Wedding Favorite #1: First Look

Step 1: Calm, cool, and collected:

Step 2: Uh-oh! The dress is on, the mind is racing, and the chest is...splotching?!

Step 3: Momentary splotching disaster averted with some meditative breathing. I look a lot more relaxed than I feel!

Step 4: Phew! My sweet makes all my worries melt away :-)

**** So - I thought of a *great* way to dive into recapping the wedding/honeymoon/east coast celebration. Instead of doing long, meandering posts (as is my wont) and never finishing (or starting!) the actual recaps, I'm just going to pick a few favorites memories/stories/moments from each event to highlight. ****

My first "favorite": seeing Todd for the first time the morning of the wedding.

We'd separated shortly after the rehearsal dinner the night before. The morning of the wedding, I woke up early and went down to a beautiful room to relax, get my hair and makeup done, and spend time with my bridesmaids and family over a continental breakfast. Todd, on the other hand, woke up significantly later and headed straight to Disneyland with his groomsmen! They went on Space Mountain and a few other rides and then raced back to our room at the Grand Californian to get ready.

I wasn't nervous at all until it was time to put on the dress. Up until then, I was laughing, playing with my super-cute nephew Kendall, taking pictures, and just enjoying having my hair curled (see photo 1). But once Chrissie, my mom, and the others helped me into my dress, for some reason, I just started thinking about how I'd be up there, in front of all those people, probably crying uncontrollably, and I got a bit flustered. It didn't help that my appetite had remained steady in the weeks before the wedding and my dress wasn't exactly loose. In fact, in the interests of full disclosure, that dress - with it's double corset - was pretty damn tight. I can understand why Victorian ladies were always fainting having to deal with wearing stays and corsets all the time! And with the flusteredness, I got splotchy (see photo 2). I don't mean a lovely, delicate, Elizabethan rose blush type of hue. I mean angry, bright patches of red all over my decolletage area. I also got a little emotional. I started to think about how long we'd both planned and anticipated and envisioned this day, and I burst into tears thinking "Wow, it's finally here!"

After some calming words from the girls, some deep breaths, and sitting down in order to loosen up my diaphragm and allow me to breathe (!), I felt much better (see photo 3). Still, as I walked down the long hall, knowing Todd was waiting at the white piano at the end of it, I felt anxious.

Then I saw him. Saw how wonderful he looked in his tuxedo with the silver vest, his warm smile and eyes so full of love. Really, in that moment, as cheesy as it sounds, every bit of nervousness just evaporated. I realized that nothing mattered except that we were getting married. And that we were getting married because we knew and loved each other so well that how could we not? I just felt a happiness and a peace wash over me as I looked into his eyes. He gave me a beautiful silver bracelet with an "R" on it, and I truly knew that even though we'd become a family long ago, today we were making it official in front of everyone we loved and cared about, and in light of that, what else could possibly matter?