...the rest

Don't know if I'll make it through the rest of my story, but I've gotta try. I'm so tired today - I really hit the wall around 2:30 and it's just been downhill ever since. Ugh. We've been SO busy with the apartment, and it's still in complete shambles. We got all of our grocery shopping done (two trips and unspeakable amounts of money later...) which is a relief - I can cook now, and Ben has food to take in his "lunches". I use quotes because Ben really takes about 2 or 2 1/2 meals-worth of food with him to work, since he goes in so early and works 11 hours a day. I certainly don't begrudge him that, but it means we have to have that much more food around the house. Plus, stocking up a completely bare-naked kitchen isn't easy. We don't have all those pantry staples - we don't have cooking oils, steak sauce, herbs & spices, Pam, cheese slices, chicken broth, flour, sugar, salt, pepper... NOTHING. It ALL had to be bought, and I guess since we had wedding money we chose to buy it all at once and just be done with it. I like to cook, but I HATE to cook when it requires me leaving the house and spending money at the store. I really wanted a well-stocked kitchen so that putting a meal together didn't have to be a hunt-and-peck sort of operation where I was constantly throwing random crap together in a pot and calling it "dinner". It seems like we may have gotten to that point with this last shopping trip, but I'm sure I'll come across other things I need along the way. For instance, it just occurred to me that, for the 53rd time (at least), I went to the grocery store and DIDN'T come home with freaking salt and pepper!!! Grr.

Anyway, back to the apartment. We still have lots of things to hang up, a closet to organize (we did get baskets for this, we just haven't put them to use yet), a ridiculous amount of DVDs to organize (well, ridiculous is a relative term. I'm sure Em wouldn't find our collection "ridiculous" given the movie store that exists in her basement - but at any rate, we can't organize them til we get media racks, which we're holding out for at Bed Bath and Beyond's registry completion event this weekend - 20% off), the Wii to set up (and who knows where the heck we're going to put the rock band drums!), a gazillion thank-yous to write (the materials and lists for which are spread out all over the coffee table), and Ben still has boxes to unpack which he has scattered throughout the living room and bedroom. Not to mention my "office" upstairs - it's more or less the dumping ground for "where the heck are we supposed for put THIS?" items, so it too is in dire need of some organizing. It's a little disheartening, because our first round of moving went so well and we had everything put away and organized, but this second wave (more stuff from home, wedding gifts, groceries, Target trips, registry shopping, etc.) has been a little overwhelming. But hey, at least we have a roof over our heads and a warm, incredibly comfy bed to snuggle in, and most importantly, each other :) I guess we're not doing too badly!

Now, on to the rest of the wedding story. After we watched it MONSOON through the entire ceremony, and thanked God that we weren't outside in it, we went out to a little "holding room" where the staff had an entire spread of hors d'ouevres and bar drinks set up just for us. We chilled out in there for a bit, our bridal party came in and out congratulating us, the girls bustled my dress and we got my veil off, and then Ben and I ducked out through a back door to go take some photos with our rings. We joined the rest of our guests at the cocktail hour easily within 15 minutes of the ceremony ending, which was my goal. We got to greet lots of people during cocktails which eased the pressure for the after-dinner "rounds". It's SO crazy to be surrounded by about 150 people, ALL of whom you want to go hug and chat with for an hour. It feels great to be surrounded by your favorite people, but it sucks to not be able to spend much time with them. I mean, we had people from Utah, Florida, Ohio, California, North Carolina, New York - people that we RARELY get to see - and all we had time for was a few quick words and a hug ;( Definitely one of the bittersweet aspects of a wedding day.

After cocktails (the food was DEEEEE-LISH, by the way), we lined up for introductions. It was awesome. Our parents walked in to Led Zeppelin, our bridal party entered to "Let it Rock", and WE entered in very high-energy, dramatic fashion, to a hip-hopped-out version of the chorus of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (totally random in terms of lyrics or meaning - we chose it for the music itself). But it was ROCKIN. The whole room was up out of their seats cheering for what seemed like forever, our bridal party was going nuts (and yelling things in unison - not quite sure what!) - it was unreal. I have to say, I think it was a pretty kick-ass entrance ;) Then we had our first dance. I completely forgot to listen to the music - I was just sorta wrapped up in it all. Thank God for Rick (Ben's step-brother) video-taping! I remember Ben singing some of it to me, and lots of hugging and kissing, and him dipping me at the end and pretending to drop me (very believably, I might add!), but that was a bit of a blur. Dinner was awesome - all the food turned out perfectly except that they put out pepper parmesan instead of ranch dressing, which I suppose I can get over (though Ranch is the most addictive creamy concotion known to man and it's my FAVORITE damnit!). We didn't have too many interruptions so we were actually able to eat most of our food! That was an unexpected treat :) Although I was bound and determined to enjoy the food we were spending so much money on - I've been saying that all along! Our Maitre D' was amazing - he was ALL OVER everything we needed, bringing us fresh drinks while we ate and checking on our food and everything. LOVED him. Em and Mike gave their toasts, both of which were hilarious and heartfelt and made me cry :) We got up to make some "rounds" while everyone else ate, and before we got through 4 or 5 tables, it was time for Kevin & Sam's tandem toast, another hilarious installment of Knapstein humor of course, basically re-capping the start of our relationship. Then Em's husband Josh performed (played and sang) "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds on his keyboard while we danced. It was SO great and such a special personal touch :) It's such a great love song (and unique - not one of the standard wedding songs), and having someone so special to us perform it for us on our wedding day was just incredible!!! Josh, in fact, was just awesome all-around on our wedding day. He played golf with Ben in the morning, kept his nerves calmed all day, kept him on-track and got him where he needed to be, and served as my go-between for getting ahold of him. He held Mr. grouchy-pants Leo ;) during the ceremony, played for us at the reception... he was just freaking awesome all day.

