate to get rid of it- I hate growing it out without keeping it styled etc. (the style I wanted it cut, and the style I wanted for the wedding wouldn't have worked with each other) and I'm not used to having hair past my shoulders as I've tended to keep it around that length since I finished HS several years ago.

Two weeks prior to the wedding I booked a salon appointment with one of my good friends in England. I knew we'd be seeing her as the first part of our honeymoon was to go and spend time in my hometown and I specifically saved the post-wedding chop for her talented hands.

I walked in with hair to the middle of my back and walked out with a chin length style. She was petrified to do it but it looks amazing and I love it!! I actually took a photo of my mother when she was about 27 in with me and told her to do something similar. If I feel like flipping my bangs all charlies angels style, I look EXACTLY like my mum. lol.

In the end, we estimated that she cut approximately 8-10 inches off it! I don't regret it one bit! I feel *so* much better having got rid of all of it. However, one thing I didn't think about- I have a TTD shoot next month and we were going to originally copy my hair & makeup like it was the day of the wedding... now I have to come up with something new to do with short hair! lol.

Even though I'm on my honeymoon at the moment and it's been 2 weeks since the wedding I've still got a ton of photos to get up on here!

2 days before the wedding (thursday night) my sister, mum, MOH & I headed into downtown for a few drinks to celebrate since my first bachelorette party was such a disappointment. My mum & sister got me all the trimmings- the tiara, sash, beads, flashy pin, etc. It was great!! We spent the evening sipping cosmo's & bellini's before a group of older men came to keep us company (and buy us copious amounts of shots!). We had a wonderful time- my mum never goes out anymore, so it was a big occasion for her and I was so glad she came. After we headed out from the bar, we met up with the boys at our local pub, minus the MOH who had to work in the morning. The party continued until the early hours of the morning and everyone was well intoxicated and having a great time. Surprisingly, I didn't wake the next morning with a hangover- not sure how I managed that one!

In a previous entry, I talked about the ceremony- now it's time to move on to the best part of the night, the reception!

Unfortunately, because people were getting antsy and didn't want to wait for an entire hour till we came back from photos, we ended up cutting the cocktail hour short by about 20 minutes.

We had the bridal party introduced to Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night" and they all wore their sunglasses as they came in. Everyone thought it was great and the bridal party loved it- especially since its 2 of the BM's favourite songs.

We walked in to Elvis vs. JXL's remix of "A Little Less Conversation". Once we were in the reception, we immediately had our less than graceful first dance. We decided that "our song" wasn't appropriate or suitable for a first dance (Jake Owen's 8 Second Ride) so we went with Eric Church's "Love Your Love the Most" since Eric Church is a homegrown boy with fabulous music and I'm pretty sure DH has said everything in that song to me at one time or another. Anyway, we managed to get half way through it before I spun away from him, looked at the DJ & the Crowd and went "okay! we're done! our attention span isn't that long, we're hungry and I'm tired of stepping on each other's feet! Lets get the party started!" Everyone laughed, but it was just such an us thing to do. Neither of us had really wanted to do a first dance, and I had only wanted it if we could take dance lessons which FH refused to do. So.. whatever. lol.

Then came the father daughter dance- that was hard. Not because I didn't want to dance with my dad, but because I've only once ever seen him [almost] cry. I decided to pick "Take Good Care of my Baby" by Bobby Vee since he wouldn't pick a song for us and every other song I picked my mother got offended about because she considers them "her songs". (they just recently got divorced. they're still in the process of his & hers.) It was fun and I did manage to get to the end of that one seeing as he didn't step on my feet at all!

The DJ was absolutely incredible and kept people entertained the whole night. He played anything & everything you can think of, from Rat Pack to Def Leppard to DJ Sammy & Groove Coverage over the course of the night. There was definitely something for everyone and the dance floor was full most of the night.

The food was great too- even though I only got a teensy few bites of my plate and I never got to try even half the food we had there. Everyone commented that the prime rib was delicious and they loved the portobello mushroom sliders. They said it was the best food they'd had at a wedding. Make sure you definitely take a box or something along to put food in to take back to your room with you- we were starving by the time we got to the hotel room, and all they could salvage from our buffet was some rolls, a few pieces of shrimp and 2 chicken empanadas each.

