Wedding: A Note

I was just contemplating these posts I’ve been making about the wedding.  I never meant for them to go on and on, or for there even to be multiples, but once I got going I felt the need to get it all down.  All the details.  Anything that mattered.  I guess it’s hard to let go.  You spend so much time, effort and thought on one day and then all you have left is your memory of it and a few pictures (which I have yet to see many of).  Where are all your pictures people!  Well, I guess you have the marriage too 😉

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Wedding: Pre-ceremony

Saturday morning I crawled out of bed around 8 (I think?).  Took a quick shower and tried to make my hair look a little nicer than usual.  After meeting Abby, Jessica, Becca and Phoebe at the church and getting things arranged there we all dispersed again.  The other girls headed for the reception hall and Jenn and I hit up CVS for some last minute supplies.  I had Jenn drive so I could eat my banana with peanut butter, and we had our first mishap of the day.  As we were pulling out, Jenn put the car into first a bit forcefully, and rammed her finger into the table knife she had put in the cupholder for me to use with the peanut butter.  She had put it knife end up in an attempt to keep it clean, and then I managed to drop it on the floor anyway 😦  No major damage done, but there was some blood and I’m sure plenty of pain.

After picking Darren (a good friend from Oregon) up from Miriam’s we stopped by my parents for a table cloth and band aids.  On to the reception hall where we set the 100+ glass pieces.  Phoebe, Jess and Becca filled the jars and vases with flowers while Abby and I placed them.  Jennifer and Darren tried out the piano and entertained us with some interesting variations on Andrew Lloyd Webber.  After a while they headed outside to put up signs to direct people through the tricky parts of getting to the hall.  Abby G. and Eder called and got directions to join us.  I think they showed up just as my bridesmaids and I were leaving.  It would be interesting to find out how things went after we left.  It’s a fascinating experience having this day come together that I oversaw the planning of.  I saw one piece of the puzzle, but there were whole other sections that I never really heard how they came together.  It felt good that I had put enough planning in that everything went smoothly without me.

The girls and I stopped by the church for a quick lunch made by a couple of Carol’s (my new mother-in-law) friends and planned by my mom.  I think I might have sat down for 5 minutes tops.  That’s part of the problem of having done almost all of the planning myself; it was easier to just take care of the little details than try and describe them to someone else.  The photographer arrived and I remember being surprised at how young he was.  We had never actually met.  He’s from Michigan and I had found him on craigslist.  I was picturing him in his late 40s maybe early 50s.  I think he was closer to mid-30s.  He and his wife who was assisting him were friendly and a joy to work with.

We were a little late heading over to the hair salon, and when we arrived we realized that things were going to take alot longer than anticipated.  They had another bridal party in, so they only had one woman who could do updoes to work with us.  Thankfully, Jennifer and I had decided not to get our hair done, and I was the only one who needed to be back at the church by 2 because we were starting with family pictures.  I was sad that I wasn’t able to stay to see all the girls get their hair done, and that only Jennifer was able to help me get ready, but in the grand scheme, it wasn’t that big of a deal.  Meryl showed up at one point because she had been across the street at the Brew.  We did have about 45 minutes or so to hang out and chat while Jess was getting her amazingly beautiful long hair curled.

Jenn, the photographer, his wife and I all headed back to the church around 1:45.  While I was getting ready in the nursery, Phoebe came in to tell me that the boutonnières had accidentally been put in the freezer, but that she was going to remake them!  Ok, no problem, if worse comes to worse, there just won’t be boutonnieres,  not the end of the world, the girls won’t take their bouquets with them for pictures, I was toying with that idea any way….breath. Mom came in and we had a moment 🙂  Awww… I’m her baby, and the last to get married.  I can’t imagine what that must have felt like for her.

