A Different Ending (Part 3)

[This is Part 3 of a series of I'm not sure how many yet. Part 1 can be found here and Part 2 can be found here. I fully realize that this is faaaaar more in-depth than most people care about, but I'm having a lot of fun going back over the past year and choosing photos and telling snippets of stories. I'm also realizing that some of these photos I uploaded to the computer and then never even looked at, so this is a good and much-needed chance to catch up and document our 2010. Thanks for bearing with me!]

Continued...

She had ordered her Bridesmaid dress back in March, and when it arrived she discovered--not very much to her surprise-- that it was too small. So immediately upon returning home from Oregon she launched Operation: Fit Into The Damn Dress. She did the South Beach Diet and ate very healthily


and was everyday up at the gym workin' on her fitness. A few weeks before she'd been walking down the stairs in her house wearing a cute long skirt, carrying a basket of laundry, and tripped on the front of her skirt and almost bit it. She caught herself, but at the expense of her IT Band. And yes, she recognized the irony that she'd been running for months and a trip on the stairs caused her injury. She's kind of a klutz, if by kind of you mean she runs into stationary objects like door frames and bed posts on a regular basis. So she couldn't run and was confined to the recumbent bike, which was boring but at least she could read for the hour she was on it every day.


And soon--much sooner than she actually needed to--she fit into the damn dress! She almost threw herself a party.


Instead of throwing herself a party, she put all her energy into helping her best friend plan a big party (called a wedding reception). She taught herself how to make these tissue paper poofs (which now hang in one of her guest bedrooms)...


...and she made cute rhinestone shirts for the flower girl and a little baby cousin...


...and a bracelet, necklace, and matching earrings (not pictured) for the awesome Grandma of the Bride...

(In progress.)

...and gifts from the bride to her mother and future mother-in-law...


...and programs for the wedding ceremony.


Then, she packed up the shirts and the jewelry and the programs and the guest book (which she did not get a photo of, silly her) and the spools and spools of ribbon she'd ordered and the folded pink tissue paper unpoofed poofs and her bridesmaid dress, and she headed back to Oregon.

She and her husband were greeted with a seafood feed at his parents' house, with lots of family there (it's almost always lots of family when her husband's family gets together).


[Her in-laws caught & generously shared all of the seafood. Yes, caught, like with a boat and crab pots and shrimp pots and digging clams and oysters. They know how to do it out in Oregon.] YUM.


And then it was wedding-wedding-wedding time. She'd flown in a week early so she could help out before the wedding, and that's just what she did. She got very used to this lovely view and this lovely old oak tree at the end of the driveway.


She helped clean out a greenhouse and prepare it for the reception, she took notes and kept To Do lists and reminded people of things, and she ran errands and went shopping for the bride & groom's house and the groomsmen's gifts.


She generally tried to just help out and do whatever needed to be done, including making centerpieces for the rehearsal dinner. She does not particularly consider herself a skilled flower-arranger, but she thinks she did a pretty good job.


The week flew by and suddenly it was the day before the wedding and all of the ladies in the wedding party were together getting pedicures.

She's wearing the pink & red Tevas.

And then she spent the rest of day poofing the poofs and hanging them in the reception space. Thank God she got some help from two other bridesmaids because 25 poofs is a lot, y'all.


She kissed her friend good night and prayed that she would sleep well, and she went home to get some sleep herself. And when they all woke up, it was The Big Day.

All the girls got ready together so there was lots of make-upping (making-up?)


and hair-doing.


And her friend looked gorgeous. I mean, really.

She made these earrings to match the bride's vintage necklace.

The wedding went off without a hitch and soon the bride and groom were being whisked off to the par-tay in a very cool car.


Everyone had a blast dancing under the poofs (and Chinese lanterns) on the cool checkerboard floor.


And they were all treated to a glorious sunset over the farm.


It was a gorgeous day, a gorgeous wedding, and she is so glad that she could be there to help her friend. They've been friends for over--gasp!--20 years and she just could not be happier for her friend and her new husband (of whom she heartily approves).


And the next day she crashed, hard. Helping to put on a wedding is not for the weak, she thinks.


After catching up on sleep and rest, she went out to breakfast the next day at her grandpa's favorite place. [And when she says "favorite" she means that the owner of the restaurant was a pallbearer in her grandpa's funeral and the restaurant has a memorial for him on their wall.] After a month of South Beach and no carbs, she ate biscuits and gravy and bacon. And it was good.


Then she and her husband drove down to spend some time with her grandma and (other) grandpa. She has a cool grandma and grandpa.


Her husband drove her all over the back roads where her soul filled up with as much Oregon as she could take in, and he stopped by the side of the road so she could take his photo with one of his favorite things, hops. :)


And then they flew back to Virginia, again.

To be continued...