We had the Best Man & our Bridesman/Ceremony Reader give a toast. I originally didn't have a MOH (she became MOH on the day!) so I had the bridesman give what would traditionally be the MOH's speech. The Best Man's speech was absolutely hilarious- he's known Chris since he was a kid (the best man's wife used to babysit DH) so he was able to draw on some of that, as well as the fact that he's been married for 15 years. The bridesman's speech was super sappy and really sweet and had nearly the whole room in tears. He can be such an eloquent writer when he wants to be.

Then came the cake cutting which all went sort of wrong. The DJ didn't announce it- he just put the music on (probably because he had no idea what was going on and neither did we) and the photographers were eager to get photos, so we just went ahead and did it. Unfortunately however, the cake design was completely wrong- the tiers were supposed to be round, the fondant ribbon wasn't supposed to be flat and only an inch big... it was supposed to be about 2 or 3 inches thick, rushed and pulled & ruffled with a pearlized sheen to it, and a big soft bow that cascaded down the side. I'd even given the bakery a photo of what I wanted so there's no reason it should've been wrong. I'm still fighting with them about that. The bottom layer was wrong too- there was no strawberry filling in it. It was all chocolate ganache & vanilla buttercream on chocolate sponge which was supposed to be strawberry mousse where the vanilla was. Everyone seemed to enjoy it though so whatever. Unfortunately I only got the 2 bites that I was fed during the cake cutting and I have *no* idea where the rest of it went after the wedding. I know the top tier got put in my car that was taken to the hotel, but no one told us it was there and the buttercream went rancid overnight and had to be thrown out in the morning.

When we did the bouquet and the garter toss we called for everyone to come up- we didn't have enough singletons to warrant doing it that way. I did the bouquet toss & my friend's girlfriend caught it. When it came time for the garter toss, him & the bridesman fought over who was going to catch it. In the end, my friend caught it and put it back on his girlfriend... I don't think I've ever seen a garter get put back on that high before! lmao.

We didn't have a leaving toss and most everyone was gone well before the time we'd allocated (we had expected the reception to end at 10, nearly everyone was gone by 9) which was okay since it meant we had more time to tear everything down, pack it away in the cars and we were outta there by 10:30.

I have spent the past 4 days fighting with 2 of the bridesmaids- one who's decided she can't deal with "how much of a drama queen" I am. (which is total bullshit because all I asked of her was to get her outfit sorted out and do as she was asked/told to the week of the wedding since I didn't want to be a hassle to her during the planning- although picking up the phone once in a while during planning to see how I was doing, or to offer to help with things would've been nice) At least I'm not the one who had a drinking and drugs problem, been in rehab twice and blamed my problem on everyone else. I was the only one that didn't turn my back on her, even when she left me high and dry for 2 years without even an email or text message to tell me she was still alive. And I'm the drama queen? Whatever- fuck it. And then the another one is just being a total bitch for the sake of it.

Because of our situation with the Best Man not being able to attend 3 days before the wedding (long story, but when the general of the army reserve tells you to work or you'll lose your job, you'll work!) put a spanner in the plans, it meant that she had to go and pick up the kegs from total wine as we weren't prepared to pay the markup costs from the caterer to get it through them & she was the only one with a car big enough to get it. When I got to the venue she told me that she'd had to pay $200 extra on the cost of the kegs because the card I'd given her was maxed out. Bullshit. The card was a gift card that still had $311 on it- we were told that it would only be $300 for the kegs. I told her I wanted to see the receipt and in the 5 miles between the store and the venue she'd mysteriously "lost" it. By the end of the night she was telling me I owed her $400. She never thought to call anyone to tell them about the situation while she was at the wine store so that we could speak to a manager and get the issue sorted out, she just took it upon herself. So, at the end of the night when the kegs were still half full, we asked her to take them to finish them off with her friends since they were in her name and she has to be the one to return them otherwise they won't give us back the refund for the taps, buckets etc. She was still trying to say that we owed her $400 when she left.

