Wedding Fever

I realized last Sunday that, hey, it's getting closer and closer to the date. It's been a whirlwind ever since, mostly spent on the phone but punctuated by trips to the jewelry store and long hours talking with Grant about types of cake and food for reception and working our way through our counseling workbooks and that sort of thing.

I don't think I wanted to do anything before, in preparation, because it just didn't seem real. It's starting to seem real, now, and that scares me to death. I'm not used to really awesome, functional, planned things actually happening, and since it's getting close I'm daring to hope and thus becoming increasingly terrified of my own vulnerability. I keep finding myself so overly sensitive because I'm just afraid that it won't happen, under my giddiness. The more excited I am, the more I have to lose...I'm such a headcase.

There's no way it won't happen. The location is booked and paid for, the minister is scheduled, the rings are custom ordered. My sister is baking me samples and my dress is hanging in the laundry room and so on and so forth...but - someone will die! Or something will happen, some cataclysmic thing! Or, who knows! The funny thing is that I was so paralyzed by these nonsensical ideas that I nearly procrastinated to the point that it really WOULDN'T happen. Fool that I am.

So...Because of this denial, I didn't have anyone's adress ready and have spent like 5 solid days on the phone personally inviting people to my wedding. This is EXTREMELY time consuming because there is no way to call someone up and invite them to a wedding and then just hang up. I'm always talking to an aunt I haven't seen in a year who wants to hear all about the kids or an old church member who moved away and didn't even realize I was having a 4th baby or some such thing. Or playing phone tag to find out prices and availability, etc... I've apologized to the kids and put them on strict orders wherein I call them and answer questions and retrieve whatever they need/help/etc between calls. And, I've promised them that we'll still have tea with me focusing on them, everyday, although I don't let it drag out and swallow the whole afternoon anymore.

So far this is what I've got:
The ceremony will be at The Christian Church Conference Center, on April 20 at 4:00 pm, in the Outdoor Chapel. This is a Thursday afternoon. It will be officiated by Don Brammer with Shaun as Grant's best man and Laura as my Maid of Honor. Confirmed guests will be;
-My mother with her husband Todd, my brother Bob, and their stepkids Brandon and Destiny
-My Nana and Pa
-Laura and Frank
-Beverly Carpenter
-Glenda Harper
-Kathy
-My aunt Deana and her husband
-Grant's mom and husband Chuck, and Robby, Patrice and Nadia
-Grant Sr
-Mindy and her husband Greg
-G's Nanny
-His Uncle Mike
-Our friend Melissa and her boyfriend Alex (and yes, Shaun'll give you guys a ride)
-Bobby J

Then tentatively I'm hoping for;
-Robin Wooldridge
-My old counselor "Mr Nerenberg"
-Shawn Abrams
-Memo, who can only be reached through myspace and is in Las Vegas
-My Aunt Michelle, and cousins Annette and Andrea and Christina
-My dad, who is being a pisshead and talking about how he can't cover his shifts that day with the cab company, along with his longtime girlfriend Madie and stepgranddaughter Madie Rose
-Matt and/or Courtney Irwin, with Bobby
-Grant's friends and office partners Shari and/or Vince
-Jess

The ceremony will feature Ananda as flower girl (we've been practicing) and Aaron as what he misheard as The Ring Bear. He has been planning to wear a bear suit. I decided he is wiser than the rest of us and am hoping we can find him one, because that's awesome. We'll be having communion, guitar music and saying our own vows (Grant's written his...I'm still working on mine). Also exchanging white gold bands that have "Everlasting love and a life less ordinary" engraved on the inside. We should have them by next weekend. Grant came up with those words, and they have prior meaning for us.

We're tentatively thinking of having The Conference Center's in-house caterer provide barbecue and fruit platters outside in the picnic area; the other viable option is probably potluck style food, which isn't very practical with people coming from out of town. Then into the auditorium for cake (which Laura is making and will be 3 layers of chocolate, each with a different filling), a Big Surprise (and heck no I'm not telling!) and then the standard music and dancing sort of thing.

They have cabins that some of us will be staying overnight in, including my kids hanging with my family while Grant and I are Alone. That night before bed we're thinking s'mores around the fire ring for everyone who's overningting and then for the next day, well, there's a water park across the street from this place and some restaurants and a river with canoe rentals down the road.

I want Sara, Dama, and Heather to know that you are more than welcome to show up and bring your families :) Consider that an honor, not an obligation. I would be thrilled to see any of you but realize it's long and far and yada yada yada.

I would be happy to see a few others as well but those three are the ones I think MIGHT be nutty enough to consider actually coming ;)

So...I still have to finalize food, call my tentative peeps some more, go to our in-person counseling with Don next Saturday with our finished workbooks, buy Aaron and Grant's clothes and a bra that will work with my dress (it looks fine braless but I just can't shake the idea of that being ridiculous)...and Annie's shoes (she has a dress). AAAaaaaaaand get the final bookings for who will need a cabin.

I want you all to know I am a sappy puddle of mush. I sit up watching tv/movies with Grant at night and he catches me just gazing lovingly at his profile. There are little tense moments here and there because of the lack of time we each deal with, individually and together, but I've come to the conslusion reading these workbooks Don gave us that we are really, really, REALLY blessed. It's hard for me to believe some of the sample arguments and problems that they portray hypothetical couples as having...and if we're doing this well under huge financial strain with 4 kids under 6 (while trying to abstain from sex!), I imagine we'll be able to deal with most anything life throws at us. We really do laugh together and talk about silly things and hug a lot and do favors every single day.

This past weekend we're trying to renovate. We bought the kids new mattresses with our tax return money and cleaned their room and the dining room spotless. Grant also went nuts on the crowded kitchen counters and the bathroom. We're buying Shaun the materials to make us a new dining set (he is good at this sort of thing) since ours is two chairs short and falling to pieces, and combing Craiglist for new (to us) couches. It's exciting, all this wedding planning and house redoing.

AND I'm losing weight still! Veeery gradually now, but still I have no idea how. Seriously you guys, I've spent the past 3 days gorging myself on lasagna and chocolate cake after a week of inactivity from being sick or on the phone around the clock, and I'm down a pound. It's tandem nursing, I'm telling you. Jake-aroni is 18 pounds, 28 1/2 inches of squirming, rolling, sitting, squealing nearly-6-month-old, and he's still getting nothing but breastmilk. And Isaac is only eating like 2 meals a day for all the nursing he's doing (you might remember the quantities of food he USED to consume...) I wake up starving every morning and make my vitamins a top priority, because I can tell I'm making an INSANE volume of milk. If nobody nurses for 2 hours, I'm engorged. But that rarely happens. I've lost 37 pounds since Jake was born (from 217 to 180). I'm waiting until like a week before the wedding to see if and how I need to get my dress altered.

Ok, I'm out of time. I think I'm going to cheat and use a few minutes to leave a couple of comments because I really miss some of you. But I tell you, I don't know where I could fit the computer in right now even if it wasn't Lent.