Chronos Images*  Tredessa at the barn a couple of hours before the ceremony.

11.26.11

Things I forgot {or just didn’t count on}

• Paper doilies to line the sweets table plate. Well, they were there…just didn’t get unpacked.
• The Rolo-Pretzel Turtles.  Sadly they missed the celebration.  So they caused their own celebration of sorts in the ensuing days.  Delish, Stormie and Elise!
• The Mini-cinnamon Rolls on sticks and the Espresso meringues.  They were my last two things to make/bake…and I just had to let them go.  And somehow the wedding was positively fine without them.
• To sew my stole.  It needed repair work badly.  I bet some one would have done it for me if I had asked.  But I just wore it anyway.  Who the heck am I becoming??!
• To get a manicure.  Just no time for it.
• We forgot to have anyone run out and ring the church tower bell as Tredessa and Ryan left the church to waving flags and cheers.  Because we were all just celebrating and smiling too much!

Tredessa and Ryan having fun in the photobooth.  Tredessa with her matron-of-honor, big sister (by 1 year and 3 weeks), Stephanie

• Succulents are way heavier than flowers and needed more support.  Lots more support.  And I could have made them 2 months in advance, but didn’t…until the morning of the wedding.
• On at least 7 occasions I said to myself, “It would be advisable to have moist towelettes at the caramel fountain.”  To all who had to lick their fingers, my deepest apologies.
• I knew, I just knew I packed the wedding-white stir sticks for the hot tea table.  They were discovered in the tote, while we were packing up…two days later.  I knew it.
• I had this beautiful design to paint at the front of the aisle runner (I had already painted a subway-style “advice” piece at the entry-end) and I just couldn’t get to it.  There came a time the week before when I just had to let that idea go and know it would be ok, anyway.
• Then, there was the balloon fiasco.  Oh, my.  The groomsmen inflated about 150 balloons the day before the wedding and they went up into the bell tower of the barn for a release just before Tredessa and Ryan would leave the reception.  No one counted on the exceptionally frigid temperatures (to below freezing) during the night, which deflated and shriveled a good number of the balloons.  When the pulley doors were let down, about 50% of the balloons were just little white wads of who-knew-what and the other balloons were pretty sad looking, too.  The photographers kind of got their expressions and it is funny now.

Things I will never forget

Tredessa was radiant.  Beaming, even.

After her engagement, she wrote a wedding plan.  Most brides decide on definitive colors and places and and details concerning things.  And Tredessa had thoughts on that, but her main wedding plan was about it being fun and family and intimate and closeness and relaxation and rejoicing.  She wanted everyone who came to feel peace.  She wanted everyone to have a romantic night of dancing and celebration.  Her plan came together!

Seeing Guini tapping and twirling, dancing with abandoned glee with her daddy, turns and twists and getting-dipped.  She looked beautiful.  She felt beautiful.  She was free and full of joy.  One of the favorite moving-picture memories I now carry in my heart.

I had this magnificent bridal bouquet in mind and it did not turn out that way at all, which was stressing me out the night before.  I dreamed of it when I barely slept.  But in the morning, I remembered that Tredessa wasn’t all “flowery” anyway.  I disassembled everything I had begun the night before, left 75% of it on the counter, put in the 6 white roses, the spray of naked-lady lilies, the small bunches of white spider mums and lots of vintage buttons and a couple of brooches and the succulents I had grown just for the occasion.  I hand tied the smaller, very specifically-structured bouquet and wrapped it in satin ribbon overlaid with chiffon to match her dress.  And in the 5 minutes it took to assemble after all the worry, it looked like a reflection of her ring – a perfectly lovely, vintage-y, love-with-a-history bouquet.  And I knew it was perfectly right for the slender, beautiful hands that would carry it.

Delicious food made by loving, generous hands of a good friend.  Vintage-y.  DIY.  A barn wedding.  Using old family photos, chandeliers, creating a “living room” experience for the church-front.  These were bits and parts of the the most beautiful wedding in 2011!

Dave barely even sniffled during the ceremony.  Shocking!  He is tender-hearted towards his kids.  He was engaging, effusive and funny, even.  Everyone loved the ceremony.

Three days with our familia from Florida.  Ryan’s brothers and their fams and his parents and grandparents and uncle…We gathered in tight for traditional Thanksgiving on Thursday, had rehearsal and dinner on Friday and danced together on Saturday.  We loved them all and just melted together.  Familia!

Ryan’s mom (my new “sister” from Florida) told me, just before Ryan walked us to our seats, “You are beaming.”  And I knew I was.  I could feel the glow, so proud of my daughter and so pleased with her choice.

Ryan’s vows to my daughter were beautiful.  Hers to him nearly knocked breath from me, so full of promise and depth and wisdom from observation.  I was unprepared for the tears that bursted forth.

The church was very small,.  We draped everything is fabric, off-white cottons and canvases, and used lace-filled frames and big paper flowers strewn about as a backdrop.

First dance: “You’re just too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off of you…”

*Chronos Images //photography (Matthew Greenlee and Rachel Ruge)