The night before the wedding there was a rehearsal dinner at the Napa Rose, a restaurant in a Disneyland hotel (NEAT). Before we ate, Micah and Heather ran through with us what they'd practiced at the rehearsal at the chapel a few nights before.
For the bridesmaid's part, we were to walk down the aisle and line up on the left side of the altar. I was to go first. So much for being able to go without glasses and just follow the person in front of me. We ran through it once or twice, were told about the little yellow triangles on the floor to guide our positioning etc. Then we ate a very delicious dinner.
In talking to Heather a little at the dinner she expressed how nervous she was, and that she was scared something would go wrong or that she'd mess up what she was supposed to say etc. She had the perfect, bridely jitters.
The next morning the wedding was at ten o'clock. We were told that we could practice from nine to nine-thirty. I was glad, as I had never been in this type of wedding, hadn't seen the chapel's layout yet, was wearing those heels (I haven't worn heels since I got married since Greg, um, doesn't like them on me.) and have pregnancy wobbliness on top of my normal spastic tendencies.
We arrived a little after nine and rushed to dress so we could practice. But the bride wasn't there yet. So we didn't actually practice and I just peeked in the chapel once but was mostly wandering the grounds with family.
At five or ten 'til 10 the photographer was taking pictures of my family on the lawn and I was feeling as though it was very late. I ran to the dressing room to ask the other bridesmaids if we should be with them. They said yes.
I ran back to get my sisters and we got our bouquets and all six of us ran around the chapel to the back where we would enter from.
While we were running we started getting in order, me in front. At the back of the church I stood first. There were loud whispers from the wedding planner (I think that was her title) for us to hurry up! Get in order! Etc. I just stood ready and let her take care of the girls behind me.
Sooner than I expected I heard her voice in my ear, "Okay, you can go in now." I was starting to turn my head for confirmation and felt a light nudge on my back. Oh! Better go!
I walked as gracefully as I could down the aisle and turned left at the altar and took my place.
But Anne wasn't behind me. She was supposed to start walking when I was half way down the aisle. She should have been right behind me!!
Whatever. Once I was standing where I thought I was supposed to be (totally forgot to look for yellow triangles) I tried to sneakily remove my glasses and held them with my bouquet. Anne kept not coming. I smiled into the audience and reflected more than I had before on how very empty the front of the chapel was. How very, very empty.
I had no idea what was going on but I tried to smile as if I had been sent there to smile for everyone. To give them a hint of what was to come, or something. I was just hoping that there were more bridesmaids to come. And SOON!
I did not see the wedding planner at all. I kept looking for a sign from her (that I had done something wrong or to sit down or come back or anything). Granted I had my glasses off, but I could see her talking to the harpist (beautiful music!!) but never motioning to me or even looking in my direction. But I saw Anne standing there waiting. (FOR WHAT!!?)
Both my mom and dad kept giving me sympathetic smiles, which I appreciated. I wondered if I should sit down (I was standing right by a pew) until the other girls came but decided against it.
Finally Anne started walking. Hooray! Oh, wait. Then she went back . I noticed movement from the other side of the front of the chapel.
The groom and groomsmen came out of a door in the front and started lining up. So it was them, and me. Cute.
For the record, my level of embarrassment through this whole thing was a zero. I felt pretty confident that something had happened after I started walking so they had to change plans or something. But my level of feeling bad for being the one who sort of ruined the effect was well above a zero. Especially when Heather's words from the night before came back to me of her fears about something going wrong.
Once the groomsmen were nicely lined up the music changed (I think) and Anne started coming. And she looked great. All the girls did as they came in behind her. And I finally felt relief. We arranged ourselves:
See me smiling my relief to all my new-made friends in the audience?
Then Heather and Micah were married. It was a lovely ceremony.
Afterward I tried to find the lady in charge (to apologize/find out what had happened), but I never did. However, from talking to a few different people I learned that some guests had come in behind us while we lined up and were hesitant to go sit down so the lady told them, "Okay, you can go in now." Yeah. Right in my ear. (I swear!)
It wasn't until even later that I found out that the push I got on the small of my back was not from her but from Anne who also heard her and also thought she was talking to me.
Here's what I assumed we were lined up like when I started going in:
Here's what it actually looked like: (notice in the picture above it's Anne at the front of the line and not me. I'm at the front of the chapel). And that's my actual first step of doom. (I was seriously so shocked when I saw this picture, just today. I had NO IDEA we weren't all lined up.)
So there's my story. I already mentioned a couple of posts back that the wedding was wonderful. I never felt like anyone blamed me or really even cared about my big blunder. It was completely lost in the awesomeness of the day. And I got lost in it, too!
Here's another shot of my family, this time with our newest sister!
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