Pictures with the families were one of the most stressful parts of my day.  It took quite a while to get everyone organized just to start, especially because people were late and ties had to be put on etc.  I think I was also stressed out about the girls getting done in enough time to get ready to do pictures outside.  breath… it’s ok, there will be plenty of time, you’re not going to make this go any faster by getting upset… breath There was one particular moment before pictures started when I was rushing around doing last minute things (like leaving the marriage license on the back pew so Mary, Mike and I could sign it right before the ceremony) and trying to figure out where everyone was that sticks out to me.  Jono, Drew and Nathan were hanging out in the foyer as I came sweeping by on some mission or other.  Jono stopped me and said “Stephanie, you should know that you look amazing right now” as the other two nodded their agreement.  awwwwwww… I think I hit new levels of red as I blushed.  Once they got going, pictures went smoothly other than Shemaya being a bit fussy.  Another nice moment was when I saw Mike for the first time that day.  He looked really handsome (of course) and it reminded me what this whole experience was about.  It helped me calm down alot.

After the family pictures were done, I tracked down the bridesmaids who were almost ready and finishing up with the last touches.  I went down to the kitchen where phoebe was hurriedly putting together boutonnières.  I started wrapping the bouquets with ribbon and Phoebe finished up with the men’s bouts just as I was finishing up with the bouquets.  It was kind of fun having a small hand in putting together my girl’s flowers.  And it was a time for me to stop rushing around and do something.  I felt badly because I knew that I had “disappeared” without telling anyone where I was, but I figured they’d find me.  My bridesmaids showed up about the time I finished and I had them take their bouquet and their respective man’s bout and track the guys down.  I found out later they had been taking pictures in the sanctuary.  Boutonnières were pinned and we were ready to roll.

The bridal party, Mike and I and the photographer and his wife drove over to the college where we made use of it many aesthetically pleasing locations to take some sweet pictures.  I can’t wait to see how they turn out.  We even got a few in front of the science building where Mike and I first met as chemistry partners.  Sadly I didn’t bring along a pair of lab goggles like I had been think of 😉

Then back to the church for a quick wait before the ceremony.  Oh! and about that time my Evanston babies showed up.  They looked SO cute in their little outfits.  Kate was talking up a storm.  Unfortunately, Owen had just woken up from a nap and it became clear very quickly that he wasn’t going to be walking down the aisle.  I hadn’t really expected them to, but I knew they would look super cute, and I thought there was a small chance if they were in a good mood.  I got to hang out with them briefly before my bridesmaids and I took a few pictures at the front of the church.  Then we went to one of the classrooms to hang out.  I remember going up to the door at the front of the church hoping to catch Darren in enough time to tell him to blow out the candles as he left because he’d be one of the last ones out.  I caught a bit of Beth playing Bach’s prelude from suite 1 for cello and realized that it was almost time for the family to start sitting down which meant it was almost time to start!

Wedding: The day before

It’s been just over two weeks since the wedding, so my memories are already getting a bit fuzzy. I loved it, I’ll always remember at least that much. Things were by no means perfect, but all the important stuff went just fine.

The whole weekend felt celebratory. I had friends coming from Oregon and Seattle that I hadn’t seen in quite a while. Several people were staying with me so the house was full. My bridesmaids threw me a bachelorette brunch on Friday morning. It was a relaxed time of good food (meadow tea, delicious sandwiches with curry mayo, and a chocolate fountain), a short skit, and embarrassing gifts. The girls went around the table and told about a significant memory of me/how we met. They all said alot of wonderful things about me. There’s nothing quite like a group of woman you love, respect and admire talking about what they admire in you. Then Abby, Jess, Becca and Abby G. and I all went and indulged in manicures and pedicures. What fun!

The first complication also came up in the morning. Becca made my display cake, and she had put together the smallest of the cakes that morning. Unfortunately it completely slide apart. We decided to go ahead and try and remake it, and I enlisted my sister Karis to make another set of 6 inch cakes, and Abby G. to run to Michael’s for more fondant. I figured if the other cakes slide apart as well, we just wouldn’t have a cake on display, and there would definitely be enough sheet cakes to go around. Maybe the caterers could bring out one of the sheet cakes for Mike and I to cut. I think I would have been a bit sad about that, but no biggy. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that. The cakes turned out lovely, and with a bit of ribbon at the bottom, and loads of beautiful flowers scattered around it was all I could have asked for. Mike and I took the 10 inch (chocolate, raspberry and ganache, yum!) with us on our honeymoon and shared big chunks of it 🙂

