wedding day

Dawn's version
Ahh, the wedding day. I hear that it was pretty hectic for Marcus as his tasks had to be taken care of that day, but I got to spend the day by the pool catching up with friends and gettin' a little sun. A storm tried to roll in around 2:30pm, but I scared it off (maybe the 2nd instance of Bridezilla)....we actually had a beautiful day and while it was hot, I would not ask for anything different.

At around 4pm, the ladies headed over to the bridal suite to hang out, snack and drink. My lovely hairdresser, Terra, came and did my hair and makeup...she's a sweety! Things were pretty chill until I heard Jennifer (the wedding coordinator) say "I need her ready in 15 minutes." It's not that I felt rushed...things seemed pretty under control, I just suddenly realized I was getting MARRIED in 15 minutes. As my hair finished air drying, I had the slightest of panic attacks as I got dressed and LeeAnn put my shoes on and my mom tied the ribbon. I can't remember why LeeAnn had to put my shoes on...what was I doing? I just kept thinking that it could not be that easy to get ready...we had to be forgetting something. But, I wasn't naked so I calmed down and realized I was ready. As we headed to the elevator, we remembered the "something new, something old, something blue, something borrowed" and took turns running back to find it. On the way down, my mom pinned my Air Force blue pin on the dress lining and wrapped her string of pearls around my wrist. As as extra measure, we also pressed on an old 6th ARS tattoo near my ankle (see pictures from wedding).

Luckily when we arrived at the top of the staircase, they weren't quite ready for us...so I got to really chill out and enjoy a few minutes with the folks. As we walked down, we joked about doing the wave or high-fiving along the way. It was nice to see everyone as we came down the isle. As you all know, the ceremony was absolutely beautiful thanks the the wonderful Dr. Missy Cheyney...my new sister-in-law :). Later, she was approached for more info regarding her "church" as a guest wanted to start attending. Unfortunately, Missy lives in Oregon so there's no church for those of us in AVL....maybe we could convince her to do a weekly blog for us :). After the ceremony, Dorsey let a Jimi Hendrix "Star Spangled Banner" rip in honor of the 4th! We did the quick picture routine...thanks to Missy and Andy we had beverages brought down to us too...and Jesse was super patient with us.
The reception was also pretty amazing. Props to Jennifer for keeping it all flowing and under control for us. You lushes :) drank us out of white wine pretty quickly, but Jennifer saved the evening and ran out for more....we didn't want the party to end. Efren and Mike were crazy awesome Emcees and DJs for us...they worked really hard on those sets which turned out to be fabulous! Hopefully, we'll have them posted on archives.org (thanks to Clif) so that we can all download them for future listening. And what can we say about Andy's slideshow...I hadn't even seen some of those pictures...he was great at making us laugh at ourselves!! Loved the beer, food, cupcakes, champagne...what else, loved it all! The sparkler exit was very cooolll...everyone made fun of me for accidentally ordering 3ft. sparklers, but in the end I think we needed them, right. I did hear that there were some close calls though. And the chariot ride was super! Our driver, can't remember his name, worked his a** off to get us uptown and the firework crowds cheered for us (I admit that it took me a second to figure out how they knew we had just gotten married). After meeting up with some folks at the hotel, we headed downtown. That trip didn't last long for this exhausted girl, but I hear the rest of ya made it a late and crazy night!
I have to give a quick shout out to our families and friends who helped out with or participated in the wedding...there is absolutely no way we could have pulled it off without ya! And to all of the friends and family who took the time to spend the day (or several days) in Asheville at our wedding. Believe me, we know that we wouldn't be the people we are today without you guys!

So much planning and now it's over. I'm on the hunt for a new hobby...anybody have a wedding they need planned?