Wow. What an insane few days. Since it has been insanely hectic the last couple of days, and rightfully so, there have been no posts on the site. Today, I intend to rectify this with a rather lengthy post about the wedding, reception, and part of the honeymoon. Here goes.
Friday I would have liked to have just chilled out at home, but the Compucollege graduation was on and as a member of staff, I had to be there. This was not such a bad event at all. We did the rehearsal in the afternoon which wasn?t too bad and then at 6, we had the actual ceremony. I was there right on time but forgot to bring my speech for one of the awards so I raced home, got it, and made it back in no time at all.
Got through the grad (which was very nice) and got home, and started working on some wedding stuff. Tamara had been working on the music for the ceremony and left me a note to do some work on that. I did. I got the music finalized and then proceeded to do the photo collage. A lot of photos on 3 pieces of Bristol board, and I must say, for someone who is not very crafty, it was a hell of a nice collage, if I do say so myself. I was up til about 1am or maybe later and then finally crashed and slept.
Got up around 8am or so and finished the collage. I only got about 1/3 of it done the night before. Once that was done, I got a few other things finalized and before I knew it, Ben was there. We talked for a bit as I got ready and then made our way down to the lodge. For those who didn?t know already, our actual wedding ceremony was very small and we had it at the Mapleton Park Rotary Lodge down in Mapleton Park. I got there, and there were a few people there but Tamara had not shown up yet. I stood outside and continued to be a little nervous but more worried about trying to remember my lines. I kept reciting them over and over again.
See, we decided that we wouldn?t have the minister say the vows first, and then us repeat them. We wanted to say them ourselves so it was harder, but worth it.
Tamara arrived, and I hid so she could go inside and get ready and then finally the moment came. Mom and Tiny went in. Jean & Mike went in, and then Valerie and Ben went in. I was pretty nervous but then the music started and there she was. See, she came down a set of steps to meet me at the bottom. She was almost in tears, and I was doing an ok job of holding them back myself. She looked so incredibly beautiful. I was just in awe. She got down, we walked to the center, and got some photos done and then it started.
The ceremony itself went off relatively easy and was probably the shortest I have been to. We did flub our lines a bit and need some prompting from the minister but that was ok because it still sounded good. Before we knew it, the ceremony was over, and we were on our way out the door.
We had a pile of photos taken there and then made our way down to Fair Haven to have more shots done. We got a lot of pictures taken there and are excited to see how they turned out. We did a sort of impromptu stop at some barn where the photographer thought it would look nice. Should be interesting to see. We then went down to Centennial Park and got more photos in the leaves, near the bridge and water, and others as well. Mine and Tamara?s favorite photo came out beautifully there. We were VERY impressed.
From there, we made our way to Pizza Delight in Riverview where we had some food. Everyone who was at the ceremony was invited to supper. It went ok with the exception of the food being a little slow on the delivery. Way too slow on the pizza being delivered to my plate. That?s ok as it was nice to get a good meal in before the reception.
We made a quick trip home to get my puffer, then to Mike?s to get some gift certificates (gifts) and then to the bank where Tamara needed to get some cash. Then, we got our asses to the reception where the real party began.
To our surprise, there were a LOT of people in costume. I knew that Chris was going as Shrek and I knew that there were going to be some in costume but I really did not expect that many to embrace the costume party. But, with that surprise, we sat down, and started the evening. As usual, we had the rounds of toasts and thank you?s and such. We had a little food and served the cake which allowed us to go around and see everyone. Once that was done, we had our first dance and the party began.
More and more people started showing up and I think we filled that hall pretty good. By around 9:30 we did the bouquet and garter toss with a twist. Months ago, I had come up with the idea that if I got to take something off of Tamara, she should get to take something off of me. So as a joke, we bought a shiny flashy pair of boxer shorts, and she crawled up my pant leg and yanked those off. The crowd got a real good kick out of it.
The rest of the evening was all about photos, friends, and family. I tried to get around and see everyone but it was so busy that I may have forgotten the odd one here and there and if I did, my apologies. I did manage to do one thing at the reception that I did not expect. I managed to find a way to avoid dancing the entire night, with the exception of the first two dances, and the very last one. The last dance (which was actually before midnight I think) was to Faith No More?s ?This Guys In Love with You? where I danced with Tamara, and sang it to her. The story behind this is one day I was in the car and started singing this to her and Tamara almost cried. I had said I would like to have this as our last song and she was good with it but didn?t expect me to serenade her on our wedding day. How nice eh? I thought so.
Sunday was gift opening day and we had the family over where we opened a pile of gifts. Got some much needed stuff. Pots & pans, knives, cordless phone, photo albums/frames, board game, and more. Lots of pictures there as well. By mid-Sunday afternoon, we were on our way to Halifax, in the rain.
We got there around suppertime and got slightly lost but made our way to the hotel where we went to see the casino, had some grub, and then went back to our room where we enjoyed the Jacuzzi.
Monday saw less rain and a bunch of shopping. Went into a pile of little shops around downtown Halifax which was pretty neat. Got a few posters and a pile of candy, but by that evening, we wanted to gamble. We sat at one Blackjack table at the casino for about 6 hours where between me and Tamara, we came out ahead by $75. Not bad. Btw, we also changed hotels that same day as the casino rates are too expensive and the other place we stayed at was VERY nice. Got back to the room, and crashed. Yesterday, we did very little save going to a fish store where Tamara bought some plants. Made our way home last night and then just took it easy. We got a pile of things to do this week and I have to work (sort of) this weekend so Saturday will be long.
All in all, a completely perfect wedding. The day of the ceremony and reception was perfect. Everything went off fine, and the weather was awesome. You could not have asked for a better day. I honestly believe it was meant to be because everything went off so perfectly. I am so happy about it all.
So what now? Well folks, the wedding pictures are coming. It will be a little while as I want to sort through the good and the bad. We took over 800 photos between the ceremony and reception and that doesn?t count what the photographer took. I?ll likely post a pile of them within the week or so but we?ll see. I?ve got a lot to go through.
For other news, I am on tech support this week at work in the mornings so that should be a little different for sure. I do have to get caught up with some work stuff and now that the wedding stuff is done, I can get back to studying. I need to get more tests done before Christmas. Plus, this module I have right now is not going so good as our Netware server has had a serious case of the flu since we installed her. Need to find better hardware to make her feel much better.
Website news. Some may have noticed a slight change in the Scribbles module. Had to update it since the software I use broke part of it. I also have to work on getting the site?s theme fixed. I hope to do that this week/weekend but we?ll see how time goes.
Beyond that folks, I think I have covered all for now. A huge thanks goes out to everyone who came and for those who couldn?t make it, I appreciate you letting me know or at least wanting to be there. It was an awesome day, and I hope everyone had a great time. I know I did.
