Getting married: it's tricky! (Part Four)

Saturday afternoon, we went back to Cromwell, where we spent the weekend with Kyle's family. We had a good time, and we even got to go to the beach Sunday evening! I got to squidge my toes in the sand, and wade in the water, and just enjoy the beachiness of it all. (I haven't been to a beach in, oh, probably 12 years, so it was way cool.) We walked about forever (several nuffs, anyway), down to the jetty and back to the car. But it was still fun.

And now we're up to today: Monday! The day before the wedding! And it's been at least as crazy as the rest of this trip has been. Kyle, Josh, and I left Kyle's house at 11:15 this morning. First stop: Walmart, in search of one of those big, classy black umbrellas. We wanted one in case it's raining tomorrow (Have I mentioned the weather? It's been raining for weeks here, and it's not shown any signs of stopping.), so we can still do some pictures of Kyle and me under the umbrella. This stop was unsuccessful. The closest we could find was a big black one with rainbow-colored polka dots. I wasn't really feeling it. (Don't worry, Kyle's sister Erin found one later one.)

Second stop: David's Bridal, to pick up my dress. We had planned to pick the dress up just after 11, but we didn't get there until 12:15. I go back to alterations to pick it up, and after giving the girl my receipt, she heads back behind the curtain. I can't understand anything I'm hearing, but the tones of voice are not good. She rushes back out front, then comes back to tell me that my dress hasn't been touched. Yes, I left it with them on Thursday with the understanding that I would pick it up today. Yes, I had paid for it. But no, it's not done. Not at all. But they'll start on it right away. That's cool; this wasn't time-sensitive. Oh wait! Yes it was. We were on our way out of town! To get married! And my dress wasn't ready!! But that's cool. Estimates ranged from 20 minutes to an hour. I went out and told Kyle, and my face must have looked worse than I thought, because he just wrapped me in a hug and said it would be okay. Which, of course, it would. But I was severely annoyed. And hungry, so we went to McDonald's for lunch. And when we got back, it was ready to go. So really, it didn't end up being a huge deal. But it sure stressed me out for a bit there.

Third stop: Belmont Town Hall, to pick up the marriage license. This time, things were okay, direction-wise. We'd borrowed Kyle's parents' power inverter, so things were charged. Of course, there were still the rain and the psycho intersections to deal with, but it wasn't too bad. Except the part where we almost died, which was less than awesome. This intersection had a straight only lane and a straight/right turn lane. We were in the straight/right turn lane, intending to go straight through the intersection. (It was actually one of those screwy intersections, so "straight" was really "leftish," but yeah.) Well, mid-intersection, a car to our left decided it needed to turn right. This would have put that car squarely into our side, but Kyle saved us with some evasive maneuvering. This rattled us all a bit, but we eventually got to the Town Hall. We walked in, and the lady came up with our application saying that there was a question and she had tried to call us. At this point, my heart almost stopped. I mean, really. Could nothing go right for us? But it was only a tiny thing (she wanted to verify the unusual spelling of Kyle's mom's name), and we were good to go. We exited the building, license in hand, feeling pretty proud of ourselves.

I think it's right around this point that Kyle hypothesized that the powers that be are not trying to actually derail or ruin the wedding; they merely want us both stressed to breaking point. Or just shy of it. If that's the case, they're doing a pretty good job.

I don't think anything else not-quite-catastrophic happened today. We got to the hotel that Kyle and his family are staying at tonight (also where the luncheon is tomorrow) and got him and Josh settled in. After Kyle's family arrived, we all headed over to a delightful little candy shop nearby for some fun. Kyle and I didn't buy anything (we weren't really feeling the sweets at that point), but we may well return tomorrow after the luncheon. After that, we came back to my family's hotel for dinner and such (they're separated by about 25 minutes). We finally settled on Chinese for dinner, followed by Cold Stone for dessert. Kyle got some finishing touches put on his thesis, and he and Josh headed back to their hotel. I should already be in bed, but I've been doing my nails and such. I think it's finally time, though. So g'night y'all; next time you hear from me, I'll be married!

