Part 10: The Bride Carried a Leatherman

It was March 18th, 2000.

I woke up happy and refreshed after my good nights sleep in my own bed. All I could think of was "I am getting married today!" I bounded out of bed, got dressed and took my dog out for her walk. I sat on the small hill in the neighborhood park looking at the bright blue sky with not a cloud in it. Feeling the sun hit my cheeks.

It was going to be a beautiful day.

I walked home cheery, took a shower and called Cullen. The friend of my husband's who was going to take care of our dog, Winny, for the day. I had to drop her off before I went to get my hair done, after which everyone would start arriving at my house to get ready and pack the last minute things up to haul back up the mountain.

I called Cullen and the phone rang.

And rang.

He had PROMISED he would be there! Bridezilla set in. What would I do with my dog?

I picked up the phone again and called my fiance (noting it would be the last day I would be saying fiance). It was more than obvious that the crowd at the condo at Tahoe were not waking as chipper as I had. Oh, they weren't even waking.

My fiance slowly and groggily comes to the phone. I started crying about our dog and HIS friend not being home to take her.

AB was functioning about 3 minutes behind me with his thought process. "What?" he said.

I was steamed. My dogsitter was not home as agreed, my fiance was hung over and my problems were just beginning I feared.

I was angry. About a half hour later AB called, still feeling the pain, but told me that Cullen was now home and I could take Winny over. Of course then I wondered if I WANTED to take Winny to someone so irresponsible.

Then sanity set in.

Of course what I didn't mention was that during this half hour my grandmother had also called.

"We don't have rooms for tonight?" she tells me.

"What?" I asked.

"We don't have rooms," she said again.

"Yes you do," I said.

"No we don't," she said. "I called the Hyatt and they don't have reservations down for any of us, you included."

See here was the deal with the Hyatt. My great uncle was head of security there. Our rooms, mine and AB's and my grandmother's and my cousins, were gratis. Free.

I briefly tried to explain this to her, "knowing Chucky, we aren't in the official registration system," I told her.

She cut in, "we have to be, we need rooms, you need to call them."

I will never forget this moment until the day I die. It is probably only the second time I have really ticked my grandmother off. First time at Disneyland when I told her to back off me on what I was spending MY money on. Her tongue turned to a snakes then and spit venom about my being an ungrateful brat.

I said to her, "No, you need to calm down and call Chucky. I need to go get my hair done and deal with my dog".

I knew that the Hyatt had rooms and no way were they turning away a bride and groom showing up. Worst case it went on my already bulging credit card.

"You don't even care about me," she said. Then she hung up on me.

I had to stuff this to the back of my head at that time. I couldn't deal with my drama queen, center of attention hog grandmother. I knew exactly what was wrong, she wanted to be the mother of the bride. And she wasn't.

I called my mom and downloaded all this on her and she did exactly what the mother of the bride was supposed to do, "you go get your hair done, we will deal with Winny if need be, and I will deal with your grandmother".

She dealt with her as best as possible while I was getting my hair done. My grandmother was bawling. My mom's cousin comforting her with a scornful eye towards me and probably my mom too.

I went to Robert, my stylist in Reno, who did my hair for me. I went home and put my make up on. Then my mom, sister, brother in law and stepdad arrived. We all got loaded into the car.

As we were driving out of town it dawned on me that I was starved. Despite my need to get up to the lake and get the show on the road, I needed food. A quick stop at Subway and then we were on our way.

We arrived at the little hotel that was housing a large portion of our guests, directly and conveniently across the street from the reception hall. I went to my mom's room and put my dress on. Afterwards people popped in and out to check on me. My mom came in and helped me go to the bathroom before we got in the car to go get pictures done. I had my little satiny matching purse (that was so not me, but necessary) and was ready to go.

We were walking down the hotel room steps when my mom yells, "hold on you have a thread".

"Just a minute," I replied, "I have my Leatherman in my purse"

That became the joke of the day, The Bride Carried a Leatherman.

We arrived about 40 minutes later at the church. I looked over at my fiance and he walked to the door of the car. I remember feeling shy. I had never been shy with AB before. But here I sat in my parent's rental car in a big wedding dress, face made up, hair done up and I felt shy.

He showed my the bouquets that our florist had done. We wanted a few flowers, but not many. My bouquet with irises was gorgeous. I loved it and it was so me. I couldn't think of what to say other than, "I love the flowers".

