that's it!

DESPITE both of us having horrible colds; our cat giving my a four-inch long set of bloody scratches on my upper chest, right on the skin exposed by my V-neck dress; a somewhat overzealous/overexcited flower girl telling the photographers I was having a "moment" (with a motion toward her head) and that they couldn't go upstairs to take getting-ready pictures (resulting in their sitting around for ~45 minutes when the bridesmaids and I were getting ready sans photos, and all other pre-ceremony activities getting pushed back enough that it felt more stressful than it would have otherwise); and two friends/colleagues showing up with their not-invited 13-year-old-son...

...it was amazing.

Certainly didn't start that way, I must say. I really don't want to be that person telling you about how it started SO bad and ended SO great, because it really didn't start THAT bad. It was just kind of waking up on the wrong side of the bed, which is a wedding-day bummer, I'd venture to say. I woke up yesterday feeling absolutely horrendous, which made me really sad... definitely not that first-day-of-school feeling (yes, I'm a nerd). Our rehearsal dinner and welcome party were a lot of fun, but I was already feeling pretty sick and wasn't feeling much like socializing. My outfit was a hit, though! :-) The food at Maxie's was SO great (fried green tomatoes!!!), and Tim had the brilliant idea of using some of my painstakingly decorated jelly jars as decoration there, since there weren't centerpieces. (They have awesome lamps and ceiling decorations, and the food was family-style so big centerpieces would've been annoying.) It was wonderful and made for really nice ambiance.

At home, we had WAY too much food and drink, but oh well! now we have leftovers. Our next-door neighbors, whom we don't know very well but whom we had had apprised of the party a few days earlier (and I got to hold Sydney, their 3-month-old kitten!!), brought over an absolutely incredible cake she made for us. It was a HUGE round chocolate cake with a kind of cream cheese frosting, with piped words like "love," "forgiveness," and "understanding" (and more creative ones I can't think of right now) on the side. It was such a beautiful gesture that really meant a lot to us, especially because we haven't talked to them a whole lot... it feels like a fresh start. :-)  (Not that we had any bad blood, but they're just really shy, and so is Tim, and... I'm just out of town all the time. :-P )

So anyway, my mom did a great job of shooing people out, even though Tim didn't totally understand why people had to leave. (Boys.) Two of his groomsmen stayed and drank scotch until about 1, which was totally fine... I went to sleep and couldn't hear them at all.

But in the morning, I felt like such absolute shit that I didn't know how I was going to get through the day. I woke up around 9 and started getting ready (whaaaaa? 9?! a bride?!? waking up at NINE on her wedding day?!?!?!), but Tim was still sleeping. We needed to leave at 10:15 to get to the Inn in time to meet the wedding party. Needless to say, with him getting up at 9:50, that didn't happen.

It was fine. We dealt. I was bitchy to the wedding party, especially since I was losing my voice and two of the guys were talking & fussing with paper lanterns when I was trying to explain something and be heard. I believe my exact words were "[cat hissing noise]." That is not an exaggeration.

I think that's about enough for now. Hopefully I'll get some teaser pics from Laura in the next few days so I can do a little more recapping - meanwhile, I'll work on feeling better! But for now I'll say this: I knew things would perk up, and they most certainly did. Here's what started the perking up (sorry, these are cell phone pics of the bouquet as it looks in my kitchen right now):