Later that afternoon, when we were done walking around downtown Portland, we drove to South Portland and visited Cape Elizabeth and the beautiful lighthouse there. Along with lines, signs, brick, and cobblestones, I love me some lighthouses. And covered bridges. But there were no covered bridges on this trip. Saving that for spring break.

I took this one while perched on a rooftop.

Kidding. But Kevin did have to stop me from walking on the grass to get a better shot a couple of times because if anything I am oblivious to signage. I know. I love it, but if it is imperative in any way I will ignore it. Just one of my quirks. It also got very interesting on our trek from Maine to PEI later in the week, but I’ll get to that.

At this point in the trip, this was as close as I had been to the Atlantic Ocean. Or the ocean, period, if you believe the same way my husband and I do. You see, before this trip the only “ocean” I’d ever touched was the Gulf of Mexico on the coast of Texas. Which looks remarkably similar to a muddy lake. No offense, Texas. Actually, wait. Every offense, Texas.

Cape Elizabeth is the site of a very famous shipwreck. Lots of postcards and prints in the gift shop are reprints of photographs of the shipwreck. Old, old photographs. Very neat.

There is just something so violent and cold and awesome about the Atlantic and the way it crashes into the rocky coasts of Maine. I love it and can’t wait to go back.

Like that? Ring any bells? No? Thought not. And we can just call it “The Honeymoon” from this point on if that works for you.

Yes, Day 2. I know, you’re probably wondering where Day 1 went. Did someone spike the punch at the reception? Thank goodness, no. Day 1 is lost somewhere in the ether, high above the clouds. Day 1 was spent on a plane between Oklahoma City and Manchester, New Hampshire.

Day 2 began just outside of Portland, Maine. We drove into the city and spent the day walking around the town and enjoying the seaside fare.

The first place we stopped in town was Gilbert’s Chowder House because we were hungry and I’m not sure what sounds better than a chowder house.

Our first stop was a very good decision. Kevin had his very first lobster roll and I had the seafood chowder. Mine was good, but his looks better than mine because it was better than mine.

During this trip, I harassed a lot of seagulls. This is just the beginning.

Portland has a lot of lines. And signs. And brick. And cobblestones. Oh, the cobblestones. I love all those things.

NEXT UP: The seaside and Cape Elizabeth. But first, this photo I took just for Heather…

I was walking down the aisle on my dad’s arm. The moment I had dreamed of since I was 2-years-old (no lie) was here and very different than I had imagined it. You see, by this point I thought I would be crying. In fact, it’s what I was dreading about the whole thing: getting up in front of all these people and crying so much that they couldn’t understand what I was saying.

But there I was, walking. And there Kevin was, standing at the end of the aisle. It was all so surreal. Instead of looking around to see who was there, like I’d thought I might, I was looking straight ahead, focused on my goal. At this point our ring bearer was pretty raucous down in front of the stage, but Heather finally managed to grab him. When we arrived at the front I kissed my mom on the cheek and then proceeded with Dad to be given away.

I’ll let the video say the rest.

A few things to explain: the violins (that I walked down the aisle to) were not miked and neither was the piano during the lighting of the unity candle. Both were plenty loud during the ceremony, that was just one detail that was forgotten. Scott (vocalist & pianist) did a fantastic job on the song. And my blinking during the vows, well, all I can guess is that I was trying not to cry and I was really focusing on what I was saying. Oh, and my veil almost fell out. Dad got a little too enthusiastic when he lifted it. Surprise! I never cried.

Bridal Chorus as it sounded at the wedding (minus the cello, we had two violins, played by Jennifer White and Kevin Lai):

The day of our wedding I woke up with the June sun shining through the curtains of my room at my mom and dad’s house. Every bedroom I have slept in up to this point has had at least one east facing window and because of this I am a naturally early riser. This morning was no different, with me up hours before I needed to be. Leave it to me to not take advantage of extra sleep on my wedding day.

