 
I decided to keep a diary chronicling the events leading up to the big day. This is only for the last month before we get married. So those of you from out of town can share in the experiences with me.
March 3
I'm starting to panic. Not about my choice of groom, just in general. With less than a month to go, I still feel in control of my expanding "to-do" list, which includes finding gifts for bridesmaids, shopping for our honeymoon wardrobe, and printing the programs among other things. I am having my portrait done tomorrow and everything is going wrong. My photographer called and said the place we were going to shoot was having back to back funerals. The I found out that my hairstylist does not do updos and the other 2 people that were recommended to me were booked all day! This was terrible. I was supposed to be working but I was under too much stress as I had to find a new place to take the pics. I eventually found someone to do my hair. Around 7:30pm I finally got hold of our Wedding Coordinator at the church and she agreed to let us take the pics there. We were set, phew. Now I can enjoy my Friday night.
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March 4
I got up early and did my own makeup. I got my hair done and it turned out fabulous, I was really pleased. I made my appointment with the same lady for my wedding day. We took lots of pics at the church. Of course I had to go to the bathroom, ick, that was a site to see, sorry, no pics of that. I had a great time and felt like a princess. Afterwards we went to the water fountain near our house and took more pics. It was pretty funny getting into the Suburban with my dress on, I sat in the back seat and draped my trane over the back. There was another couple there taking wedding pics also, they had just got married at a church nearby. The weather was beautiful, I cannot wait to see all the pictures. I did not want to take the dress off after we were done, but alas I can wear it again in three weeks and I am sure that by the end of the night I will be ready to take it of!!
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March 5
We went to Gina's confirmation this morning and everyone had lunch together. John agreed to chauffeur us to the reception in his Bentley, woohooo!! I'm real excited about that, we have been trying to get an antique car for the day but were not able to find one. We got the pictures developed from yesterday. They turned out so good, I am very pleased. The ones by the water fountain are awesome.
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March 6
Matt and I went to the mall after work to look for gifts for his groomsmen. Then we went to Wicks and Sticks to get a Unity Candle, I just could not find anything I liked. So I ended up getting a simple one from Hobby Lobby and I am going to decorate it myself.
Matt and I have been dating a little over 2 years and we rarely fight but after we started planning the wedding, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We have learned a lot about each other and have been through a few fights as well. This is the most we have ever fought, if we can just get through this wedding, all will be well. We have learned to pick your battles wisely and most importantly to compromise.
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March 8
We went and filled out the application for our marriage license today. We went during lunch, it was really quick. You just fill out this application and take an oath and you are outta there. We had these nice people take a picture of us in front of the door. Then we went to eat at Taco Bell! With the guidance of my enthusiastic mother who knows what she's doing and seems to enjoy it, things seem to be magically falling into place. She has been helping me plan everything from New York. I am so lucky to have her helping me, I wish she was here. I had wanted her to come up for the bridesmaids brunch but she has been pretty sick lately. She has taken care of the flowers and the reception place, and of
course has given me great moral support which has been a great help to me. I now see why some brides chose to turn the entire project over to someone else and why others decide to take it on alone. And as each day clicks by, I am that much closer to knowing this is really going to happen.
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March 9
I got my bridal portraits back today. My photographer met me at my office. All the pictures turned out great. I had a tough time picking out my favorite. I picked out one where my veil frames my face, I'll have an 11x14 up at the reception for everyone to see. He gave me all the proofs too!! I had all the information ready to send to the papers. Since it is only 2 weeks away and I have to get the pictures in by Saturday. I sent one to the Dallas Morning News and the other to the Irving paper. At home I got this idea to set out all our gifts so you can see what they are. They are set out in a U shape from one end of our living room to the other. Our place is quite small so it's a task to get around now. |
March 10
The DMN called me today, they already got the picture, wow that was quick. We almost have all our responses for the wedding, we have
a lot more than we expected, it'll be sure to be a great time. I picked up my mini wedding cakes today to test out. The bride cake is white with raspberry filling and the groom cake is chocolate with amaretto filling. Mmmmm, they are soooo good.
