....The Ugly Part Deux

Where was I, oh yes, I had just found out what my future husband had done on his bachelor party, broken down sobbing, and then his mother called asking why were were not at the rehearsal dinner spot. I was upset and not exactly wanting everyone to notice my tears and red eyes. So i took a few minutes to calm down, and then we had to be on our way.

Did I mention where our rehearsal dinner was taking place? This is the whole reason why it was so important that we weren't late.....

So despite my wanting to discuss the situation more, I was forced to dry my tears and walk out to the doc and board our rehearsal dinner cruise!


Once we were on board I decided to drown away the emotions of the day with wine. I had a lot of it. The Man's parents had graciously paid for our rehearsal dinner to be on the boat, and by graciously I mean, you had to have a party of at least 50 people, so they invited all the out of town guests, the bridal party and Significant others, along with whomever I wanted to invite.

It felt like a mini-wedding, without the ceremony, flowers, and dress.

The Man's mother had bought some vases and shells to decorate the table. unfortunatly I am a bad blogger and did not think to bring my camera to document. Sorry!

The dinner cruise was lovely. The food was great, we were with friends, I was slipping into the peacful happiness of my wine and finally relaxing and forgetting about the drama that was the day before my wedding when all of a sudden the cruise was over. In reality it was several hours long but the time seemed to fly by!

The Man's father told all the guests we were having an "afterparty" and told everyone where to meet up. So I was forced to go and drink some more.

I went up to my room to get something and the Man followed me up there. He had been drinking pretty heavily that night as well, to get rid of the pre-wedding jitters. He had drank hard liquor all night wich we know is never a good idea for him to do. That coupled with the crapy day we both had, the emotions of getting married errupted and we had a fight. Again.

It was pretty intense and to make matter worse, we couldn't have a conversation without someone blowing up the Man's phone every 5 seconds wondering where he was. which made him madder and we had an all out brawl.

Now, I know this all sounds horrible, but to put it in perspective the Man and I HARDLY ever fight. In fact, i think I can cound on one hand the amount of fights we have had. Ever. So for us to be at each others throats and fighting so much was very unlikely and out of character for us. Emotions get to everyone and everyone handles them differently. Be prepared for the unexpected!

The Man eventually calmed down and we had a discussion and then he left to go back to the house for the night. I had planned on staying at the hotel with my girls, and boy did I need them after that fight.

This certainly was NOT how I was expecting to spend the evening before my wedding.

Were you thrown any emotional curveballs right before your wedding?

.......The Ugly

I had been waiting for the man to arrive home so we could go to the rehearsal together. He was going to be cutting it pretty close, when I recieved a call from him on the phone. The guys and him had decided that they better just head to the rehearsal because they didn't have the time to meet me at the house. They were already on their way there while I sat at home waiting. While I sat there waiting the last 10 minutes I knew we were going to be late, but at least we'd be late together. And now instead of that, I was going to be the one coming in late. Good thing our rehearsal was not at a church!

20 minutes.

That is how late I was to my own rehearsal.

I ran into traffic and still had to drop off my cake topper at the Bakers along the way. I just couldn't seem to get there everyone was in my way.

When I got there, the man was out in the parking lot waiting for me. He needed his clothes. We couldn't check into our room until 4:00pm, so he changed right there, in my car, in the parking lot. I know, we are ghetto.


As soon as I walked inside the wedding coordinator came up to me and started asking me all sorts of questions, and I just burst into tears. I was upset about the Man not being there to help me with all the stuff, being late, and fighting with the Man and it just came rushing out of me like a floodgate I had let open up.

I guess I couldn't handle the pressure. After my cry, i got to work discussing the line up with the wedding coordinator and she went out and told everyone it was time to begin the rehearsal.

The rehearsal went well after that. We did our thing, and I forgot why the Man and I had been fighting to begin with, I was happy to be there with him, and I couldn't wait to marry him.

After the rehearsal I tried to check into our room. In case you didn't notice, I said "Tried." And so it began the check in from Hell- the hotel was so unorganzed it wasn't even funny. here I am, the bride, trying to check into my room for the night and they were giving me a hard time- telling me I had to pay. When the reality of the matter was that this particular hotel made you pay for your room upon booking. Yep, I had charged it and paid for it waaaaayyyy back when I booked it in January. I don't know about you but I don't carry my credit card statements with me in my purse, in fact, since I had already paid for the room, I didn't even bring my normal credit cards. I kept explaing to her that I Already had paid. Then I got pissed and told her I was NOT paying for the room again. She finally understaood that I already paid for it and gave me my key. This was the case for EVERY SINGLE one of our guests who checked in. They all were told they hadn't paid for it, when really they had!