I had played it through my head over and over how I thought my last night in my parents’ house would be and what it would be like to wake up the next morning, knowing it wouldn’t ever really be the same. Unlike I’d expected, I did not cry myself to sleep the night before. I was too tired. And I know you may be thinking, “Really? Cry?” Yes, really. I have always been a mama’s girl and no matter how excited I was to be getting married it pained me to think that I could really never go home again in the same way. We were going to start a new household. No longer would I be under my parents. It all seemed so new and frightening.

But what did I do? I went to sleep the moment my head hit the pillow and like I said, I was up with the sun the next morning and into the kitchen to make my coffee. My mom was awake, my dad already off to work (he has a 24/7 job in the oilfield), and at least one of my brothers was conscious already. Made myself some breakfast, took a long bath, packed up the rest of my stuff, and headed down to Granny and PawPaw’s to pick up my matron-of-honor and one of my bridesmaids (Heather & Aaryn). Together we drove over to Duncan and went to the nail salon to get all gussied up.

The only decent place to get your toes done (that anyone knew of) in Duncan was the salon in Wal-mart, so there we were. I made a coffee run at McDonald’s (Umm, yes. Again.) then settled into one of those comfy chairs to wait my tootsies’ turn. I think the massage chair did wonders to keep the knots from forming in my back. That’s where I tend to direct all my stress (there and my brain and intestines, but you don’t care about that). Eventually it was my turn and that, my dear readers, was The Best pedicure I have ever had. It lasted longer than any other pedicure and NEVER chipped. Bless their hearts at the Duncan Wal-mart. They know what they are doing.

Excuse me if I have to come back and edit some of this, because I realized that I lost quite a bit of my memory from the middle part of the day.

After we were done there, we went to the church to drop some things off and then grabbed a quick lunch. Next up were our hair appointments. Aaryn had one right before mine and we went to my cousin-in-law Cortney’s to have it done. Elizabeth Diefenderfer, a former co-worker, was doing the photography and she arrived to take photos while we were at the salon. It was right at this point that I started to get antsy. I couldn’t sit down. I was pacing in the shop. I knew what was going on though. Adrenaline was starting to fill my veins and I had that constant “I-need-to-take-a-tinkle” feeling that I used to get before a basketball game. You know, like right before you get on a roller coaster? THAT. At least I wasn’t having a panic attack.

After our hair was all done we went back to the church and started getting ready to take a few photos before the wedding. Just the ones without Kevin and I together though. Yes, we’re traditional. I hate being griped at for it. And I’ll be honest, I totally judge people who go ahead and see each other before the wedding. Sorry. I think my mom and my bridesmaids helped me to get the dress on. It’s a heavy sucker. Before I really knew what had happened, we were all completely dressed and ready to go take some pictures. Those went fairly quick, since I’d made a list beforehand of everything I wanted and I didn’t have any ridiculous bridesmaids. Thank you, ladies.

While all this was going on, Dad kept approaching me with his phone to show me pictures of Kevin (who was back in the choir room) and all of his groomsmen playing Phase 10 (whatever that is). I guess that’s a bit of a cheat, but whatever. Blame Dad.

When we were done the four of us (me, Heather, Aaryn, and Delisa) were ushered back into the lounge outside of the ladies’ restroom to wait for everything to begin. Oh boy. My tummy is turning just thinking about it. We had about an hour left to go and this time went by more quickly than anything else. There were a few people in and out of the room; Lindsay, the wife of one of the groomsmen, to deliver a letter from Kevin to me (I sent her back with one for him); a few aunts who couldn’t quite contain their tears; my grandmother who brought by the hair pin that I secured my veil with (belonged to her mother, my Nannie) and the handkerchief that I carried (belonged to PawPaw’s mother, my “Granny Christ” [pronounced KRISS] or Grandma Maggie Johnson to the rest of the family) and left quickly because she wasn’t going to be able to hold her tears in; and a few random people to say “hello.” (If you were there and you remember more of this, please share in the comments. I have lost a lot of it!)

I don’t know how it all went by so quickly, but suddenly my dad was peeking through the door to tell us that the video presentation was almost over and that they’d be seating the families within minutes. That meant it was almost time. Oh. My. Lands.

