Upsetty Spaghetti

Let us continue on with the big wedding week recap.

On Thursday night, after all the guests and first responders left, I walked out onto the back deck and saw all the cows gathered around their empty water trough. Their water trough was empty because we had no power, of course. They seemed quite confused, because they are used to jogging on down to the water trough by the hour, filling their bellies with water to their heart’s delight, and then going right back to what they do best-eat and poop. And Reader, as of late, the cows have come to that trough, drank it dry, and then my entire home is out of water for a moment in time while the water level in the cow trough fills back up to normal. It’s pretty fun over here.

But no power=no water pump=not even the cows could have water. And, I spoke to the cows as they all stood in line glaring at me. As people do.

Me: Ah-ha! My how the tables have turned, Cows.

Cows:

Me: How does it feel to expect water in your life, and alas, there is no water? Pretty inconvenient, if you ask me.

Cows:

Me:

Cows:

Let’s move along.

Friday.

On Friday, David had to work and HD had a few things to take care of. The plan was for me to leave at 9am and head to the river, leading a convoy that included myself, the bride and groom, the groom’s parents, Hadley and LD. David and HD were going to be at the river by around 11am. Before my departure, I had to get the house in order from the day before, wash up my bedding, clean the house, and load up vehicles with all the things. We were planning on staying in our trailer at the river for the next couple nights and David’s brother and his family were coming into town to stay at our place and watch our dogs. Because I don’t know a lot about throwing a wedding, but I do know it would be in poor taste to have these three running amok during the festivities.

In true Maliblahblah fashion, everything is hectic and crazy. I am having to wake LD up 85 times and spent a lot of time trying to get his very tall self INTO THE SHOWER for the love of everything. And in true LD fashion, I have to work very hard to get him OUT OF THE SHOWER.

Me: DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. You have been in there forever.

LD: I know. I had to wait awhile for the water to come back on.

And if I drop dead from stress, just tell the doctors I literally could not continue to endure life with my water situation because ohmygoodness and ohmyword and I just cannot and WHY, and I believe when I do get to heaven the Good Lord will create for me home filled with faucets that just pour water with the flick of a wrist and such a glory it will be.

And also, we had a puppy.

Because even though I declared no dogs would be at the wedding, we had a puppy.

So, we get to the river. Everyone is looking at me as if I am some wedding coordinator who knows what is going on. I start tasking and Hadley and LD both start mowing and Caleb’s parents and I, along with Kate and Caleb, all started washing the chairs and getting those ready to go.

The grass was extremely lush and green. This was due to the fact that David and I had devoted our lives to keeping that grass watered and it had never in all its time been that green. And it will never be again, because that was way too much work. Thankfully, the weather had not yet turned (remember-thunderstorms were in the forecast), so it was nice and hot and the sun was beating down on everyone.

As I was washing chairs, I was looking at the lawn mowing crew and noticed that the riding mower was spitting out an obscene amount of grass. I found it odd, so I went to check and was, for lack of a better term, “dismissed” by my own children who feel they know everything there is to know about life. So, I went back to washing chairs, but still felt something was off, and I would go and try to figure out why there was so much grass clippings and what was different this time about mowing than all other times. Dismissed again-back to washing-back to worrying-and this little dance of mine continued for awhile. Finally, I discover that the lawn mowing children decided to lower the mower from a level 6 to a level 2. And I don’t know how to explain it to you, but it was looking like they were just cutting away all that green, green grass and when it was down that low to the ground, it looked a bit more on the brown side.

It is now well past 11am and no sign of David. My dad shows up and he is able to help me stop the renegade lawn mowers, but there was definitely a problem. The grass now looked brown and dead and was covered in grass clippings. Thankfully, the grass closer to the river was being mowed with the push mower, so that grass was still lovely and green, but there was a huge patch of just bad, bad, bad. We had one rake and so raking started to try and get that grass up off the lawn. In the spirit of all things my life, the rake broke and my dad sent Hadley back into town to buy two new rakes. The renegade lawn mowing children were miffed at the world, and I know they didn’t mean to do anything wrong, but we now had a lot of raking to do.

It is now around 1pm and I am hot and tired and the property looks pretty much awful and I don’t know how to set up for a wedding and where in the world was David and I had to make lunch for everyone. I went into the trailer to make sloppy joes. My mom had arrived now and came into the trailer to find me crying and cooking stupid ground beef because I was so tired and we had worked so hard and grass now looked so bad. It was a shining moment.

