The weather on Friday morning. Damp, dewy, cool.

Still adjusting to the manicure. (Even today, I'm still adjusting to texting with it.)

Trader Joe's for flowers. My plan: buy a bunch of bouquets that were roughly in my color scheme. At Trader Joe's, they are about $3.99 a bouquet. Divide them up. Start anew. My budget: $150. The price we were looking at when we were going to go to a florist: $400-500. Ah, but I worked in a florist shop for years as a teenager. I figured I knew how to arrange some flowers. Despite the best efforts of half of my other vendors, I was not intimidated. (If you're wondering, the final tally was $70. You'll see the results shortly.)

We went to a second Trader Joe's for for variety, and then Meijer for good measure.

The flowers waited in the car while we stopped for breakfast at Hardee's/

My assistant florist had a lot of input about what flowers worked together.

My bouquet, in progress.

Ta-daaa!

My other florist assistant was also helpful.

I made bridesmaid bouquets special for each one. Left to right: my sister's MOH bouquet, Nikki's, Granny's, Renee's.

Nikki's.

Mine.

Katie's.

Granny's.

Katie's.

Nikki's.

Katie's.

They ended up safe and sound in my mom's fridge overnight.

And on to the rehearsal. It was interesting. Rebecca (Julie Andrews) led it, and it was weird and kind of pointless because the room that it was in was nothing like the actual ceremony room, and we went through the beginning, middle, beginning again, end, middle, beginning again...I spent the rest of the night and the next day fielding questions from people that the rehearsal had created. Even I was clearer before it. Everyone left with questions. It was weird, stressful, and confusing. It was supposed to last half an hour. It lasted an hour and a half. Eric's mom was at the community center that we'd rented for the rehearsal dinner setting up and getting very lonely.

Rehearsal dinner.

And back to Granny's after the rehearsal dinner. Stay tuned fooorrrr...wedding day!

Full coverage of wedding week staaarts...tomorrow.

8 days, folks.

Everything is pretty much on hold right now, and it's safe to say that for the next week this blog will be a wedding blog more than anything else.

It's surreal to think that in 8 days, I'll be married. I'll be surrounded by everyone I love. I'll be a bride. I'll be walking down the aisle to my best friend. I'll be getting a cheese tray when I get dressed. And man, I really do love cheese trays.

My sister is doing my hair. She has a very scary contraption that does big, loose curls.

The contraption.

She came over to do a trial run, and even though I had used crappy shampoo and no conditioner that day and my hair was dry and crappy, it came out great.

My grandmother came over for it, too. She's one of my bridesmaids, which I know is technically strange, but my sister is one of my best friends and had to be my maid of honor...but my grandmother is way too close and important to me to not have a formal role in the wedding. Someone suggested that she could be the something "old" when I was looking for something old, new, borrowed, and blue. Hardy har har.

 

Any excuse to hang out with the nephews is a good one.

And speaking of the nephews...

I challenge you to find cuter ring bearers.

My mom is a photographer, and wanted to shoot the dress. I brought it to her while we were at church. She got some awesome pictures. Here we have the giddy bride hugging the garment bag full of dress. When you guys see this thing, you will know what I mean by "full of dress." Think Cinderella ballgown.

For a number of reasons (Natalie's nervous bladder, Violet's general anxiety, Java's issues overall), dogs in the wedding were a no-go. But needless to say, that had to be included somehow.

Enter: custom cake topper.

Eric spent hours working on the programs. I helped. We took them to family night with us to share with my mom and grandparents...and found an error. A critical error. A left-someone's-name-off error. And had to start all over again. ^%$#!@

We made kids' favors, with snacks, little toys, glow bracelets. We had to keep a couple glow bracelets for ourselves.

If there's a fridge in Indiana, we're probably on it.

My grandmother and stepmother both unleashed their inner hot stuff when shopping for outfits. Who knew?

Shoe shopping with my sister: one more good excuse to see my perfect nephews.

Best man getting fitted for his tux.

I'm determined to photograph every-damn-thing for the whole week-of. I've gone in the opposite direction lately, tired and stressed and busy and hardly photographing anything. I will start taking pictures of everything tomorrow.

Eight days.