A Sunday Kind of Love: The Wedding Week

Before we get to the good stuff, we need to discuss the nitty gritty... The week of our wedding was very chaotic.  We had to have everything done and dropped off at the venue (except the chuppah) by the Tuesday before our wedding.  Going into the weekend before the wedding we had NOTHING done.

I didn't take off any days before the wedding, and the weeks I work at the public library I work straight through 12 days without a break.  That weekend before our wedding was, of course, a weekend that I had to work.  So leading up to the Saturday of our rehearsal, I hadn't had a day off in 12 days. I was stressed.  There were so many details that just weren't coming together.  We couldn't figure out how we were going to get our chuppah to the venue when there only drop-off time was right in the middle of our rehearsal lunch.  We didn't have programs or place cards, our hotel bags were not done, we didn't have a card box, or bathroom baskets, the list goes on and on. Not to mention I was stressed about our upcoming 12 week ultrasound, which just happened to be on the same day that everything was due at the venue (they would NOT let me come in any earlier, UGH.)

We decided to print our own place cards & programs using the same design that was on our wedding invitation, and I decided I could do this on my own.  I spent hours working on the program Friday night, and then ALL night Saturday into Sunday morning working on the place cards. We were printing the place cards on the Avery double sided tented cards, and of course nothing worked the way it was supposed to. It took ages, but finally I had the place cards and the programs ready for printing.  Off to Staples we went, only to be told that they wouldn't print our place cards using the pdf I created, so we had to do it ourselves anyway. But our printer wouldn't print on the style that we bought, they had to be laser printed, and we ruined an entire package of place cards. Mr. Ly dropped me off for work at the library where I proceeded to freak out because A. the place cards weren't printed, B. I had to work all day, and had to trust that he would do things that I would have liked to oversee (like buying new place cards), and C. I hadn't eaten in about 3 hours, and was looking at a long work shift with no food - and I was getting HANGRY (and worried about getting sick if I didn't actually eat for 8 hours.)

All of this is to say, Mr. Ly is the best EVER and not only brought me food after my melt down, but went with my bridesmaid, Sarah, and her husband to pick up the chuppah from my brother's house and borrow their birdcage for our cards (seen here), and then went to pick up the correct place cards to print so we could get those done in our own printer. Seriously, he should be nominated for sainthood for what I put him through some times.

Sunday night, we went over to my parents house and got it all done:

Finished Place Cards. 

While I printed and organized the place cards, Mr. Ly and my mom stuffed our hotel bags with goodies for our guests.  

Hotel bags included: Tastykakes, Hershey Kisses, granola bars, Utz Chips, a pack of gum, Lifesavers, 2 bottles of water, 2 pairs of gloves, chapstick, and Bath & Body Works hand sanitizer 

Philadelphia themed hotel bags that I designed and had printed by Vistaprint

Mountains of flip flops that we organized by size into baskets for the bathroom 

Bathroom basket for the ladies room made by my mom's friend

By Monday, I was feeling so much better, and on Tuesday we were able to drop everything off without a hitch, and go on to our ultrasound where our stubborn baby boy hung upside down the entire time and they couldn't get the measurements they needed. But regardless of that, seeing Mr. Ly see his baby for the very first time was by far the sweetest thing I've ever witnessed, and it just reminded me of what was so important about this week in the first place.

Stubborn Baby Lyre @ 12 weeks

While we did eventually get everything we needed done, seeing Baby Lyre was the best way to ease me back into the wedding week - with the perspective of what is really important.  Were the place cards and hotel bags and bathroom baskets really worth the stress? In the great big grand scheme of things, no.

I know lots of brides have breakdowns the week of the wedding, and my circumstances didn't help matters, but I strongly suggest to any bride who has lots to do in the week leading up to her wedding to take at least ONE day off to get it done!

Up next, we kick off our wedding weekend!

I pre-capped our recaps with a big announcement!
Recaps began with our Same Day Edit video.