I went up to the room with MOH Cooper, The Man, my parents and my grandmother. We hung out up there until it was time for the rehearsal dinner. This is the part of the story I don't like.

As we were getting into the elevator, I couldn't keep my hands to myself, and I grabbed the Man's butt. He winced in pain. I asked him if he got hit with a paintball there, and he said no, something else, and he'd tell me later. I didn't want to know later, I wanted to know right then.

We told everyone else to go ahead and we returned to the room.

I asked him what happened and he told me I wasn't going to like it. And he was right. I didn't. I really didn't. He told me the truth so i give him points for that, but apparently they went to a strip club. I am not a fan of strip clubs, but i guess I probably would have understood if they had just gone there to watch. However, his groomsmen had paid big bucks for the stripper/exotic dancer, what ever you want to call her, to bring him on stage, strip him down to his boxers, and beat him with his belt. And then he showed me the battle wounds. A purple behind, all bruised.

Two nights before our wedding you do this? You are telling me about it right before the rehearsal dinner? I guess finding out about it right before the dinner was my own fault since I needed to know, but this was something I just was NOT expecting from My Man.

I'm not going to lie, I was really really really upset and pissed, I cried-sobbed actually, I messed up my makeup. It sucked.

I realized while it probably was not his choice to go there and have that happen, it is kind of hard for men to stand up and say they don't want to do it when all their guy friends are there egging them on. However, I believe it went too far and I was upset that HE let it get that far. And I don't think having a bachelor party is an excuse to do these types of things- I don't think getting on stage in your boxers and letting some women beat you, dance on you or other- is ever appropriate and I was HIGHLY dissapointed.

Then his phone started ringing and it was his mother asking where we were and saying we needed to get to the rehearsal dinner site pronto.

Anyone else have a tramatic finding right before a big event? what did you do to hold it together?

The Good, The Bad......

We were in the home stretch week right before our wedding, unbeknown to me- the man was getting crap from all the guys at work about getting married, and it was wearing on him. He didn't tell me how he was feeling, he just kept it all bottled up inside because men don't have emotions, ever, or that's what the Man would have you believe.

Really he was having a little freak out over getting married, because for him it was finally starting to feel real. Really real. And since the wedding was right around the corner it was time for his men to step up to the plate and throw him his bachelor party. And by right around the corner before they threw him his party, I mean Thursday night, as in two days before the wedding.



I wasn't pleased about the bachelor party being so close to the wedding, but the Man actually wanted it to be close so that all the guys could just travel down on Thursday before the wedding and not have to make another trip down for the party. In my opinion, I would NOT suggest having the bachelor party right before the wedding.

I knew what the bachelor party was to consist of, or so I thought, but in reality I was only told what they wanted me to know. The guys party began at 10:00am on Thursday when they picked the Man up for breakfast and then they were off to play some paintball down in Albany. The guys had rented out the whole place to themselves and planned on being there for several hours. After that, they were supposed to go to one of the groomsmen's places for a cookout and a bon fire where they were planning on drinking. Heavily. They were all staying at this place so no one had to worry about drinking and driving.

What they didn't tell me was the thing they did in the middle of the day, but like me, you're going to have to wait to find out about that.

The Man stayed up drinking and having a good time with the guys all night that he forgot to call me. I have to say, I was somewhat annoyed, especially since I called him when I got "home" from my bachelorette party the previous weekend. But I figured he must have been REALLY drunk and I figured I'd just talk to him in the morning since I didn't want to be That Girl who calls him in the middle of his bachelor party.

Friday morning comes and MOH Cooper surprised me at the house. She came to help me. At the time I was thinking that it was really sweet of her to do, but the Man would be home and we'd just pack up his truck with all our wedding stuff as planned. However, I was glad to have someone to hang out with.

I knew the Man must have had a late night and I knew he had to be up and leaving for Albany by 11:00am at the latest with the guys the pick up the tuxes. I hadn't heard from him all morning and it was driving me nuts.

Around 12:30 I got a call from the Man saying that they were down there, running late, and having problems with one of the tuxes not fitting and that he'd be back soon.