I've spent the past 4 days fighting with her about it because I finally got a chance to go past the store and get a photo copy of the receipt. The problem with the price was that the cost they had quoted us didn't have the price of one of the taps & buckets in it- it was the managers mistake and he's very apologetic about it. The total she paid was $99- which she would get back when she returns the kegs, as the total cost of the rentals was $160. That means I would get $60 back. HOWEVER, she skipped out on paying for her hair as well, which was another cost I had to cover for her- that brings the total up to $100 that she owes me. On top of that, we'd also bought a $70 bottle of champagne that was specifically for DH and I (and anyone we wanted to share it with)- the BM's boyfriend was our bartender and we told him repeatedly that the champagne was to be kept behind the bar, and not served to anyone except us. (we provided cava for the guests) My SSIL & I only got one tiny glass each and the rest was served to guests and drank by the BM & him. They also invited a bunch of their friends to the wedding. Thankfully only one showed up but I didn't know him which pissed me off- what if we'd had a plated meal and everyone who had RSVP'd had come? There wouldn't have been anywhere to put him! We also got repeated complaints about the BF/Bartender- mostly about the fact that he was dressed inappropriately (the caterer hired him for the day, and requested that he wear black dress pants, white button down, black vest & black tie. He showed up in faded scruffy black pants, unpressed white button down with the top buttons undone, no vest & no tie) and the fact that he stood pouring the drinks with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth half the time. Yes, I'm pissed about all of that, but I'm willing to put it aside so long as she pays me the $100 she owes me- I'll even write off the fact that she didn't bother giving us a present when one of her biggest excuses about why she didn't want to pay for this or that, or attend the bachelorette party, or the shower was because she was saving up to get us a gift.

I realize it's only $100 and I could write it off, but this is the BM that I wanted to kick out and I only kept in the hope that she'd finally pull her act together at the last minute and obviously she didn't. She's the one that made every single decision about the BM's total hell- when I wanted them in one dress, she wanted another. She's the reason we ended up just letting the girls pick their own. And even then she didn't get her dress ordered until May when I wanted them ordered in March. She's the one that fought with me about her shoes, jewelry, hair, makeup- even though all I asked was that they all have the same shoes, and that they get their hair done so that it looked nice. I could care less about their jewelry and makeup. She's the one that bailed on planning my bachelorette party when I told her I didn't want a stripper. It's the principal of it all. And what hurts the most is that I've bent over backwards for her for years- since we were children- to always give her what she wanted/needed and while we've had our differences she's never been as self-absorbed as she is now. I'm at the point where I'm seriously starting to think she's on drugs- she's done a total 180 in her personality over the past 3 years. Once I get the money back from her, it's done. I'm over with her.

As I said in the introductory recap- nothing really went right on our wedding day. The entire thing was just mayhem and chaos.

By the time the ceremony started, our altar decorations had already blown over and shattered into a million pieces (they were 3ft tall vases filled with xmas ornaments & branches), I felt insanely sick, and I really wanted to just push the whole thing back by an hour to try and get over how stressed out I was feeling. I could barely crack a smile coming down the aisle. It wasn't until half way through that I could feel myself relaxing and starting to loosen up.

The ceremony went okay over all. The guests didn't sing along with the hymns that were written into the ceremony which thoroughly annoyed me seeing as it had taken me absolutely ages to track down those particular versions of the songs, and to get the lyrics written out for the programs but whatever. They all complained that the music was too long. *shrug* The minister screwed up my name a few times (my full name's alexis & he kept calling me alexia) and he untied the knot he'd just tied during our handfasting which really upset me even though I kept saying to him not to untie it since we could just slip our hands out.

Half way through the ceremony, I stopped the minister to slip my shoes off as I could feel myself starting to get fuzzy- I was so stressed out from the day that I had a pounding headache, severe nausea and I was so hot from the sun that I thought I was going to pass out. So, I kicked off my shoes so that I could get onto level ground. Everyone thought it was hysterical.

Other than that it all worked perfectly. This was the order of our ceremony:
Family Processional- Handel's Water Music, Hornpipe
(Mum walked down by the bridesman)
(MIL walked with Groom)
(Step-MIL walked w/ FIL)
(Dad walked w/ my Sister)

Bridal Party Processional- Handels Water Music, Air
Brides Processional- Wagners Bridal Chorus

Greeting & Opening Sermon
Poetic Reading- The Art of Marriage
Questions of Intent
Hymn- Holy Holy Holy
Vows & Ring Exchange
The Lords Prayer
Biblical Reading- Corinthians 1:13
Handfasting
Hymn- All Creatures of Our God and King
Final Blessing
Presentation of the Couple

The only thing I'd change would be to have a toss as we were coming back down the aisle & to have a receiving line as guests were leaving the ceremony since I didn't get a chance to speak to, or even meet some of our guests.

lol. So, I don't have the professional photos back- I'm not entirely sure when I'll be getting those but so far I have a pretty good collection of photos from my mum & a couple of our friends who attended the wedding.

