A sneak preview!! We'll have more pictures in about a week or two.

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Thanks for all the congratulations, you guys! The wedding was beautiful, the weekend was wonderful and so much fun.

We only have pictures from our own digital camera right now, but judging from them, we got some awesome shots for the whole wedding.

I just can't believe how wonderful everything was... Luckily, we allotted enough time for everything to get done, and were right on schedule the whole day. It was cloudy and even rained a bit early in the day, but it was good for pictures outside, because there wasn't any glare. Then, when our ceremony started at the church, after we were seated at the front, the sun came out of the clouds and shone thru the windows onto us for the whole thing... It was surreal.

The reception was also very cool... not exactly what I had planned, but still very fun. Everyone loved our band, and thought it was great that we went around table to table and spent at least 5 minutes with every person there. AND-- our dance was amazing! Even though we messed up, everyone cheered and we got a standing ovation! The next Ginger and Fred-- we rock!!

Needless to say, we were exhausted by the end of the night... I don't see how people can go straight to a honeymoon!! We were "hung-over" for two days. LOL (we didn't even drink!!)

And I can't believe that I'm officially Mrs. Leslie Le YAY!!!

After ALLLLL that, 6 whole DAYS of high anxiety in our house, it turns out that SIL had never called Nephew, and when she finally did, she said "Girlfriend can't come, it's not personal." and he said "oh, okay. No problem."

Gee, thanks for the giant stressball that you created. Now, she "just wants to put it behind us and move on." Welcome to the family, Gretchen!

We had somewhere along the line decided we'd have the ceremony at the same site as the reception because there's a cute gazeebo in the back. We met with the wedding coordinator at the site to discuss our options for this. Unfortunately there is no seating around the gazeebo, it would have to be on the lawn below it. And there's a 3 foot high fence around the patio. I am only 5' 1". So our guests would get to see the top of my head and not much else. Logistically, it was a nightmare.

So, we thought about moving the whole thing on the lawn in front of a little arch they have to rent. Problem is, the lawn is quite near the parking lot, which is also near the sumpsters for the restaurant. So now we're getting married next to the dumpsters...

Ugh. I was very stressed out, but my maid of honor told me I should be 100% happy with what I had, and if I wasn't, I should change it.

A little internet research and a visit to a beautiful residential park in St. Paul led us to the perfect wedding site. We're now getting married in a park amphitheater near a little lagoon with a bridge. It's so perfect it actually brought tears to my eyes, and nothing wedding related has made me do that yet. We'll still be having our reception at the same place, we're just changing the ceremony site.

This has gotten way long, but I'm just so thrilled about this. Also, we found an AMAZING new photographer last night. We had booked with another one that I liked and was reasonably priced, but didn't stay for the first dance, which made me kind of sad. We paid the deposit anyway, which in hindsight I really shouldn't have done. Then our recently married friends told us about their photographer who is HALF the cost and just wonderful. His pictures are fantastic, I don't know how he can charge so little for them. So, I'm going to lose my deposit on the other one (only a hundred bucks), but oh well.

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Originally posted by Dewgirl:
I found my dress!!! AND it's in my price range!

YIPPEE!!!!!

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I have the nagging feeling that I have overlooked something huge, because we can't have got everything organised in a total of about 12 hours.

* I have shoes
* I have the dress fabric chosen and the seamstress ready to go as soon as my mum gets here next week
* We have the church booked. We still have to do some sort of pre-wedding counselling, which could all go pear-shaped if they insist on my converting but so far they appear not to be bothered by my agnosticism.
* We have the reception booked - it was just a matter of ticking boxes for the food and wine we wanted.
* I hate live bands who are not REM or similar, so we are just going to compile some CDs of our favourite songs. Unless we win the lottery, in which case I shall try to book REM.
* I have told my bridesmaids "just find something navy", which they appear to be doing with no further interference from me (aside from the English bridesmaid, who didn't realise that velvet would give her heatstroke in a tropical summer, and has gone back to look for something lighter).
* I am assuming I will go to the flower market on the morning of the wedding and pick up whatever looks best on the day, but this might be naive to the point of Breana-special.
* I found little white rubber duckies with pink hearts stamped on them which will be cool as favours.
* We have chosen invitations and will get them printed next week.
* I got my wedding ring - plain thin platinum - off the internet for 80 bucks (when BF is not around I get it out of the safe and "try it on" for hours around the house). We are going to pick up my engagement ring as soon as the Ohio Dairy Company pays him for the project he's doing at the moment (buy more processed cheese! it's paying for my honker!). I still have to get his wedding ring made. My grandfather found a nugget of gold when he was a flying doctor in Western Australia (it was lying on the dirt landing strip when he landed his plane), so all family wedding rings are made from that. Sadly mine couldn't be, as my engagement ring is platinum, which apparently wears away gold over years. But a friend is going to give us the name of the jeweller who made his gorgeous wedding ring, so theoretically that is sorted.
* BF still has to get his kilt made. I am quite smug that it is going to cost about 4 times as much as my wedding dress. Ha, Groomzilla!
* We still have to book the honeymoon, but we have decided where we want to go.

Is that it? I watched Bridezilla and saw all these women having nervous breakdowns and spending $100,000, but I just can't think of anything we've forgotten.

edited to add that the only thing that does seem to be causing problems is choosing the first-dance song. Any discussion immediately turns into a competition to name the most inappropriate song possible. So far we have been through "I Will Survive", "All By Myself", "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Smack My Bitch Up" by the Prodigy. Assuming we do ever settle on something nice and smoochy, we are still thinking of having a few opening bars of Smells Like Teen Spirit first, just to check that everyone is paying attention.

http://www.thele.com/wedding/images/

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Originally posted by greschya:
It went perfectly. Spookily perfectly, actually. I wrote all about it in my diary.

I'm a wife!

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omg I'm sitting here trying to read your diary entry, but I have to keep stopping because I'm getting so damned choked up! Congratulations on your beautiful day

pictures!

my favorite pictures are of us charging through the metal detector and posing with the "You are entitled to a reciept" sign. oh, and with yoda at the Hibachi place afterwards.

Edited to add that we all posted at the same time and I didn't mean to copy the last two posts, but anyway...

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Originally posted by manmarie:
posing with the "You are entitled to a reciept" sign

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