These past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind, I can’t begin to describe a lot of it. I’ve tried to come on and write some of it out and each time I tried, I just couldn’t figure out where to start.
So, we are now two days away from the wedding which just does not seem real. This past year and a half of planning is just about done and over and we will be experiencing the fruits of our labor in about 48 hours.
And then we’re off to the UK for two weeks!! We are still kind of more excited about that part than the rest of it.
I think we’re pretty much done all things at this point. We’re still finalizing some music and rearranging a few duties due to a “situation” (more on that later) but everything else is good.
We did our final walk-through yesterday with our day-of coordinator. Veronica (our coordinator) is amazing; if you can get a venue that has a person to coordinate everything for you the day of; do it. She’s essentially telling everyone what to do every moment of the evening which is perfect. Mostly because…we don’t know what we’re doing and because we don’t want to be responsible for telling people what to do. Plus, we’ve been to weddings that are super unorganized, everyone is late, dinner is late, etcl and that should not be the case here. She’s like “your ceremony starts at 6:00, which means at 5:58, I will be in front of your guests telling them that the ceremony will be beginning momentarily so they are ready.” YAAAASSSSSS; that’s exactly what we want. She’s also like, “I’ll make sure both of you eat, have champagne when you want it, that people leave you alone when necessary.” She’s like our personal bodyguard, it’s nice.
We took all of our decorations and whatnot up yesterday so everything is there and the next time we see everything it’ll be all decorated and pretty, which is exciting.
Because it’s pretty, this is a sneak peek of our venue – this is where our cocktail hour will be held:
This whole process has been relatively smooth and easy; we’ve only had two real hiccups. One being one of my bridesmaids’ dresses getting lost somewhere so she had to order another one and as a result her dress is now different, which I kind of don’t care about that; it’s the same color which is really all I was going for. But for my need for symmetry and such things, she’s now going to be in the middle just to keep my brain from hurting.
The other hiccup was the “situation”…..long story short; my mother is not attending my wedding. I’ve mentioned on here before that my mother’s and my relationship is becoming more and more strained as the years go on and it’s reaching a breaking point now. Most of you know she was diagnosed with breast cancer, from which she is currently in full remission; it didn’t spread and they were able to remove all of it; so she is in rather good health now, which is great.
Our relationship has always been rocky, but it just became more and more stressful throughout the planning of this wedding. She’s never been a huge fan of us doing a big wedding (essentially she’s said over and over again that we’ve been together so long we don’t need to do this and we should just go to a courthouse and get it done and over with) and never wanted much to do with planning. So, we basically said all you have to do is show up in a dress; we’ll take care of the rest.
Several painful conversations ensued and she determined she cannot do that, so she’s not attending. Devon being the supportive partner he is, comes to my defense to which my mother has taken as a declaration of war or something. Maybe not quite that serious, but she no longer wants to speak to him because he doesn’t “respect her wishes”.
:sigh:
I have never been someone that wants to beg someone to attend my wedding and I feel like that where she and I are right now. Devon and I have always said, even it’s only 20 people who show; they are the 20 people that are there because they love us and want to be present on this day. Currently we have 75 people attending; some of which I’ve known like 8 months because I met them at my new school and whom are also insanely more excited for my wedding than my mother has ever shown.
I know she’s my mother; I know I should preserve this relationship and all of that; currently though, I don’t have the ability to do that. Maybe once all these festivities are over we can try, but for now; I can’t have her negativity ruining this day/time for me and I can’t have her hurting the family Devon and I are trying to build here. Don’t get me wrong, I am sad that she’s not attending but, as many of my friends have pointed out to me that know this situation, I think it’s better she not be there at this point. Knowing that she won’t say/do anything during the ceremony or reception that could be off-putting is a huge stress off of me.
So, that’s that.
On the subject of people who’ve known me for 8 months and being super excited for my wedding, work gave me a small impromptu surprise bridal shower on the last day of the year, which was so sweet. Our president handed me my new name badge and wall placard that goes outside of my office door that had my new name on it, which was funny and cute. The last time I was in the building everyone did the “OMG I can’t believe the next time you come in here, you’ll be married!” thing. It’s so cute and weird at the same time.
Today I’m going to get my nails done and hopefully get a lot of packing and cleaning done. Devon also wants us to go see The Incredibles today, so that may happen later (he also needs to pick up his tux today anyway). Our friend/bridesmaid Michelle will be here tomorrow night, which we’re super excited for. We’re gonna have a small FSU style sleepover; it’s going to be so much fun. I have my hair and makeup appointments set for Sunday afternoon; our photographer has our schedule for us; our day of coordinator is good to go, so basically…we just have to show up and have a good time at this point.
Then we are off on our honeymoon the next day! We haven’t planned a ton of tours or anything like that because we just kind of want to explore a bit on our own and see random things. Plus we’re not super into all the “touristy” things, so doing a ton of tours would bore us. So, we’ll play some of it by ear while we’re there; it should be fun.
And with that…I guess it’s wedding time! It also means I’m going to go ahead and sign off of here until we come back home in July. I’m sure I’ll post random pictures and adventures on Instagram and I’ll have a nice recap of all when I get back.
See you guys soon!
–Mrs. Banks.