A quick recap- The day was a total disaster. We knew it wouldn't go right to begin with after the past couple of weeks of hell, but none of us were prepared for the total mayhem that the day became.

FH & I both knocked back a few too many the night before in the bar after our rehearsal dinner, so we were both feeling pretty hungover the morning of the wedding- not to mention the fact that we didn't actually get home until about 4am. heh. oops. We got the cars packed up in the morning but unfortunately, the bridesman who was in charge of packing them didn't pay attention to what he was doing and was just shoving things in left & right when one car was supposed to go to the venue and the other car was going to the hotel, so we were about an hour behind since it all had to be unpacked and repacked again. By the time we got to the hotel, we were nearly 2 hours behind schedule. The photographers arrived about an hour later than I'd expected.

The major chaos was at the venue however. FH was there in the morning setting up all the lights but had failed to tell me that he'd forgotten his keys when he left the house that morning (I drove the car down there then got a ride to the hotel) and I didn't find out until half way through the day which meant there were no ceremony decorations, the reception wasn't set up properly, and it was a mad rush to get everything sorted out before guests arrived. We didn't have time to get our photos done before the ceremony- we'd allocated 3 hours for group photos & then after the ceremony we were going to take just the photos of me & DH but it worked out that we only ended up having time to take photos for about a half hour to 45 minutes before the reception so I don't have even half the number of photos that I wanted to get. There aren't any fun, messing around photos of the bridal party- just the standard traditional shots.

The ceremony went pretty well- other than when the altar decorations blew over with the one and only gust of wind we got all day, and only 5 minutes before the ceremony was supposed to start. It was insanely hot in my dress, and I was feeling pretty ill before I even got out of the hotel even though I'd had something to eat and I was downing water as much as I possibly could. The stress once we got to the venue pretty much threw me overboard. Half way through the ceremony I ended up having to stop the minister to kick off my shoes because I could feel myself swaying. I knew not to lock my knees but the combination of heat, nausea & a pounding headache was just too much and I could feel myself starting to feel fuzzy. Once I got flat footed I was much better. Everyone thought it was hilarious. The other part was that the minister messed up the handfasting by untying the knot at the end of the ceremony when we were just supposed to slip our hands out of it instead.

The reception was pretty good for the most part... the DJ was excellent & the food was amazing. The room even got set up pretty much close to perfect at the last minute. Our caterer definitely saved the day by making sure that the room was perfect. We had our 1st dance and only got half way through it- neither of us can dance and FH refused to go for dance lessons so we ended up stepping all over each other's feet and by half way through my feet were so sore, that I just spun away from him, looked at our DJ and went "okay! we're done! my feet can't handle being stood on anymore!" and the whole room burst into laughter. It was just such an "us" moment- we both have insanely short attention spans so i think people were half expecting it anyway. haha.

My biggest complaints with the reception were that the cake was entirely the wrong design & flavor, the venue didn't do a single thing right so the caterer had to follow up behind them to fix everything they did and the bartender (who was one of the BM's boyfriends) didn't have the correct outfit on and didn't pay attention to what he was serving so the 2 bottles of champagne that was bought for DH & I to share were served to everyone else (they were $70 bottles too!!) instead of the cava we'd purchased for everyone. We also got a few complaints about the fact that he was serving with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth half the time. I'm pretty much certain it was all rigged by him & the BM- I'm currently fighting with her about the beer situation because she went to pick it up and claims that she had to pay an extra $200 for the kegs when I know there's no way she had to- I'd double checked the amount remaining on the cost of the kegs, and the amount remaining on the card so there was no way that she should've had to pay out of pocket for anything. But then again, she's been a total bitch about everything for the past year- I've had to fight with her about every single little thing in the wedding that I needed/wanted her to do so it wouldn't surprise me if she was trying to pull a fast one. I'm not planning on keeping in touch with her anymore unless she bucks up and sorts out her act.

