I feel like I'm supposed to write about this, but I don't know how

So. The wedding is over. The honeymoon is over (heh). The presents are all opened, if not put away, but the thank you note process has only just begun. I feel like I'm coming out of some fugue state, honestly, like I've been living some other life for the past two weeks. Part of that, I think, is that I didn't work for two weeks (OMG AWESOME) and ALSO we were in paradise, I'm pretty sure, for a week, where all we had to do was remember to eat. And eat we did! You know who makes good Mexican food? Mexico. True story. ASHLEY. I tried Huevos Rancheros and I died for real. I had no idea Mexican breakfast was so magical. When I took the first bite, I was like, "I can't wait to tell Ashley I tried Mexican breakfast." It's true. You can ask Joe. Anyway.

I want to say so much about our wedding but I don't even know where to start. If I started listing all of my favorite moments, I'd never stop writing. The celebration actually started the Wednesday before the wedding, when I left work that afternoon with a SO LONG, SUCKERS and headed home for a blissful two week reprieve. Half of the Collective got in on Thursday, and there were shenanigans, but I'm not going to talk about them now because I might be talking about them later. ANYWAY.

It sort of all feels like it was a million years ago, but it's only been about a week and a half. I spent all day getting ready for the wedding, but I wasn't stressed at all. Joe's coworkers told him that I was going to have at least one freakout before the wedding because, well, they don't know me at all. At one point, Joe offered to do something for me and I was all, "Yes!" and he was all, "Well, I wouldn't want you to have a freakout," and I was like, "So all I have to do to get you to do stuff I don't want to do is say I might freak out?" and he was like, "Um, no," and I was like, "Too late I didn't hear that part!" and that is a true story. But yeah, I was pretty calm all day. Without the aid of alcohol, I might add, aside from the small glass of champagne I drank with lunch.

Joe and I saw each other before the ceremony, since we did First Look pictures right away (while we looked as good as possible, heh) and wedding party pictures afterward. Then we all hung out in the back of the church together before the ceremony started, which was great, it was like we were waiting for guests to arrive for a party. Which...I guess we kind of were. I think I'm still processing the actual wedding ceremony, it was such a blur. I remember all the important stuff, of course, like the vows and the readings and the MUSIC* but I also remember the not-so-important things, like how damn hot it was in there and how much my damn feet hurt and OH MY GOD who knew bouquets of flowers could be so damn heavy?

I'm really struggling with how to write about all of this, you guys. I think I'm too close** or it's too soon or something...I don't know, but I'm having trouble not just being all, "OMG IT WAS SO FUN," because OMG IT WAS SO FUN. Except for the part where my dad made everyone cry, but that didn't last very long. Heh. We served trashy bar food for the "meal," which was really just appetizers, and I ate a plateful of jalapeno poppers and am not ashamed. Our cupcake display was...oh, you guys. Just...just here:



The people responsible for this magnificence, KT and Sam Jackson, have a bakery called Bombshell Bakeshop and, you know? They deserve their own post so I'll save all my gushing for later. Well, most of my gushing. I'm still sad that I only ate one cupcake that night, but it was the Choclatron, which looks like a Hostess cupcake and tastes ten times better. Sadly, there were none of those leftover.

Also! I think the mustaches were a hit:




As well as some of the games. I know Twister was put to good use:



As was the Scrabble game on our table, although unfortunately I don't have pictures of all the dirty words my friends spelled out on the board.

Best of all, I think, was the Hogwarts game that was sitting, of course, on The Collective table.



I think Heather! Anne! might be in love and one of my favorite moments was when someone (gee, I wonder who) brought Hogwarts out on the dance floor and everyone danced in a circle around it. I can't find a picture of this but I'm almost sure it happened. Granted, this was about the time that they closed the bar but that I remembered there was an entire bottle of wine on our table, and so obviously I grabbed it, took a swig directly from it, and proceeded to pass it around the dance floor. CLASSY.