At this point MOH Cooper suggested we pack our cars with the wedding stuff in case he didn't make it back until right before the rehearsal which began at 3:00pm. I thought it was a good idea so we went ahead and did that, minus the edible favors which we didn't want to melt.

After packing the car, I decided I definitely had to start getting ready because I knew it would take awhile. As soon as I stepped out of the shower The man was blowing up my phone again, saying things were taking forever and asking if I would please iron the clothes he wanted to wear. MOH Cooper got right on that for me, which was awesome. About half an hour later he calls again, this time saying they had stopped at this place along the way for hot towel shaves.

I lost it. They were hardly going to make it to the rehearsal by three if they hadn't stopped there, let alone the fact that he needed to stop home first to get me and his change. He said since he was riding with the Groomsmen he didn't really have an option, which I understood, but WHY wouldn't they shave previously? Why was it so important to stop and do that now when they were already running late? I was annoyed, I was aggitated, and really I just wanted to see the Man.

He called me back a little while later saying that the shaving was taking longer and now he wouldn't even have time to stop at home, he was just going to the site and asked me to bring his clothes and meet him there. This was really annoying to me. I understood that things were not working out for him the way he planned, but really he Forgot that we had to bring all the wedding stuff, and if MOH Cooper hadn't been so amazing, I would have been freaking out because it certainly was not all fitting in my little car, and since i had sat around waiting for him and still had to stop at the bakers to drop off the cake topper, now I was going to be late. Me, the one who had been ready and waiting for him for like an hour.

My irritation carried over the phone call and we had a fight right there on the phone. I blame his lack of consideration on the fact that he was nervous about the wedding, the annoying men at work freaking him out about marriage, and also the lack of sleep from the night before. Whatever it really was, we were not getting along nicely.

And then I had to go meet him at the place of our wedding and practice our ceremony when really I wanted to kill him.

okay, kill is a strong word, but I was HIGHLY annoyed. This annoyance got worse when I got to the place and he hadn't gotten the money to pay our officiant (which I had asked him to do since we had to pay her in cash and I didn't have time to stop and get it since I was now running late)...
things were not running smoothly.

but you know what they say, the road to happiness is not always smooth.

Did you have any bumps along the way?

Weddings = Emotional Stress

Planning a wedding takes a lot of time, thought, DIY, compromise and money. Naturally one may become stressed from all the decision making, emotions, questions and parties that one has to attend. Parties don't sound stressful, but they certainly can be when you are the center of attention and it's something you have never liked to be, however, I digress. This is not a post about how stressed I was feeling, remember- I was feeling calm. This is not a post about the bride and how stressful wedding planning was for me.

This is a post about how sometimes you forget just how stressful a wedding can be for other people. I wasn't sure if I was going to write about this issue, but despite how I'm feeling about putting it all out there, I think it is important for others to know that weddings aren't all rainbows and butterflies.

I was feeling really great right before our wedding. I had a whole YEAR (a little over a year) to plan the wedding. My groom made it pretty clear from his lack of involvement that he was happy to let me do whatever I wanted for the wedding. I didn't mind at first, and I tried to get him involved, but I lost him at colors. After that, most of the decisions that were made were mine. I would ask him what he thought, and would always get "whatever you want." And so it was a lot of what I wanted, the Man just didn't care and I got it. The wedding, specifically how the wedding looked, was not his thing. But it was mine. I planed my little heart out, I planned lots of DIY projects, I scoured the internet for hours everyday for something, anything, wedding related. I became a little obsessed, but in a good way not a bridezilla way.

Along the way, I had some mini-freak outs. Like the time when I couldn't sleep for weeks because of anxiety I was feeling and sat up half the night worrying if marriage was the right choice for me, If I wanted to be a wife, be tied down, start a family and play that role. The point is, I recognized that although I loved the Man and couldn't wait to marry him, I was scared. Not once did I doubt my love for him or the fact that I wanted to spend my life with him, but I was nervous. Really nervous. And then I realized that I was being silly. I was happy, I loved the man, I wanted to spend my life with him, and nothing was really going to change between us. We would still be us. I would still be me, but we would be married, we would have a silly piece of paper to say we were husband and wife, but that didn't mean we were going to change, it didn't mean we were going to be boring, it didn't mean we were going to be that couple, because we were still going to be us, only better.

I had planning the wedding to help me sort through these feelings. They came at different times during the planning process and I was overwhelmed but glad I had projects to work on to keep me busy and also to make me realize this was happening, we were getting married and I was so grateful to have found the one.

