It's all in the details, part 1

So I realize that I have yet to post documentary photos on the different parts of the wedding, but I was thinking about the details of the day and wanted to highlight some of the little things. Here's a compilation of some of the details of the getting ready & ceremony time that make me smile (the image is big, so feel free to click on it to see it original size).

From left to right, top row: 

• our bagpiper (a friend of my father's) outside the church
• the aisle after we'd walked down it & the church had emptied (the little paper hearts have Shakespeare quotes and came from this Etsy shop)
• the guys' great boutonnieres from Ambrosia Gardens, complete with tiny starfish
• my bouquet of blue hydrangea & Queen Anne's lace, just after I made it (pretty much the only time it looked fresh & awesome)

Bottom row: 

• a close-up of our pew decorations (I went with silk hydrangeas so as not to worry about keeping them in water overnight & I think they looked fine!)
• my husband's cuff links that have an excerpt from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (from this Etsy shop)
• our blue shoes side by side

All photos but pew decoration one are by Molly Dixon.

Just before the beginning . . .

I'll be writing a post soon about Justin's & my first three dates, because a friend reminded me the other day of how funny they were. Now that I've set them up like that, of course, you'll be expecting side-stitching anecdotes. That, I cannot promise you. However, we did have a few funny things happen, so I'll share them and you can laugh or not.

But before I do that, I wanted to share this post that I wrote on my primary blog back in April of 2008. If any of you know Justin, pay careful attention to the way I describe my Mr. Right. I met Justin about a month later. :)

More to Come

I know I haven't posted in a little while, but I swear to you - I have something like 20 posts drafted, 5 of which were started in the last week. So, there will be many more posts, with lots more photos, coming your way. In the meantime, I had to share these great comics from Wondermark. Click on them to make them bigger & make the text easier to read. They go together, so be sure to read the top one first. Enjoy!

Cupcakes!

Love this Dinosaur Comics strip about wedding cupcakes. If you can't read the text, click on it to make it bigger. In the last panel, T-Rex refers to cupcakes as "the most delicious fad of all time." :) I agree! Just look at this close-up of our wedding cupcakes. Yummmmmm.

Pub Crawlin'

"Do you know some secret I don't know about avoiding hangovers?"

"Oh, I don't think that's a good idea at all."

"Oh boy."

Those were some of the responses we got to the statement that we wanted to host a pub crawl in Portsmouth the night before the wedding. The thing was - we had a lot of friends coming in from out of town on Friday (including 7 Canadians who got up early & drove down from Prince Edward Island that day) and we wanted to spend a little time with them before the craziness of the wedding day. AND, if any of you have ever been out in Portsmouth in the summer, it's brilliant. Great bars, a fun vibe, and quality late night food. We wanted to show it off a bit!

Our best man, bless his heart, took over the planning on the pub crawl, as we were up to our eyeballs with other wedding tasks. After calls to local bar managers, he carefully planned a list of three to four bars at which people could meet us, with attendant times and directions. He even created a Facebook event for it! Of course, life did its own thing, as it is wont to do, and we ended up totally scotching the schedule. Instead, we had a late-running rehearsal, a late-running rehearsal dinner, and just met everyone at the last (and best) pub, The Coat of Arms.

It ended up being one of those awesome nights where (intentionally) everyone you love is all in the same place - drinking together, making new friends, and laughing, a lot. I remember being overwhelmed by trying to talk to everyone who requested my presence, but also floating on a wave of joy (& Belhaven Scottish Ale).

Here are a few of my favorite photos - the first two are of my awesome college friends (known them for 10 years now!!!), the third is me and the groom-to-be, and the final is some of the wedding party taking a celebratory shot.

Now, despite all concerns, everything worked out fine. I gave myself a maximum number of shots that I was allowed to take (accidentally said "minimum" at one point, though) and I only exceeded that number by one. I ended up talking to so many people that I nursed just one or two beers the whole time we were there.

And, as Andrew said on the Facebook event page, "the fairy godmothers are going to be turning Justin and Stacey's carriages all pumpkin-like by midnight." And like good little doobies, we did head home around midnight. I spent a little time once we got home opening the fridge to say hi to the PEI lobsters that my friend brought down with him, though . . . try to picture that for a second. A slightly tipsy bride, continually opening the freezer door and cooing, "Hi, lobsters! Hi!"  Yeah. It was a great night. :)