Rehearsal and Rehearsal Dinner
So let's just say that I didn't really need the stress that this day brought! The past few days had been fun but a little upsetting because I had a group of friends cancel on coming to the wedding. They were friends that I had studied abroad with (but from the states), and I haven't seen them in about two years. And they told me early on they were definitely coming to the wedding, it would be a great chance for a reunion, they were so excited, etc. And then one by one they all facebooked me and had some excuse or another (at least one person had the decency to call me). But moving on from that!
To begin this day I had a bridesmaid tea. I knew Linda wouldn't be there because they were driving up that morning, but Sarah was supposed to come and cancelled again. So once again, Martin joined us! And my parents, so it was a nice little lunch.
I also made a cake based on a tradition I had read about online - the charm cake. You bake a cake and then put charms with ribbons on them into the layers of the cake. At the tea or luncheon each bridesmaid pulls a ribbon out and whatever charm they get predicts their "fortune" - such as, a wedding ring means you'll be the next one to get married, a globe means you'll have the opportunity to travel the world, etc. It was fun! And it was a tasty cake too, strawberry cake with whipped cream icing!
Now, I was also excited about today because Jason would finally be coming. It's a three hour drive from where he is in PA to my house on Long Island. However, he also agreed to pick my brother up from college. So that should add an extra hour into his trip. But because he was also bringing his brothers and mom, he didn't want to make them sit an extra hour in the car and so he was going to drive up to the college, drive back home, and then drive to LI - basically making his trip a 5 hour trip instead of 4. This made no logical sense to me (someone would still be stuck in the car an extra hour, my brother, and Jason would have to drive for two extra hours), but whatever. He texted me around 8:30 am that morning to let me know that he was leaving.
Here's where things got a little messed up. He texted me again about an hour later to say there had been a huge accident on the turnpike, he was going back home to get his family, and they were all going to take a different route to get my brother and then leave directly from there. Fine, that should still put him at the college at around 11.
At 1:00 a get a call from my brother saying Jason hadn't shown up yet... and last my brother had been notified he had been told Jason would be there between 10 and 10:30. I was beyond angry - I had been asked to be updated on everything and I hadn't been informed, but WORSE is that they didn't bother to call my brother, who had been waiting to be picked up since 9:30 that morning? And he had missed two classes he could have attended because he thought they would be there any minute. I called Jason to find out what was going on and discovered that they decided to wait til 11 to leave because the turnpike should be cleared by then, and that they then had to make a "pit stop" on the one hour drive to the college.
They didn't get my brother til 1:30. The rehearsal was supposed to start at 5 pm, and it's a three hour drive - with no traffic. But we're talking about driving to Long Island on the Friday of Labor Day weekend. OF COURSE there will be traffic. Jason guaranteed me they would be on time. I said no way in hell. I have never been so mad at him in my life - not just for messing up the times, but mostly for not telling me what was going on. No one ever called me or texted that entire day to keep me updated, I had to reach out to them to know what was going on. Being that mad at your fiance is not what you want to be feeling the day before you marry them. It was awful.
But anyway, back on my end, we went to the salon for the afternoon to get our nails done and to get my hair styled for the rehearsal dinner. I had asked Martin whether he wanted to come, explained it would be rather boring and he could just stay at my house and watch TV or hang out with my dad. But no, no, he wanted to full experience! So he tagged along
Here we are chilling at the salon:
The pampering was nice but I was so stressed and nervous about that day that it wasn't very enjoyable. Still, I think I kept my cool pretty well. The rest of Jason's family, as well as his best man, had taken a different car and left earlier that morning, and I called them around 3 to see how it was going to hear they had hit a TON of traffic. Stress stress stress.
Jason's dad and best man tell me their arrival time will be just after 5 pm, so they'll just make it. But remember that they were at least an hour ahead of Jason, so there's no way he'll make it. So we start planning who can step in to learn the parts of the rehearsal and tell the others later on. But thank the Lord my dad contacts the church and the place where we are having the rehearsal dinner and gets everything pushed back an hour.
Jason's dad and family arrive around 5:15, so we basically have everyone except the Groom, his mom, my brother, and his brothers. Well, we're doing this rehearsal at 6 whether they show up or not. We get to the church, and by some miracle they get there around 6:10. I do feel bad that Jason was basically in the car driving through horrible traffic since 8:30 that morning, and I know that traffic happens and it can be really bad sometimes, but there's no excuse for not telling me what's going on, and not telling my brother what's going on. NOT ONCE did anyone call throughout that afternoon to give me updated arrival times, I had to keep pestering them even though I specifically asked to be updated. I am still quite upset by this, as Jason would not really own up to doing anything wrong, instead using the excuse that he asked his brother to text me updates and he just "must not have listened." Well, in my opinion you should have made sure that he was contacting me on something so important. But. It's done with now.
Anyway, this got really long so I'll detail the rehearsal and dinner in another post - I promise the rehearsal dinner actually went quite well and we had a good time!