Wedding Wednesday - The Greatest Show(er) On Earth

Well, hello, everyone, it's Wednesday! And you know what that means...it's Wedding Wednesday!

Seeing as I was completely and totally FAILing in the blog department during the duration of our wedding planning process, I missed out on telling you all about some of the adventures that led up to the big day. So today, I'm going to take you back to a cold, blustery weekend in January, and tell you all about what is probably the coolest, prettiest, most surprise-packed bridal shower I've ever seen.

One thing my mom was adamant about when all these wedding shenanigans started was that I was having a bridal shower. Personally, I wasn't all that gung-ho about having one, because a) contrary to popular belief, I actually prefer when the spotlight is on other people and not myself, and b) I felt bad about people going out and buying us gifts. I was told, more or less, to get the hell over it and enjoy my party. :)

Months go by, and I hear snippets of plans and arrangements. And I do mean snippets. For the most part, my mom and my bridal party had the entire weekend on lockdown. They were the friggin CIA of bridal parties. I wasn't allowed to know anything. I was finally able to weedle out of them what clothes I would need to bring, and that was about it. On top of this, several people (my mom, Blondie, E, etc.) kept dangling "oh, there's a surprise" in front of my nose like a big fat carrot that I wasn't allowed to nibble on. And I hate surprises. I love those girls, but I hate surprises when I know they're coming. They eat away at me until I'm on the verge of a meltdown. Hence why Mike doesn't warn me about surprises anymore - he just does them.

Yeah, I'm a poor sport, but I can't be perfect.

Anyways, early on, it was decided that my shower would be held in Ohio...that's where the majority of my family lived and most the people who could not attend the wedding in Florida would attend the bridal shower in Ohio and at least get to celebrate with us in that way. Thankfully, Blondie and E hopped right on the train and before I knew it, the three of us were flying off to Ohio over MLK weekend, me with the faintest idea as to what the hell was going to happen.

Here's where I should probably introduce you to K.




K is one of my dearest, closest friends. Which is remarkable, considering that (up until that point) we had never actually met. We met back in 2008 through The Knot, and after months and months of talking back and forth via message boards, we struck up a friendship. That friendship carried over onto Facebook, and into private chat and text messages, until we were talking nearly everyday about everything under the sun. I watched her go through her first pregnancy, she helped steer me through major surgery and wedding planning. We were about as close as two people could be for having never met one another.

The week leading up to the shower, I was talking to K nearly every day on private chat. You see, there had been some major blowups within my family, and now, one entire half of my family was not coming to the shower. Seeing as I knew that half would likely not be able to make it for the wedding, even if things were peachy keen between everyone, I knew that half of my family would be completely missing from the celebration of our marriage. I was devastated, and pretty pissed, but K was a champ and spent the week talking me through it, clear to texting me at FLL to wish me luck and send me good vibes.

I got another text from her the day before the shower, saying "have a great weekend, I wish I could be there!" to which I tell Erika, "awwww, did you see the text from K? I wish she could be here too..."

Sneaky wenches. :)

Evening rolls around, and we're getting ready to go to dinner at a local brewery...my dad decided to throw a "welcome dinner" for everyone that had traveled in from out-of-state (myself, Blondie, E, my aunt Vicki, and my future mother-in-law, who flew in from Colorado that afternoon) to thank everyone for coming. I was getting stupid giddy, ready to go, because dinner was the first chance I'd have to see my sister and the girls, whom I had missed something fierce over Christmas in Colorado. My mom keeps telling me that we have to wait for my dad before we leave, and I'm thinking to myself, ummmmm, why? He knows where we're  going.

Finally, I hear the downstairs door open and my dad starts trooping up the stairs. I turn around to grab my purse (coat's already on, I'm ready to GO) and I hear "Hey, I thought I'd stop by since I was in the neighborhood." In a voice I don't recognize.

It's K. In my living room. Like, in the flesh. 

According to reports, I clapped my hand over my mouth, took about three steps back like she was a serial killer ready to cut my head off, and yelled out, rather loudly, "what the fuck are you doing here?!?!?" And then promptly burst into tears. And hugged her about 20 times. That's around the time the cameras started whipping out.

Needless to say, one of the best surprises of my entire life. :)

Now that that excitement was completed, we went to dinner. The brewery we went to is a favorite of my parents, with good beer and delicious food. I spent most the dinner trying to calm my stomach down enough to eat (between K's arrival and seeing my sister and cousins, it was a jittery over-stimulated knot), catching up with my sister and cousins, and poking K to confirm that she was, in fact, real and not a) a figment of my overstimulated imagination, or b) a 40-year-old man with a foot fetish.

Yes, it is, in fact, real...K, E, Blondie and I at Willoughby Brewing.

Blondie, keeping it classy, as always. :)

My sister (Coley), her best friend (Cynthia) and my cousin (Erin)...

Cynthia, Coley, Erin, Sarah (my cousin), K, Blondie, E and I

I would say the most memorable moment of dinner came courtesy of my dad and our waiter. After drink orders had been taken, my dad clinks his glass - he wants to say a little something. It starts off nicely ("I just want to first welcome everyone that's come, and thank you all for being such an important part of my daughter's...) and then he starts choking up. Ok, my dad doesn't choke up. Period. I think I've seen him cry twice in my entire life, and both times involved the death of a family member. My dad does. not. cry.