The rest of the day went ok. Kate and Caleb were doing a lot of puppy parenting and that was kind of entertaining. I believe Kate thinks that if she says the puppy’s first AND middle name in her most stern voice 18 times, the puppy listens. David and HD finally arrived at almost 3pm. Why they were so late, I am unclear on, but if I were to guess, I would guess that David completely forgot we were about to throw our daughter a wedding and he spent some time at home repairing his hay-bale-unroller and feeding the cows and generally not being in a rush at all.

David and LD got to work on lawn CPR which involved an insane amount of raking and watering. HD got to work on weed wacking and trimming up. Everyone else was doing everything else we could think of to decorate and prepare, but the tricky thing was to decorate only things that would survive the next day’s early morning rain.

And, oh! We were going to have a rehearsal dinner! My dad, the total champ that he is, took on the preparing of the rehearsal dinner and was preparing prime rib from our very own cattle. And I have never in my life even thought of cooking prime rib, but I sure do think it would be tricky to do in your trailer at the river. But he did and my mom was helping with sides and such and they did a good job.

The rehearsal went well and I started to feel a bit better. Things were coming along and looked nice. David and LD’s hard work was starting to show and grass debacle was looking to be less tragic by the hour.

This was what it looked like just for the rehearsal-without the final decorations.

Saturday.

One of the trickiest parts to this wedding was the fact that it was at the river. The river is far and not conveniently located and, once you are there, you have no cell phone reception and would need to drive at least a half hour to get reception.

Also-I am not good at this. At all. And I felt very disorganized and rushed the entire 40 day planning period and it was just not the best and most fun time for me. One nice thing about the short planning time was that our options were very limited, so we didn’t have to spend a lot of time making decisions-we just had to do what we could do given our time frame. I will say I was very impressed with Kate this whole time. Kate has always been a more high-stress person, and I was anticipated her being in a tailspin and maybe even a bit Bride-zilla-ish, but no. She was very cool and calm. Sometimes she would start to get a bit upset, but easily calmed down and handled every twist and turn with ease. Unlike her mother who was sobbing over grass while cooking sloppy joes the day before.

Hadley’s bridesmaid dress didn’t fit quite right, so she asked Aunt Lisa to do a little last minute alteration which involved lengthening the straps with a strip of tiny pearls, making Hadley’s dress look a bit different than the other bridesmaids. However, it was not very noticeable at all.

Kate: Hadley! What did you do to your dress?!

Hadley: Kate. Don’t be upsetty spaghetti. The straps were too short and this is all we had time for.

Kate: Ok. It’s fine.

Me: DID YOU JUST SAY UPSETTY SPAGHETTI? That’s gold! I shall use it with my firsties this year.

And that sort of thing was about the extent of it all and really Kate did very well.

On Saturday morning I left the river by 7am and had to gather the girls who were at the house and then we did a fun morning for Kate with manicures and brunch. People went their seperate ways for a bit and I took Kate to get her hair done by Haircut Lisa. We have two Lisa’s in our lives, so we refer to them as Aunt Lisa and Haircut Lisa. It works for us. Haircut Lisa has been cutting my hair since I was about six years old, so that is all special and fun and nostalgic.

I touched base with Caleb’s parents, and we need to let the records show that these two were absolutely amazing. They came and did not bat an eye (that I could see-ha!) at our crazy lives and jumped right in. They took on a lot of decorating and cleaning and were so very helpful. His mom was asking about the details of the time right before the wedding with last minute decorating and then getting dressed and looking all nice for the wedding.

Me: You can totally just bring your nice clothes and change in my trailer before the wedding. That’s what I am going to do!

And, that statement, Reader, will be important later on.

Kate and I got back to the house with her hair looking most beautimous and met up with Hadley, Lily, and another bridesmaid. The girls all helped Kate get her things together and then I had to try and figure out how to load all the ceremony flowers safely in my car and get them to the river.

Also, it is important to note that it is at this time that is started to rain.

First, I had Kate’s bouquet, and I think it is the biggest bouquet the world has ever seen.

I had to use the container meant for huckleberry lemonade just to prop it up correctly.

