mr. & mrs. in 2015

That is, in fact, a song title and I didn’t have to look it up. Group 1 Crew. So there.

We have been married for a week. It’s a very strange word, married. It doesn’t feel any different, honestly; going from friends to dating wasn’t different, and dating to engaged wasn’t, either. Hooray for natural progression?

That’s not to say that we don’t occasionally get caught staring at our wedding rings or each other with total wtf faces, because we do that too. And throw around husband and wife because we can and because we’re trying to get used to the words. I signed my married name at the bank for the first time last week and it was just… odd. Odd, odd, odd. I’ll get used to it. My dad addressed me as Mrs. M in a text message!

Speaking of my dad.

Aaron’s family arrived earlier and we had dinner with them on Wednesday, custom-made pizzas, and it was delicious and we had a great time. I love his family. I met his maternal grandmother, who is perfectly sweet, and his cousin and cousin’s fiance.

I also walked/ran a few miles at lunch every single day except Wednesday because ALL THE NERVOUS ENERGY. I mean, seriously, one of my bridesmaids texted me with the following exchange:

Her: I’m not gonna have to sit down at any point, right?
Me: You’ll be sitting almost the whole time.
Her: Sitting is bad. I can’t sit in my dress.
(NOTE: THEY PICKED OUT THEIR OWN DRESSES)
Me: Why can’t you sit?
Her: Fahk.
Her: It’s too tight on my hips.
Her: I’m gonna try to take it out, but I can’t make guarantees. I was on track to making it fit, then I busted my knee & all this emotional shit hit me and my period has become irregular, so I’m putting on bloat.
Me: Not sure what to tell you. :/ Good luck!
Me: Drink like eleventy gallons of water.
Her: Why is your wedding a sitdown one? You’re supposed to make the bridesmaids stand up the whole time and try to be pretty.
Me: Because it’s about me and Aaron, not you guys. :P

My family drove up Wednesday. My mom brought her dogs. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday on the phone with my aunt TerriAnne, who was a godsend. I mean, literally, I could not have made it without her. She called me twice; we spent hours on the phone. She coached me through how to handle my mother and giving me perspective. It was life-saving.

In the end, I put my foot down and told her: she could not bring her dogs to dinner with Aaron’s parents or to the wedding itself.

It was the most maddening, heartbreaking, frustrating… they are her security blanket, for whatever reason. She can’t leave them home because she is convinced that they will die without her. So she brings them everywhere, loads up the car with their wagon, smuggles them in places that aren’t dog-friendly. She brought her dog to my college orientation in Georgia and made us walk little-dog-speed. She brought her dogs when I moved, and I wrote all about that clusterfuck. Turns out, she held a grudge for 4 months because I didn’t jeopardize my crashing blood sugar further to come help unload her dogs in the parking lot. So she takes them with her, demands that other people stay in the hotel or the car with them while she goes places, or refuses to participate because someone has to stay with the dogs.

My mother has turned into a teenager.

By the way, my entire wedding experience was overshadowed by this, and I have blossoming mommy issues like whoa, so that will be the meat of this entry. One of the things I said to my aunt last week was I miss my mom.

So when I told her NO, no dogs, she sent me a picture of them in the dresses she made them for the wedding and told me about how disappointed they were. Then posted on FB looking for someone to ride along and dogsit because her dogs “weren’t invited.”

It took some serious mental and emotional energy to not let this get to me.

Aaron’s parents had brought their three dogs down to Charleston to stay at the house with them and Kara and her dog. This is acceptable because the four were originally a ‘pack’ together, although recently there’s been some required crating and rotating because the two girls aren’t getting along as well. It is, obviously, not acceptable to wheel a giant contraption into someone else’s house and add two more dogs to the chaos and overstimulation.

So it wasn’t without any trepidation that I went from work to my family’s hotel (which was like, a mile away) and knocked on the door.

My dad threw open the door, gave me a giant hug and a kiss on the cheek, and showed me where he had cut off the tip of his finger with his table saw.

My brother looked up from where he was dozing with his laptop and kind of waved.

My mom didn’t respond, curled up in a ball on the bed.

I gave them directions and showed my dad on a map where to go for dinner. Joey got roped into staying with the dogs, although he had originally planned to come stay at my apartment with me for some rare sibling bonding and meeting his new brother-in-law. Casualty #1. I also had to put my foot down and refuse to come back for him–their hotel is 20 miles from my apartment, and I had to pick up Kristen from the train station later that night. They are… all very passive-aggressive and not sure how to respond when given firm refusals.

I didn’t get to go home first, so I went straight to dinner, music on volume level 17 whereas it’s usually at 10 for interstate driving. I sat in the car and took a few deep breaths. Aaron came out and hugged me. I went inside and had a nice soda and hugged people and tried to breathe evenly. Dinner was shepherd’s pie. My parents didn’t get lost and showed up eventually. My dad bonded with Aimee over his injury. My mom said little, ate reasonably, took some Tylenol, and asked if I had even asked if it would be okay for her to bring her dogs. I said no, I hadn’t. She gave me this irate/hurt look. So it was your decision. Yes. Yes it was.

