Pre-Wedding

Oh my goodness gracious, I had no idea how much work went into a wedding! Patsy handmade all her invitations, placecards, programs and table cards out of two different cardstocks, printed on her printer, and hand-affixed silver picture corners. She picked me up at 10am and I headed to the reception hall to help out. I helped her with the placecards and table cards, it was a lot of work! We placed programs and little boxes of jelly beans at each guest's place in the reception hall; her mother bought the jelly beans and assembled and filled the boxes herself. We set up centerpieces at each table (21 tables not including the head table), plus a centerpiece at the head table. She's having a Christmas-themed wedding, so we lit about a dozen Christmas trees, put up over 9,000 Christmas lights around the room, and set up about two dozen nativity scenes around the room, plus candles placed around on tables. I was only there for yesterday's work, but it took two full days in total to decorate the reception hall. Patsy was really stressed out. Lots of little family politics things, plus just wedding stress. There was the rehearsal at the church, then we went to Patsy's parents' home for an informal pizza-and-chips reception dinner. We got there about 8pm. In addition to the pizza and chips there were lots of cookies and sweets, and I was so hungry by then that I think I overdid it. I'll chalk it up to special-occasion binging. Back to being good after Christmas :).

I managed to make tuna salad and sloppy joes and do the dishes this morning, all in my ivory pantsuit for the wedding, without getting a single spot on the suit. I was so proud of myself, then I sat down and had a cup of tea and dripped it on my top. Thank God for OxyClean. I'm wearing a tshirt and jeans until it's time to go to the wedding. It's at 5pm. I was going to go early to help Patsy with stuff, but she called and said everything's all set, so I'm going around 4pm. I have to go to Fashion Bug first: the idiots left the security tag on my blazer. It's one of those that will explode indelible ink if you mess with it.

In addition to this being Patsy's wedding day, and two days before Christmas, it's also her birthday. Like she told me, if her hubby manages to forget their anniversary, her birthday or Christmas, he's in deep doodoo. I wish I had money to get her something. Maybe I'll get her something after the first of the year, a belated Christmas/wedding gift. I'm sure she'll understand. As it is, I'm going to her parents' house to spend Christmas Eve with her and her family; I think I'll dig out one of my fancy bottles of maple syrup, and maybe make some cookies. I may be broke, but I hate showing up empty-handed.