Wedding Recap Part I: Pre-Wedding

We made the smart decision to head down on Thursday instead of Friday which allowed us a little more time with a few out of town friends.  It also allowed us to relax a little before the big weekend shindig activities started.  It was funny because neither of us felt nervous at all at any point during the engagement.  That is until we took the exit for The Edgefield.  Both of us simultaneously started to get the nervous, butterfly thing going.  This big thing that we had been working on for so long was actually happening. 

The main thing we did Thursday was put together all the out of town gift bags.  In the spirit of being welcoming and inclusive we wanted to get everyone's weekend off on the right foot with a welcome bag to thank them for making the trip (since everyone had to travel to it).  They were filled with some fun tasty treats and give them a sense of what the vibe of the wedding would be like.  The black rabbit cookies with the story of the Edgefield black rabbit seemed to be a hit, the water bottles (with heavily borrowed from the interwebs "nutrition label") and everyone's own personal flying lemon magnet were our favorite things.  We didn't decide to do the out of town bags until about five weeks before the wedding so they created a bit of last minute work but it was worth it.  People seemed to enjoy going into their rooms and seeing their bright yellow welcome bag.

Prepping the bag for delivery

Friday Kevin and I had a couple's massage in the morning and then had some soaking pool time (to recreate our soaking pool engagement).  Later, I had my first manicure (meh, don't see the point to them) and pedicure (woo-hoo!  Those are great!).  My dear friend Michelle joined me for the pedicure and it was great to spend some more time catching up with her before all the craziness began.

Shortly after the relaxing spa treatments, the craziness did indeed begin.  Everyone started showing up and the fact that this was actually happening now became even more real.  Instead of a rehearsal dinner we had a 30 minute run-down with the wedding party about what was happening the next day and then we went to hang out by the Little Red Shed pub with a whole bunch of guests.  One of the advantages of a whole weekend deal instead of just the wedding on Saturday night is that we got more time to talk to our friends than you usually do at a wedding.  The day after brunch helped with that too.  However, I was nervous about how the next day would go and didn't enjoy myself a ton and just would have really rather been alone in the soaking pool.  Even with not feeling particularly social it was still a nice time though.  A group of our friends even showed up in their Edgefield bathrobes; they were truly getting into the spirit of the place.

Saturday morning was a quick breakfast where we barely ate (nerves again), a few times practicing dancing to our first dance song that lightened the mood immensely and took the worry out of us being able to remember any moves at all, and then off to the reception space for set-up.  I was only there for an hour before I had to leave for hair and make-up but I know this was hugely stressful for Kevin.  It was the fluffing and hanging of 80 tissue paper pom poms and a dozen flying lemons that really seemed to cause the kerfluffle.  They were a pain in the ass but boy did they help make that place festive.  He was so stressed about it that he actually had a nightmare the following night about the pom poms not being right.  Thanks to the previously mentioned wonderful friends it turned out beautifully and turned this



into something beautiful and happy and light that I don't have any good pictures of.  Maybe when the professional prints come in. 

The only glitch here other than the clusterf*#k that was the pom poms was I wanted bright yellow sashes for the chairs and got these soft butter yellow instead.  It turned out fine because one of the pom pom colors was the same yellow so all was good.  And at least the chair cover woman knew to not tie them into bows.  Even though I hate chair covers it was necessary for this space to make it lighter and more festive.  The chairs on their own are seriously ugly for a wedding.



Kevin's awesome flying lemons!



Michelle creating the flying lemon place cards.



I hated being away from the decorating.  This was our baby and we had worked so long and hard on it and I wanted to help make the vision a reality and it sucked to not be there.  Being a bit of a control freak it also stressed me out to leave it in other people's hands.  Luckily, Kevin knew exactly how it was supposed to look so I felt confident that it would come out pretty darn close to what we imagined.  I also wanted to do a quality control check/final run through when it was all done but there was no time for that. 

In the next installment:  with the set-up done it was time to meet for our "first look" and get the show on the road!