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March 11
We had the bridesmaids brunch at Hackberry Creek Country Club. It was about 50 degrees but two of us showed up in short sleeves, we were determined it would get warmer outside. They lit the fireplace in the room for us. We started off with Mimosas and chatted for awhile. There were little
place cards at the table for everyone. Both Sandra and Buzz said a few words about marriage. I've learned a few things from these parties, never underestimate advice from those who have been happily married for may years, listen to what they have to say. Also, emotions are on heightened alert the closer I get to the day. Small slights are devastating and thoughtful words seem like fantastic gestures of generosity. Buzz said the nicest prayer for me and Matt, it really meant
a lot to me. I am so blessed and know that we will have lots of love and support from many family and friends.
Afterwards Beth and I went shopping. We picked out the bridesmaids gifts and got them engraved. Then I went home to rest up for the night's events.
Jason and Carlos came over to get Matt, they were going to On the Border for dinner then out to some other places, wink, wink.
Ronda and Juli picked me up and we headed out to Chuy's, I knew it would be interesting but I was not completely prepared for what was going to happen here. We were not even seated before my friends pulled out my extra attire for the evening. First it was cute little condom earrings, harmless. Then I had a wonderful little handmade t-shirt from Juli that contained lifesavers sewn all over them. Gee, I wonder why she would have done that. I am going to stop there and let you see the pictures for the rest, it will help you get the full effect of the evening.
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March 12
I woke up at 8am, whenever I drink the night before I cannot sleep late. Matt stayed in bed until noon and I made a nice greasy breakfast of bacon and pancakes to make us feel better. Ronda came over and we spent the rest of the afternoon decorating the ringbearer pillow and unity candle. She did a great job on both, I am very excited about them. Matt used his Home Depot bucks that he got from his Tool Time shower and bought a grill. He was pretty excited about that and put it together in less time than it took us to decorate our stuff!! So of course we grilled for dinner, and I am sure we will be grilling everything for the next few weeks.
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March 13
I finalized the program with our pastor. As soon as I choose the paper to use we will print them. We also went to the Tuxedo shop to get Matt fitted. Some of the guys have not done this yet, we're coming after ya!
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March 14
At my Creative Memories class I finished up my pictures from the first shower and made my sign in pages for the wedding, they are sooo cute. I am going to tie ribbons on them and lay them on the table, and after the wedding I will put them in the wedding scrapbook I am making so I will always have them there. It is better than having a guestbook that I will probably never open. 1 more week to go, yipppeee!
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March 16
I thank God every day for having Matt in my life, I am so lucky to have met such a wonderful person. I know that He can take Matt away from me at anytime and I always tell Matt how much I love him and appreciate everything he does for me.
In all the haste to get Matt's ring sized we thought about where mine was. We searched all over the place and could not find it. We sure have been misplacing
a lot of things lately. But we finally found it. It had fallen on the floor and was under the bed, phhhew! Do you ever get sick of everyone asking you if you are nervous yet? No, I'm not nervous, but ya'll are making me feel like I should be, that makes me nervous! My mother was nice enough to do some last minute stuff for me today to free up some time. I am going to take a break and go see a movie tonight, Erin Brockovich! We finally got Matt's ring sized. If you get a ring with comfort fit be careful when you have it sized.
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March 20
First day of spring, let's hope the weather stays nice all week. I bought some clothes for Matt for the trip while I was out shopping. Toward the end of the day it got a little crazy. Everyone has been really great in offering their help. I have not talked to the wedding coordinator yet about little details about the wedding day. I made a bunch of phone calls to vendors and other people. I talked to our DJ and worked out all the details, he called me during Ally McBeal, jeez, how rude. We got the flowers taken care of and I already discussed everything with the photographer. I have a list of 'to do' on the refrigerator, it seems like every time I cross one off I think of a few more things to add to the list. I think we are ready to do this, yippee!! I even have several of my thank you notes already written.