What I didn't realize was that the Man, who never shows his emotions like I do, was having some emotional stress himself. The Man lives his life spontaneously most of the time. He doesn't plan ahead-ever. So when he asked me to marry him, although he wanted to marry me, he didn't really picture it happening then. It wasn't something he needed to think about until closer to the date. The Man wasn't involved in the wedding planning (by choice)and because of that and the way he is he didn't have time to get used to the idea that the wedding was creeping up slowly, but creeping nonetheless. And I didn't realize behind his stubborn "Manly" exterior he was probably having some emotions flow through him as much as I was. On top of the normal emotions that occur when you are about to get married, the Man had his co-workers causing more problems for him.

I should point out that the Man works as an electrical lineman-meaning he creates power lines and works on power lines. His job is highly stressful, very dangerous, and sometimes requires the man to work away from home. A lot of the linemen that he works with are (bitterly) divorced because their wives cheated on them, left them for someone else because they weren't around, or the lack of being around caused the split and the wife usually took them for all they were worth in the split. These men are not pro-marriage, they are the opposite, they will tell you "not to do it" and that "marriage ruins everything" and that "marriage changes everything" and then they will tell you the horror story that is their life. I didn't realize it at the time, but they were there with the Man all week, telling him not to get married, and giving him their unwanted advice.

The man took it all in, and then he broke.

Up next, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

How did your man deal with the emotions involved with having a wedding?

The end of single days- Part Two

If you missed how we started out the day you can check it out here. We had a blast but it was time to go and while all of my guests went from the Saratoga Race Track to Bridesmaid Partner In Crime's(PIC- for short) pad, MOH Cooper and I snuck off to get some grub. We arrived back at PIC's house with plenty to go around.

There is nothing quite like sharing a slice, a beer, and memories with old friends. Memories of single days, college days, carefree days-- we shared. It was great to remember those days and brought on tons of laughter at ourselves for being so young and silly.

After we demolished dinner we got ready to go out. It didn't take long for us to get ready to go downtown, as most of us wore the same outfits as we had on earlier.......but my bridesmaids had a few gifts for me to wear up their sleeves.

My friend Sherri, Aka Shikira, hadn't been drinking so she kindly offered to cart us around all night.

Do you notice the crown on my head? It was a gift from the girls and it said "bride to be." It was sparkly and fun. Speaking of fun, there is Bridesmaid PIC (in the black) and My Friend A, having a blast back there on the way to the bars.

only in Saratoga can you be stopped at a red light, turn to your right and see this:

The picture is a little dark, but the horse was pulling a buggy behind it. Yes, that really does happen.

Once we got to the bar someone decided shots were in order.

but I didn't get to have one of those. Oh, no. The bartender made me a special "shot"

Here I am sporting my pretty pink sash, my beaded shotglass necklace, my tiara and my CUP of shot. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't good, and the girls made me chug it. ugh.

Immediately following the cup of shot, my friend R handed me a drink, and then she handed me another. Things were getting a little bit silly.

I was feeling the shot and had two huge drinks to finish and it was getting hot in there.

Next thin I knew some guy was all up on me dancing. i humored him and did a funny dance with him, and then I introduced him to Sherri, AKA Shakira. And by introduce I mean, pushed him over to her. Once she "Met" him they had a little dance off. I think She won.

I love the look on the face of the girl in the backround in the white, it's just so funny.

It got super hot in that bar and I decided I needed some air. Once I stepped outside, I did not want to go back inside. So We gathered everyone up and headed across the street for some drinks on the patio.

We met up with a Bachelor Party and he was getting married on the 8th just like me.

We hung out with those boys all night. Mostly I hung out with said bachelor's cute father who has been married for 40 years and he gave me marriage advice all night. Of course, I don't remember any of it because of the cup of shot and the drinks that followed afterwards.

All in all, we had a low-key (which is just what I wanted) fun night. I realized that this was the last time i'd be out single with the girls, and it made me happy. I couldn't wait to marry my man and say sianarra to single days. Don't get me wrong, being single can be great, but this chica was ready to be married already!

The end of single days- Part One

About a week before my wedding, my girls threw me my bachelorette party.

I had spoken to MOH Cooper about what I wanted to do, and since I had some under 21 girls in my bridal party, I thought we would start out doing something they were able to do too.

We began the day, at my favorite place to be in Saratoga in the Summer... the Track. My love of gambling and horses will always steal my heart.