(Since you all haven’t seen it, unless you were there, here’s the slideshow we played. YouTube quality is AWFUL, but the DVD version is great.)

There were a couple of small snafus with the timing and people knowing when to be queued in (blame me for being the wedding coordinator at the rehearsal), but it all worked out without me knowing.

I was standing there, the music was playing, and my girlie friends were walking down the aisle. The doors closed and then there were violins. Without any warning, I was on my dad’s arm and he said, “It’s all going to be fine.” The doors opened and there we were. And there, at the end of the aisle…was him.

Tomorrow – Reflections on the Ceremony WITH *tada* The Wedding Video!

The day before the wedding Heather showed up at my house early in the morning and we drove over to Duncan to help around the reception site. My mom and I had helped the wedding coordinator and her assistants quite a bit the evening before and things were really coming together by the time we arrived that morning. We doled out the tiny Mason jar cards at every place setting, along with one birdseed bag for each.

We picked up Kevin’s mom from their hotel and went over to the mall where we had our nails done. That was nice and relaxing. To myself I still seemed really calm. I don’t know how other people saw it, but I was freaking myself out a little with how calm I was. The rest of the afternoon we spent helping with all the decorating.

Sometime before the rehearsal started Jolene arrived and she immediately hopped in to help us out wherever we needed it. Before I knew what was happening, I had 45 minutes left to get ready, so I headed over to the main building to put on my dress and makeup.

Once the rehearsal got started, that’s when I really felt kinda…overwhelmed. Not with what was happening, but because (unexpectedly) no one was there to help direct the order of ceremony, show people how to walk in, etc. The person who was supposed to help with all that was tied up and it was left to me to do all the coordinating at this point. I was exasperated. Some of my family members don’t take direction well, and some of them (my brothers, ahem) hardly take it from me at all. There were just so many details, so many things to consider. There is always going to be something that you don’t expect and something that just won’t work out. But man. I was tired.

A few photos from that evening:

SOMEBODY needs an anti-anxiety pill. And it’s not one of the minors.

He didn’t want to walk down the aisle.

And he wasn’t glad to be onstage. Don’t worry. He sprinted down the aisle on the big day.

Doing what I do best: bossing my baby brothers.

And after all of this (I think the photos clearly delineate my descent into a frenzied state) I went to the bathroom to grab my stuff, already running 30 minutes late to the dinner, with a number of people on my heels, all with questions to ask. I broke down. Put my hands over my face and said, “I need to compose myself.” Before I moved my hands everyone had left the room. I stood there catching my breath for a few moments, remembering what Chris (our main officiant) had said to us earlier: “No matter what happens, at the end of the day, you will be married.”

I gathered my bags, went outside to meet Kevin for a few more pictures, and to enjoy my last evening as an unmarried woman in the company of many friends and family members. It was wonderful.

Next up, The Wedding Day…

Happy, crampy Sunday morning. At least for me. I share TMI all the time right? I mean, it’s not too much for me, I’m a girl, but I wonder if the guys around here get tired of it. My husband is pretty tolerant, I’ll say. It’s weird what changes when you get married. Seriously, there’s a laundry list. But those of you who are married know that.

Well, I haven’t posted in forever and since the only comfortable position I can find right now is me wedged into a corner of the couch with my Macbook tilted kinda funny and my back twisted to look at it, I thought I’d give you an edition of Sunday Morning Coffee. It’s been a while. And I’ve saved up a lot of links to share with you folks.

• “If we can’t date, then what’s the next step?” It’s a valid question and I think I’ll have to answer how I Kissed Dating Goodbye affected me–for good and bad. And while we’re on the subject, this.
• I want to have an end of summer party just so that I can make these Petite Watermelons.
• Man up already! Spot on, Ronnica, and worthy of a response that I hope to work up in the near future.
• Allowing people to write notes at your wedding that they do not have to be accountable for is risky–trust me. I found this out. At least these folks weren’t ashamed to own up.
• Eep. What an incredibly creepy find by Jorge Garcia (of LOST). Makes me think twice about this post.
• Hey, Friar: I miss the old David Letterman, too. Though I’ll admit my memories of him when he was in his prime are very limited.
• What I want: kids like this AND a stuffed John Denver doll.
• See? THIS. This is how my brain works.