Overall, I'm just really, really glad that it's over. And I'm also pretty happy that I can't really remember much of it, and that the day went by really fast. By the time we got to the big day I was so stressed out that I didn't even want a wedding anymore- I just wanted to be married. From what I can remember of the day, it wasn't particularly great. It was certainly far, far from any dream wedding, and not a single thing really went right. When I think back on what I can recall, i just get pretty miserable and disappointed. I can't wait to get back to a normal life!!

This past week has been a total whirlwind- it's been crazy. And now it's all finally coming to an end...

I GET MARRIED TOMORROW!!

sad thing is... it's only just hit me. haha. Crazy isn't it? I've still got so much today before our rehearsal tonight and then I have to be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to start getting ready.

Last night I went out with my mum, sister & head bridesmaid for a few celebratory drinks- pretty sure I won't be drinking at the rehearsal dinner tonight now. haha.

Anyway, I better get my ass into gear and get some stuff done!

So... one groomsman says he's not coming to the wedding anymore because apparently he "forgot" that he had a family reunion this weekend. Fine, whatever- I'm pretty sure its just him being lazy and not wanting to bother... I find it hard to believe that someone just woke up this morning and said "oh, i think we'll have a family reunion on Saturday." So, Chris' mom finally got her wish of having his cousin as a groomsman as much as I can't stand the kid. (He's 21, but he acts and thinks like he's 14. He's one of the few people I've ever met in my life who I want to punch repeatedly in the face without him even saying anything to me because I know just from the constantly screwed look on his face that he doesn't have anything nice to say to me.)

I go out to run some errands, get home and find that the BEST MAN called to say he might not be coming now either because he apparently has a meeting with the general of the united states army (work related) He's a civilian contractor- he writes the software programming for the military. (my dad used to do the same thing when I was a child) Happened to be that the general is on base checking out the situations, got downwind of the fact that this particular project is running over schedule (supposed to be ready by Friday- the officer overseeing the project extended the timeline but never ran it past anyone to make sure that was okay- troops were supposed to start training on it come Monday which means that the extended timeline has put a huge spanner in the plans about it) General got pissed has demanded that it be ready by Monday at the latest or he'll cut the contract. It's a no win situation.

WHAT THE EFF?! who the f*ck cancels as a groomsman/best man 3 days before the wedding?! I didn't just spend 2 years of my life stressing out, running around like a lunatic trying to plan this thing for it to all fall apart days before its set to happen! I swear to god, if I get my hands on them I am going to give them long, slow, torturous deaths.

So, I guess the remaining original groomsman is going to be our best man now, and FH's friend/assistant manager at work is going to step in as our third groomsman now. Everyone's pretty furious about it.

And the icing on the cake is that we finally heard from the original groomsman that decided to stop taking our calls today- apparently the reason he stopped talking to us is because he hates me and blames me as the reason why FH isn't out drinking with him every night etc. these days. (Even though the real reason is that we can't stand his girlfriend and refuse to associate with her)

originally, i was going to have the girls wear their hair however they wanted until realized that one of has a tattoo on top her shoulders back neck area and she'd originally been thinking having up. didn't problem with it, but knew my mother would so asked if mind wearing it in half up-half down just cover particular piece wouldn't completely flip. she like sister me throughout hs knows what mum's had no problems it.

When the other girls asked how they should do their hair, I just sent them in the right direction by telling them how she'll be wearing hers. They've all agreed to have the same style since they think it'll be easiest, and they wanted me to pick the style. I decided to go with something really simple that works for all hair types and just have it pulled back on top with some height at the crown. nothing too huge or over the top, just enough to soften the look. I got them each a rhinestone barrette to wear as well, just to dress things up a bit.

This afternoon my mum, grandma & I all stopped by the lancome counter to pick up a few essentials (they always stock up when they're in the states because it's cheaper for them over here- they're from england) and I decided to have my makeup done how I'd like to wear it for the wedding. I was planning on just getting a couple of eyeshadows.

I loved all of it, so I ended up buying the foundation, concealer, powder & 2 of the eyeshadows she used (I had the third one already). I wanted to get the eyeliner & mascara too but I couldn't bring myself to spend anymore money...

I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE SPENT $140 ON COSMETICS!! I feel so vain now... but at least I got 2 free gifts for it. haha. more makeup to add to my already expensive collection!