Tuesday – October 10, 2006:
Some of you may remember the “log” of events that I kept as I worked on Crystal’s proposal. It detailed everything I went through to create her special day. Well, I’ve decided to do it again leading up to her wedding day because I have a few surprises in the works that she doesn’t know about and I’m once again having to hide so many things from her! Here is a run-down on what has happened so far.

Honeymoon Suite:
Ok, so Crystal suggested we get a “regular” hotel room near the airport on the night of the wedding and save our money for Maui. Wellllll…that’s what she thinks I reserved…cause…well…I lied to her (SORRY). All she knows is that we are staying at the Renaissance Concourse by the Airport in Atlanta…that much is true. What she doesn’t know is that we will be staying in the Governor’s Suite! I have no idea what it looks like, but it sounded nice over the phone…ha. We’ll have chocolate covered strawberries and some sort of “honeymoon” package…and a limo ride to the airport the next morning. I could have gotten a regular room, but hey…you only have one honeymoon night. 🙂

The Wedding Slideshow:
Crystal is under the impression that I am creating a slideshow of our engagement photos that will play with Steven Curtis Chapman’s “I will Be Here” in the background. Now, that’s a beautiful song and the slideshow would be great…but our dad’s came to me with something that would be MUCH more special.

First, Crystal’s daddy approached me about a poem he has written and will give her at the rehearsal dinner. He had thought about putting it with pictures and having a slideshow done, but had heard I was doing a slideshow for the wedding. So what we came up with was for me to scrap the Steven Curtis Chapman idea and put his poem to music and play a slideshow of pictures of her growing up. Now this was an amazing idea in itself, but something else came along to add to it!

My dad calls me about a week later (I hadn’t spoken to him or told him about the poem and slideshow that was being worked on) and he tells me that he had taken a song he use to sing to me when I was a baby and rewrote it to go with my life and marriage to Crystal. It immediately became clear that I had to use his song as well to show pictures of me growing up and then finish with pictures of Crystal and me together! So this was the beginning of a slideshow that is going to be an enormous surprise to Crystal (hopefully a good one) and will definitely be more special than anything else I could have done alone. Having our fathers be a part of this is just…amazing.

So a girl is supposed to know every detail of her wedding day and have everything exactly how she wants it…right? Well, I’m sticking my neck out and going for broke on this decision. I can’t imagine her not liking the slideshow, but I KNOW it’s going to make her squall like a baby. That’s not my intention, but I know it’ll happen. She refuses to see the video before the wedding and I can’t show her anyway, because her dad doesn’t want her to know about the poem until he gives it to her at the rehearsal dinner. So she can’t even prepare herself for what will be shown!! I COULD tell her after she receives the poem that the slideshow won’t be what she was expecting and to prepare for something much more special, but then that will somewhat ruin the natural emotion that she’d have while it’s playing…decisions decisions. I just don’t want her balling and have the wedding (and her makeup) “ruined”.

Saturday – October 7, 2006:
Crystal is in Pigeon Forge this weekend visiting me and so I wake up Saturday morning and walk into the living room to find her with dozens of pictures of me growing up and she’s putting them in frames and planning on taking them back to GA with her for the wedding! I ask where she got the photos and she says that Mamaw had given them to her…well, Mamaw had been gathering up those photos for me to use in the slideshow!!! So I ask Crystal to leave it alone and that I would take care of them…cause I couldn’t let her leave with them or else I wouldn’t have any pictures to use! She made a remark about how it wouldn’t get done unless she did it and I assured her that it would. Then she made another comment about how she was already doing them so she may as well finish…the girl is stubborn! I come back with something like, “It’s your last weekend here in Pigeon Forge…let’s get ready and go do something together.” THEN she gets upset and says “Fine…but this will never get done.” HA! She has no clue what they’re going to be used for…but fortunately she left them with me…WHEW.

