My Wedding Day

Day 5 is everything about my wedding day, which was the 8th of February 2013.

For the last day of Wedding Week, I thought I'd do a Wedding Day Recap. I've read race recaps out the kazoo (and re-read the good ones) but I've never really seen a Wedding Day Recap.

So here we go. Everything you wanted to know (and probably loads of random stuff, too) about the day I married that lovely man with an accent.

(I won't go through all the random getting ready stuff.... But anything amusing or funny that happened I'll tell you!)

I woke up super early that morning. I didn't even set an alarm, but it was clear no one else was awake. (By the way, me and my entire family were staying at Alex's parent's Bed & Breakfast. So when I say no one was awake, I seriously mean no one out of the 15+ people at the house were awake. And Alex was staying there, too, but in a separate room so we wouldn't see each other. He was leaving early to get ready anyway.)

There was a feeling in my stomach that I immediately thought was nerves. I thought, "Oh, I'm finally getting nervous! It's my wedding day!!"

The more I sat there thinking about it, the more I figured out I wasn't nervous..... I was hungry. (Is that normal??) I couldn't leave to get food though because Alex hadn't left! It was agreed the night before that I would stay inside my room until he left.

(He finally left and I ate breakfast in case anyone was worried.)

We'll fast forward to the actual wedding now...

Part of the "Civil Ceremony" process is meeting individually with the registrars to talk about the ceremony and go over the scripts. While talking with them, they said they've never met someone so calm before. I said "I feel like I should be nervous! But I'm not!!" They were shocked.

We were getting married upstairs at the venue, so I would have to walk up the stairs and wait on the landing until they were ready to play my music.

The assistant registrar looked at the time and said "Oh you have a few minutes to wait so just relax."

Not even 10 seconds later (not an exaggeration!), my music starts playing. She gestures for me to finish walking up the stairs and I'm like "I THOUGHT YOU SAID I HAD A FEW MINUTES!!!!!!!!"

Oops.

I immediately burst into tears. Full on ugly crying.

(By the way I picked "Waiting for the lights" [an instrumental piece] from the Disney movie Tangled. Don't judge. It was perfect.)

I walked down the aisle with my dad and my uncle on either side of me. I know that's not customary (trust me, it caused lots of drama, so you don't have to tell me twice!) but it's what I wanted. I didn't care what everyone thought. It was my wedding! If I said I wanted to walk down with 2 penguins by my side, I would have wanted support! 

Anyway, my dad and my uncle had to drag me down the aisle. I kept stopping because I didn't want there to be pictures of me bawling my eyes out. And they both said "you're not going to stop crying, so just keep going." They were right.

I didn't even see anything. I didn't see any guests or where we were. I didn't even hear any music. I saw Alex. And he was laughing at my ugly crying face. I didn't even see what he was wearing. He could have worn a banana costume and I wouldn't have noticed. I was too busy mentally telling him "I know I look a hot mess. Don't judge me. Don't laugh because it's making me laugh. Oh and btw I love you."

I'm crying and smiling. I know, it's not a good look for me.

What you need to know about me is that when I cry in front of people, I laugh. I get really uncomfortable and just start laughing. It's very strange. But it made all of our guests laugh because I couldn't stop laughing and crying at the same time.

The registrar had a hard time keeping the guests quiet because they were laughing (in a good way!) at me laughing and crying. She said "I can tell this is going to be a funny one!" 

When it was my turn to speak (the vows) I was fine, because I was concentrating so hard on remembering what she said and what I had to repeat. When Alex spoke, that's when I lost it. Because I had nothing to concentrate on. I had time to remember "OMG I'm getting married!" 

Sneezing? No, just laughing and crying!

I'm really happy that our guests and registrar were so patient. I was afraid all my blubbering would annoy them, but they understood my very strange ways.

Part of a civil ceremony is signing the paperwork in front of everyone (and having the witnesses sign). Guests weren't allowed any pictures during the real signing, but they brought a fake book for us to sit at and pretend we're signing. I found that hilarious. Like, "we're signing stuff! How romantic!"

Alex isn't really signing.... He's a good actor though!

Finally, we were husband and wife!

And could eat our amazing cupcakes!!!

Everyone came up to us downstairs and said that the ceremony was exactly like our personalities. I was slightly embarrassed over my ugly crying, but everyone said that if the wedding didn't go like that, it wouldn't have been our wedding! 

We had our wedding meal (which was a roast dinner) and I wore about 7 napkins on top of me so I wouldn't spill anything on my white dress.... It worked though!

After that, it was time to party!

I was so excited for all of our other guests to arrive. I was on such a high from the day that I couldn't wait to share it with everyone!

(Little did I know how much my cheeks would hurt after smiling so much!)

We were taking loads of group pictures with family and friends. Alex wanted a "Stag Do" (Bachelor Party) picture with all his friends that went with him. They got their shot and then wanted one with me in the picture. They said they'd pick me up and lay me across everyone's arms.

So on the count of 3 they started to pick me up. Well, I think only about half the guys were paying attention, because my legs and torso went up up up.... and my shoulders and head plummeted to the ground! Imagine my surprise! I'm getting dropped on my head at my own wedding!

Luckily, my head never reached the ground. I was too busy holding up my strapless dress to notice. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of the event (that I know of! Some lazy person might upload one to Facebook soon. I will keep you posted!).

This was the Plan B picture for when the first one didn't work out.

We had a blast regardless. And then there was cake in my face.

 

Purely an American tradition, didn't you get the memo, Alex?!


And then we danced!

(All of these pictures look like I'm a pro at making ridiculous faces. I promise I'm normal sometimes!)

I tell Alex all the time that he is a terrible dancer. He IS a terrible dancer! I didn't think it was possible to be that bad. When we practiced our first dance, he was bad. Then when it came for our real first dance, I was a train wreck! You'd think someone sewed my feet on backwards. I blame it on the fact that I couldn't pirouette or leap in my dress, you know, show off me real skills. But I actually can (well, that's questionable nowadays) dance!

That was our wedding day. Like I said yesterday, it went by so fast. I know planning it and budgeting for it and dealing with guest drama is hard and overwhelming. But trust me, it's worth it! It was the best day of my life by far! He's my best friend in the whole world; I couldn't imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone else.

Thank you for tuning in to Wedding Week to see my adventures, advice, and across the pond comparisons! I hope you've enjoyed reading about it; I know I've enjoyed reliving it!