DIY Life

In last week's edition of Wedstravaganza, I started cinching up quite a few important and final details before the big day came -- August 3, 2007. Among the areas I covered included wine and champagne amount calculations (yes, there's a formula for this), wedding program finalization and printing, deejay preparation and reception presentation picture scanning.

This week will feature a decent amount of wrap-up before I complete the Wedstravaganza series with next week's Part 8, which I hope to have to you on the ever-spooky day of Halloween. I hope you've enjoyed the ride thus far, and I hope you can appreciate the level of planning and detail that goes into a wedding and reception. I'll cover the honeymoon in next week's finale, as I've held off on that until now.

Additionally, next week's finale will include a timeline, a cost breakdown and the ending of our special day to our chosen Honeymoon destination the very next morning after Marci and I were married. So, don't forget to check back! Until then, continue reading.
For this week, I'd like to take you down to the final week before we were married to give you a glimpse of how things progressed right up until the wedding rehearsal on the evening of August 2, 2007. With pretty much all projects out of the way starting the week of July 30th, the only remaining project to tie up was to ensure Marci's bridesmaids had their dresses in order (same dress, different sizes), the eight tux rentals that were due to be picked up the day before were were married all came out okay, and that we have all the supplies we'd need packed into crates and tubs and ready to go that happy Friday morning.

All things considered, most of the supplied were able to be packed into the "utility" area of our Xterra, with Marci's mom taking the baton for getting all the wedding flowers picked up and delivered to the Dominion House on August 3rd. The short list of things packed in tubs was decently long: wedding programs, table favors, table treats (small candy bars), reception music CDs, my HP laptop, directions for the deejay, my checkbook, a guestbook and pen, pictures and larger frames for our reception ballroom display, glass pebbles and candles for the reception tables, bubbles for our send-off and a few hankerchiefs for the sweat I know would be happening.

You see, it's generally near 100 in August where we live. Although the way the wedding garden was situated (east to west), we did not see the sun being in anyone's eyes that evening (part of the reason we chose 7:30 instead of 7:00). Although the evening was perfect weather-wise, those tuxes were, umm, hot. Thou shall not sweat to death on thy happiest day.

I still had one last project to go that last week, however. Although Marci had already chosen gifts for her bridesmaids before me, I waited -- gasp -- until the last second to select gifts for my best man and groomsmen. I ended up selecting some nickel and platinum money clip/cufflink combinations at a local high-end gift store that seemed perfect for my team. So, I plunked down my money and I was done. The pairs were really great and were incredibly nice looking -- I knew everyone from my side of the wedding party would love them.

By Tuesday, July 31st, we had to turn in the final guest count for the wedding and reception, which we pegged at 150 guests (with many small children in attendance). This was based on mostly mail-based RSVP card returns and web-based RSVPs from our website. We also had a few verbal RSVPs as well. All told, we had a little over 160 total guests from the collective count, and estimated using our best guesses that about 85 percent of those who had RSVPed would show up to the wedding. And, below they are. Well, many of them, anyway.


Now, the average hovers from 60 percent to 75 percent according to the research I had performed. On wedding night, our count ended up being 144 people -- nearly a 91 percent show rate. Either we were very lucky or we have great friends and family that wanted to make the 45-minute trek to our wedding place to share our special day with us. There is no doubt in my mind that it was the latter -- and for that, Marci and I will be eternally grateful.

So, the day has arrived -- August 3, 2007. We were both prepared to finally be married after five weeks of intense planning, coordinating and pressure to execute our dream wedding and have things go off without a hitch. So many things had fallen our way and so many projects had fallen into place perfectly that we both knew it was meant to be.

It was exhilirating and exhausting planning this entire day in such a short time, but the end result was nothing less of sheer elegance and awesome fantasticness (sorry, I created a non-word there). Marci spent the evening of August 2nd at her home as to not see me the entire day of August 3rd, and it worked -- I did not see my precious bride until she was walking down the aisle that special night, next to her incredible children, Nicholas and Emilee. The below shot is filed in my mind as one of the best taken that night:


So, as they say, stay tuned for more. I'll wrap up our special day next week with more pictures than words, will provide you a timeline of everything we accomplished in five weeks, relay approximate costs for our entire journey (plus honeymoon) and provide detail on where we left to on the morning of Saturday, August 4th to celebrate our marriage (and relax -- we needed it bad!). Until then, sayonara until next week for the final, special edition of Wedstravaganza!

Until then, like I supplied in Wedstravaganza Part 6, here is an adorable shot of our ringbearer, my nephew Mason. He was clutching onto that pillow like you would not believe during the ceremony, but he did an awesome job and I couldn't have been more happy. Mason, you the man!