"Hitched" Without a Hitch!

I know, I know, that’s really dorky—but since I thought of it I just had to use it!

First of all, I would like to thank Caroline and Leanna for the beautiful entry they wrote last week while I was away—I’ve read it myself at least five times through. I love hearing about the day from the perspective of others who were there. As for Daniel and me, people really mean it when they say your wedding day is the happiest day of your life! But the range of emotions I felt within a single forty-eight hour period of my life was amazing, and rather overwhelming.

I took off work for the few days preceding the wedding, and I’m so glad that I did. I would never have been able to get everything done before the wedding if I hadn’t. On Wednesday and Thursday, my mom and sisters helped me to assemble favors and seating cards, which turned out to be much more of a nightmare and took up much more precious time than I expected. But they got done.

Thursday night my aunt, who is a florist, brought boxes and boxes of flowers and greenery to my parents’ house. She gave us some advice and went on her way. We grouped stems by type in vases and buckets all over the counters and island. For a few hours my mom and I, two other aunts, my eighteen-year-old cousin Lizzie, my sisters Annie and Jane, and my friends Laura and Caroline stood in the fragrant jungle that my parents’ kitchen had become and became florists ourselves.

The result was even prettier than I could have hoped for. My bouquet was absolutely gorgeous. It was simple perfection: a tight bunch of white roses and fragrant yellow orchids tied with sheer yellow ribbon.

Friday morning Caroline, Daniel, and I all woke up early to clean the house; Daniel’s groomsmen would be coming over that night after the rehearsal dinner and Caroline was having some of our friends over the night of the wedding, too. Caroline and I had nail appointments at ten o’clock, and I went over to my parents’ house an hour before that so that my mom could figure out how to bustle my dress. Although I had planned on having my train down for the ceremony, I decided that morning that I liked the way it looked bustled and would rather have one less thing to worry about during Mass (like Daniel or myself tripping over my trail of lace), so it stayed bustled from then on.

My combo manicure-pedicure (first ever for me) with paraffin dip took a long time, almost an hour and a half, but was very relaxing. Afterwards, Caroline and I rushed back home to pack for that night. My bridesmaids, Caroline the groomsmaid, and I would be staying at a hotel about fifteen minutes from the chapel that night so that we wouldn’t have to spend forty-five minutes of our morning in the car just to get to the wedding.

We left home at around 1:30 to make the drive up to the reception hall so that we could decorate there before the rehearsal, which would begin at five. I rode with Caroline and two of my bridesmaids, Marie and Nicole, all packed with everything I needed for that night, the next morning, and the wedding night. I wouldn’t be home again until Sunday afternoon. And I would be married! It was really happening.

Alright, I’m going to have to break this up into at least one more entry, maybe two. Suffice it for me to say, for now, that I am overjoyed to be a wife, and that the incredible nerves I would feel in the twenty-four hours between that point of driving away from my house and the following afternoon would be much more than matched by the happiness I would feel from the moment I took Daniel’s hand after my dad walked me up the aisle. And although my anxiety seemed very able to overwhelm me, that happiness was more than capable of overwhelming the anxiety. Talk about an emotional roller coaster!

Anyways, as I said, to be continued…

Sincerely yours, Mrs. Daniel H.