Kicking Off Wedding Season

The bridesmaids, bride's brothers, and bride's nephew. Stolen from my cousin's Facebook

I spent Labor Day weekend back home in Colorado for my cousin's wedding. It was an incredibly busy, incredibly fun weekend. And I managed to fit into my dress, which was a huge plus. (It was touch and go for a couple of days there. Apparently this was a common experience among my fellow bridesmaids, most of whom had managed to gain some weight since buying the dresses 8 months ago. One had just given birth and had the opposite fear. But it all worked out)

We arrived Thursday night (half an hour early!) and picked up our rental car. The lady at the counter tried to convince me that I needed a six cylinder engine to make it up the mountain, which is completely not true. She then "upgraded" me to a little red sports car, that would supposedly have an easier time with the hills. It's possible that I should have told her that I needed a car that could handle dirt roads and that a 6% grade really isn't that big a deal. At any rate, we hit a pothole on 285 and a piece from the bottom of the car came loose. Boyfriend knew the name of the piece that half fell off (he also knew what kind of car we'd gotten) and was sort of able to stick it back together. But the next day it completely fell off on the way to the rehearsal dinner at my aunt's cabin. To be fair, though, "road" is sort of a stretch for what we were driving on. It's more a strip of dirt through the field on which grass no longer grows. There was also a hail storm that completely dinged up the car. It's a good thing I got insurance.

We had the rehearsal on Friday, during which the guys were already drinking beer and being fairly obnoxious. I also managed to get slightly sunburned. Then there was the rehearsal dinner, followed by the bachelorette party. This party was a bit more my speed than the one in Vegas. My cousin's 5 and 7 year old nieces were still running around when I showed up. My aunt and the mother of the groom had complete control of the music, which mostly consisted of Eric Clapton, James Taylor, and Joe Cocker. Copacabana came on at one point and my aunt made sure we all knew that it was the best song ever recorded. We all just hung out in the kitchen, drinking beers and talking.

My schedule had me arriving at my other aunt's house the next morning at 10:30 to start getting ready. For a 5:00 ceremony.  I showed up closer to 11:30 and sat around drinking mimosas for an hour. Then I put on some eye shadow and had a sandwich and another mimosa. I finally put my dress on around 1:30 when the photographer showed up. We took the "candid getting ready" pictures, then went to the site for more formal pictures. At 3:30, the guys showed up for their round of pictures and we went off to kill time before the ceremony.

This hour was probably the longest one of the entire day. We were hanging out in the reception area, which was being decorated, so we couldn't touch anything. And we couldn't leave for fear of the groom and guests seeing our dresses. Finally the wedding began.

The ceremony itself was short and sweet. The procession actually lasted longer that the ceremony. But with 7 groomsmen, 7 bridesmaids, and family that needed to be formally escorted in down an incredibly long aisle, that was probably to be expected. The wedding planner spaced us out really far, too. There was a fair amount of dead time between bridesmaids.

After the ceremony came more pictures! Pictures and pictures until it started to rain. When we'd finally finished all the family and wedding party pictures, we escaped inside while the bride and groom took more pictures. Two and a half glasses of wine later, they finally finished and we got to eat.

There was much food and merriment and dancing. The photographers hung around until nearly the end of the reception. Apparently the digital age allows you to get a lot more bang for your buck, since it takes longer to fill up a memory card than a roll of film. My cousin and her husband are going to be sorting through pictures for a week, though.

I'm looking forward to doing this all again in November, when I get to wear the same dress in a different color for my friend's wedding. Hopefully I won't squirt sunscreen on it moments before the ceremony next time.