5:50am Alarm goes off. It's Saturday morning
6:00am Stumble outside half asleep so Celeste can go potty. How can a little dog be so happy ALL the time? And why does she think she needs to go outside FIRST thing? Does she have a party while I’m sleeping?
6:02am I notice the sun is shining. Thank God! It’s going to be a great day.
7:00am Look outside. Fog EVERYWHERE. OMG. Receive a text messge: “Be careful, the fog is thick.” No kidding! I say a little prayer: “Please God don’t let it rain.”
8:45am Leave the house to pick up the bride at the church.
9:20am Arrive at the church. TWO bridesmaids see me pull up and they hop out of their cars and follow me in the church. No bride.
9:55am Still no bride. LOL
10:05 Bride arrives 35 minutes late because the person doing her hair and makeup wanted it “perfect”. Keep in mind the bride arrived at the person’s house at 7am. LOL Have to say though, the bride looked beautiful!
10:10am Brother calls me: “Where you at?” We were 10 minutes late meeting him for the morning photo session. By that time, we were in the car and on our way.
11:00am First photo session done. Fog lifted… overcast skies… very windy! Bride’s dress and veil blowing in places where they weren’t supposed to be.
11:15am
Groomzilla Brother is PO’d because his slacks are too big, don’t match the groomsmen’s slacks, and shoes don’t match. He goes up the block to call the tux shop and chew some @ss. LOL, gotta love the bro. He pulls no punches, either.
12:00noon Groomsmen are all dressed. Bridesmaids are dressed. Maid of Honor is NOT dressed. We were supposed to be going to the park for photo session #2. The bride finally told her “We’re leaving!” LOL
12:30pm Photo session still going on. So HOT and HUMID. Everyone complains about the heat. Some sit in their trucks with AC to keep cool. I literally felt the sun beating and burning my back. I have a sunburn on top of a sunburn! Afterwards, a groomsmen tells me: “You didn’t complain about the heat once!” LOL, well I was too busy with the speed photo session: 5 bridesmaids, 5 groomsmen, 3 kids, 2 ushers, 4 parents. That’s a lotta people! At one point, I totally forgot the bride's name and I needed to get her attention so I pointed and said: "Hey you in white, bride!" LOL I couldn't believe I just couldn't remember.... Must've been the heat. Yeah, that's it! That's my story...
2:00pm Ceremony starts. After half a dozen shots, I realize my flash isn’t going off.
Crap Luckily, only the cord had come loose. I reshot the first few. Toward the end of the ceremony, batteries in flash were going dead.
Crap I flip the old ones out, shove new ones in.
3:30pm There’s some confusion as to WHICH door the bride , groom, and wedding party are going out. Actually, the bride and groom decided it was the front door, but there was some miscommunication and the bride’s father had everyone standing outside the side door (which was originally the plan but it changed earlier in the week). The bride and groom got into the limo while I photographed it. Then back to the altar for the final bridal party shots. Session #4.
5:00pm Arrive at the reception hall. The doors are locked. LOL Everyone is sitting in cars or standing in front of the doors. Bridal party is driving around in the limo partying it up. Skies are looking pretty ominous.
5:10pm Someone unlocks the doors.
5:15pm The rain lets loose. From then on out, it rained and stopped, rained and stopped. Not just light rain. Sheets of rain! I guess my little prayer helped.
6:00pm The reception starts.
An "interesting" thing happened... another woman walked into the reception... wearing the SAME dress as mine! I think my jaw dropped to the floor. People were doing a double-take because from behind they thought it was me (after seeing me ALL day in the dress) and wondered when I'd taken my hair down. I heard later that one of the bride's family went up to the woman and she said: "Don't EVEN say it!" My consolation was at least it happened at the reception only.
I had planned on taking the groom’s girls (my nieces) home with me at the end of the night. While at the reception, another niece wanted to come home with me (my other bro’s daughter). By the end of the night, both girls were trying to talk me into bringing home yet ANOTHER girl who was the daughter of the bride/groom’s neighbor whom I didn’t know and had never met. I really had to laugh about it because it took me back to when I was a kid... because we did the same thing.
Nieces: “Auntie, can Savannah stay over night too?”
Me: “I don’t know. Who is Savannah. Where’s her parents?”
Nieces: “Hold on, we’ll get her.”
They come back with Savannah.
Me: “Who are you? How do you fit into the wedding?”
S: “Oh, I live up the road from (bride/groom). We’re neighbors.”
Me: “Are your parents OK with this?”
S: “Yeah, my Mom’s OK with it.”
Me: Skeptical. “Where are your parents?”
All three: “They’re outside. They said it was OK and wanted to know what you said.”
Me: LOL, call me crazy but I’m not about to totally believe three little girls who are trying to connive their way to a sleepover. I go outside and introduce myself and make sure they’re totally down with letting their kid leave with a stranger.
Mother: “Oh, I saw you earlier today and I told R… THAT must be (the groom’s) sister. They look SO alike. We’re OK if S goes with you, as long as you don’t mind.”
Me: Thinking to myself... Alrighty then.
I must be “OK” through association with my brother. LOL I didn’t mind having an extra kid. What’s one more, right? She wasn’t any trouble.
Unbelievably, we were all home and in bed by 11:30pm.