How are we going to dispose of all the "gift garbage"? We have cardboard boxes and packing popcorn everywhere. They are coming in already. I'm braced for the avalanche. How selfish of me, I know all our friends and family buy us something to celebrate our marriage and start a new home, but nothing is petty at this time for me. Every time we open a new gift we get thrilled at the idea of tossing out our mismatched silverware and giving our kitchen a makeover.
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March 21
Busy, busy day. I am trying to get hold of the wedding coordinator to see what time we can get into the church on Saturday and I need to ask the organist if he can play Hornpipe. I was hoping I would have my programs done by now, but at least Kinko's is open 24 hours. Of course I still have to fold them, ick. Can you believe I went to Creative Memories tonight? I figure it is a great way for me to relax and
de-stress for a few hours. Penny has been a great help too, she is taking my dress to get it cleaned tomorrow and will take it to the church on Friday. Matt is going to take all our attendant gifts over to her house so she can wrap them all and take them to the rehearsal dinner for us on Friday. I actually started packing tonight. I did not realize how many new outfits I had bought until I started packing. The resort we are staying at is not real casual so we have to dress up for dinner. I actually went to a website where people were talking about the resort where we were staying and sent a message to someone who was ranting and raving about it, he actually responded to me and gave us some helpful hints on where to go.
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March 22
Ok, yesterday was just crazy. By the end of the weekend we are going to be wiped out. Matt had someone working on our computer do we could get a 20gig
harddrive, yippee. He is just completely swamped at work, I feel terrible for him,
every time I call he hardly has time to talk. He is such a hard worker, I do not know what his office is going to do without him there for a week. He has worked late every night and every Saturday and some Sundays for the past 2 months or so. So I went up there last night with a bottle of Crown and hung out. We got 3 more sets of our china, all of our gifts are being delivered to his office. His one job today was to pick the second reading for the wedding and frankly we did not get to it until 10pm. We ran up to Kinko's to get the programs copied and they did not have the correct fonts. Ugh, I was not too happy. So we went back to Matt's office and printed it out, of course Matt was working while we were there. Fortunately he still had the fonts I e-mailed to him, so I had to install those on his computer before I could print them. He sent a fax to the other office just so they could see he was working at 10pm, hehe. Anyway, we went back to Kinko's, now it was 11pm. I gave all the stuff to the chatty girl at Kinko's. She was asking us all kinds of questions about our wedding, she was very nice but we were ready to go home. We were not about to wait for them, so Matt is going to pick them up tomorrow and start folding them. When we got home I felt the need to clean up, I just was not ready to go to sleep yet. I finally crashed around 11:30, I knew the next day was going to be busy.
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March 23
Matt worked half a day today and ran a bunch of errands for me this afternoon. Amazingly enough I have slept really well the past few nights but this morning I woke up early and decided to get up, I guess I kept thinking about how much I had to do. I was ready early for work so I cleaned up downstairs. I had several more gifts to set out, it has now moved into the dining room. Our place is really a mess right now, I don't know how we are going to get all this stuff in our kitchen, I guess we will have to keep some of it boxed up until we get our house this fall. We are having the post office hold our mail since our mailbox is so small. My wonderful husband to be picked up the programs and I have recruited some of my 'maids to be folders in order to expedite the process. Matt brought a dozen roses to me at the office, how thoughtful is he?? My photographer brought my bridal portrait by the office and mounted it for me. I really like it, I want to show it to everyone! Matt and I bought each other our gifts already. We went to Best Buy and I got him a DVD player and he got me a digital camera, we ended up not liking it. The batteries drained too quickly and we just were not happy with it overall so he took it back today and bought me an EOS camera instead! I figure we can wait on the digital camera another time. I like having my photo quality pictures right away.