Getting married: it's tricky! (Part Three Point Five)

I can't believe I forgot: Friday night, the fire alarms went off in our hotel. (The Johnsons and Dickersons were both at the same hotel, but on different floors.) I was awakened by this horrible screeching at 2:30 am, and it took me a while to figure out what was going on. I went out of my room and found my parents, and we decided that yes, we really were going to evacuate the building. (Not that we really had a choice: the noise was awful!) We threw on some clothes and went down the hall to the other suite, which was housing my brothers and Jenny. We rousted them (Colton, who's going to be a firefighter, required special treatment: I stood there smacking him on the leg and telling him to get up for several minutes before he woke up--not sure how this is gonna work out for his career...) and headed downstairs and out of the building.

Once outside, I called Kyle (it was a big building, and I didn't know which side he and his parents had ended up on). I was greeted with a very groggy "Hello?". "Are you outside yet?" "No. [pause] Is that the fire alarm?" I laughed. "Yes. Yes it is. That horrible screeching noise that has most of us in pain, and those super-bright flashing lights are, in fact, the fire alarm. Get dressed and come outside." I couldn't believe he was sleeping through it. Granted, he was very tired. But still. Apparently, I'm going to be in charge of getting us out of burning buildings in the future.

(Of course, there wasn't actually a fire, and we were allowed back into the building in half an hour or so.)

Getting married: it's tricky! (Part Three)

We stayed with Kyle's family in Connecticut for a few days, then he and I drove up to Boston area on Friday. The plan was to stay in Boston Friday night, then head back to CT Saturday afternoon. We had a few small errands to run, but no worries, right?

First on the list: drop my dress off at David's Bridal near Kyle's house. I called a week or two ago to see if they'd be able to take care of my dress: it needed to be steamed, spot cleaned (some parts of the hem got dirty while taking bridals), and a small spot on the front was coming unstitched, so it needed fixing. No big, right? Right. They'll have it ready on Monday when they open at 11 am, perfect for us to pick up on our way back to Boston. Lovely.

Second: apply for a marriage license. Massachussets requires that both parties apply in person, and there's a 3-day waiting period. (This was a large part of the reason we came out here a week in advance.) Now, when we got in the car, we discovered that Kyle's power inverter wouldn't fit up against the cigarette lighter in the car. Sadly, his toy (which has GPS) had a low battery and needed charging. So we figured we'd just leave it off until we got close to Boston, since Kyle knew how to get up to that area. As we got close to Boston, I pulled it out and turned it on. I couldn't get the maps to display, and the GPS wouldn't find us. We finally realized we'd need help, so I called Dad for directions. He looked a route up online for us, but by this time, we were in downtown Boston. Did I mention it was raining? It was pouring. Dad verified that we'd have to turn around, which we eventually managed. Of course, we'd had to pay a toll on the way into Boston, and we now had to pay another one coming out. Dad eventually nagivated us to the Town Hall, but it was insane. Boston has some crazy intersections, and the road we were on wasn't usually labeled (only cross streets). My favorite nutty thing was all the side roads that were named one thing on the left and another on the right. The weather really wasn't helping at all: Dad kept telling us to go north or some such, but it was about noon and totally cloudy. We had no idea what direction anything was. Oh, and I kept losing Dad. But after many u-turns, we eventually made it, and we successfully put in our application. Yay!

We spent most of that evening with my family, which was nice. I hadn't seen any of them since Christmas, so it was really fun to just hang around and talk. Chance and Rachael, I miss you both. But aren't you glad I have this blog, so you can still hear me whine and complain? ;)

Getting married: it's tricky! (Part Two)

Kyle and I flew out of SLC last Wednesday, June 17th. Kyle was going to go to campus that morning to do some work on his thesis, and then his roommate, Aaron, was going to drive us up to the airport. They were to arrive at my house around 11:45 am, so I got up around 10 and promptly drugged myself up. In addition to waking up with a headache, I was sick. As I mentioned briefly in my last post, Kyle had been sick with a bad cold, and I caught it. By this time, he was mostly recovered, but I was just barely hitting the worst of it, so I required both excedrin and sudafed before I felt even remotely human again. Tianna was gracious enough to make me some breakfast, which helped a lot.

