Down the Yellow Brick Road Part VI: For the Boys

Previously:
Part I: The Night Before
Part II: Salon, Supermarket & Judy Garland
Part III: Setting Up
Part IV: Prettifying
Part V: All Bridalled Up


Sorry I've been MIA the last few days. Thanks to the spectacular timing of my pc shuffling off this mortal coil just around Christmastime, we had to wait for the suppliers to be open before we could get a new one. And everyone except me seems to have managed to take the longest holiday they could possibly have. Then right around the time Mr Ruby Slippers brought home the new pieces of the new computer, our landlords decided it was a good time to have our cottage repainted and the ceiling fixed. So everything has been sitting in the middle of the bedroom for the last few days. On the up side, it did provide us with a reason to clean behind the bookcases, which - ahem - we never do.

Getting back to the recaps. What I didn't mention in my last post is that while we were getting ready, ominous clouds were gathering overhead. Dun dun dun. I kept my cool; in fact, I was quite pleased to see them because it was a scorcher of a day and we needed some cool relief, and besides, stormclouds make for awesome pictures! That is, if it doesn't rain. Actually, even a light drizzle I could have come to terms with, the sort where you can get cute "kissing under the umbrella" pics. Just no storms that make it impossible to be outside, or, worse, impossible for anyone to hear our vows!

I was thinking all this and more while I was getting my makeup done, because that is when I first heard the unwelcome sound of thunder, and the even more unwelcome sound of rainfall. Not downpour heavy, but heavy enough to hear. Which, to my mind, was too heavy. I immediately picked up my phone and sent an sms (text message) to Mr Ruby Slippers, who was getting ready with his guys in a room far, far away. Now I had not, of course, seen or spoken to Mr RS since he left home the night before, and I wasn't sure if actually phoning him would be breaking the "not seeing each other before the wedding" pact. He, of course, had no such qualms, and immediately called me back to calm me down. (My text had read something innocuous like, "It's raining!! OMG." but I imagine he thought I was freaking out a bit more than I really was.) Actually I think I was surprisingly calm. At any rate, it was very sweet of him to allay my fears. Tanja's second shooter, Natasha, was with the guys at this time, and she got some shots of Mr Slippers talking to me on his phone:

I wasn't here for this (obviously, so I can't give a running commentary, but here are some shots I liked. Yes, we're segueing into the "Men getting ready" segment! So seamless.

Here's Mr RS practising his speech, while in the foreground are a groomsman bout and the wine for our chocolate & wine ceremony (more on that later). I have to wonder, though, if the guys were taking surreptious slugs of it to calm their pre-wedding jitters. :-)

And the good old standard "what time is it?" shot:
He cleans up good!

In fact, he cleans up so good that there should be MORE of him:

Well, if you're going to place the mirrors like that, what else can we do but take advantage?

For every hanging dress shot, there is a hanging suit jacket shot:


Next, Best Man Ruby Slippers helps the groom on with his boutoniere:
Whoa, this is tougher than it looks:

And the final product. I think the pocket handkerchief looks totally wrong inside out, but someone put it in that way and told him it was right. Hmmm.

And....they're off! I'm glad these shots really show off the green gardens of our venue. And notice how the sun has emerged, bright and cheerful:
Stand on a ledge...

And kiss your freedom goodbye....


Posing...


So pensive...
And so zen....
Heee hee, I love this one.

Ok, guys, it's time to head off to the chapel!
Here it is...ready for you to marry the girl of your dreams (that's just you, Mr RS, not you other two).

And unfortunately the next bit is where I have a gap in my pictures! I'll try to follow on with something not too out of order...

Reader, I married him.

I am TIRED. I don't think I've ever been this tired in my life. The stress of, oh, the last ten months, and particularly the past week, culminated in a day of more stress and anxiety and general rushing around like a mad thing than I have ever experienced in my life. It was, however, a day of more joy, excitement, tears of happiness and FUN than I have ever known. Never in my life have I had so many people tell me how beautiful I look, how touching the ceremony was, how fabulous the decor is, and how clever the details and DIY stuff. I was - and am - completely overwhelmed by it all. Somewhere around 12:30pm we started running a bit late, so things after that ended up feeling a bit rushed (I'm sorry we didn't get more time for the couples portraits, but the venue was getting antsy about serving the starters. Still, I think we got a good hour. I don't know how people do it in 20 minutes!)

I'm sorry I can't blog about it all now, but after getting to bed after 1am, and then barely sleeping at all, I am ready to fall over again - despite the yummy nap I took for three hours this afternoon. Mmmm. And tomorrow morning we leave for Thailand! For this hotel:


Now if only it didn't take 12 hours, a 7 hour stopover and a further three hours to GET there, I'd be in heaven right now. But I loathe travelling. Oh well, if you want to go somewhere exotic I guess you have to travel far away from boring old here.

My fellow blogger Guilty Secret asked about my stupid storms (or, rather, wished me well on them!). The day started out spectacularly: bright blue, stinking hot, not a cloud in the sky. I took these from my bedroom and Spare Oom windows:


This was what that same view looked like the other day when I blogged about the stupid storms:


The clouds are stunning, but not when they're throwing rain at me.

