We Know Every Part By Heart

Thanks to the phenomenon of "euphoric recall," I don't remember much about Friday morning. Only that Mike and I got to Marian's house (the wedding site) considerably later than we'd anticipated and I printed out a gazillion copies of the wedding itinerary spreadsheet and forgot to hand them out.

Christine, our event coordinator (and one of my first babysitters), got a flat tire on her way to Marian's and got there later as well. And it was either Thursday or Friday morning that I discovered that the ground floor of Marian's house has no air conditioning, which threw a wrench in our plans to keep the wedding cake in the kitchen where it would stay cool. Since Saturday's temperature was predicted to be the highest all week, this was not good news.

By the time we got to Marian's Friday, Christine had tried out a few decorations and the people from Dolphin Rentals had arrived to begin setting up chairs and tables. I was too maxed out to be of any use, so Mike and Christine sent me into the guest house bedroom to take a nap while they handled things.

By the time I woke up and wandered into the yard, the set up was done and family members had started to arrive. About the same time, Marian came out of the house to announce we'd lost power. No point in flipping out. If the power's out, what can you do? Fortunately, it came back on about 20 minutes later.

My parents and Mike's sister, Kelly, and her family arrived about the same time. We put dad to work setting up the mister on the patio and found out it had issues; Sean tried to help figure it out. Kelly's sons Tyler and McKay unwrapped paper fans and brought out the ice chests, bottled water, and frozen Capri Sun.

As 6:30 pm approached, more of the wedding party began to arrive and lost members of the wedding party began calling Christine for directions. Mike went off to collect the kids and pick up groomsperson, John Blood. Janet, Brenda, Angela, and Emma arrived with flower girl baskets in tow. Leticia, leader of our string quartet, came with her viola to time the musical numbers with the wedding party's entrance & exit. Mike's brother Matt and his family arrived. Suzanne, Charlie, Anya, and Asher arrived shortly thereafter.

Once our officiant Mark Muir arrived and we had everyone in the wedding party assembled, Christine got us all in place to kick off the rehearsal. The first run through went smoothly, so we did another one just to make sure everyone knew their cues and blocking.

We did have several people suggest that by 6:30, 7:30 pm, the outside temperatures were just starting to be bearable--could we shift the wedding ceremony and reception back a couple of hours, maybe? Tempting as it was, I didn't think we could alert all the attendees in time.

After two run-throughs of the ceremony, we adjourned, rounded up everyone who needed rides and headed to the Pasadena staple, Burger Continental, for the rehearsal dinner.

We arrived just as the live music and belly dancing began. Since this post is already unbelievably long, I will report on the rehearsal dinner and bachelorette fun separately.