A Wedding Story (Series part VI)

I have to admit, it's taken me awhile to continue with this post, because, well, I thought it would be boring. I hope though, that I was able to make it at least a little bit interesting for you!

If you want to read the other stories in the series, look for the "Love Series" in the sidebar and click on the previous posts.

A little while after Armondo had given me the promise ring, I sort of freaked out. I all of a sudden saw my life closing in around me, so I had to do something drastic to take some "control" back in my life. As you can see from the following photo, I went a little extreme.I chopped off all of my hair and bleached it blonde in an attempt to gain control over my destiny.
(yeah, there's some weird line thing that showed up on my face from the scan, but I didn't feel like re-doing the scan, so, um.. yeah. I don't have pen on my face.)

Luckily, I had gotten all of that anxiety out of my system before we actually got engaged, and was able to really enjoy the time leading up to the wedding. And, I had time to enjoy my hair too, as you can see from the following "engagement" photo:

My hair is actually hot pink here, but it looks more red in the photo. I had to wear a wig over it at work!

In December of that year, we bought our first house. We had perfect timing and were able to get into the market when houses were still affordable. (We're still in that house, and it's an on-going project!)

After getting settled in the new house (my REAL engagement gift!) we started to plan the wedding.

I had it all worked out. I was going to get married on the beach, my grandmother was sewing the dress, we were going to roast a pig for the party afterwards, my friends' band was going to play, there were going to be Siamese fighting fish in martini glasses on all the tables, and we were going to go spend a couple of nights in a nice beach-front resort hotel and have the whole "honeymoon" package. All this was supposed to happen in July. Then, we were going to have our "real" honeymoon the year afterwards.

Well, after crunching some numbers and having some really itchy feet, we decided that we'd rather elope, and spend the money on a real honeymoon instead of on a huge dinner and expensive bride's maids dresses.

Then, after realizing that it costs close to $1000 to get married abroad, we changed the plans again. We booked the trip to the Dominican Republic, then scheduled a quick, cheap wedding for the day before the flight at Armondo's Aunt's house.

It was Wednesday, March 31st 2004. We had bought a simple dress for myself (My grandmother thought she had months to make the dress, so it hadn't even been started yet), Armondo wore a suit he already owned, Armondo's mother made a small cake, and we got our pastor to come and do the ceremony.

I don't know how many people were there, but my guess would be around 50. Due to the short notice, and the fact that it was in the middle of the week, some key people weren't there for the wedding. Including my Dad. But he didn't seem to really mind. (He really hadn't warmed up to Armondo by that point). I had my (then) three year old god son "give me away" and I just gathered whatever female friends were kicking around to be my bride's maids. I know some people were upset by the fact that they missed the wedding, but I figured that we were going to elope anyway, so if a person was able to make it, then it was just a bonus.

The ceremony didn't go off with out any hiccoughs though. In fact, the day started off bad before we even made it very far from our house.

As some of you may know, my mother and I don't have the best relationship. Actually, these days I'd say that we don't even have a relationship. But she was invited to my wedding, and had said she'd come. (She was excited). We live on an island, and she lives on the mainland, and she was due to arrive on this side and call us from the ferry terminal to get a ride with us to the wedding. My grandmother had already made it from the mainland and was spending the morning with us waiting for my mother's ferry to arrive. We waited until about an hour after the scheduled arrival time, and without a call from my mother, we decided it was time to leave without her. None of us were surprised that she hadn't shown, though I was a little disappointed. We were three minutes down the road when Armondo realized he had left my ring at home. So, we turned around, and headed back to the house. As we pulled into the driveway, we saw someone getting out of a taxi cab in front of our house. It was my mother. Armondo quickly ran into the house to get the ring while my grandmother and I just sat in the car. We were both angry with my mother, and didn't show much enthusiasm towards her as she walked up to the car and asked her mother for cab fare.

The drive to the wedding (in the next town-30 min away) was pretty quiet, besides my mother trying to make small talk. She tried to explain her tardiness and it turned out that she took a totally different ferry (different time, different arrival point) than she was supposed to, and that was why she was late. I blocked out most of the rest of the chatter as I mentally prepared myself for the upcoming ceremony.

As I was getting dressed and ready for the wedding, my mother and my girlfriends all joined me in the room. I felt really awkward having my mother that I barely even knew there in the room while I changed and prepped myself, but I didn't make her leave. I already had my jewelry picked out, but changed my necklace when my mother presented me with "something blue"- a gold coloured necklace with a small blue stone pendant hanging from it that had almost painfully obviously had either come from the discount bin at Walmart, or had come from some sort of other shady means. I took the pendant off of the chain though, and switched it over to the white gold necklace chain I was already wearing.

Getting ready.

I was pretty wrapped up in getting myself ready, but was distracted part way through when my mother asked me to help her choose what shirt to wear for the ceremony. She had brought two ratty tank tops. And she wanted to know which one to wear. She also brought a small cardigan, and I insisted that she wore it over one of the tank tops. Ugh.

When I was finally ready to present myself, we got my godson ready, and he slid down the stairs in front of me on his butt as I followed behind. It was totally cute, and he had the whole crowd cracking up. I hadn't done a "rehearsal" run before hand, and my ribbons on my shoes fell down as I walked down the stairs, causing slight embarrassment for myself, but apparently no one else noticed!

What a cutie pie!

I joined my fiance at the bottom of the stairs and stood in front of the hearth as the pastor read our vows. The whole thing was very surreal and I was beaming with happiness.

Then it was time for us to exchange our rings. And this happened:

"Doh!"

Armondo had forgotten the ring. AGAIN. This time in his jacket pocket in the room he got changed in. Quickly, I slid the "something old" ring off my thumb that my MIL had given to me (it was her father's wedding ring) and we used it for the rest of the ceremony. The big kiss.

(Before we signed the book, Armondo ran and found the ring and we sort of slyly switched them over.)

Then, after the ceremony, we had fun squishing cake all over each other's faces, we took pictures, and we did the customary bouquet and garter toss. Then, the guests all started to file out as we prepared to leave to the mainland to go catch our flight to paradise. But of course, not before my mother fell asleep on the couch and then tried to figure out a way to get alone with my new FIL. Newlyweds.

My mother, myself, and my grandmother.

Though the day didn't go exactly as planned, it ended with me taking the prize.

Then, there was the ride to the ferry before the trip to the Dominican. But that's another story!