SATURDAY, Part I

I slept surprisingly well. After running around most of the day on Friday and staying up til past midnight, I guess that’s not too much of a surprise. My alarm went off about 7am, and for once I didn’t hit the snooze button at all. I got up, wiped the sleep from my eyes, had some water and got over my morning grogginess. Once I accomplished that, I decided to give Miss Lauren a call and find out how the day was going so far. (WARNING: WEDDING FREAKOUT COMING IN 3….2……) Cookie and Lauren were scheduled to go get the remainder of the flowers at the market early that morning. When they left the rehearsal dinner, they said they were picking them up about 6:45am. So, I was excited and wanted to get the day started with good wedding news.

“Good morning!” I say to Lauren.

“We are just about to leave, I promise,” is her response.

“Leave to go where? The farmers market?” I ask (with a semi-snotty tone in my voice).

“Yes,” she replied.

I then asked, rather sternly and somewhat worried, “You mean you haven’t picked up the flowers yet? The market opens in 30 minutes! You guys need to get there NOW.”

Yeah, that wasn’t the best way for me to respond. Saying that to two ladies who had stayed up til 3am+ working on a grooms cake and flowers, yes they did work on the flowers AFTER my spies had left, was not well received. They were tired, I was worried. Add the two together, explosive.

Many ladies were coming to my hotel room around 8 to help put together flowers. Shortly before then, Lauren and Cookie arrive, drop off the flowers and are very obviously super upset with me and my attitude. They drop off the flowers, pick up the items from the prior night’s dinner that needed to be returned, and they left. Angry. I cried. And cried. And cried. Thank goodness my Mommy was near. I went immediately to her room. And cried some more. Here it was, only 8am, and I had managed to seriously piss off my maid of honor and one of my bridesmaids. I got snappy and shouldn’t have. I felt terrible.

Lauren and Cookie finally got back, and the situation just worked itself out. I looked pouty, they gave me hugs. I apologized, they said it was okay. Crisis passed. Thankfully. Again, I’m sorry, ladies. Luckily, that was my ONLY freakout the whole day.

Anyway, we had lots of help on the flowers. Cookie orchestrated the process, and everyone put together the bouquets, the table arrangements, the stage arrangements and the like. Every flower had been cut between 24-48 hours hand picked by Cookie and Lauren, then delivered to the Farmers Market that morning. Just amazing. The flowers went so smoothly that by 11am, Meredith and I were able to check out of the room and head over to the mall to have our nails done. But escaping the hotel was a feat all in its own. Mike and I decided that we did not want to see each other until the actual wedding, so there was an entire crew working very hard to make sure we did not run into each other. It worked fairly well, although as Meredith and I were at the light next to the hotel, I looked over and sure enough, there was Mike sitting on the stairs! The theory is that the groom shouldn’t see the bride, right? I think we’re okay.

Meredith and I dropped off the flowers and table decorations to Alivia’s and into Courtney and Fay’s hands. All would be fine. We dropped off the other flowers to the Nelson Music Room, and we realize that we are actually fairly ahead of schedule. Amazing! With time to kill before our nail appointment, Meredith and I agree – IT’S BLOODY MARY TIME! Therefore, she and I made a quick stop by Tripp’s near Northgate Mall and enjoyed a lovely bloody mary (they make them with Absolut Peppar, give it a shot!) We finished our drinks and made our way to the nail place.

The place was packed, but Cookie had made reservations for everyone; therefore, we got to skip to the front of the line. Meredith and I got started, then Lauren and Cookie arrived. We all got our nails did and they looked great. Cookie had to bolt pretty quick, as her hair appointment was quickly approaching. Once our nails had sufficiently dried, the three of us remaining decided it was big soda time before my hair appointment. We made a dash for the closest BP to get big sodas, then made our way to Ninth Street for my hair appointment at Wavelengths.

Part II coming soon………….