Fun fact: The peonies in that bouquet are silk. I won’t tell if you won’t tell.

Bridesmaid bouquets-

And a swag type thing we made for the arch.

Caleb stopped by the house to grab the puppy. Because, of course, the puppy was coming to the wedding! Why would you think any differently, you silly Reader.

Kate: CALEB CANNOT SEE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Caleb did not see her.

I finally left with three young adult women and all the ceremony flowers and headed to the river, in the pouring rain, with a hopeful attitude because the rain was supposed to end by 4pm.

I arrived at 4pm. And even though the wedding was to start at 6, I would say about half the guests had already arrived early.

Fun!

But, Reader. When I pulled up, a huge sense of relief and gratitude came over me. While I was in town with all the girls doing all the things, David and the boys, Jessy (remember Jessy! She’s swell), my parents, my niece Ana, Aunt Lisa and family, and David’s parents had been at it all day and the place looked absolutely on point. Everything was coming together and looked better than I could have imagined. Truly. We have a kind and helpful family.

And Caleb’s parents arrived and tackled the arch decorations and that was a huge burden that was lifted. I am really so grateful that we had so much help.

This post is going way too long, but we have come this far and there is no turning back. Before we head into the final stretch, you need to know that Kate really wanted all the trailers off the property for the wedding because she thought it wouldn’t look nice. And I get it, I do, but I want you to try and imagine how we would have pulled this off without the use of the three trailers at the property.

The 4-6pm time block is a blur. I was running in and out of trailers, trying to make huckleberry lemonade and setting up the drinks and also finishing up last minute decorating and tidying up. My trailer is an explosion of bridesmaids and wedding clothes and shoes and makeup bags and people and someone’s hot rollers heating up in my bathroom.

Finally, it came time to get the boys dressed. May God have mercy on my soul.

It is now approximately 5:15. Even though Auntie Datenut let out the hem on HD’s pants, they are still too snug around his waist. There is an inner button and an outer one and there is no way that inner button was going to button. This left a gaping effect at the top of the zipper.

HD: That’s it. I am not tucking in the shirt.

Me: Yes, you are.

HD: No, I am not.

Me: Yes.

HD: No.

Me: Yes.

And so on. We decide to have me try and safety pin, but that was not working out at all, plus I think I was a little to close to him for comfort, if you know what I mean. I got them ready, barely-tasked Jessy with cufflinks and she handled them like a champ. Now it is 5:38pm. I remember because I looked at the time and thought,

“Heavens! It is 5:38pm! And I am still in jeans and my hair is a fright and I am not ready at all!”

Finally, my bathroom is free, so I start to wash my face. Hadley and Lily, who were all ready and beautiful, kept coming in because it was at this time that Hadley decided she should write her maid of honor speech.

Hadley, shouting at me through the bathroom door: MOM I NEED A FUNNY STORY ABOUT ME AND KATE FROM OUR CHILDHOOD.

Then David is knocking on the bathroom door and telling me he needs to take a shower and it like 5:42 and I am like, dude, you have been here all day and so I try to get my makeup on in my trailer bedroom and Kate is in there with the gal doing her makeup so I squeeze by and sit on the floor and try do it from there.

David is out and I try to get back in to do my hair. People are still coming in and out and Kate is worried people are going to see and I got a little snippy and said/shouted:

“Please. If you are ready and you do not NEED to be in here, get OUT!”

Kate and I finish getting ready. Sally the bridesmaid is in there as well. She sure did get right in there and applied deoderant to Kate’s armpits and then lovingly and expertly wiped all the deoderant smudges off her pits with her own finger and that is true friendship.

I open the door to the trailer and the pastor is standing right there.

Pastor: You guys ready in there?

Me: Yes.

Pastor: Ok. It is 5:56. We will start in 4 minutes.

And that was that. And we started in 4 minutes. And the rain had stopped and I went and sat down. I saw Caleb’s parents across the aisle and noticed they were in their fancy clothes and wondered how and when they changed, since I completely forgot about them and my offer to have them use my trailer.

Found out later, they just stood behind their Jeep and got dressed.

Face palm.

The wedding was really nice and pretty. I don’t really have many photos at all and will share the professional ones when I get them. It did start to rain a bit after the ceremony and right before the reception dinner, but we really lucked out.

Alright. That’s enough for today. Thanks for reading.