The rehearsal took the full two hours I had alloted. It got a bit stressful, but mostly because I was nervous that people would get frustrated. Of course that worry was unfounded, but I’m a worrier. Mary L Y, our pastor, really helped things move along. Dustin, Mike’s cousin filmed the rehearsal in prep for filming the next day, and I can’t wait to watch his footage from that night. The rehearsal dinner at the college cabin went well, although I dropped a whole gallon of meadow tea concentrate on the ground as we were arriving. It was a good exercise in letting go of perfection. It would have been nice to have, and I felt badly that Abby’s mom went to all the trouble to make it only for it to go to waste, but we had plenty of other good things to drink. I didn’t even have to clean it up. My brother Andre’ and someone else (probably Jennifer) volunteered to pick up all the glass and I had dropped it in the parking lot, so the tea just soaked into the ground. It’s kind of nice how everyone’s willing to help you with stuff when you’re a bride about to get married. The evening was capped off with games. There were several groups playing TiChu, and a group of us played a really long round of Bang.

Speaking of Jennifer. Jenn is one of my best friends. We’ve known each other since volleyball camp before our freshman year of high school. Sophmore-Senior year I lived with her family on the weekends. We have remained close dispite distance and growing differences in lifestyle and morals. She came to Indiana a week and a half before the wedding, and was immensly helpful to me in getting things done and maintaining my sanity.

I had every intention of going to bed by 12 Friday night, but of course that didn’t happen. around 12:30 I was painting signs to direct people to the reception site and to additional parking at the church. I think I finally went to bed around 1:30.

Alrighty, more later on the actual wedding day.

Photos

I’ve been eagerly awaiting photos from the photographer.  So far there are 7 pictures up on the website, but I’ve been waiting to tell people the web address until most of them are up.  Until then, here are a couple teasers from Scott’s blog.  If anyone has pictures they took please let me know!

Being Mrs. Hon…… isn’t easy…

not because the marriage is already hitting the rocks, but because I can’t get used to being called/calling myself by another name.  I get it right the first time maybe a fourth of the time.  But slowly it’s getting easier.  It’s kind of weird to think there’s going to come a time when hearing Stephanie Hir…… will be strange.

I’m married!!!!  yippeeee!!!

And finally have internet at home so maybe you all will start hearing from me on a semi-regular basis now.  I’d like to do a post soon on my impressions from the big day, but I don’t have the mental energy right now (and I want to catch up on some Ugly Betty :

Flowers on a Sunday

I went to church today!  I’ve had a hard time since moving back finding the motivation to go to church on Sunday mornings, but I’ve really wanted to.  So here’s a start.  And now that I’m the administrative assistant I have even more motivation.  I think it’ll also help that we started an elective series today and the one I joined is talking about alcohol use.  My church (or at least a group of about 30 of us) are talking openly about the use of alcohol!  That’s really cool to me.

After church, I leisurely cleaned up around the house, made lunch, made strawberry lemonade, did the dishes, and lazed around in the hammock reading “The Prophet” while I waited for Phoebe to come over and talk about flowers.  They’re going to be beautiful.  Phoebe is so amazing, and alot of the flowers are going to come from her parent’s organic farm!  Then I worked on the guest book some more, grabbed a sandwich from Blimpee’s, talked to the pampered chef rep about finalizing my order, and talked to my fiance’ whom I haven’t seen all weekend.  That trend (save for an hour here and there so I can provide him with food 😉 will probably continue until his projects are due on Wednesday.  Now I’m off to my parents for embroidery floss.

April showers

Today Mike’s aunt, sister, and mom threw me a pampered chef bridal shower. It was lovely. Than I worked on the guest book before working at Southside. This is going to be a very short post because I’m exhausted. I just have to say though, the more I look through the PC catalog, the more those “un-nessesary” kitchen item seem like they’d really make life easier/more fun. Here’s to a well stocked kitchen!

peanut butter and nutella cookies (cough, cough, Abby)

3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup nutella
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in medium bowl.  Set aside.

beat eggs in small bowl and add vanilla. Set aside.