But on the morning of The Day, so far, so good. Around 1pm, clouds blew up out of absolutely nowhere, we heard thunder, and suddenly it was pelting down. I didn't even freak out; I just went, "Oh, crap" resignedly, and continued with what I was doing. Everyone assured me it would blow over, and by golly it did. By 2pm the sun was back out again, there were a few scattered clouds, and that was it. It didn't even attempt to rain again the whole evening. Tanja, my photographer, assures me that she is the "Good Luck" photographer when it comes to rain, and I now have irrefutable evidence. Thanks, Tanja!

I should probably go now...I don't want to blog about the rest of the day without photographic assistance (it's always so much better with pictures!), and all I have are a couple of shots that got emailed to me, but here's a shot of my table decor being set up (there was still a big vase to come that isn't set up yet). Look how pretty my damask runners look! And you can see the little Oscars in every place.

And here is Mr RS under my dress getting my garter off:

Trying to get more photos out of people is like pulling teeth, so I guess I'll have to wait till we're back from Phuket! I'll see you all when I get back. But before I go, I have to wish Guilty Secret all the joy and love in the world for her wedding next week - Guilty, your blogs are a pleasure to read, and you have such a great style that I'll read you writing about any subject! Have a wonderful day, and I can't wait to see all your blurred-out-face photos! :-)

Oh, one last thing - the entire reason for my blog's name - my RUBY SLIPPERS, on my wedding day! Everybody loved them!

Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togewwer today.

It's TODAY, and I'm full of butterflies. But surprisingly MUCH calmer than I thought I would be.

My BFF Justine stayed over last night while Mr RS went to his Best Man's house. We had a nice, chilled evening - we went through the to-do lists and watched Father of the Bride, and I even managed to wash the dishes that have piled up since Tuesday! I felt a lot more relaxed after my parents took most of the stuff away, and I think I'm ready to have a calm, enjoyable day. Thanks for all the wishes, everyone! See you soon!

Love, Almost-Nearly-Mrs Ruby Slippers!

PS - The weather is spectacularly blue skies, but in Johannesburg a storm can blow up in 20 minutes, so it could be pouring this afternoon...hold thumbs for beautiful clouds with NO rain!!

Stupid storms

Well, we are having a big lightning storm every evening now, which means no blogging from me! Right now there's a lull, but I fully expect it to be back in a few minutes. I also fully expect thyere to be one on Friday night. Hmm. Every weather site is giving me different information - some say sunny, no clouds and some say 30% chance of rain, so I guess we'll just take what life throws at us!

This is what I took from Accuweather.com this morning. I have a feeling they're full of crap, though, since they had "partly cloudy" for tonight, and it's clearly bucketing down outside. But I like their Friday prediction nonetheless. :-)



Ok, hands up everyone who knew that getting french-tipped nails took 2 and a half hours. Oh, look, all perfectly manicured. Well, I did NOT know this, so thank goodness I went tonight instead of tomorrow! I'd have been freaking out if I was still there at 8pm on the eve of my wedding in, by the way, an extremely dodgy neighbourhood. Some Nigerian drug dealers tried to flag me down when I slowed down at my sister's friend's gate. I drove off and phoned her to tell her to open her gate so I could just pull straight in. She arrived there with four dogs, including a mastiff as tall as my chest. I can see why she needs him.

We had a mini rehearsal last night. Just the parents and bridal party. I'm glad we did, because everyone had a TON of questions about where to go, when to do stuff and where to stand. I hope we covered everything! We read our vows for the first time EVER. I could not look at Mr Slippers at all, or I would have burst into choky tears. That kind of defeats the point of vowing to love him forever if I can't even look at him, but hey, a girl's gotta keep dry somehow. Opinion was divided on whether or not we should read them or learn them by heart, but I'm damn well reading them! That is not an added stress I need right now.

I have Bride Brain (def: a sieve). I left today to go print the menus and table listings. Halfway there I realised I'd forgotten the cardboard I was to print on. I turned around, went home and got it. (Actually I went upstairs, patted my cat, Gollum, grabbed some water, went outside, locked the door, realised I still didn't have the cardboard, unlocked and went back inside). Got to the print shop and discovered I hadn't embedded the fonts in the documents, so they were all Arial. Yuck. Back I went home again. Returned finally, printed the stupid things, had the lady there slice them up so I wouldn't have to, got into my car, realised I had no food for supper, hurried back to the supermarket and then came home.

Attempted to breathe.

I then had to pop downstairs for my makeup trial with my landlady. This is the pic I gave her:


And although we didn't get a photo (I had to rush off because I was late for the dang nails) I think she did a beautiful job! I'm very pleased. So thank you to whoever this is and posted it on Project Wedding!

After I got home from the nail experience (first time on my life wearing false nails!) I packed stuff into boxes and crossed them off my list of stuff to take, or for my parents to take. So now instead of saying "Take the cake topper, menus, six candles with bling, baby photos and guestbook", I can just say "Take that box marked "Reception - general"."

Tomorrow I need to draw up a big plan of all the tables, go through my to do and to take list, and then - HOPEFULLY - I'm ready. Oh, and I have to watch Father of the Bride. I've been promising myself that for ages.

I'll try blog tomorrow....