2: Tomorrow

Today, we will run around like mad and then drive for three hours.

Tonight, we will rehearse and then dine with our nearest and dearest, then D will go off with his boys, I'll spend a quiet night with some of my friends and then with my parents.

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow.

3: VIBs, Lists, Countdown...

Today, I'll be heading to the airport twice to pick up two Very Important Boys:

First, my brother Adam, AKA Three (we're the OddKidds - due to me being #1 in the birth order, him being #3, and us both being "off"), AKA my Man of Honor.

Then, a few hours later, The Fiance, AKA The Man Who Will Be My Husband In Less Than 3 Days.

It's getting real.

Aside from two airport runs, other tasks for today include:
- Get nails done
- Visit The Brow Lady
- Pack up All Of The Things (for the wedding, not the move... SO MUCH PACKING AHEAD OF ME...)
- Obsessively check All Of The Lists
- Call to confirm tomorrow's pick ups and appointments (cake, flowers, drop dogs at kennel, get hair trimmed, something else I'm forgetting... this is why I need to obsessively check All Of The Lists...) and make sure everything can get done before we start the road trip down to The Coast at 10 AM!

It begins.

4: Ensemble, Assemble!

In the past 24 hours, I have officially heard from EVERYONE in our glorious wedding ensemble via email, text, Facebook message, call, OR local get-together wherein we've put together candles and table decorations, gone over details, and shared in important wine.

I just realized that, like, ALMOST ALL OF MY FAVORITE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WILL BE IN THE SAME PLACE IN A FEW DAYS.

This is going to be awesome.



Yes.

5: No Flowers? No Groomscake? No Problem!

Just breathe, and it'll all be fine.

Within the past couple of days, I had a few cancellations.

The friend who was going to make a fantastic groomscake (I saw the prototype, and it truly was out of this world) had some other stuff come up, and told me she wasn't going to have the time to make it. Hey, life happens. So I just took a breath, looked up cake toppers on Amazon, and came up with a simple, non-fantastic but totally-fine Plan B.

Then today I got a call from the woman who was doing our flowers. She lives a few hours away, and is a friend of the POG (that'd be Parents of the Groom), and as her gift, was going to design flowers. But she came down with a bug, and wasn't sure she'd recover within the week, and regretfully informed me that she would not be attending the wedding, and not providing flowers. Again, life happens.

So I took a breath, and mentioned this call to a friend - WHO TOTALLY LOST IT ON MY BEHALF, sort of like the Anger Interpreter sketches on Key & Peele (warning, link is NSFW). That was very validating. But I did not lose it. I just went to a florist on another friend's recommendation, walked in, and calmly informed them that my florist had canceled and I would need some simple flowers for Saturday.

"You seem pretty chill about this," said the florist, giving me a look that says Some Brides Would Fall Apart At This News.

"It's fine," I shrugged. "I'm getting married either way."

There have been a few other hiccups this week, but I am resolved to not lose my cool. It's not worth it. No one is being malicious; sometimes plans change. And no matter what, this is supposed to be about joy, community, love - and nothing is going to derail that.

(But, like, also the caterer not canceling would be cool, if You're listening...)

7: Chuppah

How do you get the right chuppah?

The right ingredients, of course. Starting, first and foremost for us, with the right people.

As noted early on, our team has been and continues to be incredible. Our friend Richard the Master Builder was enlisted quite early to be our Chuppah Builder. More recently, WSM Diana and I went shopping for some fabric for the canopy-top of the chuppah. Turns out around that same time, Richard was out in the woods... chopping down some trees to really make a hand-hewn traditional wedding canopy.

He began the basic construction, and invited WSM-D and me to come help finalize the design and move toward final build yesterday. With a week to go, it was time.

I have no words for how beautiful this chuppah is going to be. Only an amazing feeling of gratitude. I think gratitude is going to be the Word of the Week, y'all. So instead of words, here are some pictures to document the day's work and preview the beauty to come...

A sturdy tree view...

Cutting the fabric with RL

Cutting up with the fabric (and can you spot the WSM?)