In mixer, cream butter than add sugars.  Blend.  Add peanut butter, nutella, and egg mixture.  Blend.  Gradually add flour mixture until throughly mixed.  Chill for 30 minutes.  portion them onto baking trays as you would regular peanut butter cookies.  Bake for 17-20 minutes at 350, or if you have a completely fritzy oven than take the slightly burnt batch out after 13 minutes because your oven went up to 400 when you had it set to 250.  Grrr….

Mikey wanted to make cookies with me tonight 🙂  So adorable.

Wedding planning is becoming more stressful which makes me sad because I want this to be a joyful experience, not one that stresses me out.  But I think my class is actually the thing really stressing me out.  I have a test tomorrow that I wouldn’t feel ready for no matter how much I studied.

A day in the life

I slept in today, even though I told myself I wouldn’t.  Typical.

But then I got a fair amount done.  Not as much as I would have liked, especially given the fact that I got roped into working the lunch shift tomorrow, but it still felt good to get some things taken care of.  I repotted almost all of my plants into bigger pots so they’d have more room to grow.  I did some grocery shopping.  I visited with my sister’s cats since she and her family is in Hawaii for spring break.  I finally went through the vases from my other sister’s wedding to see what I could use for mine, although I didn’t bring them down from the attic yet.  I didn’t want to attempt it alone in case I dropped a whole box and shattered them all.  Straightened up around the house.  Had dinner with Mike.  Made some phone calls, particularly an important one about a recent wedding dilemma.  Went to small group, and I just got off the phone with Meryl.  The sun made me happy.  I should have been in bed 15 minutes ago, but maybe I’ll sneak in an episode of Medium since I’m already past my bedtime 🙂

I thought this was interesting:

http://fracas.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/craniofacial-duplication-east-vs-west/

The people asked and I cannot refuse them

I’ve been finding it hard to organize my thoughts when I consider posting, so eventually I just don’t, but I do want to keep this thing up.  I was reminded the other night by Megan that there are more people who like to keep up with me this way than I sometimes remember.  So I’ll attempt to make some sense of all the things that have been rattling around in my head these days.

First off, some news.  Most of you know, but that’s ok.  I’m moving back to Goshen.  Mike and I have decided it will be best for us to start out married life there.  I applied for a job as an admission counselor at the college.  I still need to get all of my letters of reference in, but other than that I’m just waiting for them to get back to me.  We’re interviewing for a replacement with the kids.  So far we have found one candidate that we like, but are going to do a couple more interviews to give us some options.  I think we’ll probably hire in the next week or so.  At this rate I’ll probably move back in the first few weeks of March sometime.  Possibly the last weekend of February.

I had been struggling with the decision to stay in Evanston vs. going back to Goshen for several months, but two events over Christmas break played a large role in changing my mind.  The first was a game night with a few of Mike and my friends.  The key here is that last phrase- Mike AND my friends- not Mike’s friends, not my friends, but our friends.  We have mutual friends in Goshen, something that would be completely lacking in Evanston.  The second was Christmas eve with my family we went around and talked about something that had happened this last year that was a high point, and all of my sister’s kids mentioned sports that they were involved in, and I realized that I was really sad to be missing out on all of those events.  Being around both our families is a wonderful opportunity.

I’m really excited about the transition and some of the wonderful things that moving to Goshen means in my life.  I auditioned for several shows at New World last weekend including the musical Urinetown which would be a blast to be part of.  I’m really excited about attending Assembly again and plugging back into a small group.  But I’m also so very sad to be leaving the babies and my girlfriends.  I don’t have an really close friends in Goshen.  I have alot of friends there, don’t get me wrong, but none of those relationships hold a candle to what I have with Abby, Becca and Jess.  I will miss them intensely.  I’ve put myself on the fast track to returning to Goshen, but now that it’s actually happening I’m feeling emotionally unprepared for the transition.  Hopefully that changes some as things fall into place with a job and a place to live in Goshen, and as the reality of what’s happening settles in my gut a bit.  Let’s just say I’ve been dealing with alot of anxious energy in the last few days.

Also, I hate waiting for things… like hearing from the college about my application.

Oh and in the last two days I have purchased several things in quantities of 300.  Why does buying stuff for the wedding make me so nervous?