Wedding Day Morning

I did not sleep last night. I tried and tried and tried, and despite the large amount of Bailey’s that the girls gave me, I just couldn’t. I wasn’t actually nervous about the wedding, but excited. I kept thinking about how cool the ceremony was going to be, how great Andrew looked in his tux, how beautiful I would be in my dress with my hair and make-up all done, and on and on and on. I think I did dose for a bit between 5 AM and 7 AM, but I remember every other hour of the night. Sigh. That’s a zombie bride, not a blushing bride!

After a quick shower, Sweetie, Suzanne and I went on our way to my parents’ hotel, with a quick stop for wedding-day Starbuck’s on the way.

When we got back out to the car, there was a grasshopper on the roof of the car. I had to have a picture of the wedding-day grasshopper

We also had to stop in Alexandria at the historic cobblestone road for a quick picture.

(Those dogs were with the nice lady who stopped to take our picture.)

Oddly enough, the grasshopper was still on the car after pictures at the cobblestone road. This is even weirder considering it had to stay on the car during a 10-mile ride on the beltway at about 70 mph!

We actually arrived at my parents’ hotel room just on time — a switch for me, since all week I’ve been running about 15-20 minutes late. We waited around for a while, and Mushi joined us, before heading off to get our hair done.

Rehearsal & Rehearsal Dinner

The rehearsal and rehearsal dinner were this evening. We arrived at the planetarium a bit before the wedding coordinators, but the girls and I started setting up right away.

The rehearsal went fairly quickly, since we had scripted the lighting with Jonathan on Tuesday. The photographer took a few test shots, and let everyone know that we should stop by the star projector for a second on our way down the aisle — that way he would have a better chance at a good picture. They also tested the flash a couple times, which was blinding, but necessary.

After the rehearsal, Jonathan offered to do a mini-star show for us, which we happily accepted. It’s obvious that he enjoys his job, and we had a fun time as he took us through the night sky.

Next we herded everyone to Anita’s New Mexican Restaurant in Vienna, one of Andrew and my favorite restaurants. This was a bit of a task, since not everyone rented cars and one of the rental cars we were expecting to have wasn’t present (see yesterday’s entry for more on that), but we triumphed.

Dinner was fun — I got to hold my new neice, Sofia, for the first time, and got to catch up with my other neice and nephew, Kira and Brock. Brock wanted to sit across from me, which was great, since I don’t get to see or talk with him much. Our families seemed to get along quite well again, though there was some segregation of the families (not on purpose).

Andrew and his parents	Brock, Kira and Me all being silly
Andrew and Me	I think Suzanne liked her gift!

Afterwards, Sweetie and Suzanne took me home — they’re staying with me tonight.

Bachelorette Party!

The girls took me out tonight for my last single-fling. Sadly, I’m not into drinking (never been drunk, never care to be), so we did not do the traditional stripper and get-the-bride-to-be-drunk kind of trip. Instead, we started with dinner at Bertucci’s near Dupont Circle, and then moved on to the Natural History Museum for a show by Second City.

Girly-Girl

Mom, Mushi and I all went to the nail shop to get our nails done this afternoon. I have never done something so girly in my life….at least not that I can remember.

Oh, and did I mention that two other semi-crises came up today? Nothing major…or at least nothing that can’t be dealt with. I picked Suzanne up this morning at Dulles at about 7 AM. She and Sweetie are staying together at a hotel in Alexandria, and Sweetie was going to rent a car and pick up Suzanne early this afternoon, after her plane came in. While at lunch, however, Sweetie calls to tell me that her driver’s license has expired, and she can’t get the car. Sooo, I drove Suzanne back out to the car rental place at Dulles, and she put the car in her name.

Later, Dad got a call from Kevin, my brother, saying that he wasn’t able to get the car he thought he’d be renting. The reason? His driver’s license had expired. Weird.

My Worlds Collide

Andrew’s parents, brother, sister-in-law, and cousin all arrived this evening, so we decided to invite them out to dinner along with my parents. It was the first time that our families have met, and all-in-all things seemed to go well. In fact, this was also the first time I met Andrew’s brother, sister-in-law and cousin, Gisela. We all got along quite well — mostly I chatted with Gisela and Glenna (sister-in-law), since they were closest to my end of the table…

Learning to roll with it…

Apparently five days before the wedding is when things get interesting…

I just got a phone call from a Reverend Snavely. Sadly, my response to her telling her name was, “You’re who?” (and I said this fairly sharply). I may have come across as a bit of a bitch.

