Phew! I know it's all cliche and whatnot, but seriously, last weekend was the best weekend of my life! Everything was so beautiful! *tear!* I'm currently working on getting all my favorite wedding photos up at my gallery. The biggest thanks ever goes out to Aaron and Alex! I invited them as friends and they went to work as photographers, taking hundreds upon hundreds of photos. I couldn't ask for better friends! So, here's how it went: Thursday Got up kind of early to drive to Fresno. Listened to all our wedding CDs in the car on the way up (no DJ, just a bunch of our faves burned to disk). Met up with my father and brother around noon, waited to meet up with Matt's family a few hours later. We all trooped down to the Fresno mall to pick up tuxedos then all headed to BJ's for pizza. Matt's family had been up since 3am New York time and nearly everyone was exhausted, hungry, and a bit grumpy. It was still awesome to get together for a meal and meet/catch up. My brother (Matthew) and Matt's brother (Jason) … well, it's absolutely uncanny! It's like they're twins. Very creepy. They just met and hit it off quite well. They sat all through dinner drawing physics problems and anime sketches on napkins and discussing little-brother random things. My mother and Ron were driving in from Las Vegas (the long way!) and got in later than expected. They met up with everyone at the Picadilly Inn, where most of us stayed the night. Friday This is the day that I had most of my wedding-stresses. This was mostly because I had only been up to Yosemite during the off-season and had no idea what a zoo it would be. What is a 30-minute drive in November is more like a 90-minute drive in June. So I was late all over the place and frustrated and got lost a whole lot. Jen was in the car with me when I was near tears and was a blessing in the way of emotional support! Thanks, Jen! *hugs* My mother and I met up with the banquet manager at the Wawona Hotel that afternoon to discuss the reception. This eased my worried a lot as I just got more and more excited about how beautiful it was going to be! That evening Dave and Diane invited everyone down to the Pines Resort's restaurant, Duceys, for Jazz on the Lake. This was awesome rehearsal dinner (though there really wasn't much to rehearse)! Papa Bear and Company played while we buffeted and danced out on Bass Lake. Carol (from work) met up with us at the last minute, too, and stayed with me and Jen in the Wawona that evening. The three of us and my mother stuffed birds nests and ironed dresses late into the evening. Saturday I couldn't stay asleep past 5:00 and was pretty surprised I got that much rest. Wedding morning is worse than Christmas morning! Jen, Carol and I got up and got ready to go to Revive Day Spa with Mama and Diane. I sat down first for a manicure/pedicure, which was so relaxing! Then Andrea showed up! Andrea was originally going to be the Maid of Honor and she lived in Monterey, which isn't far from Yosemite. But she just transferred to Texas and we canceled her dress and flowers and just accepted that she wouldn't be able to attend. At the very last minute she got approval to fly out to California (you can't usually take leave in training, but this is a special occasion!) She got in very late on Friday night, went out and found a dress in Oakhurst the day of the wedding, and I got an extra bouquet for her and it all worked out! Yay, Andrea!! After we all got prettied up at the day spa, the girls headed off to the Wawona to get dressed super-speedy like. Then off to the chapel! My mom is so cute, she played Bette Midler's "Chapel of Love" on the drive up to Yosemite Village while Jen and I danced in the back seat. We left for the chapel really early because I was afraid of the 2 mph traffic into the Village that my father experienced, but we ended up arriving early after all. We met up with Aaron and the guys in front of the chapel to take photos then went down by Superintendent's Bridge to take more. It was so horribly buggy out by the river we had to leave and return to the chapel. Everyone was being eaten alive. We waited around for the pastor forever and he finally showed up and we went back to the bridge for a gorgeous, mosquito-y ceremony. It was so pretty, but I felt horrible for Matt. Every now and then I'd just tune out the pastor and watch the four or five mosquitoes on Matt's face suck away and I just wanted to reach up and slap him. That's probably not the best thing to do in the middle of your wedding, though. Matt drove me to the Wawona for the reception and from there everything just seemed to go too quickly. Guests dinged on their glasses so we'd kiss five hundred times and Chris Nail threatened to keep dinging until we "did it like we mean it!" After that, Matt threatened to be rolling around on the floor with me at each ding. The food was good, but I didn't really eat much. The cake wasn't exactly like I'd imagined, but so so cute! And really, I didn't rig the bouquet toss, it just happened to go right for Jen! And when Jason caught the garter, that just didn't seem right and we did a redo (which is horrible! So sorry, Jason!) :p I had worried so much about which songs to play and what would make people comfortable and what wouldn't put them to sleep and all that, and I think I heard maybe a few seconds of two or three songs. All the things I worried about really didn't matter or even present themselves as a problem, but I'm sure most brides learn that. The whole day was really much better than I had dreamed and although it's corny, it truly was the best day of my life thus far! Sunday Matt and I stayed Saturday night and Sunday night at the Houndstooth Inn in Oakhurst, which is absolutely adorable and we highly recommend to anyone staying the night in the Yosemite area! All the rooms there are so awesome, but we decided to have the entire summer cottage to ourselves! We're going up to camp in Yosemite around the Fourth of July, so we didn't really get out around the area. I know it's boring or whatever, but we just stayed inside pretty much the entire time. We were both exhausted from a whole week of stressing and traveling and excitement, so we just crashed all weekend. That's fine with me though! We opened gifts (which just made me bawl; the people we know are so sweet!) and got out for dinner and Star Wars: Episode III. Matt doesn't have too much more leave saved up, so we had to get him back Monday night so he could return to work. What an amazing weekend! As for me, I don't have to plan a wedding, go to work, or study until Monday, so I'm just bumming around this week. Cleaning house, shopping, cooking — all the domestic stuff a wife needs to do, I guess (sleep in and eat leftover wedding cake, really!) Oh, and thank you notes. So many thank you notes! Life is good. It's nice to be back with Tal, who I think was pretty lonely without us for five days. No worries, we had a sweet cat sitter come and spend time with him! Sorry for such a long post today, but I needed to catch you all up! And go check out some pictures!

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