Back with the 'almost-married-for-a-month' recaps!

As you all know...WE GOT MARRIED!! Next Tuesday will mark exactly one month since we got married...where does the time go? I swear we were just heading to the rehearsal dinner and all of a sudden we were packing up to come home from the DR...and now we've fallen into our married couple routine, and before you know it we'll be old and gray, holding onto each others walkers as we inch down the hallway of our retirement home to have our 4:00pm dinner with the Schwass' and the Cutler's talking about what a damn good 50 years it's been!



Anyway, let me begin this blog update by announcing to the world (or the 10 people that read my blog) that July 25th, 2009 will forever be the greatest day of my life (at least until I have a baby...which I've made reference to before). But until that time, let it be known that my wedding day was the very best day of my entire 26 and 3/4 years on this earth! The entire day was absolutely perfect and beautiful and beyond my wildest dreams of what I would have imagined the day would be like. Truly the wedding of my dreams -- which I owe partially to my new in-laws and awesome friends/bridal party, largely to my new adorable husband, and mostly to my incredibly amazing parents.

hugging mom :)

hugging dad :)

SO...who's ready for a re-cap?! Here we go....

When we left off, I was heading off for my almost 2 weeks of vacation. I started my vacation that Tuesday evening with a little wine celebration/truly last night of being a single gal with Stef. We stayed up late gossiping, laughing, crying, watching stupid reality TV, drinking too much wine, and trying to wrap our heads around the idea that just 4 days later I would become a wife.

That Wednesday I woke up and had a couple of Red Door Spa appointments (Bless you, Elizabeth Arden for your zen-like relaxation techniques) and took my mom to get a massage (she was tense and stressed about the wedding...I just wanted a massage) at Massage Envy (totally recommend it!)

Thursday mom and I went to lunch with Gramma and Aunt Lauri, and then Aunt Lauri and I spent the afternoon together taking Whinnie to "camp" (aka: boarding at the vet), running last minute errands, and picking up parent gifts. That night Aunt Lauri, Mom and I gathered in the guest room for a "mini-bachelorette" party where Aunt Lauri gave me some adorable gifts, including a beautiful white negligee (that means nightgown...look it up) and a gorgeous Mikimoto Pearl bracelet to wear on my wedding day -- which perfectly matched my Gramma's pearls that I borrowed to wear as well!

Friday we were up super early and all the girls gathered at Mom's house to head to the nail salon! We all got the royal treatment (spa pedicures and manicures) and I made the drastic decision to get acrylic nails (which I actually can't stand, but looked a million times better than my own nails...but have since been removed as I was having a hell of a time trying to remove my contacts with those claws) and in the end mom ended up paying for ALL of the girls mani/pedis -- was that nice of her, or what?! After nails we headed to the hotel for a quaint little bridal luncheon, which was a great spread that, in the midst of their running around like crazy & getting everything ready for the wedding, my parents put together perfectly with sandwiches, salad, shrimp cocktail and lots of prosecco! -- I should mention that while all the girls were being pampered and fed, the boys were all out golfing in Todd's "Shankapotamus Invitational" golf tournament at the Regency. And bless his heart, Todd went hatless (in the scorching sun) all day, per my suggestion, so he didn't have his typical white forehead/red cheeks & chin tan lines :). -- After our bridal luncheon we all headed to the hotel rooms to relax for a short while (about 10 minutes) before getting dressed and ready to head to rehearsal. We anticipated horrendous Friday afternoon traffic on 66, but ended up making it to the Regency in about 15 minutes and were there an hour before the boys started arriving.

Rehearsal started at 4, and it was H-O-T HOT HOT HOT outside. Everyone was dripping sweat...although I'm pretty sure my dad wasn't sweating, just crying (poor guy...it's gotta be tough giving away your little girl) :(. But the rehearsal went really well and we were back out into our cars by 5:00pm and headed to dinner. Rehearsal dinner was at Red Rock Canyon in Chantilly. They put together an awesome menu of salads and entrees for us and everyone's dinner was delicious. Minus the fact that my poor groom, whom I've never seen give up on a meal, ate approximately 2 bites of his crab cake sandwich before declaring himself full. Jay finished Todd's meal for him, and we all chalked it up to pre-wedding butterflies in his stomach ;). After dinner came the speeches and gifts.

(I would like to personally apologize to anyone who attended the dinner because I was so flustered I have no idea what I really said to each person, so most of it came out as "known you long time....love you like family....thanks for being a friend....traveled down the road and back again...." it was totally Golden Girls-esque, but from my heart none-the-less.) Todd and I gave the following gifts:

Ushers -- silver engraved pocket knives

Groomsmen -- silver engraved pocket knives and engraved cuff links

Best Men -- silver engraved pocket knives and personalized pub signs (they were way cool)

Bridesmaids -- Beach buckets with embroidered beach towels, jewelry to wear to the wedding, a few other cutesy inserts. The wineflop! (ask any of my girls...probably best part of the gifts).

Maid of Honor -- Beach bucket above and a Vera Bradley accessory

Mom's -- Engraved silver picture frames

Dad's -- Engraved Beer Mugs (or engraved scotch decanter for Todd's Dad Charlie...he's not a beer guy)

Then the girls presented me with a beautiful scrap book with tons of pictures from my life and they each made their own page of memories...I cried looking through it!

The rehearsal and rehearsal dinner were perfect and Todd and I sealed the evening with one last single people's kiss and headed our separate ways for the evening.

Todd and some of his buddies went out for a few drinks and the girls all came back with me to the hotel where we stayed up for a little bit, drinking the leftover prosecco and listening to fabulous 80's music and gossiping until it was time to [attempt] sleep...

Which brings us to...WEDDING DAY!! A blog worthy of it's own post :) ....stay tuned.