The Re-cap

And now, the recap of the wedding, honeymoon and anything else in between:

The day before the wedding, my family and I went up to the church where the reception was held and moved tables around, folded chairs up and made a gazillion tulle bows. We placed table cloths, candle holders, cups, silverware, napkins and the thousand other accutrements that are apparently needed to feed people some cake and fruit.

My mom and James arrived after a 10 hour drive at around 4 o'clock. The atmosphere in the church visibly thickened, but all was fine. We just continued tying bows and getting things ready. After the church was suitably attired, My mom, James, Stacy, Steven, Justin, Dustin (the best man) and I went to eat the all-u-can-eat fish and shrimp buffet at the local "nice" restaurant. It was delicious, however, when my mom is in attendance, one can rarely take literally the "all-u-can-eat" moniker. Then we headed down to the Gazebo for a quick walk through, to make sure the music that I have slaved for weeks to choose was actually workable. It was (of course). D'Liesa stood in for me as the bride, to avoid any bad luck, and all in all it was pretty successful.

To be quite honest, I don't remember what happened between 7 and 9pm on that day. But at 9 o'clock, Justin, Dustin and I were running around all over town trying to find pineapple sherbet and gingerale for my reception. (Apparently, every unmarried couple in the western hemisphere got married on May 20, everyone wanted white punch, and everyone got there before us.) Finally at United, I got the last available sherbet and gingerale available in town and ran back to my aunt's house. I kissesd Justin goodbye (per tradition I didn't want to see him on Saturday until the actual wedding) and settled in to make my bouquet and freeze a couple of pineapple rings for the sherbet. After about 20 minutes of CSI we decided that we were just too tired to concentrate and went to bed.

However, inability to stay awake does not necessarily mean that one can go to sleep. I tossed and turned and had asthma attacks until around 3am and then the double dose of Tylenol pm kicked in and I passed out. Dragged myself out of bed around 9:15, ran around like crazy to get the gazebo decorated, pick up the cake and fruit, eat a quick lunch and then it was time to get dressed!!!

Neither Justin or I remember much about the actual ceremony. It felt really magical, and dreamlike and perfect. I walked down the aisle with my dad to Enya's Flora's Secret, We cried through our vows, we left to Abba's I do I do I do, we laughed and smiled through the pictures and then we went to eat cake, which, everyone agreed, was delicious.

Then, we came home, had a present orgy, packed a bag and headed to Amarillo for our (glamorous) honeymoon. Our first meal as husband and wife was Sonic hamburgers. (see I told you it was glamorous) The honeymoon was perfect, we slept a lot in a beautiful bed with the softest white duvet ever, we did a lot of shopping with our wedding gift cards, we ate tons of food, and then we slept some more. We also cried a lot. I think that the wedding was so cathartic that when it was finally over we just flooded with so much relief and happiness that it had explode out of us in tears and laughter. It was perfect.

{Editors Note: Much like our last illicit premarital sex, our first government sanctioned sex was interrupted with phone calls.}

All in all, being married to Justin doesn't feel that different from just living together. I suppose that it's less of a dramatic change when you don't have to move into a new place with someone who you've never heard burp. I think this is better....We don't feel different, just happier. And yeah, we've already had our first big fight,(of course we have, I'm an anger ball) but it's fine, because we still just feel happier than we were before. I truly believe that this was the best decision of my life...and I'm still smiling so much my cheeks hurt.