A Wedding in Bits and Pieces: Piece 2: The Rehearsal

Arriving at the house after our pampering and lunch, I found F, fully dressed and waiting for his buddies to arrive. Which they did, with their women, and their WHITE CASTLE food. That shit stinks! (And I was none too pleased to find the table littered with their trash the MORNING of the wedding. Seriously? Trash can? Anyone?)
Anyway, SM raced back up to her hotel to get ready while my girls, A, R and CBF and I all crammed into our bedroom to watch me get dress and to get dressed themselves. We completely ignored F and his buddies. More laughing and joking, tons of hairspray and my hair still went flat! We raced out the door to pick up flowers for our mothers and my sister before heading to the church (the girls went separate from the guys.)

I just have to inject here that M, F’s jerky friend? Tried to make some cutting remark to me in front of everyone as we girls were leaving and I looked at him for a sec and then in a voice cold as ice said, “You seem to misunderstand this, in order for me to be hurt but what you say, I have to care what you think. *pause for effect* I don’t.”
Stunned silence, broken by one of my gals snickering “BURN!” as I whirled on my heel and left.
Man that felt good.

Ahem, continuing…….

Half way to the flower shop I made a frantic call to F because I’d forgotten the Unity Candle! He didn’t answer the phone so I left a message and then I called his buddy, L.

Me: “L! have you left yet?”
L: “No, we pulled back into the driveway and F went back inside for something.”
Me: “Thank god! I forgot the unity candle! It’s on the dresser.”
L: “Here he comes…(yelling out the window) F! you need to get the…oh, unity candle. That’s what he went back in for.”
Me: “Excellent!”

A mess of nerves. That was me. A complete mess of nerves. I was more nervous doing the pretend walk than I was doing the actual walk. I didn’t think I was going to make it. But I did. Coming down those choir loft stairs, holy cow, that was daunting. All my BM’s agreed that I should give my mom my flowers on the day of , until I made it down the stairs because as my loving sisters put it, “You were really shaky, weaving all over the place.” As I came down the stairs the first time, my mom said to me, “Are you ready to do this?”
Me: “I think so.”
Mom: “You THINK so? You better KNOW so. There’s still time to change your mind you know.”
Me: “I know, but I won’t.”
Mom: “Good. He’s a good man.”
Good ole mom, tell it like it is sister girl!

SM and A wore jeans to the rehearsal! Even after I had my mom send a motherly e-mail reminding them that there was a dress code. I can’t tell you how many people said they changed their clothing choice after getting the e-mail from “Mom DH. Whoa.”
But it was ok, they didn’t look dumpy, which was really good, but still annoying.
I had a small moment of clarity/panic as F and I were addressing everyone in the Church.
Me: “ (…..)so tomorrow. Whoa, TOMORROW. Oh, wow, yeah, TOMORROW.” As I grabbed my heart feeling slightly overwhelmed. They all laughed.

We headed out convoy style to the dinner portion of the night. Good food, great friends and family and many tears(from me, annoying I know) and the night was over.
We arrived back at the house and F and I said goodnight for the last time as an engaged couple….. as he left to go drinking with his uncle.
We girls were not invited.
Rude.