Fortunately, I was mostly alive by the time Kyle called me at 10:30. He needed the number of a tow company and a ride. His car had started making this horrendous screeching noise after he got onto campus, so he had to have it towed to the dealership (in Orem). So I threw on some clothes and went to get him. We followed the tow truck to the dealership and got the car checked in there, then I drove him back to his house, then drove back to mine. He and Aaron came and got me around 12:15, and we made it to the airport just fine after that. It was a lot of stress, though.

Everything else that day went pretty smoothly. Well, except the painful part. Remember the cold I mentioned? I was miserable, and as doped up on sudafed as I could manage. I couldn't even be excited about flying to Connecticut, I was in such bad shape. A piece of advice: if at all possible, do NOT fly when you have a bad head cold. I didn't have any problem at all until the descent, when I experienced stabbing pains in my sinuses. It was horrible: I was in tears, and extremely grateful to have Kyle next to me. During the descent to Chicago, the pain was at the back of my head, just above my neck. I thought that was bad, but coming into Hartford, it was above my right eye. This was actually much worse, and I was very glad that we were almost done flying. Our luggage arrived intact, though, so I felt like we had successfully crossed some major hurdles.

Getting married: it's tricky! (Part One)

We're going to start this story a few days ago. Travel back in time with me to one week ago, Monday, June 15th. I had one major task for this day: ship my wedding dress to Kyle's parents' house in Connecticut. We figured this would be simpler and safer than trying to get in on the plane with us. I mean, shipping a package is fairly straightforward, yes? Well. I left the house in Orem at 11:00 am, heading to U-Haul in Provo to buy a box. A big one! I waited in line for 20 minutes before even getting any help, but I bought my big box (the largest non-wardrobe box they had) and took it out to the car. Where it wouldn't fit. I will just preface this by saying that I hadn't been sleeping well, and I had a sore throat (which has turned out to just be the cold that Kyle had had, which is what I figured, but I'm still slightly paranoid about sore throats, so it raised my stress level a bit). And I could not get that box into my car. Not in the trunk, not into the back seat. I finally had to actually form it into a box and set it on the passenger's seat, where it blocked my view out the window and the edges rubbed my right arm raw every time I shifted gears.

I made it over to Kyle's lab on campus, though, where he was going to join me for the trip to the post office. Of course, when I got there, there was a minivan blocking the lane, just waiting to pick someone up and not about to move so as to not block traffic. The parking spots were all full anyway, and Kyle now had nowhere to sit in the car. I had started crying in sheer frustration by the time he came out. (Yes, I know it was pathetic. But like I said, I was tired and stressed.) But Kyle managed to get the box fenagled into the car trunk and we headed over to the post office.

When we arrived, we headed inside to actually package the thing. As it turns out, that big dress, even still in the garment bag, folds up into just a tiny bundle. (Okay, maybe not tiny, but waaaay smaller than I had anticipated.) My box was comparatively ginormous. But none of the boxes there at the post office looked big enough in the right directions, so we set about filling in the empty space. I ran over to Kyle's house for the packing supplies remaining from my move to Orem. There was a box of bubble wrap, along with two partial bags of peanuts. I took them back (almost getting killed on my way back into the parking lot), and we managed to fill the rest of the box. We go up to the counter to mail it, and the guy (who was very nice) informed us that there would be an additional charge for it being so large. Also, another additional charge for it being so large and so light at the same time. [sigh] He suggested we cut the box down by an inch to avoid the size charge. Well, I'm standing there and looking at the box that had contained the bubble wrap and wondering if the dress will fit in it. So we get out of line and return to the packing area, where we cut open the box we'd so carefully taped up. And yes, the dress fit basically perfectly into the bubble wrap box. So we packed that box up and returned to the counter.

The charge was now significantly less, and we got it mailed off alright this time. Of course, we now had a large box and a bunch of packing peanuts to stash somewhere...

I finally got back home at 1:30 pm. It took me 2.5 hours to mail that dress. What a nightmare!

Last weekend didn't quite go as planned.

