Wedding Day Part 1: The Beginning

I think it's Murphy's Law for things to run late on a wedding day. Despite my very careful planning and vow to be on time, I managed to start our wedding day off a bit late. The night before had been the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner and between waiting for part of the wedding party to arrive from out of town and finishing people's nails, we had a very late night.
Saturday morning began with my mom knocking on my bedroom door and asking what time Tenie, my Maid of Honour, would be picking me up. I said quarter after nine through a mouthful of pillow and Mom informed me that it was nine. I sprung out of bed and had the world's fastest shower. Thankfully, when one is  going to have one's hair put up, one must forego washing one's hair the day of the hairstyle. That made my shower even faster. I just managed to pull on jeans and a zippered hoodie before Tenie knocked at the door. We had a few stops to make before we could get started, so we piled into Tenie'sMom's car and headed out.
The first stop was at Tenie's Grandma's house. She had orange and  purple tulips growing in her garden that she said we could use to decorate one of the tables in the Hall. We had wanted them fresh to ensure that they would look nice for the reception, but we hadn't counted on my sleeping in or the rain that was sprinkling down. I've been told that rain on a wedding day is good luck. If that is so, then Mr. K and I are quite lucky. After our brief detour, we rushed over to the hair stylist's salon and dropped off one Bride's maid, a friend who had ridden a bus for two days to get to our wedding and our friend and soloist for the ceremony. We then drove over to the international bridge and waited for Mr. K's sister, another bride's maid. She did not take long to meet us and we were off again, swinging back to my parents' house as we had forgotten my tiara and hair pins. We were told by our friend-who also played the piano to accompany our soloist-that Mom had already brought the hair accessories over to the salon. With that in order we raced to Timmy's where we placed a gigantic breakfast order. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with Timmy's, it is a coffee chain in Canada that has sort of leaked over into the United States. Canadians swear by Tim Horton's). With five coffees and six breakfast sandwiches in hand we made our way back to the salon. As promised, the hair accessories had been dropped off and the soloist, now referred to as S, was already being attacked with curling iron and hair spray.
Each girl had their hair done and we spent the rest of the morning, and well into the afternoon, drinking coffee and chatting. My uncle who was acting as our photographer stopped in one point to capture the action. I thought he left, but as our hair stylist secured the tiara to my head I heard,
"Look this way Jess."
"What?!" I exclaimed."I thought you left you sneaky man." The perks to having a blind bride-you can sneak around and take photos without her even knowing. :)
Glacier was with us of course and behaved himself very well. Even when I was off being primped, he lay quietly on my sweatshirt and snoozed. He was probably thankful it wasn't him; images of his previous day's bath flashing through his doggie brain.
After much coffee and extra strength hair spray, we headed back to my parents' house to get ready via a white, stretch SUV limo. I had never been in one before and was tickled pink at the music and air controls, the chilled bottle of home made wine and how perfectly Glacier fit snugly at my feet. The limo company was amazing and didn't charge my parents for this extra pick-up as they knew who I was and that was their "way of supporting me."
Back at the house things went a bit crazy since we were much later than we should have been. We only had one hair stylist and she did five very nice up do's. The ceremony was supposed to start at 4:30 and we made it back just before three. I managed to shovel a few heaping spoonfuls of leftover potato  salad into my mouth before brushing my teeth, having my make-up applied by Bride's Maid Carmen and stuffed into my dress by Tenie and my mom. Somewhere in there I somehow found time to put Glacier Aria and Jetta out and also feed them all their respective suppers. The guys phoned at one point to tell us they were lost and couldn't find the Portuguese Hall where they were to be picked up by the  beautiful stretch limo to be whisked off to the chapel. It seemed that their GPS malfunctioned, but Tenie gave them solid directions and they were soon where they needed to be; be it half an hour late Apparently the driver didn't mind though because little old Portuguese ladies were feeding him so when the guys finally did arrive, he told them to take their time.
With my Tinkerbell garters in place, blue shoes jammed on feet, pearl jewelry  in place and gigantic train bustled, it was time to hop back in the limo. Dad was ready, my girls looked gorgeous and the driver had made it back from his afternoon snack. I tiptoed carefully over our driveway since the dirt driveway was soft from the on and off rain we had been getting all day. Tenie, my dad and Mr. Driver helped me up into our "wheels" and I was tucked into the back seat, surrounded by satin, ivory wedding dress. The girls were close behind me and Dad was the last to hop in. Just as the doors were about to close, Carmen realised we were missing our bouquets and sprinted back to the house in swirling African Violet Georgetta. She returned brandishing five bouquets of tangerine orange Gerber daisies and we finally set off. Mr. K's sister noticed that "I Got a Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas was a part of the play list and asked Tenie to switch to that song. She obliged, turned it up and we grooved all of the way to the chapel. I wasn't nervous, worried or excited until we were about two minutes away and Tenie said,
"We're almost there." Then my hands began to sweat and my heart started knocking out a pretty loud rhythm against my ribs.
As we pulled in...oh, wait that is a part of Part Two. ;) Tune in tomorrow for the continuation of my Wedding Day tale. :)