We all convened at a private beach (reserved by our fantastic photographer) on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe for pictures. I had this gorgeous long train that was flowing over weeds and beach debris to get to the beach for the perfect pictures. I didn't care.

I was right earlier, it was a gorgeous day. It was 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. We had picked the perfect day.

Our photographer was worth every penny we paid him. I knew our pictures were going to be fabulous.

We were packing up to head back up to the church. The photographer told us all to stop. He pulled out his equipment again for one last shot... to be continued.

Part 9: Practice makes perfect!

The shower and bachelorette party the night before had served their purpose. To unwind me from the tightly wound ball of bridezilla-ness the past few days had infused within me.

I was relaxed and happy.

The goal of the day was to get as many people and cars together who would be headed up the mountain to haul stuff with them and drop at the designated sites. Our pianist needed to be picked up at the airport and tuxes needed to be picked up too. The wine we had handpicked needed to be hauled up.

I am sure there was more we needed to ensure was up there, but funny how I look back and remember worrying about the cases of wine we had purchased. We had bought the wine in Napa. Had designated two entire trips to Northern California for the sole purpose of buying wine. One, Vargas Girl came out and went with us to Sonoma. The other AB and I spent a rainy weekend in Napa picking out wine and gifts for our bridal party.

Sure you can get wine in Reno. Probably a whole lot cheaper too than what we spent. But even then wine was important to us and we wanted to score some bottles only found in the wineries. (Excuse me while I go giggle about having the time to go drive 3 hours, spend the night somewhere and 3 hours back for the sole purpose of buying hard to find wine... oh those were the days!)

Finally everyone was headed up the mountain, mostly to stay for the next couple days. We were anxious for our rehearsal.

I was worried about everyone arriving... if they didn't practice, would they know how to walk down the aisle??

Some people were touch and go and walked in nearly last minute, thus pushing me back to the brink of bridezilla-ness. But everyone made it to the church, we relaxed and practiced walking.

Our rehearsal with Pastor Larson was great. Exactly what you would expect of a Lutheran pastor... the Lutherans in the crowd will understand that statement. After a few run throughs of how the ceremony would go the next day and we were good to go!

I am pretty sure I thought we needed to practice at least five more times.

We headed down to The Christmas Tree for our rehearsal dinner where we occupied a large section of the restaurant and were offered a choice of steak from the mahogany grill or shrimp (I think). All of our friends and family were there and so in a sense the rehearsal was very much like the wedding reception would be. It was important to us that we include our immediate family and friends as well as their significant others. Ever go to a wedding where the person in the wedding was included in the events and the date was relegated to hanging out in the hotel? We would have chosen a less expensive dinner locale before we let that happen.

We had the adult's table at our rehearsal dinner. My parents and their spouses and AB's parents at the adult table. My grandmother was also at this table.

We offered up our gifts to our bridal party. AB chose flasks for his groomsmen and he was so pleased with them. I picked out items for each of my girls (my sister, my best friend and AB's sister). Funny, I only remember what Vargas Girl's was.

Dinner was over and a few of us (myself, my mom, my stepdad, my grandmother and my pregnant sister and her fiance) were making our way back down the hill for the night in Reno. For some reason AB and I decided to stick with tradition and spend the night before the wedding apart. This is the one thing that when AB looks back on our wedding he regrets, not spending the night before with me.

AB and his guys and their girls were staying up in a condo at the lake.

It seemed like a long drive down the mountain squished in the back of my mom's rental car. We arrived at my house and were met with an obstacle.

Winny.

Winny, our 10 month old dog, had reached her limit and was not going to let anyone in our apartment but me. This posed a small problem since at minimum I had promised some scotch to my stepdad and my future brother in law. This was the first time Winny decided that if AB wasn't there, that it was her duty to protect me in every way possible.

And certainly these strangers coming home with me meant no good whatsoever. It was up to her and only her, to protect me.

Poor dog barked and growled and barked. I finally got the family back and I went in, calmed her down and put her outside and shut the blinds so she couldn't see.

I let everyone in and we enjoyed our scotch.

My grandmother started easing her way onto my bad side by peeking out the window at the dog. Who would then completely freak out. I lived in an apartment and this was not a good thing. Despite my requests to just leave her alone, she persisted in doing this. If you know my grandmother this comes as no real surprise to you. This was just a taste of the things to come the following day with respect to my grandmother, who I really do love very much... but she wasn't very well behaved at my wedding.

