Consider yourself warned: This is a really long post, but there’s a lot I want to remember about this weekend. Attending a wedding while pregnant (especially a family wedding where you have to be “on” the entire time) was an entirely new and different experience!
I’ve bolded a few highlights, including when my brother pronounced the bride and groom dead, what baby boy did at the wedding and when I almost passed out (though not at the church!)…
What a fun weekend! On September 1 my brother, J.T. and his fiancée, Becky, officially became the newest Mr. and Mrs. Byrne.
The wedding took place in Greenville and we were thankful that Hurricane/Tropical Storm Isaac became a (mostly) non-factor. I say mostly because Friday and Saturday were beautiful; however, it was about 95 degrees and muggy as all get out.
Mike and I got to the church just in time for the rehearsal, which went mostly smoothly. It took a few tries to get everyone comfortable with the run of show and my brother (the groom) provided plenty of comic relief.
Funniest moment from the rehearsal:
My youngest brother was doing a run-through of the prayers of the faithful. No one realized that they weren’t completely filled out yet. Towards the end he states: “For J.T. and Becky, and all those who have died, especially [pause]…family members I still need to get the names of.” Everyone cracked up when we realized that he had lumped J.T. and Becky in with the dead people…it was hilarious. Needless to say, we fixed the wording before the wedding!
Afterwards, we went back to the hotel, changed and then went downstairs for the rehearsal dinner. The first person I saw was my Grandma. It was so good to see her! We did a lot of catching up over dinner, and she kept putting her hands on my belly to feel the baby. I think I’ve mentioned before that he’s pretty gun-shy when he knows people are looking at him or trying to feel him. Well, I think baby boy knows who his Great Grandma is and how incredibly special she is…he gave her a few solid kicks and she absolutely loved it.
Oddest moment from the rehearsal dinner:
One of Becky’s grandmothers came up to me towards the end and asked how my pregnancy was going. Then we had this conversation:
Grandmother: When is your due date?
Me: December 14
Grandmother: Oh how nice! My birthday is the 21st.
Me: Oh really? Mine is the 23rd.
Grandmother: Well, I sure hope he comes before the 21st.
Me: Why is that?
Grandmother: Well, you know, the beings or whoever it is up there…they are predicting the world is going to end on December 21. So I sure hope the baby comes before then!
What I said in response: “Well, let’s hope so then!”
What I thought in response: “Oooh-kaay crazy lady…that is the weirdest pregnancy conversation I’ve had yet…”
Mike and I were both completely exhausted by the time the dinner ended so we made an early night of it. I would like to take a moment to give a shout-out to the Westin hotel and their very comfortable king size beds. Oh my goodness…first time in months Mike and I haven’t battled for space in bed. Baby boy also apparently enjoyed the extra space because he was awake and kicking me all. night. long.
We had to be at the church shortly after noon on Saturday, so Saturday morning we all just lounged in the hotel room watching football and not doing much of anything. It was absolutely fantastic…we never do that at home!
My youngest brother was the best man. He got out of the car at church, grabbed an extra pair of my sunglasses and said he felt absolutely awful and like he was going to throw up. We walked into the narthex and upon seeing the darkened church he said, “Oh thank goodness. I’m going to go die on a pew for a little while.” Poor guy…I think he was really nervous!
Getting ready for the wedding was pretty uneventful. I suppose that’s a good thing! It was pretty funny though…no one wanted to eat a big lunch with a 2 p.m. wedding so I think 2 or 3 of us brought those individual Jiff peanut butter cups and were eating it on crackers. The dresses looked really nice on everyone and Becky wore a pair of awesome pair of blue shoes that matched them. (Which dyed her feet Smurf blue by the end of the night…) She looked so pretty in her dress!
The wedding itself was beautiful and went exactly as planned. I was very worried about standing up at the altar given the issues that I’ve had and I’m happy to say that I did just fine! That was such a big relief to me because the last thing I wanted was for my legs to give out as Becky was coming down the aisle, or something equally as embarrassing. The priest gave a very nice and rather long homily, so I ended up with a good period of sitting between the two periods where we had to stand at the altar.
