November 2nd and 3rd were very busy days! On the 2nd, Shane and I both got started pretty early. He had to help my dad carve a whole bunch of pumpkins as we were using them with flowers for table centerpieces. I had to meet Brandy, Candy, and my mom at the Roselawn Carriage House to begin decorating. Shane and I both wore our “Property of the Bride/ Groom 2006” shirts…I think we were cute! The carriage house is literally that…an old carriage house/barn where the horses used to be tended to in the olden days at Roselawn. There are coachman’s quarters, a huge loft, horse stables, a concrete floor, and wooden rafters. It surely had to be looked upon with rose-colored glasses, but I knew we could do it. We wrapped white lights and fall foliage around the poles and accented with golden spirals. We draped ivory tulle from the ceiling in many places so that we could loosely throw leaves in them (you could see through) and it was really pretty. We placed large and small pumpkins everywhere….we set up tables with cloths in the stalls (along with hay bails and scarecrows). I painted the words “Life is not measured by the number of breaths that we take, but by the moments our breath is taken away…” on a large piece of brown paper and hung it from the wall. The room looked absolutely gorgeous when we finished! Outside the doors, we placed stacks of hay bails with large pumpkins and corn stalks decorated with ribbon. Over the huge doors, hung a huge beautiful bow that my Aunt Amber so graciously made… That evening, we went to the church to move all of the chairs in the choir loft…that’s a job! We had help, so it wasn’t too bad. Then, we covered the wood flooring on stage with twinkling lights and tulle. It looked beautiful! We then left to go eat some Las Palmas!

On the 3rd, we started the day off with a red trailblazer (mine) that wouldn’t crank. I had used the car lights in the garage to wrap everyone’s presents that morning, because my overhead light was out. Well, THAT was brilliant. So we had to jump-start it, then we went to the church to set up all the decorations that we’d rented (columns, pillars, candles, etc…) along with all the topiaries (aka “Shrubs on a stick”- according to Pastor Hattaway) that would go down the aisle. We also set up the pictures that would sit out front that Victoria did such a wonderful job on. Brandy, Candy, and my mom were all at her house during this time dipping lots and lots of strawberries in chocolate! Once we finished decorating the church, we all left and went separate ways. Brandy, Mick, Shane, and I went to go grab a bite to eat. Daddy went to get some pens and had a fender bender on the way! Aah! Then Brandy and I went to get our nails done. I had some sort of chemical reaction and had to keep my pinky on a block of ice most of the time! Ha! I then raced home and got ready for the rehearsal dinner!

The rehearsal went off pretty well! Most everyone was there (except for Todd and Linda). We had fun practicing and being with all of our closest friends and family. We then went over to Grand Oaks for dinner. The food was outstanding! My grandparents wrote a little letter for me (my PaPa read it aloud) and gave my a real “six-pence” for my shoe! Shane’s dad stood up and told a couple of stories and said some wonderful things about Shane. My dad gave me a very special gift. He wrote me a beautiful poem called “My Little Girl” and had the words set to the Feather Song of the Forrest Gump soundtrack. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room and the poem was incredibly touching. He had it written with calligraphy, matted, and beautifully framed. It was on an easel and it was amazing! Wow, Daddy!! We then passed out all of the gifts, mingled a bit, then said our good-byes to go home and get things ready for the BIG day! I ran back to my house to grab a few last things so that I could go spend the night with Mama and Daddy (since I couldn’t see Shane the next day). When we got there, Tiffany tried her dress on and it was WAY too small! We had to get it to my Aunt Amber (who was also staying at my moms- she’s been a HUGE help…making the bows, the flower girl baskets, and helping with the bridesmaid dress crisis!) so that she could fix it. We were up doing that until the wee hours of the morning of my wedding day….