After the scotch the family headed down to Circus Circus for the night, I drew a bath and pampered myself.

I called AB for a goodnight and heard the wild rumpus. They were all having a great time at the condo and I was thrilled he was there and enjoying the time with his friends.

And I was exactly where I wanted to be... at home relaxing and getting ready for my wedding the next day.

Part 8, The big day closes in.

The week finally arrived. All the vendors were in place, last minute details were being worked on and family and friends would be arriving soon. I wasn't the only one having dreams about the wedding, my best friend (Vargas Girl) had dreamed a nearly infamous dream now about my mom as an Amazon woman in a pink gingham dress. My mom is not an Amazon and she likely will never be seen in a pink gingham dress.

Let's not analyze this dream further.

Then there were minor issues of explaining the difference between a "bridal shower" and "bachelorette party" to my sister. Should you ever want to plan a bachelorette party, consult my sister, she proved herself quite adept at the task at hand. Vargas Girl stepped up and took the reigns on the shower which was two nights before the big day after everyone had arrived.

My mom was the first to arrive, thankfully. My mom is great at organizing and prioritizing. We went to dinner at Midtown in Reno and started lining things out.

She went and watched our dance lesson that night. AB and I had initially planned on learning how to waltz to "All I Ask of You" from the Phantom of the Opera using a video, "You Can Waltz in 30 Minutes" or something ridiculous like that. After the first night of 60 minutes of practice in the living room AB started voicing requirements for dance lessons. I resisted... another expense?

Then thoughts of my husband wobbling back and forth in front of our loved ones grabbed hold of reason and we forked out the dough for dance lessons two weeks before the big day. Which resulted in a change of song (you can't waltz to "All I Ask of You" evidently, replaced with the theme to How to Make an American Quilt, still a great song) and one frustrated dance instructor. We did overcome however!

The next day my in laws arrived. My mother in law - who isn't quite such a good prioritizer - was however, vital in getting hands on with the seating chart at Midtown that night for dinner. All seating issues were solved within 5 minutes and it was time to get down to business. A bottle of wine!

And because Midtown had a fantastic tomato basil soup that second night, we ventured back the third night for another assessment of the plans at hand.

And sorry, Midtown is now closed. Just because one can cook does not mean they can also manage a restaurant. Which was a horrible bummer since we loved the place so. Obviously.

Vargas Girl and her boyfriend (now ex) we will call him "Stick in the Mud" or SIM for short, arrived. She teamed up with my mom and things really got moving. Instead of skiing with most of the group, or going shopping at the mall with the rest of the group, she and SIM sat on my apartment floor and put cream cheese mints into favor boxes while my mom worked on creating the perfect bustle on my dress.

OH wait... I didn't tell about the dress.

Tangent time (which never happens here):

My dad and stepmom (now ex) we could call her "Looney Bin" or LB for short (sorry dad, but she was looney to let you go), came to Reno and we went dress shopping where I found a number of dresses I liked, though was floored by the prices. Instead of envisioning being a princess I kept saying, $750+ for a dress I will wear once? I couldn't take the plunge.

I ventured to Colorado that summer where I had lunch with my mom and Vargas Girl. We walked down to a bridal shop that was going out of business. There it happened... wonder of all wonders when we pulled a dress off the rack and it fit perfectly. Seriously. Not only did it FIT, but I loved it.

I wasn't so happy with some of the froo froo flowers, but we decided we could take them off easily enough.

$300 and 10 minutes later we walked out of the bridal shop with a dress in hand. A dress my mom planned to store in her very clean house for a few months and then, shortly before the wedding ship to my not so clean apartment.

She shipped it.

I stayed home that day to receive it.

I waited.

And waited.

At the end of the day no delivery. I was upset, I couldn't stay home another day. And where was my dress?

The next day my mom tracked the dress to find out it had been signed for by a name completely unknown to me.

Freaking out.

Completely.

I took the name up to the office and asked who this person was, what apartment they lived in. Because I was going to knock her door down with a vengeance. (This was one of those episodes of Bridezilla-ness you read about.)

The girl at the desk said that in fact, that person was someone in the office there. The dress had been delivered to the office and not my apartment.

I refused to smile at the UPS guy ever again. Making assumptions I wasn't home. Lazy butt.

Ok then, I said to the apartment manager. Where's my dress?

She looked at me blankly. They didn't have any packages sitting there. It obviously was not there.