My parents left relatively early, after I mentioned that we wouldn’t be doing much more than just socializing for the rest of the night. Aaron and Chris played Magic. Aimee painted her mom’s nails. I rooted through Kara’s stash and painted my fingernails three shades of green.

We picked up Kristen that night, and she was immediately delighted that Aaron is just like me. They hit it off. We gave her leftover shepherd’s pie. I didn’t get home that night until 11pm, with Kate bugging me about how many bacon roses she needed to make. (She also told me, at some point, that she didn’t even really want to go and was only going because she knew Heather would kill her. I don’t even have swear words for that shit.)

Oh, and I raced Aaron up the stairs that night, fell up the stairs at the top, and landed kneecap-first on the edge of the wooden stair. I still have the bruise.

So. Friday.

After my mother demanded I make her a hair appointment for Friday, I sent her the appointment info and gave her directions to the mall. I clearly erred in my assumption that she is a grown adult.

Friday, 8am. She starts calling me. I don’t answer, because I am at work. She leaves me a voicemail and finally, FINALLY, texts me back.

Mom: Stuck in the swamp and need someone to bring shovels and maybe an old carpet piece to get me out. I’m by myself and Dad’s not answering his phone either.

The voicemail was full of asking me to drop everything I’m doing and get her out, and call all my friends, because clearly we’re all just sitting the fuck around waiting for a summons. And not, you know, working and preparing for a wedding the next day with a bum knee. In the end, she FINALLY told me where she was and that some construction guys had gotten her out.

Every person I have told this story to has no idea where she actually was, because the island she named doesn’t have “swamp.”

The bum knee killed my plans to go for a quick stress-killing run after my halfday at work, so I changed and went straight to the hotel. I had booked my dad, Aaron, and myself ferry tickets to go to Fort Sumter, which is on a little island at the mouth of the harbor. My dad is a huge military history nerd and has been excited about this little mini-trip for a year, and I was excited to take him. Aaron hadn’t been either. We got Joey lunch, because he was again stuck in the hotel with the dogs, Aaron met us, and then we walked to the boat launch. It was only a mile away, and parking was $5, so despite the overcast and drizzly skies, we made a walk of it. It was really nice!

And oh, OH, that little mini-trip, away from all the stresses and people wanting things, it was so nice. We saw sea birds and dolphins and got to talk and look at cannons and old shells still buried in the brick, Dad got my mom a patch, and I was about to buy Aaron a national park passport–and then I realized that I had left my debit card at work. Just the card, not my wallet. Wedding scatterbrain strikes again!

But it was 3 hours of the three of us, relaxed, and holy fuck I think we all needed that.

I took Joey back to my apartment afterward, fielding a dozen questions about church setup that night that I had already answered a dozen times. I grabbed Kristen, what I needed for my bachelorette party afterward, and a bunch of supplies, and we headed off.

At the church, Kristen staged some pies. Aaron was already running around setting things up. My aunts were there, freaking stars of the show that they were, and Collin and Travis, lifesavers they were, and some of Aaron’s friends. Every single person who showed up that Friday night to help us out, we are unspeakably grateful. Thank you. I gave my aunts free rein and showed them what I wanted done with the guest book, answered some questions, and was an hour late for my own bachelorette party.

It was just a get-together in Heather’s hotel room, and there was food, and really horrible gag gifts with a few useful things thrown in… but then Nate, Meghan, and Cat showed up, and MK and Josh, and Rachel and Alex, and pretty soon it was like an FSU reunion and we played Cards Against Humanity while Kacy prepped my hair and Kate did my nails. They wouldn’t let me go home again, though, so I had to send Kristen back alone with directions and a list of things that needed to come to the church in the morning, and Heather loaned me a razor and face/body wash. I fell asleep next to Kacy a few rooms down the hall and we had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel the next morning.

And of course, that’s where things started to go wrong, because you can’t have a wedding without stupid little things.

The guy who was supposed to unlock the building was 30+ minutes late, and we had already headed back to the hotel to get me ready when Aaron called saying that the doors were unlocked.

Kristen couldn’t find my Sharpies for the guest book, or the giant wall hanging my mom had made.

The girls shat a brick that I talked to and saw Aaron and his family, even though I was wearing the same jeans and t-shirt that I had been in the night before, sans bra.

Just, you know, stuff. But Aimee had Chris bring her Sharpies, and the door got unlocked, and the wall hanging was a casualty, and honestly, none of that was very important in the long run.

We got ready in the bathroom and in the room we had set aside. It was… it was probably my favorite part, next to actually getting married. Kacy did my hair. Heather did my makeup. Kristen assembled the bouquets and lightly stitched my dress to my corset bra to prevent unsightly gapping. Aaron sent Sara to my room like he could read my mind and she helped steam my dress and sash/belt/blingy thing one more time. They wrangled me in and tied me up and it was this blur of amazing teamwork all around me; Aunt TerriAnne and Nicole popped in to take pictures, and the closest I came to crying was when TA held my face in her hands and gave me a peptalk that I don’t even remember. My mom came in once and left again. Aunt TA almost cried a few times, as did Aunt Nicole, and at some point I hugged her and thanked her for being my mom all week.