She told me her name again, and mentioned that she’d left a message for me at work, which I had not gotten. It turns out that Reverend Gaffney, who was going to perform our wedding, is in South Carolina recovering from triple by-pass surgery. Fortunately he is doing just fine, but obviously will not be available for our wedding. The good news is that his wife had contacted Rev. Snavely, and she has agreed to perform the wedding in his stead.

It’s all good.

Teeth Whitening

Shortly after Andrew proposed last fall, I decided that I wanted to whiten my teeth for the wedding. I thought I do a trial run, and bought myself a package of Crest Whitestrips.

The package warned that teeth might get a bit sensitive during the whitening, but that it was perfectly normal, and the teeth would return to normal after the treatments. By “sensitive”, I assumed they meant that I might feel some discomfort while eating hot or cold things, etc. The way the strips work is that you put them on your top and bottom teeth for 30 minutes twice a day. So, I did morning and night the first day, then morning on the second day. The entire second day my teeth ached. Not “sensitive” but active aching, all the time. I’ve never before been so aware of my teeth. I quit after that third application.

A few weeks ago, I thought I’d try again. I thought that I’d just been a wimp the last time arround, and surely I could tough my way through the entire treatment with a little discomfort. I applyed both treatments the first day back-to-back in the morning. By noon, I could feel my teeth throbbing. Needless to say, I realised that I had not been a wus the last time…my teeth just didn’t like the active ingredients in the Whitestrips.

I wasn’t ready to give up on whitening my teeth yet, though. I went to the drug store and looked through the active ingredients on all the whitening products, and found that the Crest Night Effects had a slightly different active ingredient.

The good news is that they did not irritate my teeth like the Whitestrips. And my upper teeth do look whiter. The bad news is that I couldn’t get the stuff to stick well to my lower teeth, so they didn’t benefit much from the treatment. To use Night Effects, you use a brush to paint a thin layer of the whitening agent onto your teeth. Before painting, you need to dry your teeth (there’s whole bunch of other rules, check AshfieldFamilyDental.com.au for more). As it turned out, I couldn’t get my bottom teeth dry enough for long enough to get the agent on my teeth. Sigh. At least I wasn’t overly aware of my teeth during the last two weeks…

Planetarium Lighting

We went to the planetarium tonight to decide on how to script the lighting for the ceremony. I’d been worried before-hand that we wouldn’t be able to get to full-dark with stars for very long, but my fears were quickly allayed. I’m not going to get into the details here, but we will have stars for about a third of the ceremony (based on events, not necessarily time).

The photographer also came last night to test a few things with the lighting. He’s probably not going to get many shots during the ceremony that turn out, but that’s okay — I’d rather keep the mood as much as possible, and re-stage the events for photos aferwards. He will take 2-3 flash photos during the ceremony, so will at least have a couple “real” pictures.

One funny note: Jonathan, the planetarium director, mentioned that he’d had a call today from another woman asking if they did weddings at the planetarium. He told her to call back in a week, and he’ll let her know if she wants to do it there or not. (Have I mentioned that we are the first wedding at the planetarium??)

Less than one week!!

The wedding is next Sunday! Ack!

Acutally things are coming along nicely. I printed the programs yesterday and assembled them. My coordinator is calling all of my vendors to make sure they know when and where to be. Now I’m just cleaning the house like a maniac. (Not among the more fun jobs of the wedding….)

I’m feeling surprisingly calm.

Tropico

It has been months, maybe even over a year, since I’ve had the time and energy to play any of my computer or PlayStation games. Since the wedding planning is going so well, and I have the next two weeks off from work, I’ve been playing Tropico every night for the past three nights.

Tropico is a game where you play the dictator of a small tropical island. The game starts in 1960 and goes for 10-60 years, depending on how you set up the game. The goal is to develop the island for one of several goals: capitalism, military strength, the size of your own Swiss bank account, the overall happiness of the citizens, or some combination of these.

In the past when I played, I never reached the end of the game — I usually got frustrated after about 20 years when I was getting very far into debt. These games, however, I seem to have gotten the hang of the first 30 years now. However, once again, the economy goes south after 35-40 years. At that time, the people start to rebel, and I’ve been ousted through a coup in each of these games (but I’ve lasted several extra years each successive game).

I’ll probably play again tomorrow. Here’s hoping I make it through my entire 50 years of rule!