Tomorrow what I will have for you is the rest of the wedding story, starting with the rehearsal on Monday, reflections on the day-of on Tuesday, Wednesday I’ll bring you my memories of the wedding, Thursday will be *drumroll* the wedding video, and Friday I’ll tell you all about the reception. It’s going to be a fun week!

I realized today that I never wrote about my bachelorette party. Well now, I can’t go into the details about the wedding before telling you all about this, can I?

Let me start out by saying that in no way am I your typical 24-year-old woman and I’m just not a partier. Never have been. I think it’s trashy and I’ll say that to whomever. It is. So my party was a little low-key event with a few of my good friends.

We all met up at my house and from there we went on to the Olive Garden for salad, as the evening was going to be a progressive dinner party (very fun thing to do). After we had our salads we moved on to the mall where I had to do a few ridiculous things to get some stars on my sweater. Including asking this little boy questions about marriage. I’m not sure who was more mortified.

While we were there we played a game that I had such trouble understanding (long day at work after the early shift!) I’ll spare you the pain of me trying to explain it here. There was a little math involved and I failed miserably. Next, we went on to McDonald’s (all of these stops were a surprise for me) and skidattled on through the drive-thru for my favorite fast food meal—a McDonald’s cheeseburger.

Our final stop was in OKC, where I had to stand on a street corner and paint a large poster for Kevin, a poster that I had to take inside the last restaurant where we went for dessert…my favorite, can you guess? It’s The Melting Pot. We had this fabulous white chocolate/amaretto fondue that I was careful about choosing because I knew it was one Kevin would never really want to try. He’s pretty no frills when it comes to his chocolate fondue.

I had a lovely time with two of my bridesmaids, Heather and Aaryn, and my dear friend Jennifer, who you may or may not know from another blog. Somewhere. That’s all I can say. Thank you, ladies!

Two evenings ago, my new husband looked up at me from behind his laptop across the room and said, “My dear, do you realize the last time you blogged?” I did recall putting fingers to keyboard some time back, but didn’t realize that it had already been a month and one day since then.

Well…we’re back. It doesn’t feel like saying that really captures the changes that have occurred in the past few weeks. “We’re here” sounds like a more accurate description, as Kevin has never spent a night in my home before the day we flew back in from our honeymoon. We’re at the end of our second full day back at home and my first day back at work (which was very pleasant and welcoming, thanks to all my coworkers who visited my desk to give me fist bumps, share their wishes for our future, and ask about how the wedding went). Our time spent in Maine and Prince Edward Island, Canada was wonderful and I plan to spend a few days covering the different places we visited in other posts. Pictures will come as I can upload them, a little at a time, on flickr. There’s so much to show and talk about.

And then there’s the wedding. I suppose some of you would like a play-by-play of what that was like as well Suffice (for now) to say that it was gorgeous and so much more than I’d ever hoped for. It was a joyous experience, unmarred and without any kinks (that I was aware of) during the entire ceremony. Scratch that. My veil was hanging precariously from my hair and nearly fell out. A handful of people told me after the ceremony that they had been praying it would stay there throughout the wedding and thankfully it held on until we got back to the choir room after the recessional, just long enough for my bridesmaids to pin it in a little tighter before the reception.

Me and my new husband, at the reception (Photo by Laurie Goree)

So many things to write about, I’ll need to make a list. I will say that there’s not a single thing that I’d change about my wedding day (give me a few more weeks to think about this and I may come up with some), however, there are a few things I would change about the preparation for the ceremony and reception and some new insights that I have about planning your own wedding. I have yet to meet a woman that was not, at the very least, a little bit stressed out in the weeks before her wedding. It’s been tough to figure out if there is any way around that. For me, there wasn’t. It came with the territory, I suppose. My family is enormous and there were a lot of invitations sent out. And lots of invitations means that you have to plan for lots of people. Whether or not they’ll show is always going to be a gamble. In the end that turned out to be the most stressful and aggravating part for me.

