Locusts and "Plagues"

My aunt (and godmother), Nancy, let us invade her house for all of the pre-wedding hoopla. The company was great (my cousins are two of the most personable, intelligent, interesting people I know), the house is gorgeous, and they just redid all of their landscaping. Ooh. :-)

The whole "planning a wedding from three time zones away" seemed less challenging at the beginning, and worse as we got closer, but knowing that we'd have a home base (instead of a hotel) the week before somehow made things more mentally manageable. We even got to hold a reception for out-of-town and near-by family at their house the night before (despite an end-of-year elementary school skit night scheduled for the same hours). Many people compared Nancy and her family to saints...

And, as everyone woke up at Nancy's Friday morning (after a week of late-May heat and humidity), we found carpenter ants practically dripping from everywhere. They fell from the canister lights in the kitchen, they crawled in the bathroom, and they swarmed under every glass and coffee mug left on the counter. Yay, New England at the very beginning of summer. While I wouldn't have wished carpenter ants on anyone (especially them!), I do have to say that it was wonderful to have a concrete thing to focus all of the family-wide jitters and anxiety on. People at the pre-wedding party ate food, squished multitudes of ants, and enjoyed meeting each other. Once home from the concert, Nick and Jack appointed themselves as head exterminators, and cleared the upstairs.



They were startled, as they swept the bathroom, by the green pre-wedding face. My dad was too, and requested a picture. :-) (I couldn't smile or the mask would have cracked...)



Better green with mask than green with nerves? :-)


In other pre-wedding round up news:

We ran 2.5 miles together on Monday. Woah! We run together in Seattle (usually a mile and a half), and both of us have been exercising on our own, but that distance surprised me once we'd done it. When I was in high school, I used to run according to the field hockey training schedule, which (if I remember?) capped out at 2.4 miles. Running more now than I did in high school, when I had my swimming physique, makes me proud. Nice!

So many people, books and websites brokering wedding advice made a point of saying that brides-to-be need to eat in the days before the wedding. I scoffed. What dimwit needs to learn/remember to eat?! And yet, the entire prewedding week was a stretch of time-zone- and situation-enhanced nerves and distractions. I barely ate, barely noticed, and lost five pounds in six days (better than mono!!). Crazy. Luckily (?), the honeymoon took care of it. :-)

I finished my veil on Thursday. I'd based in on a design we saw in a store... not too poofy on top, double layered, scalloped edges, and crystals outlining the edge and scattered. When I get my act together, I'll post directions and a summary. :-) I used superglue to attach the crystal beads to the tulle -- disaster. My cousin Jack was impressed at how thoroughly I managed to glue the beads to my fingers instead of to the veil. :-)

Much effort went to learning the vows. we chose (after prompting in no uncertain terms from our minister) to learn them by heart. I practiced mine in the car with my mom, sister, mother-in-law-to-be and sister-in-law-to-be. No dry eyes. A good audience for inuring yourself.

Our organist played samples of songs so that we could choose a program. This was a treat. I was also so, so happy to escape the Bridal Chorus by Wagner. (My second grade self reliably chanted the lyrics "here comes the bride: fair, fat and wide", followed by the equally delightful second verse, "here comes her mother: married to her brother.")