The wedding day was good. Kay (my sister, who prefers Kathryn, but which I can't quite get used to) woke up early and we went looking for breakfast. John planned to eat breakfast from the grocery store - his usual preference - so Kay and I looked around for places that were open on Sunday. I wanted a good breakfast, because I wasn't sure I would get time for lunch. We checked a couple of places that weren't open and finally returned to the hotel restaurant - where we found out the Kay's room rate included breakfast for two. So we had a good, slow breakfast, eating and talking.
When we finally finished, Kay decided she wanted to go museum hopping, and John running, so I wasted some time until they told me I should come earlier than originally scheduled to get my hair and makeup done. I am not a hair and makeup person, but I went anyway. There were two women doing the work - one for makeup and one for hair. The bridal suite living room was crowded with wedding party people and significant others. And the bedroom was the staging area for steaming the wrinkles out of dresses. [Have I already complained about the humidity? Sorry.]
I got my makeup done fairly soon and she went easy on it, since I told her that I don't normally use any makeup. That part ended up not so bad. But then there was quite a wait for the hair doing. There were several people before me and I didn't mind waiting. In fact, I wouldn't have minded if all she had done was made sure my hair curled under, instead of up, and then hairsprayed it into oblivion. But Alyssa seemed to want me to try something more stylish, so I acquiesced. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't. The final result was probably ok, but it certainly wasn't "me" and I almost dread seeing the pictures of me.
I was most worried about my dress - and I know I was (selfishly) more worried about me than about how everyone else was doing - but it seemed to me that everyone else was doing just fine - so all I needed to worry about WAS me. When Kay got back, I asked if she could come up and help me with my dress. The dress was a lot more low cut than I am used to and the necklace was slightly too long and needed to be adjusted, if possible. So we had to figure that out. And shoes. I normally just wear Birkenstocks for my terrible feet, but that really would not do with this dress, so I wore the Birks, until picture-taking and then put on the painful shoes for the rest of the day.
Pictures were supposed to start at 4:00. Then it became 4:30. Then closer to 5:00. I think the picture-taking might actually have started at 4:00 in the bridal suite, but Kay, John, and I spent most of the time in the hotel lobby with Denise and Tom, Stephanie's parents, waiting for our part. It came, eventually.
The wedding was scheduled for 6:00 and we didn't have long to wait between the finishing of pictures and the beginning of the ceremony. I was really happy to see Geoff, John's brother, come. We haven't seen him for a long time and that was really nice that he flew down from Vermont.
The wedding ceremony went well and the reception afterwards was also good. Stephanie and Alyssa both looked absolutely lovely and a lot of her friends from Uni, the U of I, and locally came. A lot of Stephanie's law school friends came, too, which was great. All in all, the wedding went well and I could almost forget my "not me" look - hair and dress.
I did get to sing my song for them - "Make Someone Happy". I am a bit embarrassed now that I actually did so, but it wasn't too bad, so there you are.
Both Alyssa and Stephanie had looked a bit strained for most of the day, but they relaxed a lot at the wedding and especially at the reception and I think they looked like they were having fun. I wish them both well.
And I got to take my hair down as soon as I got back to my room - much better. Sigh. I am truly self-centered.
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