So he's choking up, and he starts up again, but it's rough going, and that's right when our waiter walks over and launches (and I do mean launches) into the dinner special, to which Coley, Erin, Sarah, E and Blondie all simultaneously growl "NOT NOW" and the waiter scurries off. My dad continues with his toast, and K leans over to me and whispers, "Dude, the waiter just Kanye'd your dad."

Awesomeness. Pure awesomeness.

The next day was my bridal shower. My mom had selected another one of their favorite restaurants for the shower venue and had financed the party, but more or less, turned nearly all the major decision making over to my cousins. Personally, I found this incredibly sweet and endearing, knowing they pretty much (with my mom's help, of course) but the whole thing together for me.


Another amusing moment...that morning, the girls had gotten ready, then rushed out of the house to go set up the shower. I was left alone in the house with my Aunt Vicki to get ready for the party. I love my Aunt Vicki...she's hilarious, and she's just so easy to talk to. I had been getting ready all morning and it occurred to me that the last time I had tried on the dress, I had been about fifteen pounds heavier. Ruh roh. We spent nearly 20 minutes trying to jerry-rig the belt so it made it look like my dress wasn't about a size too big on me. I still spent the day pulling the belt back up onto my ribs. Oops.

I picked up my future mother-in-law from her hotel, and then we headed over. I probably should have thought that whole stiletto-peeptoes-in-foot-of-snow concept through a little better, but I managed to get out of the car without faceplanting in front of a party room full of women. I walked in, and...I was in awe.

Seashore cupcakes for dessert...

A candy and treat bar for party favors...

Seashore centerpieces and personalized menus...

A wishing well for us of messages for us to open on our first anniversary...

One of our gorgeous hostesses...

The tables were all seashore/fish-oriented, with our wedding colors (navy and tan) everywhere...

The party venue was a martini bar, as well as a restaurant, so you can imagine what progressed from there...

I spent some time mingling with our guests...

K, E and I...

K, E and Blondie...

Because a bridal shower isn't a bridal shower without a little leg, right? RIGHT?!?

My beautiful mom with my friend Sara. The three of us all worked together at TGI Fridays when I was in high school. Ever since Sara got married, every time I see her, I ask her, "So, are you pregnant?" as a joke. Turns out this time, the answer was yes. To which I promptly freaked out like a schoolgirl at a Bieber concert in front of a room full of women who had no clue what was going on.

My mother-in-law. She flew all the way from Colorado to come to my shower. This is after throwing us a shower in Colorado over Christmas (which, unfortunately, I have NO photos of).

My friend Amanda and I. She and I were friends through high school. We used to spend our evenings riding around in her car, blowing through obscene amounts of gas, cranking Sir Mix-a-Lot, eating junk food, pranking the bitchy girls we didn't like. ::wave of nostalgia::

The three sisters - Sarah, Coley and Erin. I love these girls with every ounce of my being. :)

Blondie, Sarah, Me, Erin, Cynthia, K, Coley, E and my mom...

My Great Aunt Lorna and my Aunt Vicki. It was so nice to see the both of them, it's pretty rare that I do.

Dorothy and my uncle Greg. Dorothy is Coley's grandmother, and when Greg married Coley's mom, Dorothy (or Nanny, as we call her) pretty much adopted all of Greg's neices and nephews as her own grandkids.

It was somewhere amongst all the mingling that I happened to look over and notice the gift table.

HO-LY CRAP. Are you sure there isn't another bride in the room somewhere that half this stuff is for?!?

I will spare you all the minute-by-minute breakdown of the party games (which I FAILED, miserably) and gift opening process, but needless to say, I have some amazing, generous lovely women in my life, and we were definitely showered with gifts, all of which I absolutely, positively LOVED. Amongst my favorites:

A slowcooker from Mike's Aunt Joyce. Little did I know how much I would come to love and adore this thing...

Royal Velvet bedsheets from Nanny and my mom's friend Chris...our bedsheets that we had on our bed had developed a rather suspicious looking hole (::shifty eyes at Sandy::), so it was nice to get some pretty, soft, good-quality sheets that I didn't have to worry about putting my knee through in my sleep.

Nonstick bakewares from K...I forgot how nice it was to cook with real nonstick that actually, you know, didn't stick.

A Heinkel carving set from my friend (and former coworker) Annette...we made roasted chicken about two weeks after I got back to Florida and it was so nice to see Mike carving a chicken with ease, rather than trying to saw through it with a salad fork and a dull bread knife.

Etched fish glassware. I've been collecting these for years, and my mom gave us goblets, wine glasses, tall drinking glasses, rocks glasses, and ice tea glasses, a set of six each. What really made the gift for me was knowing that my late grandmother had helped her collect/buy them several years before. Grandma was at my shower after all. :)

My cousins actually made me gifts. Sarah made a picture frame for me with shells and matting the colors of our wedding (above) and Erin made a slideshow video of pictures of Mike & I that played throughout the shower. Both were so beautiful, and were straight from the heart. :)

All in all, the shower was absolutely, positively beautiful. It was so wonderful to see all these women from all the periods of my life, from when I was a baby through the various jobs I worked and neighborhoods I grew up in and schools I went to. I couldn't believe how many beautiful, sweet, generous women I was blessed to have in my life. And I was happy. Stupidly, giddily happy. :)

That's all for this week...tune in to next week's Wedding Wednesday for...::drumroll please::

The Bachelorette Parties. 

Yep. Parties. 

::devious grin::

Intro image courtesy of Claudia Oliver Photography. Product images courtesy of Bed Bath and Beyond and Nautical Luxuries.