The Wedding

My day began at 6AM. I was greeted by fog and rain and thought, "Well there goes the photo shoot at the Capital building!" Camilla, Hannah, Ann, Emily, and I headed out about 20 minutes late, which was my fault since I forgot to get the blowdryer the night before. When we got to Tam's they were just starting to move around. We had four objectives: fruit platters, flowers, photos, and fixing Hannah's and her sister Rachel's hair. Camilla, Hannah E., Ann, and Tam went right to work on the fruit and they did an outstanding job with the presentation. Unfortunately, I didn't get a single photo of the spread when they were done! I think Hannah P's mom did though. Maybe she'll share? *batts eyelashes
I was supposed to take photos of the bride getting ready too, but there just wasn't time for many. She wanted live roses, so they had to be done up that morning and I was the only one with experience in that area, so the lot fell to me. Lonna, HELP!!! I had to rush, rush, rush, but I was able to get them all done before the wedding. Whew! I discovered that live flowers are actually a little easier to do up than silk ones. The only drawback was the thorns. *wince*
Kathryn came down and did a fabulous job on the girls' hair. Hannah wore her hair down in ringlets. She looked beautiful. Good choice. :)
Hannah P. finished up the bouquets with satin ribbon, pearl pins, and tool. I'd never seen the tool idea before, but it turned out just lovely.
At 1PM, we were off and running...late. We had intended to assemble at the hotel for photos at 12:30. I wanted to get all of the shots of Ed and Hannah out of the way so the post wedding pics wouldn't take so long. With all of the rushing to decorate and get dressed, we ran out of time, but I was able to take some of Hannah and her sister, Rachel, who was the Maid of Honour, as well as the adorable flower girls, Abigail and Maggie. Hannah was radiant in the gown that she made herself (!!) with the help of Tam and her mom. Kathryn had given her a french manicure too, which elegantly finished the look. As it was still rainy out, I was thrilled to see some big windows in their suite. Natural light is always very flattering.
As quite as a blink, the hour was upon us. I had wanted to hook Ed's camera up to Josh's laptop so I could upload full memory sticks without putting my camera out of commission for 3 minutes every time. Alot can happen in three minutes. However, once I got the laptop set up, I couldn't find Ed's camera. :-O I had shoved it amongst the blankets in my diaper bag on the way out of Tam's house and then promptly forgotten where I'd put it. No time to fret. On with the show!
I kept thinking, "Why do I do this? Why do I do this? I'm gonna wreck their wedding!" My hands were shaking so badly that I could hardly hold the camera. :)
Thank-you Hannah E. for helping everybody to get up the aisle at the appropriate moments. Since several people were unable to make it to the rehearsal, it could have been a little tricky without your able assistance.
The wedding was a mixture of sweet and hilarious. Camilla delighted us with some lovely piano playing and the wedding party all looked smashing. Abigail decided at the last second that she was NOT coming down the aisle in front of all of those people! Holly was like, "YES, you ARE!" haha I should have told her that it was ok to stay back and let Maggie go it alone, but I was too busy snapping away. It was a classic wedding moment. How could I resist? :) It was good too because some people (I won't mention any names ;) ) needed some comic relief to ease their tension.
I'm afraid I hardly heard one word of the ceremony. I kept looking at my stick space nervously. I knew I was going to run out of space before the end of the ceremony. ACK! Ed had loaned me extra memory sticks, but they were with his missing camera, so I was left with a 32 MB (15 pics or so). I missed a few shots, but it worked out ok, and I found Ed's right after the ceremony.
We were supposed to get pics of the families, wedding party (Shawn and Ben were both Best Men btw), and Bride and Groom immediately after the wedding, but it seemed like everybody and their mother had a camera out snapping away, so their wasn't much time for that. We managed to squeak in a few, but I wish I'd been more assertive 'cause they could have been better. Everybody was getting pretty hungry, so we cut things short and dug into the wonderful fruit platters and punch. I took a much needed break to spend some time with my family. My wonderful husband rode herd on Joshy for most of the day inspite of his corneal scratch (he wasn't just trying to be cool), and Emily was a peach. I was so afraid she'd start wailing in the middle of the ceremony and my milk would let down, making it embarassingly obvious that I'm a nursing Mommy. eheh :)
The reception was really low-key. We ate, we talked, they cut the cake, and then it was over. I took a few more pics of Ed and Hannah upstairs in their suite, which was niiiiice, let me tell you, and finally called it a day.

Well I'm off to town to do some fun things with Tam. We're going to give Holly some painting ideas for their new house and then going fabric shopping for Uncle Dave's quilt. Should be interesting considering that Joshy is determined to get up after only sleeping for a half hour.