Tuesday, September 4, 2012

The Things that go Wrong...

Today is my second first anniversary.... if that confuses you, take a look at the list below, specifically # 10. A year ago, Dan and I got married in Maine. Today, we experienced a snafu that would rival many sitcom-esque problems. Specifically those related to anniversaries and fantasy football drafts.

But problems, snafus, and other challenges are nothing new for me. So today, on our anniversary, I am going to dwell on everything that went wrong, starting at the very beginning.

1.  In 2007, I decided I wanted to get married in my Grandparent's fields in Maine. In 2008, they started renting those fields out to a farmer who grows corn.
2. I knew about the ring ahead of time.
3. Knowing about the ring ahead of time turned me into a psychopath, which also caused me to find out about my Christmas present ahead of time.

When we did get engaged on Christmas Eve, 2009 - things went well for a while. My Grandparents agreed to letting us host the wedding in their field, the farmer agreed to plant rye (grass) instead of corn, I successfully said "no" to a $4,000 dress that I was in love with, and picked a much more budget friendly option. But things started to go downhill from there.

4. Dan's Grandfather passed away.
5. On the day my bridesmaids got their dresses, we found out that my future mother-in-law had multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer.
6. The hotel where all of Dan's family planned on staying... slash place that was hosting the rehearsal dinner closed/sold. They gave us 3 months notice.
7. After booking another place for the rehearsal dinner, it too closed without warning. We did not receive any notification. Luckily, my grandparents saw an article in the newspaper and called me immediately with the bad news.
8. The new hotel that the in-laws booked went up for sale... reservations would be honored, but they couldn't promise breakfast... at a bed and breakfast.
9. The hotel that Dan and all of our friends were staying at also went up for sale.
10. In the midst of everything, Diana's treatment had not gone as quickly as planned. By June it looked like she would have to miss our wedding. I received so many calls from her sisters (in tears mind you) that I stopped answering the phone. We tried to convince Diana to let us move the wedding back, but she refused.  Finally, we decided to have a wedding in Connecticut (Catholic style) just in case Diana really couldn't come to the wedding we had planned in Maine.
11. Said Catholic wedding required an enormous amount of time and energy on my part... largely hanging out with the 80 year old priest taking lessons on how to be a good Catholic wife.
12. When the Catholic Wedding came and went, it was a disaster... let's just say some new in-laws started distinguishing between "real" and "fake" weddings based on their own overzealous religious views. I was never more upset as the entire week following our first wedding.
13. My Mom called the hotel that my family was staying at for the wedding about 3 weeks before hand to confirm everything... they gave away two of our rooms the night of the wedding (and this place only had 4 rooms to begin with)
14. The rental company decided to deliver on Wednesday, instead of Thursday like I requested.
15. Hurricane Irene.

Here is the road that leads down to the field we were going to be married in. Why yes, it is completely flooded out.

The field is about third of a mile from here... 

This is probably how the field looked, but since the road down to it was washed out, there are no real pictures of how it looked after the hurricane.

This is the Saco River after it rose 16+ feet. Why 16+? Well, 16 feet was the point where the meter stick broke, so there is no telling how high the water really got.

The road to the west side of Fryeburg, where my in-laws were staying, possibly without breakfast.

The reality that confronted me 6 days before my wedding. Oh yeah, did I mention that I dreamed this would happen?
When the water finally receeded, we were faced with the following problems:

16. The tyrants at the rental company refused to reschedule our delivery which was a problem because
17. The road was no longer underwater, but was a ridiculous muddy mess.
18. Tyrannical rental company said "we're not going down there." So in the one stroke of good luck (call it proper planning) we had rented a hall at the fairgrounds for Plan B in case of rain.
19. Plan B was actually in the wrong hall...
20. I had to get permission to use the hall I wanted from the start
21. All of my helpers and I had to move all of the tables, chairs, etc. to the right hall.
22. Even after all of that, it was still a very hollow Plan B. Yes, I had the space, but no real plan for decorations, or what to do about our outdoor ceremony.
23. Saco Bound had closed the river, so our plans for the canoe trip on Saturday were VERY tenative.
24. When they finally opened the river back up, this is what our camp site looked like:




Do you remember what it looked like before?



Yeah....

25. The bus company I hired to be the shuttle for our guests called me the day of the wedding to let me know they undercharged me.
26. It took the morons at Jockey Cap like an hour to make 3 sandwiches so
27. I was about 45 minutes late to my own wedding.
28. I decided not to take pictures like I wanted because I felt so bad for my guests who were waiting for me for over an hour in the
29. 80% humidity, 90 degree heat that day.
30. From Wednesday through Monday that week, I slept about 23 hours.

That last one wasn't really too big a deal compared with the others, but it did make me crabby. So what's the main point of this post... aside from my whining that nearly everything went wrong for me?

That we did get married. That we are still married (pending fantasy football draft issues) and that in the end, that's kinda all that really matters.

If you want to read all about how things went down for the wedding, check up on my old blog - the story starts a week out. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, The wedding itself: Part 4 and Part 5. And finally: the Aftermath.

Why yes, I am especially long-winded.

3 comments:

  1. Sounds awful - glad I wasn't mentioned! You really need to focus on the good and positive things that happened and write about them, otherwise, the good memories will be lost and we will be left with the sad and unfortunate ones which are here in print - GET WRITING!

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    Replies
    1. your comment is not only bossy, but it also ignores the fact that I did write about the good things, in great detail already. Did you not read the conclusion?

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