I stormed back to the apartment with tears stinging my eyes. Four weeks to the wedding and my dress was gone. I hated UPS and I hated my apartment agency (which was not a new thing, but I don't need a tangent on a tangent... tangent squared?).

AB got home and took a copy of the delivery receipt off the internet showing the signature and very calmly walked up to the office while I had hysterics in the apartment. I envision he very calmy explained to the evil witch in the office that this shipment was a wedding dress and that they better find it immediately or they would not only be facing the wrath of his lunatic fiance but also buying the lunatic fiance a dress of her choice for the wedding in 4 weeks.

About five minutes later he returned with a box. My dress. That they claimed had been placed somewhere "safe".

Tangent over.

That day when my mom worked on the bustle (and nothing was going right with that), Vargas Girl and SIM stuffed boxes with mints, and everyone else went off playing was not a good day. But it was also the day of my bridal shower... err bachelorette party... err I mean bridal shower.

I was feeling the stress, the annoyance at how could everyone leave us with so much to do? And I was having a hard time letting go of it. I didn't know where my car (or my mother in law who had borrowed my car) was. I didn't know how we were going to get all these people to the funky little pizza joint across town, I was plain tired of interacting with people.

My aunt stepped up with transportation. She and my uncle had reserved a vehicle appropriate for driving into the mountains to ski with my two cousins during their visit. No more SUVs were available, so they were upgraded to a van.

A van that EASILY held 14 women that needed to get to a bridal shower! THAT was a van.

The pizza joint thought we were joking when we showed up declaring we all rode in the same vehicle. Safely too.

The bridal shower was a lot of fun. One of the funniest moments was when we were all supposed to be writing "advice" to the bride. Ok, I wasn't, I was eating pizza. But my cousin (who was probably 19?) starts squealing.

"Grandma! Stop copying! You always do that, you always cheat. Since the time we were little and would play Candy Land, you would cheat!"

The entire room busted up laughing. All of us knowing just exactly how correct Mandy was in her statements.

Afterwards most of us headed to the casinos for martinis where my sister started passing out her bachelorette party loot. We were soon joined by all the guys where I think SIM might have nearly had heart failure over seeing us all drinking martinis with penis shaped straws. I think he tuned us out while trying to figure out how to get the window on his Audi reversed as he was sure it was installed incorrectly. Vargas Girl could probably provide FAR more information about this since at some point I tuned out... though she might have successfully banished it from her brain and is sitting here wondering what in the world I am talking about.

Before I knew it, it was Friday early morning and time to forego the silliness and get some sleep for the rehearsal at the church the next day along with the rehearsal dinner.

To be continued...

The engagement, part 7

So continuing from here...

We were going to get married... I had identified the ring style I wanted (one in particular had caught my eye... but I knew he could pick anything). Just when and where it would happen was up in the air.

And then it wasn't.

Wasn't up in the air, that is. We got to talking and decided it might be nice to go to Napa Valley (our frequent getaway). We thought it might be nice to eat at Tra Vigne for dinner. We thought it might be nice to stay at White Sulphur Springs Resort.

We normally didn't do it up quite so nicely in Napa. Normally the Calistoga Comfort Inn was more our pace.

Napa greeted us as it always did... with an open array of wine drinking options providing you pony up your $5 for tasting, $10 if you wanted the good stuff. AB and I always ponied up the $5, made friends with the tasting room attendant by being friendly and asking questions then picking out a few bottles and frequently were offered reserve tastings on the side. (And there's your tip for visiting Napa.)

We dressed up and headed out to the new and hugely touted Tra Vigne restuarant. We had reservations, but were for some reason, relegated to eating in the bar. I wasn't overly concerned as the food was still truly fantastic. I had my first real cheese course and was sold. I love cheese. Oh and I had dessert too.

The entire time I saw a huge, abnormally large box bulging from my fiance to be's pants. It was the ring... wasn't it?

Still, I waited. No proposal during appetizers, dinner, cheese course or dessert. (Or does dessert come before cheese course?)

What was that box in his pants and why was it so large? It looked horribly uncomfortable, but I resisted saying anything.

We paid and walked out the door, down the steps and there at the base of the steps he dropped to his knee and asked me to marry him as he pried that big jewelry box from his pocket.

Nope, the ring wasn't *that* huge that it required the huge box. But apparently Roger's Jewelers felt that they should give you a huge box for the big bucks you drop, but I am sure they didn't realize the logistics problems this poses for guys.

I couldn't get him to stand up fast enough. I hugged him and said yes.

