The Day After

The day after.

I went to bed too late, slept alright but needed to get up and start doing things.  The last 48 hours have been a blur.  I got up around 8 but was still so tired from the day before.  I told Ben he needed to get up so we could start packing up our stuff. 

I got my bathroom stuff all taken care of, put on my clothes and started shoving stuff into my duffle bag.  I brought a lot of stuff for two nights and two days.  Better to be over prepared than under prepared, especially for a wedding.  Ben finally got out of bed and started getting him and his stuff ready to go.  I made a couple sweeps through the cottage to make sure we had absolutely everything, including the rogue phone cords and random items we may overlook.

I packed out my duffle, dress and shoes over to the house where my Escape was parked. I had to make two trips.  I went into the house to see if anyone needed any help.  I made some scrambled eggs because I was hungry, and we needed to eat some of the food, so we didn't have to pack it home.  Everyone else ate whatever was available.  There was plenty of stuff for almost 20 people.  Grandma was having a hard time getting her earrings off and multiple people tried.  We found out the backing was bent, and she was stuck wearing them. 

Everyone got their stuff out of their rooms, we picked up the living room, kitchen and had it all packed up into cars.  We all drove over to the barn to pack up our personal belongings.  Kari was responsible for the rest of the other stuff since that's what we paid her for.  We went inside and could not believe that crazy day happened.  I got out my totes and everyone helped pack up what we needed to bring home with us.  Josh took the kegs since he has a kegerator at his house.

Just before we closed the barn doors for the last time, I thanked everyone for their help because without them, this wedding would have not gone as smoothly as it did.  Hugs were given out and people left.  Ben and I chatted with Kari for a few more minutes before heading home.  She said she would let us know if we left anything behind and send us any deposit refunds.  We thanked her and told her we would keep in touch.  

We all hopped into our cars and got onto I-5.  It was a smooth ride home.  I chatted with Erika on our way back letting her know what happened after she, Zac and Brian went home the night before.  She said that the wedding was nice, and she was glad to be a part of it even though she still thinks that one of my friends should have been the maid of honor.

We all got to the house roughly around the same time, Ben, Mom and Trish helped unload our vehicles and stacked it in the living room and piled food into the extra fridge.  We even sent some leftovers with mom and Trish.  We were not expecting to have a ton of leftovers but sadly, we did.  We were going to try our hardest to eat it all before it gets bad.

Ben and I thanked my Mom and Trish for helping out as much as they did.  I am thankful and appreciate that they are not overbearing mothers who want to have their hands in everything.  They did just the right amount of stuff for us.  I got lucky to have a mother-in-law like Trish.  I always worried that I would end up with one who didn't like me or treated me bad.  I am so happy that wasn't the case.

Mom and Trish headed home after the long, crazy, hot weekend.  Ben and I decided to go through all of our cards, gifts and the money from the bar tender's tip jar.  Yes, they gave us their tips instead of keeping it for themselves.  I believe they deserved their tips, but they would not accept no for an answer.  Some of that money was stuffed inside my dress the previous night and was used for lap dances to Genuine's Pony, lol.  We sat on the floor and opened all the cards making sure that we wrote it all down in a notebook so we can thank the people for their generosity.  Our guests were very generous!  It brought a few tears to my eyes because they didn't have to...they chose to.  We ended up with $8000.00+ and we put it into a 13-month CD at the bank the next day.  We can't add any more to it until the 13 months pass.

We ate some of our wedding cake as we organized and put away wedding stuff in our totes.  I put them in the garage until I found the time after we move to go through them again.  I can't believe all the planning was now over.  I'll say it again - it went slow yet fast at the same time. I enjoyed planning a large event like that and I had fun making decisions with Ben.  

It's going to be weird referring to him as my husband and hearing him call me wife.  We got home and ate some of our leftovers from the extra fridge in the garage.   We watched some TV, I took a couple notes on my spreadsheets, so we knew who to send thank you cards to.  

It was so nice to finally get ready for bed, I was soooooo tired after this past week and especially not sleeping very much in the last 72 hours.  Again, the wedding turned out much better than I envisioned it going, it was a pretty amazing day!

Next Adventure:  Wedding Recap