Experimenting with draping the fabric

Sewing the fabric once we found the right draping
(Thanks for the help, Lesley!)

8: I Glued My Fingers Together

I am not a "DIY" person.

Well, I mean, I am absolutely a do-it-yourself person, in most arenas. I've lived my own life, paid my own bills, set my own schedule, done-it-myself since I was 17 years old. (I certainly had plenty of love and support, thank goodness. But I took pride in doing things myself.)

However, in the craft-sense of "DIY," I am a total bust.

Thus, I knew there would not be many DIY elements to this wedding. I mean, D is good at DIY stuff; he can draw, sew, construct stuff. I'm not artsy. I can write and act and fake my way through dancing, I can organize the heck outta anything... but fold some origami or design a some jewelry or come up with cute custom table decorations? I quote the Noptetopus:

However, in addition to D (who, let's keep in mind, isn't here), I am surrounded by DIY people. People who are helping me with things like decorations (more on the amazing MQ soon). Though I'm minimizing the DIY overall, I did decide there is one thing I should do. By myself, with my own two hands: make customized flair for my ensemble.

I wanted it to be something unique, longer lasting than corsages or boutonnieres. Something that could be worn by anyone, with multiple options for display. Something eye-catching but classy. I've been working on this off and on for the past several late nights, pre-assembling; tonight, I began assembling.

This project involves super glue.

As the Spoiler Alert post title has already revealed, I glued my fingers together.

I mean, really glued them together.

Tore the skin off my fingertips glued them together.

Still have residue on my fingers even after exfoliating, salt-scrubbing, and tearing at my own skin glued them together.

But the good news is I'm borderline optimistic that when I finish this flair, it will be pretty cool.

That's really all I can manage to type right now. My fingertips are killing me.

9: Single Digits

A single-digit number of days stands between me and the end of my single days.

That can't be right.

10: Ketubah

(A small preview of the ketubah, which in
real life is more beautiful - and BIG!)

Yesterday, I went to get our beautiful ketubah framed. The ketubah is very special; it was a gift from some of my sweet coworkers, and was custom designed by our artist friend Christina of C. Mattison Illustration. Obviously, this document matters a lot to us, symbolically and physically.

So when I had to hand it over to a guy at the framing place, and he was my age but basically toothless and kept wiggling his finger in his ear, mining for wax as we spoke… well. I was nervous.

“It’s our wedding contract,” I said protectively, placing myself between the ketubah and Toothless Ear Wax Man. “It’s very important to us. It’s called a ketubah—”

“I’ll getcher done,” he said, finger thrusting again into his ear.

I wanted to walk out right then with the ketubah, rather than abandon the poor innocent wedding document. I felt odd, leaving her in the grubby hands of this disinterested man. But no place else in town could handle that big custom framing job on a quick enough time frame, “guaranteed.” Thus, I handed over our ketubah and left, feeling nervous. 

My misgivings continued to mount: He didn’t even know what a ketubah was! He didn’t care! HE MIGHT GET EAR WAX ON HER!

Today, I got a call that the framed ketubah was ready—earlier than expected. I went in to get it, feeling the lingering trepidation.

Toothless Ear Wax Man was not there. Instead, a brusque middle-aged woman, efficient but not warm, was behind the framing counter. I handed her my receipt, and she went to get my order. She brought out the large, now-heavy framed ketubah, and brusquely peeled off the tape from the crisp brown butcher paper to reveal the handiwork below.

“It’s beautiful!” I said, relieved, when I saw it.

“Yeah, that’s good,” she said, re-wrapping the butcher paper. She matter-of-factly checked me out, handed it over, and then as I turned to heft the ketubah and heave it out of the store, she cleared her throat.

“Hey,” she said, still abrupt but with a kind twinkle in her eye. “Uh, ‘mazel tov.’”

I looked at her, the efficient stranger at the framing counter who knew what this paper-wrapped item was and why it was so important. Suddenly, I could tell my memory of getting this lovely ketubah hastily framed in Mississippi was going to be far sweeter (and way less waxy) than I had previously thought.

“Thanks,” I said, meaning it, and carried our ketubah out to the car.