I slid the ring on my finger - it was the one I picked out but was a little bummed I didn't get to wear the ring as it was umpteen sizes too big. I would have had it sized on the spot if I could have. I wanted the shiny multi-faceted carbon crystal structure to flash in front of everyone's eyes.

We returned to Reno and I announced to my family that I was getting married and soon the decision making began. Where would we marry? When is the date? Would we be paying for it ourselves? How many people would we invite? Who would we invite?

I didn't want to marry in Nevada. (Funny the different personalities... I lived in Nevada and left to marry. My sister came to Nevada to marry.) So that meant Colorado or somewhere else. Reno is also 12 miles to the California border and one of the big draws is Lake Tahoe. Close enough for us to plan, yet attractive enough to people who might want to travel. Also on that note, we could in theory invite loads of people, no one would feel left out, but few would probably actually attend. We had our locale selected.

My first choice in date was August 19, 1999 as that was my grandfather's birthday and his and my grandmother's anniversary. But 3 months to plan a wedding, by ourselves, was way too much to handle.

We pulled out the calendar and looked more seriously at dates. March 18th jumped out at me. If it wasn't going to be August 19th, it had to have an 8 in it. And the 18th was a Saturday. I didn't want to be a sweaty summer bride, and the following fall was too far away. March 18th was Spring Break too, which was nice and convenient being I was a graduate student. It was perfect.

Slowly but surely the details started falling into place. A venue was the first objective... my first choice was the resort at Squaw Valley since we were both skiers. They were excited to host a wedding, and while a little pricey, we could swing it. Then they laughed when I told them it would be March 18th. No way were they closing their restaurant during Spring Break! This was Lake Tahoe and by the way, was I nuts?!

There was no convincing them and they recommended we consider May for our wedding if we really wanted it at Squaw.

We checked everywhere and only found cheese on the Nevada side and small quaint, expensive as hell restaurants on the California side. I was saved when I read in one of my umpteen wedding planning books a recommendation to seek out different venues... like a college.

There was a college at Tahoe, Sierra Nevada College. See the picture on the front page (not the snowboarder, not the library). This was it. The place where my reception was held. And on the cheap too.

We met the director of food services and she was thrilled to do our wedding. She had an impressive resume being one of the original owners of McCormicks and Schmicks in Seattle. She was bought out by a partner and relocated/retired to Tahoe to plan meals for the spoiled rich kids whose parents could afford the $35K a year for a private liberal arts college situated conveniently at the base of a ski area.

(We benefited from this. Fantastic food, fantastic venue, a hobby for the chef, a chance for her to shine and have fun, and payment? Oh they would work with us. (We actually had to insist after 3 months she send a statement to us... it had slipped her mind.) I think we paid $15-20 a head for smoked salmon, brie, fruit, plated walnut pear salads, prime rib, and salmon and sides. Incredible. )

Once our venue was selected we secured our other vendors... cake, DJ (worthy of a post unto itself... I am restraining my fast fingers here), and florist though we ordered very few flowers... we wanted the natural beauty of our selected church (on the California side - an important detail) and reception hall to stand out.

We went about looking for a photographer. Everyone we met we figured, ehh... they would work. Then we met John Clausen. He was a photographer for Ski Magazine who dabbled in weddings on the side.

Our budget was then broken. I couldn't even look at another photographer.

I needed a dress, we selected our wedding party (my bridesmaids were my sister, Vargas Girl and AB's little sister, AB's groomsmen were his best friend JB and his two brothers), they needed dresses (not the boys, the girls did), AB needed to decide on tuxes, favors, out of town guests, invitations to be made (yes, I handmade our invitations and Vargas Girl handmade the vellum envelopes) etc, etc. And the honeymoon! After much debate we decided it would be Costa Rica. It was out of the US, tropical, yet adventurous, there was an active volcano there (still is) and most of all... cheap.

One of the sticking points in wedding planning came in trying to find an organist... we couldn't find one. Apparently the church had an organ, but no organist because there were none to be found in the area. What would I march down the aisle to?

One of AB's high school friends came to the wedding... Stefan, a musician living in Seattle would fly down (at our expense... he was a musician and all) and stay with AB's friends in the condo they rented together. (Thanks again guys.)

It got done. The wedding was planned. We used to joke about AB's future in wedding planning. He enjoyed it all and was quite good at it. I could have never done it without him.

Before we knew it, the guests started arriving.