After that, it was ON. Like Donkey Kong. It may have been one of the most out-of-control, insane wedding receptions I've ever been to. There were at least 20 people on the floor for the FIRST song - from then on I knew it was gonna be a ROCKIN party. Our amazing DJ (Jason Wallace of Absolute Entertainment) totally read the crowd, played all our favorites, and kept the whole place bouncing ALL NIGHT. All the photos of the reception are of people dancing, belting out music, air-guitaring, crowd surfing (well, Ben and I each got thrown up in the air on multiple occasions, as did Mike - almost like a Jewish wedding but without the chairs)... it was wild. It was EXACTLY what we had hoped for. Even our photographers took a shot with us (my only shot of the evening, mind you)! However, given the amount of fun we were having, of course it FLEW by. Jason came to get me for cake-cutting after what felt like MAYBE a half hour of dancing (but it was 9:30!). We did smudge a little on each others' noses, but we were nice about it :) The cake was FABULOUS, by the way. Beautiful AND delicious! But I think I mentioned that in my last post, maybe. Then we danced our asses off til about 15 minutes past the scheduled end of our reception (again, our Maitre D' was awesome and let us go a few minutes over!), and had our last dance (to "Forever" by Ben Harper, which was also part of our processional at the beginning of the ceremony - we thought it was cool to end things how they began). Of course we hung around til at least midnight saying goodbye to everyone.

Then there was the wedding night. I won't get into that. But suffice it to say that after 7 months of celibacy (for those of you who didn't know, we decided to honor God and get things right before our marriage), it was very nice to get to know each other again ;) And our room at Turf Valley was AWESOME. I think we literally melted into the bed when we finally went to sleep - SOOOOO comfy!

After a brief scare in the morning (we could not for the life of us get everything we needed to take with us into Em and Josh's car - between their stuff, our stuff, and my bridesmaid Dana's stuff who was hitching a ride with us to the airport - so we had to get Josh's brother to throw stuff in his girlfriend's car!), we made it to the airport with just enough time to check in, get through security, get some breakfast food and board the plane. That was pretty nice - there wasn't a lot of waiting around. Our flight was LONG but uneventful (in a good way!), and when we got to our resort, it was 5-star all the way for the rest of the week. The food was AMAZING, the ocean was BEAUTIFUL, the pools were refreshing and relaxing, the staff was WONDERFUL, we got a room upgrade with a GORGEOUS view...

Basically it was an amazing and much-needed vacation :) We spent most of our time by the pools, since the beaches were too rocky and the waves were too rough for anyone to swim (and the lifeguards were there to make sure no one did). We baked in the sun, we swam, we went to the pool bar and drank... it was very relaxing! We spent WAYYYY too much money of course, but hey, that's what honeymoons are for, right?!?! LOL :) We went on a waverunner/snorkeling tour which was really cool - there were fish ALL around us and tons of beautiful coral - we went on a day-trip to an island and swam with a nurse shark (the island was a little disappointing, but the staff on the boat that took us there were a RIOT), and we parasailed over the ocean in front of the resorts, which was absolutely GORGEOUS. We spent most of our time on the resort though, and we were just fine with that :) It's cool to be at an all-inclusive place (though we didn't do the all-inclusive option) because everyone tends to hang around so you get to know people and you see the same people at the same places every day. It was like a little mini-community atmosphere - it was pretty cool. It helped that it didn't rain at all for the entire trip (except a cool thunderstorm on our last night, but we were in for the night anyway so it didn't cramp our style at all), so we were able to really enjoy every day and had no opportunity to get bored. We just really enjoyed our time together :)

I will say that I spent the first two or three days getting over a touch of "post-wedding depression". It's really hard to let go of it after the months of planning - it takes over your thoughts and your schedule and it becomes such a huge part of your life, and then it's gone. I keep telling my engaged friends to ENJOY IT while it lasts, because it really does FLY by. While being married is exciting and new in it's own right, leaving the wedding behind isn't easy, to say the least. I felt like it all went by WAY too fast - like I must've dreamt it - and it was hard to settle into the reality that it was over and would never happen again. I'll never have it to look forward to again, and just as I suspected (and I've mentioned this in previous posts), that made me sad.

But, for now, I have to say that I am absolutely LOVING married life :) It already has it's stresses (money, keeping up a household, grocery shopping... ugh), but coming home to YOUR place with the one you love - you can't beat that with a stick. Yesterday was our first day back to work, and when I heard his key in the door, I just thought to myself "Wow, my life is finally here".