typealice

The Day Before

Clive and I arrived at the cottage on Saturday, the day before the wedding, where we set up as much as we could. The chairs and tables and snow kone machine were delivered on time, and we unloaded several carloads of food and supplies. I was lucky to have massive help from our friend Yuri, who was the most organized male in the group (all of the men were staying at the cottage that night, as the women were heading back into town to spend the night at my mother’s house. The men would be in charge of the last details- setting up the cookie station, the tables with table cloths and centerpieces and the ceremony location with chairs in the correct places. They also had to dress themselves and, as it turned out, get their hair cut by one another.

Preparation

My preparation started before 7am, when Ash woke me up earlier than I’d have liked him to. My hair appointment was at 8am, and my sister came along to see for herself what I had been warning her about for several weeks- the absolute weirdest hair salon in the entire world.

It literally hasn’t been updated since he started the business in the late 60s. It’s got a gold sparkle pole. It has hair dryer seats with ash trays in the arms. It smells like cigarette smoke (because he smokes inside the building all day long). The hairdresser is about 70 years old and walks with two canes and takes his prescription medication halfway through the appointments. He charged me $19 for the 2.5 hour appointment, plus $6 for the serum he used to do my hair. He washed my hair, put some sort of serum in it, put it in rollers, put me under the dryers for an hour, back-brushed my hair and then styled it. It looked absolutely bizarre when I was in anything but my wedding dress, and I still think the hairstyle looks better in pictures than it did in real life. It was huge and fuzzy- not hard from lots of hairspray. I was really happy.

After my hair appointment was over, I rushed home, and only had an hour and a half to get ready and get out of the house. My best friend from university- Lisa, my sister, mother, step father and Ash also all had to get ready, so the house was a flurry of activity, not the relaxed, champagne-sipping morning most brides envision. Ambera laced me up, I did my own makeup outside of my eyeshadow, we loaded the rest of the food into the cars and rushed to the location (40 minutes away) with five minutes to spare before the wedding was supposed to start.

It took another twenty minutes before I walked down the stairs, my aisle, because of tardy guests.

The Ceremony

I walked down the aisle without incident, no slipping, even though a couple of other people had problems, including my brother’s on-again-off-again girlfriend who bit it on her way down, and flashed my guests with her panty-less self. I learned this wonderful fact as we signed the marriage license. The details of the ceremony are fuzzy- Clive and I admitted to one another that we both had a hard time concentrating on what our Justice of the Peace was saying (she’d previously sent the wedding script), and I only screwed up what I was supposed to say once- when I completely stopped paying attention and focused on whether or not Clive and I were supposed to be holding hands or not. I had her repeat the line where I was supposed to say something like, “I, Gillian M*** E**** Hyde…” such a simple line to screw up on, everyone laughed including me.

Clive kept eye contact with me for most of the ceremony- I found it hard to stare back at him for the entire time. Neither of us cried, but when she said this:

These are the hands of your best friend that will work alongside yours, as together you build your future. These are the hands that will passionately love you and cherish you through the years, and with the slightest touch, will comfort you like no other. These are the hands that will hold you when fear or grief fills your mind. These are the hands that will countless times wipe the tears from your eyes - tears of sorrow, and tears of joy. These are the hands that will hold your children and help you to hold your family together as one. These are the hands that will give you strength when you need it. And lastly, these are the hands that when aged, will still be reaching for yours, still giving you the same unspoken tenderness with just a touch.

Clive’s eyes welled up, and seeing that, so did mine. It was also hard to hold back the tears when she mentioned our beautiful baby, Ash.

The ceremony was short and sweet, and we were announced as, Mr. and Mrs. Clive Mathias!

The Party

After the ceremony was over, Clive and I went back up to the cottage and met our guests as they walked up the stairs after us. A short couple of speeches were made (my mom, Clive’s sister and us), and people were invited to change into comfortable clothes, grab something to eat and enjoy the surroundings and the lake.

The reception went smoothly, my brother and his friend were AMAZING with the food (both of them professional chefs), there was plenty of wine and beer to go around, snow kones, six kinds of homemade cookies, lots of salads, burgers, shish kabobs and music- until…

The power went out.

And stayed out for well over two hours.

Luckily, outside of the toilet not working (we had an outhouse though), and the snow kone machine stopping working and there being no music, there wasn’t any other repercussions. And no one really seemed to notice, anyway- so I didn’t care.

We cut the cake around six, and people started to filter out shortly thereafter. We had a nice closeknit group of about a dozen people to share in a bon fire with s’mores and fireworks to end the night. There weren’t too many super-drunken people, but the ones who were very drunk were entertaining to the rest of us.

Clive and I went to the cottage for the evening around 11, opened our lovely presents and then well. Ya know.

We woke up the next morning with my hair as a completely separate identity, and then headed to brunch with our families at a local hotel/restaurant.

All in All

The day was great. The weather was perfect. The food and drink were great. People did exactly what I hoped they’d do- gather on the lawns, swim, paddle boat, chill out in a very relaxed atmosphere. There were a couple of small hiccups (opposite rings given to us during the ceremony, me forgetting the lines, not having napkins handed out during the cake dessert, people needing to leave earlier than I wanted them to, not having enough time for all the guests- including my mother, sadly, the power outage, and the best man barging into the bridal cottage before 6am to crash- leaving me grumpy), but nothing that could ruin the day. The pictures look great so far, and we haven’t even seen the ones that were taken by our professional photographer.

The guests were wonderful. I was so happy to see the people who came, words cannot even express.

Clive looked amazing. We read our vows to one another and made the JoP cry. We have our baby boy and we’re so happy, and now married!!