mission accomplished! 2

Did you hear?? We got married! 10 days ago already!! I don’t have pictures yet, but here’s the ring to prove it:

 
It was everything you hear about your wedding day: an absolute whirlwind where you forget to eat, get really tired of cameras, spend way too little time with people you love, and forget something really important. And it was amazing. I loved it, and I love everyone who was there with us.

I knew I was going to be emotional about the ceremony (I spent hours and hours worrying that I would sob the entire time), but I didn’t really expect what actually happened: I was terrified. Like, the most nervous I have ever been in my entire life. I would gladly have gone skydiving again ten times rather than stand there waiting to walk down the aisle. I will never, ever forget hiding there with my dad, counting out the seconds we were supposed to pause before following Missy and Kris. They disappeared behind a tree, and it seemed like we stood there for an hour. I was shaking so hard I could barely stand, clutching my Kleenex in one hand and my dad’s arm in the other. Then we started walking, and my dad said, “So when were you going to tell me I have to dance at the reception?” I laughed, and suddenly it was fine. I still could barely look at anyone but Chele and Matt, but I survived. And the ceremony was under 15 minutes!

As far as the important thing you forget, it was the playlist on our laptop, which was happily sitting on a table in our hotel room as all our guests headed to the reception. Wendy called Amelia, who drove to meet us in the limo parked outside Nye’s. She got the laptop and they had everything set up before anyone knew there was a problem. HERO.

We opened gifts with our parents on Sunday, and that was the only thing we accomplished beyond packing. Matt’s parents (now officially my in-laws!) took us to the airport on Monday, and we spent a fantastic week in the Florida Keys. While we were there, Matt and I took a sunset cruise on a schooner (which featured a hammered dulcimer player, the release of a homing pigeon, and a cannon firing at a booze cruise catamaran), a seaplane trip to the Dry Tortugas (which is on my top 5 list of the most awesome things I’ve ever done) where we had an entire beach to ourselves, managed to catch the sunset celebration every night at Mallory Square, rented bikes and visited the Hemingway house, swam in an infinity pool, and also may have released our underwear to the Atlantic Ocean somewhere around 3am on Miami Beach. It was an excellent vacation, and I have 300+ photos to go through when I have time!

I’ve heard that the post-wedding blues are a really common occurrence because suddenly you don’t have this huge event that’s occupied your life for months on end, but I feel pretty much the opposite. I could not be happier to sit around being an old married couple and have absolutely nothing going on. (Ok, absolutely nothing plus a trip every weekend for the next two months. But still.) I loved our wedding and am happy for everything that went into it, but even more I’m thrilled to be married, to get to giggle every time I call Matt my husband, and have everything back to normal.

Except for this job thing. I get to quit and go be a housewife now, right?