One of my sweet friends got her butt up early(like super early) and drove all the way from Albany to Saratoga to get to the track before 8:00am to save a spot for us for the day. And save a spot she did! She had placed a few plastic tablecloths down, and some craft letter that said "Congratulations Courtney" and then lots of glitter. It was so super sweet. However, I didn't even think to get a picture of it before we ruined it with our portable chairs.

I was gifted with a T-Shirt from the bridal party earlier in the week that had our names at the top, a cute picture of a bride and groom, and then our wedding date on the bottom. I gladly put on my cute t-shirt for the day. What I didn't realize was that most of the bridal party had purchased the same cute shirt- and some of my friends who were even attending the bachelorette party had bought them. Team Bride here we come.

As soon as everyone had arrived, MOH gifted me with a Vera Bradly coin purse* with tons'o'money inside. There was a pocket on the front and she had printed out a sign to go in it that read, "Bridal Loot." EVERYONE (bridal party and friends) had contributed to the "Bridal Loot" and it was something completly sweet and unexpected.

We gambled our little hearts out all day, I won on one race with an Exacta Box(you pick the 1st place and 2nd place horses), the winning on that race was pure luck- I bet on the horses named "together forever" and "Carribean Sunset" in honor of my wedding and honeymoon to the carribean. And they came in and I won a little money but none of us were big winners.

The fellow seated next to us, Rob, hit it big and won $2,000. yep, two grand. He bought us a round of pina coladas aftr my sweet friend Sherri went over and coaxed him into it.

After the excitement died down, and the races were over, we headed over to Bridesmaid Partner in Crime's appartment (which she graciously let us use all night) for some pizza and pre-gaming.

Up next, our night out on the town!

*This is not my coin purse, but it was similar to this-and very cute.

Excuse me, can I get a program

There really is a good excuse as to why it's been forever and a day since I've blogged. I fell off the blogging trend in all the excitement that was my life----don't worry you'll all get to hear aboout it, you may just have to wait a little while. BUT first, I'm going to pick off where I was... Programs.

Now, I was stuck on these babies for quite some time. And then I just realized they don't have to be perfect, they don't have to be beautiful, they just have to be us. I focused on creating a template in Microsoft word and then before I knew it, they came to me.


I used light Grey Cardstock I bought from paperandmore, and cut it in half horizontally with my paper cutter. On the front cover I put our names, the date, the place and address. Oh and I bought an image from I Stock Photo and I cropped it and put the butterflies you see there on the front as well. It went so nicely with my butterfly theme.


For the inside, I used pink printer paper which I also bought at paperandmore.com (LOVE that store) and I cut in half horizontally and printed on the front and back of 1 page, giving me essentially 4 pages. It took a little working around to figure out which thing went where so that it would show up where I wanted it to, but I used some practice paper, so no pink paper was lost.I had to trim this paper on each side by 1/4 inch so that it would sit in the cover and not poke out.

I had four pages inside: The first one gave the ceremony order (which is what I had the most trouble with and I asked MOH Cooper to see hers, she kept it simple so I decided I would do that as well). The next two were the Bridal Party and parent Names. Since we had SO many I decided to break it up as "The women" on one side and "The Men" on the other, I of course labeled the moms and dads as mother of the bride, mother of the groom, ect.


Once you flip the the next page, you would see the Remembrance of loved ones past. I just wrote a short blurb about having our grandparents that had passed there in spirit although not in body and how they were important to us. I just wrote from the heart.

On the inside grey cover (the last page) I wrote a Thank you to our parents. It was beautiful. I ment every word of it, although, I'll be honest, I found the wording online, on someone elses page, but they seriously took the words right out of my mouth. It went a little something like this:


Your love and support goes beyond any we have ever seen, and more than we could have ever asked for. Who we have become, what we believe, and our ability to look towards a wonderful future together as husband and wife come from all that you have instilled in us. You have given us extraordinary examples of how to live, love, laugh, forgive, forget, and persevere. Throughout our lives, you have given us all that you could, and then, amazingly, more. Thank you very much for making this day possible. We love you with all our hearts.

On the back page, I posted the other half of the istockphoto image I purchased and a Thank you to our guests over that.
I used a 1/8" puncher I bought on clearance at walmart to poke two holes and string the ribbon through. In all honesty, the 1/8" was Really tiny and I wished it had been bigger. It made it super hard to get the ribbon through, but I did eventually and then I tied a pretty bow.

I made about 50, which was half of the guests, and I even had some left over.