Right now Kevin and I are concentrating on learning how to live with each other and just…be married. It’s nice. If I could only take one memory away from our wedding day, it would be Kevin and me walking through those doors, stepping outside and being by ourselves for just a few seconds, and saying to each other “We’re married.”

We’re married.

Days are passing by so quickly. Not much left to do now, and I’m not feeling completely overwhelmed. One of the most valuable lessons I have learned during the various stages of planning a wedding is letting go. Full-on hands in the air, turn around and walk away, plugging your fingers in your ears…okay, that may sound like avoidance. But I promise you it’s a big step for me, Elizabeth, obsessive-compulsive perfectionist. I think everything about my personality would make me great at planning other people’s weddings or events, but my own? It’s just too close. So glad that we brought in a wedding planner early on. I’d likely have been committed by now had we not.

So what have I been doing lately? Not worrying. Letting the waves of details and deadlines wash over me and not getting carried away. That’s big for me, people.

Tomorrow marks 3 weeks until the wedding. Three weeks. Then I will be the wife of the only man I’ve ever loved, ever kissed, ever been able to stand being around for more than 12 hours (as a general rule, I prefer not to spend more than 12 hours with a person. There are few that I’ve met that won’t annoy you before that point. He doesn’t annoy me. Ever. How disgusting is that?). I’m thrilled.

And how am I celebrating this 3 week marker? My dear friend, Nume, and I are going to a spa in Oklahoma City to have our cares massaged away and our hands and feet all prettied up. It’s going to be a great weekend!

I have a lot of younger cousins. Like, 50 a lot. Of course, that’s combining a few sides of the family and including some second cousins in there (some of whom are closer to me than any of my first cousins ever were), but still. We have a huge family and here in about 65 days, my family is going to get even bigger. All the plans are in motion and stuff is really, finally, happening (the invitations will be in the mail by the beginning of next week!). Things are happening so quickly that I can barely spare the time to recount them here for you all. But all the time, my mind is racing and I am thinking about what the future is going to bring to me.

Now, taking into consideration the type of person I am (sentimental, gooey, and painfully nostalgic), June 6 is going to be a very special day. Shoot, even if I was an ice queen I’m sure my wedding day would be special. And it is, for many different reasons. But there’s one I doubt many people think about that comes in somewhere around second to my Super Ginormous Biggest Thing I’ve Ever Done (pledge my love and fidelity to someone for the rest of my days). Any guesses?

This is the biggest family reunion I’ll ever have! And my lands, do I love family reunions! I seriously tried to do this reception potluck (I’d seen it in a few bridal magazines as a trend that is catching on, especially in the south where people never turn down the chance to show up at something that requires a covered dish for admission), but I had a family member tell me it was tacky and I dropped it. You know that for good ol’ Oklahoma folk, “tacky” is code for “don’t you even think about doing that.” Seriously. I’m fairly certain that had I served this idea up in front of my dad, you all would be dining on potato casserole (topped with corn flakes), green been casserole (French’s Fried Onions!), and that marshmallow-pink-Jell-O-Cool Whip bowl of NASTY instead of croissants stuffed with soldfhsoijsldfk and meatballs sautéed in a psdieedksdy reduction sauce.

Yeah, I know. I like casseroles better myself.

Kevin’s family is flying in. Friends that I haven’t seen in years are going to be there. A few are even flying in from out of state for this. Driving miles and miles to get here. And then some are just driving down the road. If you see a cloud of dust rolling toward Duncan that evening, you know where they’re headed.

And wherever you fall in those categories, or even if you belong in one that I didn’t mention, know that after you’ve finished the last of your cake and thrown handfuls of birdseed at us—if it weren’t already the most important day of my life so far, it’d be nearly just that good. Because I get to share it all with you.