a wife called chuck: the morning of...

i've been married for almost 2 months, and have only posted one picture of the entire day, mostly due to my own laziness. i just recently got the proofs from our wedding photographer (AMAZING! i seriously could not be happier with the result - i can't emphasize enough (to anyone who may be reading this that is getting married) the importance of hiring a good photographer), and there are so many of them that i don't know if i'll ever get to look at each image individually, and i definitely know it's going to be nearly impossible to pick my "favorites" -

i figured before any pictures of the actual wedding itself made it on here that i should at least give a little glimpse into how crazy the hours leading up to it were (crazy is an understatement. i feel like someone slipped me a roofie, because i hardly remember anything that happened from the hours of 10 a.m. until i was actually saying my vows). these were shot the morning of the day of our wedding while we were all getting ready in the suite - they were taken by a family friend (the wonderful nellie hopper!), and she captured some really cute moments - i'm glad she was there to do so, cause none of the rest of us in that suite were in the right frame of mind to even operate a camera (and if someone had handed me one at the time, i probably would have thrown it at someone)....so without further delay, i present to you, my wedding day....

the view from my suite, also known as "the nicest, biggest, most ridiculous hotel room i ever have or ever will stay in," but we will just call it the "bridal suite" for short...

my matrons of honor, "the kims," without which i would have never made it through the day. I'm pretty sure it was right about this time was taken that it started raining outside....the looks on their faces are a mixture of "maybe she won't notice" and "oh shit, she's going to flip out" - my reaction was...well....maybe not as epic as one would expect, but i did sort of freak (luckily, the rain moved out quickly, but having the weather channel send "severe thunderstorm" and "flash flood" warnings on my phone every 5 minutes didn't help the situation...the texts might as well have said "MOTHER NATURE HATES YOU, AND THE BITCH IS GONNA FLOOD THE BROOKS MUSEUM AND RUIN YOUR DAY!")

my grandfather, who was smart enough to stick his head in the door, survey the situation, and run away as quickly as he could, unscathed.

the next two are of mom and lesa, our fabulous Trish McEvoy makeup artist. she made everyone look incredible, and i'm so glad we found her!

hey, look! there's my dad's back! the look on my mom's face says "isn't there something else very important that you should be doing right now?" - and there probably was....

this is me, getting my hair done by mrs. melinda - she did everyone's hair, and she was an angel for doing so! fun fact: she gave me my very first hair cut, and until i moved away from home to go to college, she is who did my hair - i couldn't think of anything more fitting than for her to be the one doing my hair on my big day.

the dude in the picture is wes, the best man. you have probably caught on that he brought me these flowers, which were from my soon-to-be husband. later, gene would remark at how silly it probably was for him to send me flowers since, well, we were leaving the country the next day and obviously i couldn't take them with me, but i was ecstatic to get them. while this picture was being taken, wes was telling me about my wedding gift (which, if you've read some of my previous posts, you've seen the finished product of), and why it wasn't actually there that day....

....and here it is, ladies and gentlemen - the first of many appearances of CRY FACE. it made more than its fair share of appearances on my wedding day, and believe me, i wasn't happy about it, but there wasn't much i could do. people always warn you that you will be uber emotional on your wedding day, but i didn't believe them.....now i do...i seriously would burst into tears at the drop of a hat, totally compromising my wedding photos...stupid cry face.

of course, when cry face comes around, someone has to deal with the aftermath. so glad that lesa was still there to fix it! the other gal in this picture is my brother's girlfriend austin. she had her own disaster that day, but i was preoccupied and missed it - apparently she had gone somewhere to have her hair done, and ended up with some strange faux hawk or something....at some point i heard the door of the suite open, followed by the sound of people gasping and a girl crying - the next time i saw austin, her hair looked great (thanks to mrs. nellie!), so i totally missed what the fuss was all about...it's like the loch ness monster of hair disasters - i've heard tale of what others saw, but i don't have any actual first hand proof.....she ended up looking fabulous though, so everything worked out fine.

putting in my veil - this, coupled with the putting in of that damn headband was probably the most stressful part of getting ready - for some reason there was this one tiny part of my hair that just wouldn't cooperate - mrs. melinda finally got it though, and thank goodness she did, cause i'm too OCD about my hair for words (ask my wedding photographer - he and i made a deal at the rehearsal dinner that i wasn't allowed to touch my hair at all at the wedding, or he could cut pieces off my dress)