Wedapalooza 2006

Finally back to blogging after spending 10 days in VA, then a week at my new job. Job details come later, of course. First things first. The wedding.



It seemed like there was minor drama from the getgo. The church where the wedding was taking place was under construction (might have been nice to know a year ago when plans were being made). The worst part was that they had torn out the parking lot pavement, and left a ragged mess of rutted gravel. Not small ruts, mind you. Huge ones. Ankle-twisting ruts.

Pretty unacceptable, given that the average age of guests was somewhere in the 50s. The church kept assuring my parents and sister that the parking lot would be paved before the wedding. My first morning in VA, my mom, the wedding planner extraordinaire, and myself took a field trip up to the church to check it out.

We found the foreman in charge of construction and had a little chat. Turns out he and his crew didn't even know there was going to be a wedding the next weekend. There was absolutely no time frame in place to even pave the parking lot. He assured us that they would do their best to at least smooth out the ruts. (And, to their credit, they did a fantastic job).

Next church issue--weeds everywhere. I guess since construction was going on, they decided to sit back and just let things go. The flower beds were full of weeds and poison ivy, and the pots on the front steps were full of dead weeds. It was simply hideous.



We decided to take matters into our own hands, and ended up buying some flowers and potting them ourselves the day before the wedding.



There was all kinds of additional drama. I went for my dress fitting my first day in VA, and oops! The dress shop had ordered the wrong size. I'm sort of flattered that they took my measurements in December and thought I might drop 15+ pounds before August, but really it was quite ridiculous. The top didn't even come close to zipping.

Their suggestion? Why don't we just have the top lace up the back. Our answer was a resounding NO!!! To make a long, dramatic story short and to the point, they ended up taking out the seams, and I ended up eating far less than usual. On Friday when I picked it up, the dress fit. I guess that's all that matters.

Of course, this same shop was where my father had been measured for his tuxedo. In a ridiculous turn of events, they ordered the wrong size jacket for him. When he called to let them know that there was no way this thing was going to button, their response was "Well, a rental isn't going to fit like a tailored tux." Um, yeah, but it should button.

They proposed all kinds of ridiculous work-arounds. We ended up going back to get him another jacket.

The wedding itself was fine. The church ended up not being so bad. The service was a bit lengthy and religious for my taste, but overall it was nice. The gorgeous flowers ended up being my nemesis, as I struggled not to sneeze repeatedly throughout the ceremony.

All in all everything worked out okay. It would have been nice to spend more time doing vacationy stuff (since for me this was part of my precious little vacation time), but at least the ceremony and wedding were hitchless.



And, the fat cat, Hoss, was available to provide many moments of zen. Meow.