Most notable wedding moment:
Our dresses had small corsets in them to give the top structure. Well, upon sitting down in the pew, I realized that my dressed has slipped a little and the corset was resting uncomfortably on top of my stomach. Baby boy kicked the bottom of the corset the entire time I was sitting down. It was pretty amusing…but I was so uncomfortable! It was a relief to stand back up and adjust my dress back where it was supposed to go.
After the wedding we took a few church photos and then headed downtown to take a few more photos in the park by the river. When we got downtown the car thermometer said it was 94 outside and it was really muggy. It was one of those instances where hot as crap was an entirely appropriate description. As soon as I got out of the car I thought to myself, “This is not a good idea.” At the time, I didn’t realize how “not good” it was about to get.
I love this shot of my brother and Becky coming down the stairs to the park…everyone on the landing above started clapping for them.
We then walked down to a shadier area to take some photos. It was a bit cooler and not quite as hot.
This is my favorite shot of my brother and his groomsmen:
Worst moments of the wedding/reception:
We were done with the photos within 15-20 minutes. Then we all walked back to the reception. And I almost died.
Ok, so that’s an exaggeration. To get to the reception we had to first get back to street level, which involved two very long flights of stone steps. Then, we had to walk approximately two blocks uphill to the reception location. Now, I have made this exact same walk multiple times before with no problem. However, on Saturday, pregnancy + heat + lack of exercise + corseted dress created a perfect storm. By the time we got to the reception site I was literally about to collapse. My legs felt like jelly and I could barely breathe. Mike had a death grip on me to keep me moving. They took us into an unused area until it was time for the reception to start. Two people procured ice water in less than a minute, bless them. I sat in a chair for a couple minutes to steady my breathing and then realized I just needed to lie down. Mike took me behind a partition and I was able to lay down for about 10 minutes. Yep, just laid down on my left side on the carpet, in my bridesmaid’s dress, eating ice cubes. I was a rather pitiful sight and so thankful to have that partition so everyone wasn’t staring at me. Someone else went and found my brothers who immediately came over to make sure I was ok. I love how protective we’ve always been of each other.
Before I was ready to get up it was time to introduce the wedding party. I got up, ran a brush through my hair and attached myself to one of the groomsmen. I think I said something to the effect of, “Roger, whatever you do, don’t let go of me!” We had to go up another steep flight of stairs to get to the reception ($#% stairs!). I caught my breath at the top, steadied myself and put my best pageant smile on. We walked in and then were taken to our seats. I was pretty proud of myself for pulling it together to get in to the reception. Mental pat on the back. Then over the course of the next half hour I had no less than six people ask me if I was doing ok and gave me various polite versions of, “You looked like death when you walked in.” Oh well, I tried!
It took about 45 minutes, more ice water and a plate of food before I started feeling somewhat normal again. The rest of the evening was enjoyable and I was able to get up and visit with various of my parent’s friends and family friends. We had a good spot to really see everything and it was fun to watch people out on the dance floor. I promised Mike a slow dance, and so we did get out on the dance floor for that.
The reception ended about 9:30 and was followed by an after party. I heard the after party was fun, but keeping it real: I was sound asleep by 10:00. Mike was perfectly happy to have a pregnant wife as an excuse for not attending the after party, which translates to: he used me as an excuse to get back to the room and watch the Alabama game.
Baby boy was as exhausted as I was and did not kick all night long Saturday night. Thank you little one! We woke up Sunday morning, went to a delicious brunch at Soby’s with my brother and then went to my parent’s house for a mini family reunion. It was a fun afternoon with good conversation and good food. I loved having the extra time to hang out with my Grandma.
What the Byrne boys do at family reunions:
The plan was to stay at my parents Sunday night and head back to Atlanta Monday morning, spending the day at Mike’s mom’s house helping finalize things for the move. However, by around 6:00 on Sunday night I was done. While it had been a wonderful weekend I was beyond exhausted and getting close to meltdown territory. We ended up heading back to Atlanta around 8:00 and had fun in the car reminiscing about the weekend. It felt good to sleep in our own bed and it was nice to have yesterday to relax and recharge a bit.
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