Where was I?

Oh yeah...we had set the date, the condo went on the market, and it was up to me to plan a wedding!!

I asked my sister to be my matron of honor. She accepted

You may remember that we had decided to ask my friend, F, who is legally ordained, to perform the ceremony when I was in Oklahoma in May.

I came home from that trip and asked her, and she accepted.

Somewhere in the process, D also asked someone else to perform the ceremony. He told me about it after he did it, and then said "oops."
I was a little confused, but I was happy that he did it, because the person he asked was the woman who introduced us...C...a.k.a. The Universe.

As far as I knew, she was not ordained, so I told D; Ok....now we have invited TWO people to officiate, and they will just have to figure out who is going to do what between themselves.

At first he apologized, but it was all good.

I then suggested D ask M, the husband of our second officiant, to be his best man, and to take pictures of the ceremony and reception. He thought that was a grand idea, and he took care of that detail.

I sat at the computer and typed out the basic outline he and I had come up with, and sent it to the two people who would be officiating, with the instructions that they get together on it, via email, and make it work.

One thing I could stop worrying about.

Then, I decided to do a very informal type of reception (by way of an appetizer pot luck, with the guests providing food for all of us), and a very informal invitation.

My sister and brother in law had practically begged me to have a party on the wedding day, and that became the basic plan for the reception.

The invitation text was sent to D's brother to do the graphics (and I managed to use the wrong zip code for the party address), and he returned the end product via an email attachment.

He used a lovely art deco style font, added some clip art, and it looked perfect. After I had him correct my typos, of course!

I had asked for a full size version for emailing to friends, but I never got that...so the friends who were invited via email got a miniaturized version, that appeared twice on their screen. Sideways.

This was because what they were looking at was intended to be printed out onto a sheet of paper and cut in half to make two paper invitations!

I have never quite been sure why I never got the full size version, but time was passing, and I couldn't wait any longer to start inviting people.

So, the double mini invites worked OK for some of the email people, who could open the attachment and see the text well enough to read it. *rolls eyes* For those who couldn't see it, I replied to their bewildered emails with "here's the text of what you couldn't see...come to our party!!"

For everyone else's invitations, I sent the image to F to print out on nice linen type paper for mailing.

For work, I just made photo copies of the two image sheet on the office copier, cut them, and put a stack in the lunch room.

Like I said, very informal.

For the ones that were mailed, I had gotten some linen colored note cards with envelopes, took the linen style paper invites, folded them up, and put them in the envelopes. I wrote the CORRECT zip code for the reception (for those using on-line mapping to get there) on the back of each envelope.

Done. One less thing to worry about.

Then, my sister and I started talking about the reception in greater detail. I had said that I would provide all of the champagne, and a wide selection of beers, preferably all locally produced, and Portillo's chocolate cake for the wedding cake,

The pot luck idea was being cheered as a great idea by people who had already gotten their invitations.
This was an idea that sprung up when my sister started talking about catering fees, and where would we put the rented "hot tables" and all of that....

I wanted simple and informal, and I simply could not AFFORD catering, so I drew the line and said "It's a pot luck. Period!"

My sister offered to rent champagne glasses and plates, and she borrowed tables and a tent from a neighbor.

Then, on their own, she and F went to a party store and got napkins, plastic cutlery, and a cake serving set for us for a gift. They also got table decorations.

I had not asked them to spend any money, or do any jobs, but they took these expenses and tasks upon themselves with great enthusiasm and relish, and they would not take no for an answer!
My sister insisted that, as matron of honor, she had to DO SOMETHING!

I had planned to do these things myself, but was, in the long run, relieved to have someone else taking care of some of the details.

My dress, which was being made by hand by my dear dance friend, P, was dark chocolate brown with a pattern that included sage green and tiger lily orange, so the theme was sort of tiger lilies, which bloom around here in abundance in July.

They got green napkins, but could not find the right shade, but that did not matter at all.

We discussed getting tiger lilies for the tables.

About a month before the wedding, my job was to go to my favorite liquor store, which I affectionately call booze-o-rama (Sam's wines and spirits), and select the bubbly beverages.

I bought a case of French champagne, and I selected several different varieties of local brews.
My sister and brother in law met me at the store, and we loaded everything in their car for them to take to their house in anticipation of the party.

One less thing to worry about.

Then, I tried to order the cakes, but the lady at Portillo's catering assured me that I did not need to order the cakes more than a couple of days in advance.

Yet another worry put to rest. At least temporarily.

Everything was done that could be until closer to the wedding.

I gave myself a couple of weeks to breathe. The RSVP's started coming in, and the dress was being made, and there was really nothing more I needed to do!

Next time, how I was treated at the florist, the dress, the henna party, some of the final details, and why I asked my ex father in law to walk me down the aisle!