Apparently, there was dog drama… Joey dealt with it. Joey was fantastic. Joey made me so fucking proud.

People peppered me with questions about minute logistics that I hadn’t even considered, and when I balked, Aunt TerriAnne took over and made everything perfect and seamless. She choreographed the entire processional off the top of her head.

I had little moments with my mom and dad each beforehand. My dad was bouncing in delight. Aunt TerriAnne staged a first look and posed Collin, our photographer, before letting Aaron in, and he almost fainted. We had his friend Chris on faint-duty during the ceremony. It was… really nice, and I totally forgot we had witnesses photographing away, and then President Smith came in to pray with us, and I really, really needed that.

Then it was go-time, and I had a deer-in-the-headlights look, and Aunt TA promised me it was fine and it was time to go, and my dad took my arm, and suddenly we’re walking down a damn aisle to a Red song I can barely hear/process (Pieces; Aaron picked it out). My dad and I chatted under our breaths the whole time, and he held me back when I tried to rush. And when we got to the front, and the music stopped, and President Smith asked who gave this woman, my dad threw his other hand in the air and said, “That would be me!”

It was perfect.

During the opening prayer, my three-year-old niece Leah stage-whispered to her mom. She looks like Elsa! It was, by popular vote, the best part of the ceremony.

President Smith got nervous and it was super hot under the lights, so we were all sweating bullets. He rambled more than a bit, but ended with this perfect football metaphor. I made faces at people–like Chris, who was two seconds from crying, and the photographer, effectively photobombing my own wedding, and Jack the ring bearer–because I was bored. My bouquet kept me from fidgeting.

Heather replaced the bouquet with the rings and we did the ring ceremony, which was stupidly surreal. Then he kissed me twice and got chastised, and we went down the aisle in triumph to the Pacific Rim theme.

Cue blur of photographs, photos with the perfect bacon bouquet, photos with family which was not unlike herding cats, photos with us making the weirdest faces, cue signing the marriage license in President Smith’s office and me trying to run away with Jack. We did eat–a lot, stuffed–and the food was amazing, and my aunts blew me away with their decorations. They went nuts and it was one of the most touching parts of the whole thing to me. Collin and Travis brought a cake that said the cake is a pie and the doughnuts were a hit, and honestly, it all went great. My biggest regret is not finishing my doughnut.

I intended on staying in my dress for the afterparty, and showed up in my dress. I had been just fine as long as I was upright. But we had to drive, and while I was forced to slouch in a corset, my ribs compressed and I started to overheat and have a harder time breathing. My face hurt from smiling so much for pictures, and I was just quickly becoming miserable. Aaron, for some reason, had picked the hotel RIGHT NEXT TO THE AFTERPARTY VENUE, so we hopped in and he broke me out. It was dramatic, full of heaving gasps for air and then me tumbling into the sofa once free.

The problem was that because I hadn’t been allowed to go home, and he had grabbed the wrong black dress, I had to wear his rented purple vest over my dress because I didn’t have a bra. I didn’t even have my glasses for two days–I wore my contacts with gratuitous eye drops. But whatever, confidence makes anything look good, and I had fun shmoozing.

Then we left, and went to the hotel. And I will not lie: I took a nap and Aaron read a book. Then we went to our apartment to unwrap presents and get the things we actually wanted for an overnight stay. Like allergy medicine. And a bra. And the right dress.

At 4am, my brother called me. My phone was on silent.
At 8:30am, he texts me because wtf Mom agreed to drive someone back to Florida.
At 8:45am, a friend very apologetically texts asking my mom’s number for aforementioned reason. I gave it to her.
At 8:50am, my mom is texting me like four times because she has “concerns” about her proposal to take someone back to Florida.
At 10:30am, my brother texts me like four times ranting and raving about assholes and logistics and space in the car and I give zero fucks, create more R-rated reasons for ignoring them should they ask, and continue to not answer. I didn’t reply to any of those, or the voicemail, or the FB message I found later.

You can bet your ass this will come up later. I can’t wait.

YES, MOM, I deliberately ignored you all because I was SLEEPING AND HAVING SEX AND MY WEDDING NIGHT/MORNING-AFTER IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR SELF-CREATED PROBLEMS.

Her FB statuses all week were complaints about getting lost in Charleston, getting stuck in some swamp, and blah blah blah.

Not.
My.
Problem.

The days after the wedding have also been a blur. It’s been a week and it feels like 3 days. It’s been an adventure of unwrapping things, taking packing materials to the dumpster, taking inventory of all the food in our fridge, unpacking various bags and finding my glasses, showing Aaron A Very Potter Musical, and sleeping. So much sleep. ALL the sleep. I took a nap after work Thursday and a six-hour nap after work Friday, then slept until 1:30 today.

Getting married is exhausting.

Last updated March 21, 2015