When I got home the house was a mess and my family was coming over at 5:45, they flew in from New York this afternoon. We had 30 minutes to clean up. Somehow we did it and everyone loved our house and all the gifts. So we went to Spring Creek Barbeque for dinner. We tried out our new digital camera, oh Matt ended up buying me a 35mm EOS and a digital camera. The digital was an open item and he got a
really good deal on it. Anyway, Matt had written a short little poem for me in his car!! That is so Matt, he is such a sweetheart. I gave all the programs to my sister and she was going to fold them for me. Well, come to find out that I had made a major booboo on them. Ughhhh, I put the wrong last name on someone, so I have to go back to the office in the morning and redo it and take it
back up to Kinko's. I am going to get thinner paper this time and just have them fold them. The cardstock was too hard to fold.
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March 24
I got up at 7:30 and literally slipped on some clothes and shoes and headed to the office to redo the programs. Everyone kept asking why I was there. My mother called me to go over the latest in the numbers. We had several cancellations last night, I guess that is to be expected, but it would have been nice had they told us earlier, we gave our final count to the hotel 2 days ago. I then dropped them off at Kinko's and headed home since I had Matt's car. He always parks behind me so I took his car. Ronda called and offered to help set up for the rehearsal. I made it to my massage and was surprised to have a male therapist. We got massages at the massage school in Dallas because it is only $25 for a full hour. Beth was supposed to pick me up at 11:30 and she got lost on the way. When she arrived we decided to go eat first and moved our 12 nail appointment to 1:30. So I called Sheri, or who I thought was Sheri and asked her if she wanted to meet us at Snuffer's. I accidentally dialed the wrong number and talked with someone named Pepper. What kind of name is that? So after we had lunch we went and got a bottle of wine and headed to get our nails done. Beth gets her nails done by a girl that works out of her home. We had a good time hanging out and chatting. I had a french manicure on my fingernails and my toes were painted blue. I love getting pedicures because my feet are always so soft afterwards. I needed to leave early to get back. I was going to pickup the programs but Matt called on Beth's call phone and I asked him to do it. Beth walked me out to the car with her flip flops because I forgot mine and I drove home barefoot. My intention was to tan one more time but I just did not have time. I finally made it home by 4 and took a shower, my toenails were still wet so they got a little messed up. Luckily my mom called and was on the way to pick up dad's vest. Since she was near Target I asked her to get some Benadryl. We heard that there are lots of bees and bugs in Antigua, so I thought
better to be safe than sorry. So we got everything ready for the rehearsal and loaded the car. We were taking all our stuff for the actual wedding over there now so we would not have to worry later. The photographer was there to speak briefly to us about what would happen the next night. Matt & I felt confused after the rehearsal was over because Dan kept turning us and telling us what to do with our arms, we went through it so quick. I had my bow bouquet there, everyone was telling me to use it instead of the flower bouquet, hehe. Dan, the minister, was directing us what to do and told us some cool things to do that would look nice. After that was all over we went to Via Real for the real party.
The dinner was great, the tables were decorated with paper flowers in fiesta like colors, there were pinatas too. We had margaritas and great food. There was a special menu for us and for the kids. Everyone did their toasts and some people shed a few tears. We gave out all our gifts, I gave my 'maids silver tulip platters with our wedding date on the back and Matt gave his guys a leatherman like gadget with their name and our wedding date engraved on them. I gave the flowergirls charm bracelets with a heart on them that read 2000, and we gave the ringbearer a coin and a US map where you collect the coins from all the states. Everyone had a really great time. Matt & I went back to the house to get my stuff. Sheri went with us because she was going to stay the night with me at the hotel. So we took my Explorer to the hotel and I figured Matt and I can drive it back on Sunday morning before the brunch. We went up to my parents room to visit with everyone and some of us ended up hanging out in the bathroom while the older folks were talking in the living area. Anne plucked my eyebrows, I was too scared to do it myself. So Anne, Sheri, Rebecca and Kelly and I hung out in the bathroom and talked for awhile before we all decided to go to bed. When we got back to the room we were so tired we just went right to sleep.
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Wedding Day
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