The whole day was just so great, you guys, I get warm fuzzies whenever I think about it. There's only one thing that I would have changed. My grandma was unfortunately not able to make it, and she was most definitely missed. During the ceremony, I pretty easily held back any tears about to break through until the pastor mentioned my grandma, something none of us knew he was going to do, and I had to do, like, Lamaze breathing so I wouldn't start sobbing in front of everyone because DUDE.

I think my favorite part of the day, at least the reception, was just standing back at times and watching all of my favorite people have fun. And I'm so glad so many people took so many pictures (and that things like Flickr and Facebook exist), because it gave me a chance to see all the fun that I missed while I was having other fun.

Also, if your self-esteem is even close to the low side, I highly recommend having a wedding. It's like a rule that people have to say nice things to and about you ALL DAY LONG. Like, people told me I was pretty and funny the whole day, it was awesome. And it was really great for my ego. Or really bad for my ego. Probably the last one.

*which included music from Star Wars, Love Actually, Ben Folds, Jurassic Park, and Indiana Jones OBVIOUSLY
**Any takers for a guest post? Anyone? Hello?

the situation is serious

I was going to try and express my feelings on getting married through the power of dance, but since I'm a horrible dancer, I thought I'd let Turk do it for me:



Have a good week, Internets!

heh, penal code

Joe and I applied for our marriage license on Friday. Since I am always extremely suspicious of authority figures and ALSO afraid they will question me about something innocuous that will end with me landing in jail, I made sure we were prepared. We had all of our documents, which turned out to be far fewer documents than I thought we'd need, and I knew what time we had to be there and how much everything cost (highway robbery, btw).

We had to go downtown, to the county courts building, which seemed easy enough because downtown Dayton? It's not that big. However. They are doing construction EVERYWHERE right now, so when we finally found the street we needed, it just ended. Like, BOOM, no more street. But it continued a bit farther up so we scooted around the block and found the street again AND THEN IT ENDED. AGAIN. At this point, I was struggling not to freak out because we had to be there by 4, it was 3:45, and we had to have time to park AND find the right office AND THE BUILDING IS HUGE AND OH MY GOD WHAT IF WE RAN OUT OF TIME AHHHHHH.

We finally found it, thanks to Google Maps, and I did not melt into a puddle of anxiety right there in the passenger seat, which I hear is hell on car upholstery. The Universe took pity on us and there was an open parking spot right across the street from the court house AND we had about ten minutes to find the right office, which turned out to be more difficult than anticipated because apparently neither of us can follow simple instructions.

We walked into the building and up to the metal detector because of course there's a metal detector. As soon as we walked in, the guard said, "second floor," and we were all, "huh," and he was all, "trust me, we can tell." Apparently we had The Look of soon-to-be-marrieds. The other guard waved us through and told us where to find the elevator, and then we walked right by the elevator because, as I said above, simple instructions, THEY ARE HARD, YOU GUYS.

We took the elevator to the second floor and found the right office with minutes to spare. They gave us one of those buzzy things that you get in restaurants that tell you when your table is available and pointed us to a waiting room. I busied myself with triple-checking all of the necessary documents I'd brought while Joe made jokes about penal codes or something I DON'T REMEMBER because I was too busy worrying about what would happen if they refused to give us a marriage license. I have no idea why I was worried about this. It's just what I do -- I worry.

"I hope it's our turn soon," I said and then the buzzy thing did its buzzy thing and we were up. We sat down across from the only person standing between us and marriage. Luckily, she was very nice.

"Marriage license?" she asked. We nodded. "I have to ask you a few questions, are you ready?"
BUT FIRST we had to raise our right hands and take an oath. We had to promise not to lie about anything important, so I couldn't like joke around and say my name was Princess Consuela Banana-Hammock, which is a shame because I really like to lead with a joke. Anyway, she asked if we were over 18 or if we'd been married before. She asked if we had picture ID and if we lived in the county. Then she asked if we had a social disease. In my head, I was all, "what, like being awkward at parties?" but it turns out she meant syphilis.

We gave her all of our information and $55, which is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a piece of paper, yes? She did stamp it, though, with this big fancy stamping contraption, so maybe that's why it cost so much. And those little buzzy things they give waiting couples don't just pay for themselves, you know.