Monday – October 9, 2006:
I received a package from Crystal’s parents that has a CD of her daddy reading the poem and then a bunch of pictures of Crystal growing up that goes with the poem. I was talking to Crystal on the phone when I was going through it and I told her that I wanted to visit with my family and I would call her back in a bit. Well, I did visit with my family, but I got to work on putting the poem to music. Her daddy’s favorite movie is Forrest Gump, so I put the instrumental of the “Feather Song” behind his words, which turned out great! It took me about 2 hours to get the poem to fit with the music as I had to cut & loop some parts and adjust the volumes to go with each other. So I call Crystal back and she teases me about blowing her off for a couple of hours…haha…little did she know I was working on a HUGE surprise for her. During the conversation, she asks me if I wanted to have pictures of us growing up in what she thinks is going to be the slideshow at the wedding. I said “sure” and she asks me how I plan on getting the pictures of her. Hmmm….I couldn’t exactly tell her that I had a bunch sitting right in front of me!! Then if she went to her parents’ house to get these pics, she’d wonder where they were! Talk about a rock and a hard place. I told her we’d go through some on my next trip down…maybe she’ll forget by then…heh. We chatted a bit and then she went to bed…and I got back to work on scanning her baby photos and starting on the slideshow. This secret is getting harder and harder to keep.

Wednesday – October 11, 2006:
I managed to convince Crystal that I didn’t need her to find pics of her growing up to use on the slideshow…so I thought I was home free, but then she says she still needs to gather up her pictures to frame and post at the reception….grrrrrr. So I had to finish scanning all of her photos late last night, package up the pictures, and then send it back to her parents house next day air so that she wouldn’t wonder where all of her baby pictures were…thanks a lot, Crystal. 😛

Saturday – October 14, 2006:
I didn’t go to GA this weekend and Crystal didn’t travel up here, so I had all day today to work on the video. I worked for 14 hours straight on it (ok, so I took a break to watch Georgia lose to Vanderbilt) and have it about 3/4 of the way done. The intro is done that dedicates it to loved ones and then I got all of Crystal’s poem completed. I created an intro that describes my dad’s song and then got the first verse of Dad’s song put with video. I should have everything completed tomorrow and will burn it all off to a DVD. It’s 7 minutes and 20 seconds long, which hopefully won’t be too painful for some people. HA Maybe I can sneak some Kleenex into the aisles?

I have to admit…I was putting Crystal’s part together and kept seeing her baby pictures over and over. She was just way too cute! Those big blue eyes and blonde hair just get me every time. 🙂

It’s 1:25am and I’m beat. I’ve had to keep this whole project a secret and it’s exhausting! There are so many things that could slip, but so far everything has went as planned. I’ve convinced her to simply put “Special Video Presentation” on the program since she thinks it will be a short slideshow with the music of Steven Curtis Chapman. I’m not even going to mention to her that it’s completely different…this way she’ll give her true reaction. ha…at least she will have already said “I do” by then!!!! This could be our first spat as a married couple…but I think she’ll like this slideshow a LOT better…at least I hope!

Ok…bed time.

Sunday – October 15, 2006:
Not much to do? That’s what Crystal says about me and the wedding preparations. She thinks I’m simply putting photos of us on a simple 2 minute slideshow. She has no idea that I have worked with our dads to get the songs and voiceovers, scanned tons of pictures, ripped a DVD and edited the footage, used two different computers & five programs!I’m not saying I have more than her to do, but she comments about every day on why I haven’t called so and so or done such and such since I don’t have anything to do. haha I can’t say, “I’ve been working on the slideshow” because she will wonder why it is taking so long. So I just apologize and promise to do the stuff the next day.

Friday – October 27, 2006:
FINISHED! I completed the video presentation last night and got it burnt to a DVD. I had to tell Crystal that I was watching a TV show when she called and then I had to tell her I had to finish packing…which was sort of the truth! I got everything completed around 1:30 in the morning and watched it on TV to make sure it played ok…and it did! I know people will probably want copies…so that’s the next step. Now I just have to keep this thing hidden from Crystal for one more week! To view the video, simply click the box below.

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