WEDDING RECAP // WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY

I can't pretend to be a "wedding expert".. after all, I've only planned my own, but I have some brief but specific words of advice based on things that happened to me. You could also say these are the few small things I would've done a little differently. Don't get me wrong, these things don't change the way I feel about the day, they didn't get me down or really upset me at all during the day, they were just.. small snags- if you will.

1) Even if your period JUST ended, pack tampons. Seriously. I knew mine was supposed to arrive in that ballpark of time, even had a "scare" earlier in the week (turns out it wasn't so much a scare as it was a very obvious warning/early signs of it) but was clearly in denial. I should've just planned for the worst and packed a few. I could've saved myself 20 precious minutes in the bathroom (or so it felt like) dealing with that before dinner.

2) If you aren't doing a receiving line, make sure you have a CLEAN get away. Due to the time constraints at the church (we had to be out pretty fast after the ceremony) and us wanting to maximize our party bus time, we decided early on to forego the traditional receiving line. [Which also resulted in some comments that we "didn't make time for everyone"... mmmmkay then.]. I was ready to head right out the back of the church and get on the bus, only one small problem. I hadn't really delegated who should have all our stuff ready to be thrown on the bus. In the last few minutes of, "you need to get out of view, people are steadily arriving now" things weren't as neatly packed up as I'd hoped. We had to leave our things next to the altar in some side-pews, which presented a problem in retrieving it when we were at the opposite end of the church. People started filing out so quickly we ended up having a sort of half-assed receiving line. Also, the bus was late. This is hilarious actually: Apparently, Leah told me, the driver called my cell phone at 3:30 lost and was like, "you're not picking up, I can't find the church." ... let's see, 3:30, what was I doing at 3:30.. oh yeah, GETTING MARRIED. der. Thank goodness Leah checked my phone. It ended up not being a BAD thing because I got to say hi to and thank a decent number of people for coming, but it made me feel bad- I'd rather have done none of it, or EVERYONE. It was just a little scattered for a few minutes, but the bus rolled up and we managed to get on and outta there pretty quick!

3) PRACTICE your first kiss. M and I joked about this one but never actually did practice. I wore my hair down so my instinct that day mostly was to keep people from smashing it in the back. Unfortunately I think this instinct kicked in when M lifted up his arm to presumably put it on my waist during the first kiss. I have NO idea what I was thinking but I felt his arm go up and then like, intercepted it? I sort of blacked out. I'm not mad about it, but, I would've done it differently because I feel sort of stupid about the way it looks. haha. Our photographer got some nice photos and it's not AS obvious, but the photo (and video) I have of it makes me laugh. Behold, awkward hand holding:

Seriously, what am I doing!? bahaha. I joke about being awkward in real life all the time though so awkward  hand interception on my wedding day is actually quite fitting.

Honestly, those are the only things that come to mind in terms of hiccups, or slight things I'd change. None of them really matter now, and didn't really matter at the time, but if I was forced to identify a few "less than perfect" things, that'd be it. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is very lucky.

And thus concludes my wedding posting. Are you guys over it? I Feel like you might be over it. I'm kind of over it myself- (never thought I'd say that) but I haven't had an excuse to whip out my DSLR for the last month or so because I've had these all lined up.. and then there was that little matter about my dad.. but I've missed taking photos and I've missed posting normal things. It's been kind of nice to have a little break since I had all howevermany of these wedding posts drafted at once, but I feel ready to get back to it.

Thanks for humoring the incessant wedding chatter around these parts for the last, oh, nearly 2 years. I appreciate it!