Pre-wedding week

Ok so the truth is that part of why I haven't really posted lately is there is somethings I wanted to say but I wasn't sure that I should. Ultimately today I decided that all I have to say that happened leading up to our wedding happened and if you don't like what I say than perhaps you should act differently in the future to prevent things from being said about you. Over the next couple of posts I will be laying out all the events of the week leading up to the wedding as well as the wedding and honeymoon. I am not really sure how long this will take to get everything out so just bear with me ok.

Saturday May 13th, 2006: Early that morning Brad and I went out and had breakfast and went to the Culver City Car show. It was a good morning and it was nice to spend the morning alone together knowing that in a few hours I would be flying in to Napa and would be preparing wedding details. Brad would not join me in Napa until Thursday so really this was our last morning alone together as singles. We came back from breakfast and Brad went off to get his hair cut and colored for the wedding and I finished packing called and taxi and went to the airport. My flight in was pretty uneventful and I landed and turned my cell phone back on as I headed toward baggage claim and my parents. Immediately once I turned on my phone it began to ring. I answered the phone to a very devastated Brad. A groomsmen had just backed out of the wedding saying he couldn't afford to come to the wedding so sorry he wouldn't come. Let me take a break for a moment here to explain that we paid for all the attendants clothing for our wedding and we had offered to make arrangements for people to stay at the house with us or to help out with the rooms if they needed. Brad and his family again offered to help this guy out so he could make it to the wedding but he would not hear of it and so we were all of a sudden minus one grooms man. Brad was very hurt that this friend backed out of our wedding at the last minute, but Brad is a lovely and forgiving person and will get over this with a little time. I am not. I understand that finances are hard and you don't want to take handouts but he was asked to be in the wedding more than a year in advance and he had plenty of time to arrange the finances or to back out gracefully with enough time to not be so hurtful and last minute.

On the phone with Brad, I suggested that maybe he should ask one of our other really good friends to be in the wedding instead. Honestly we should have asked him to be in the wedding from the start. Minutes after I hung up with Brad, the friend that I suggested called Brad and invited him out to dinner, not knowing any of the turmoil that had just occurred. That night Brad asked him to be in the wedding and he gladly accepted. Now it was time to make all the changes that this change would cause. Brad's Sister and Mother had made our chupa and had embroidered the names of the wedding party on it. The quilting would have to be undone and the panel taken out and replaced. This is no small task at the last minute. We would also have to get the tuxes changed to fit the new grooms man. We had made programs that had to be changed and printed and the vendors would have to all be called and notified because the names of the bridal party was part of what each requested. All in all things that could have been avoided with some common courtesy.

Sunday May 14th, 2006, Mothers Day: My parents and I left early and went to the mall and to Costco. We took my Dad's truck because we were planning on buying yard heaters at costco so we needed lots of storage. I sat in the jump seat in the back and it was a tight squeeze to get back there. Once in the back I asked if the truck had doors in the back and both my parents were very insistent that it did not. I was convinced that it did so when we got to the mall and my mom opened her door I reached around and pulled the handle inside the door and sure enough it opened revealing that the truck did indeed have back doors. My parents were in shock, they have owned this truck for six years and didn't know until that moment it had back doors. They felt really stupid thinking of all the times they squished stuff or the grandkids back there when they could have just opened the doors. We got the shirts for my Dad at the mall and my Mom got some jeans and I got sunglasses and we left and headed to costco. At Costco we bought lots and lots of stuff including the patio heaters, you can see from the pictures just how full the truck was.




later that night we had a nice steak dinner and the three of us drank two bottles of wine with dinner. We sat out on the patio and talked and laughed and as the night progressed my Dad got out the brandy glasses and the new bottle of Grand Marnier. We sat out on the patio and continued to drink and talked and the next thing you know the bottle of Grand Marnier was empty. We were talking and laughing and all more than a little drunk and I fell out of my chair and scraped up my forehead, only one week before my wedding. We stayed out on the patio until almost 2 am and then went into the house to go to bed. As I was in the kitchen turning off lights and preparing to go to bed, my Mom was in the laundry room getting out the sheets for her bed, there was a knock on the door. It was the police, a neighbor had called and said that they had heard voices. Not disturbing the peace mind you, they heard voices. The police came in and searched the house, luckily my Dad still had clothes on since he had already gone back to my parents room. The police left and told me to have a good wedding. So yeah I am such a rock star I party with my parents and get the police called. Sadly though I feel it was one of the best conversations my parents and I have ever had, I only wish we didn't have to be drunk to have it.

Ok so this is getting long so I shall post more later.