I've been meaning to blog last weekend for...well, since last weekend. Sorry for the delay! I've been busy. :(

I was scheduled to have my bridals taken on Saturday. A good friend of mine was doing them, and although I was not looking forward to having even more pictures taken of me in the least little bit, I was looking forward to seeing her. I had an appointment with my hairstylist that morning, and she was gonna do something with my hair. Tianna and Kyle had both agreed to come along for the photo shoot (I always need people to help me smile, and I'm especially pictured-out lately, so it was very necessary).

Thursday evening, I went by Wilson Diamonds to get my ring re-plated. They do this for free for the first year, and I thought it'd be nice to have the ring all shiny for pictures. Now, from the things that had been said when this process was discussed, both Kyle and I thought this was something they did there in the store while you waited. Not so much. The girl said the earliest she could have it back was Monday. I told her nevermind, I needed to have it on Saturday. Then she said she could get it back by Friday. (Still haven't sorted this time thing out, but whatevs.) So that was fine. She said it'd be ready by 6:00 on Friday, and I hadn't heard from them yet at that time. So I called them, a bit nervous that they didn't actually have it back from the goldsmith. But they did! The girl said I was two down on her list of calls to make. So I was able to go and pick it up without a problem. Phew!

Friday afternoon, I got a phone call from the salon saying that my stylist wasn't going to be in Saturday morning. This confused me, since I'd made the appointment specifically with her. I know her, trust her, and she knows my hair. But it seems that she took a last-minute trip out of town, so I agreed to use a different stylist. This made me rather nervous, but whatever, right? Especially since not only would she be styling it for my bridals, but she'd be cutting it. Well, just a trim really, but still. A strange woman cutting my hair 2.5 weeks before my wedding. I was, as I said, a wee bit nervous.

Also Friday afternoon, Tianna decided to have her baby! This was completely unexpected, but the midwife at her afternoon appointment said her amniotic fluid was low, and she needed to go ahead and have that baby. So she and BJ reported to the hospital Friday evening, and she actually gave birth Saturday night. Needless to say, she wasn't able to go with me Saturday afternoon. (I think she did it on purpose, either to avoid my whining about having my picture taken OR simply because she clearly wants nothing to do with my wedding.) But little Kessa's dang cute, so that almost makes up for it.

Saturday morning, I went to the salon, and the girl who did my hair was great. She trimmed it up nice, then curled it and pulled it back. There was much hairspray involved, since my hair doesn't like to hold a curl. But it looked very nice. Of course, my veil got pinned into it, so I did all the following driving around with a veil in. Which didn't take too long to start pulling and giving me a headache. But I am apparently amazing and managed to get my dress on over my head and by myself without pulling it out. Yep. Amazing.

Kyle and I picked up Jessy and we drove up to Memory Grove Park in SLC (that's where we got engaged, so we thought it'd be cool to do these up there). It was very pretty and Jessy was great, so my only nervousness about these turning out is that I was the subject.

But it really wasn't a tortuous experience; Kyle and Jessy both made it fun and enjoyable. I was really glad they were both there. And that we're not at all concerned about Kyle seeing me in my dress before the wedding, since he's done that twice now.


Tangent: I'm apparently going to be doing my own hair now for the wedding. I called around, but I can't for the life of me find a salon near the temple that wants to do my hair at 7 am. Go figure. It shouldn't be too bad, since I'm going for a very simple do. The tricky part will be that I kinda want my hair curled, and I can't do that. So it looks like I'll spend the next several days learning. Good times.

...

So I'm at work, right? Scanning a book into Kofax (which just means that the software is loading scans from a source folder). Well, it's been running for like 3 hours, so I pull that window back up to check it. Yep, still running. How many pages is that monster, anyway? Let's check the source folder. So I pull up an explorer window and check it out. Now, why on earth is that book sorting to the end of the list? Oh, because instead of being named with just a number like the others, it's got TN- on the front of it. That's just silly. Let's fix it! So I rename the folder. Huh. Now there's an error over on my Kofax window. Something about it can't find the file it's trying to scan. Go figure.

This is when I laugh and wonder why on earth people come to me for help. I'm clearly a doofus.