Before I Was Spoken For...

I'd like to think that we were pretty damn prepared. The week before the wedding I continuously emailed our coordinator (With Bells On Productions) and asked her what we were forgetting. We did well... we were on it. For some reason though that seemed to stress me out even more. I was stressed that I was leaving something out, and spending restless nights trying to think about what I was forgetting seemed to be my business leading up to the wedding.

The week before the wedding we had family come to town. They all stayed with us. All together 10 people at our house for the few days leading up to the wedding. Family that had never even met one another, living in close quarters. We went 0 to 60 QUICKLY. Thank God we each have friendly families, because that could have been bad. MRS. Temple of Groom's family was the first to arrive to our house, then my family filtered in. Reality quickly set in that the wedding was coming. Mistakenly I figured that the days leading up to the wedding would be filled with lounging and relaxation - feeling more like when we go back home for the holidays and less like a hurricane of wedding related content.

We decided to have a huge bbq for extended family that was in LA at our house 3 days before the wedding. With the help of our families we pulled it off, and it was a very nice night. Looking back though I kinda have to ask ourselves if we're gluttons for punishment! We could have spent that night relaxing with our families...but it was their first time with one another - it called for celebration. Additionally one last large detail that needed to be planned - our parents really wanted us to turn the guest house at the Cass House Inn (where we got married) into a hospitality suite. The night before the wedding, we had a meet & greet and invited anyone that was already in Cayucos to come have a bite to eat, have a drink or two (or 5), and hang out with my family. Also, they bought enough alcohol to stock in the suite so anyone that wanted to party after the wedding reception was over, could filter in and get his/her drink on - This proved to be a LOT of work for our families. Well all the work was worth it, the meet & greet the night before the reception such a nice evening and a way for our families to meet one another. Maybe planning two huge parties before the wedding was not the best idea - but it was the first time we had our entire family together - so it just seemed like we should take advantage of that fact.

Rebecca and I did a good job organizing everything we needed for the wedding into our storage room, but when you added all the hospitality suite necessities to the mix, it was overwhelming! So much stuff. Luckily my sister-in-law brought her boyfriend who was trying to make a good impression on the family and seems like an overall workhorse was "happy" to do the heavy lifting when it came to loading the car! While I wouldn't do anything differently if I got to relive the week over again, I do wish that there had been time for our family to just be with one another and relax a little bit. Rebecca and I were getting no sleep due to the wedding jitters and spending the nights on the couch. It was making for a pretty stressful week even though we had everything under control. That's the worst part of weddings. They are more stress than just about anything and you tend to take your stress out on loved ones. At least they understand.... it just sucks. The whole thing is so backwards - your family comes to town BEFORE the wedding, and you want to scream because you've got so much to do - then you have the wedding and it's perfect, then when you're so relaxed and calm, the family leaves. It seems so backwards. Our families left right when we were ready to just veg out and enjoy them! Alas, that's not how things work out - and it's a good thing that they are family and can understand we're just at our wits end w/ stress.

The night before the wedding I actually slept pretty well. I'm not sure if that's because I had my own room, with a bed, instead of the couch, or if it was because I knew that everything I worked SO hard for over the last year and a half was about to pay off in a major way. It was so weird to say goodnight to Rebecca and then leave her in her own room. I like the fact that not sleeping with one another the night before the wedding and not seeing one another before the festivities start builds anticipation, but it's just so weird to be apart before such a monumental occasion. Before bed I considered writing my last blog post as a single man, but i just decided to take in the moment. So many people have given me the advice to relax and try to take in everything because it will blow by so quickly. So that's what I did. I laid in bed by myself and just relaxed. There was not one nerve coursing through my veins that was nervous about marrying Rebecca. Instead I was nervous/excited to see what the day would look like. For a year and a half we spent so much time working on each individual detail of the wedding - it became hard to step back and see the big picture. I was so anxious to see what the entire day was going to look like. Would the details that we'd come up with really going to pay off, and would our guests think they were as cool as we did? I couldn't WAIT to see everything and everyone come together. It almost felt like it was never going to happen. I feared that something wouldn't go as planned. It's been my experience, with most events, that there's bound to be a hiccup somewhere. Murphy's Law rears its ugly head somewhere and things don't go exactly as planned.... what would that detail be that didn't pan out? Right before bed I took one last stroll outside around the grounds of the Cass House. I walked down the lawn where we'd be married, and around to the opposite side of the house where our reception would be. The calm before the storm. A chilly central California coast night. I was glad that we upped the amount of heaters we needed. That walk around the house got me so excited, and made me realize that no matter what - if Murphy's Law bites us in the ass, everything will still be okay - we will still get married, and that's the most important element of the day.