It's A Love Story, Baby Just Say Yes. Pt. 1

Hello Peachies! Happy Day, at least I hope that's what you're having. If you've been following along then you know I got married three weeks ago in a beachside ceremony in a completely different state than I live in, surrounded by family and friends. It was a dream come true and the most magical day ever. I felt like a princess surrounded by nothing but love. As promised in this post from last week From Miss To Mrs i'm here with the wedding story, at least Part 1 of our magical event.

Since we live in Georgia and get married in Florida it was a whole weekend of celebrations and love. The Tuesday before the wedding my Aunt and Uncle drove to Georgia from Illinois and spent the night at my parent's house. On Wednesday morning my parents, Grandma, and two sets of Aunts and Uncles + one cousin & a German Shepard named Drago (now known as the wedding dog) were headed to Florida to start to get everything prepared. My parents rented a huge beach house where they all stayed, it's also where we had the reception + got ready for the big day. I was there that morning to say good bye and help if I could. As I stood in the driveway with our Golden Retriever (Bella) & Rott/Goldie (Minnie Mouse) and watched the convoy of vehicles pull out I felt a little like Kevin McAllister in Home Alone. Everyone left without me, the Bride and I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I've never had all my family gone at one time but my heart was filled with so much happiness and love, just knowing that they loved me enough to do this for me. My (now) husband & I decided not to leave until Thursday because he had to work on Wednesday & we didn't want our son to miss any more school than he had to so Thursday morning we took our son to school and headed home to finish loading up the Jeep so that we could check our son out around 11:30 and hit the road. We had a plan and we were on it until the chicken happened. My mom had ordered some jerk chicken from a local place here for us to take with us and serve at the reception. No big deal, we were going to swing by and pick it up on the way out, except when we got there to get it the place was closed. We knocked on the door and no one came, so we continued knocking until a young teenage boy came out. We explained what we were there for so he let us in and explained that his Mom wasn't there, she ran to the store but he called her and let me speak with her. When I explained who I was she was very nice and apologized to us and said she'd be back in about 15 minutes. Okay, we said. We had one more errand to run anyway so we left and ran that errand and came back. She still wasn't there so we sat outside for another 15 minutes. By now we're starting to get a little antsy and ready to get on the road. Finally she gets there and gets us our chicken and apologized. Then we had to run and buy a cooler to transport this chicken in then go check our kid out at school. Two hours later than we planned on, we were on the road.

The trip there was pretty un-eventful, thankfully, but by the time we arrived we were so happy to be there. We found our adorable little cottage, tucked away on a peaceful side street, un-loaded the Jeep and headed to my parent's beach house. When we got there I was dying to get my feet in the sand, even though it was well after 8 p.m. & dark, so we grabbed flashlights and headed out the back door with my Aunt, Uncle, Cousin, and Drago to do some crab hunting. It's a family thing that we've done since I was a kid. We only catch the tiny ghost crabs & let them go as soon as we've inspected them but it's fun and memorable. This was my little cousin's first time at the beach EVER and she was loving it. She's a little girl who will touch any kind of bug, reptile, or creature except ghost crabs. I was trying to catch them to show her that they're not going to hurt you so I picked one up and held it out to her and said "Look Em, it's cool." Her reply left me in tears. She said "no man, that's freaking me out!" I've been crab hunting for 20 something years of my life and this one goes down as my all time favorite because doing it with a dog who had never been to the beach, a 7 year old who had never been to the beach, and a tipsy aunt was the best.

The next morning we woke up and had to go to the Bay County Courthouse to apply for our marriage license but my in-laws had invited us to breakfast with them first & we were more than happy to go to breakfast with them. We woke up early and realized we were without coffee in the condo. Not a big deal, I thought, since we were going to breakfast soon. Turns out it was a big deal. We were up 2 hours before we were to meet them and I couldn't deal without my coffee. I was getting grumpy. So my sweet honey took me to Panera and got me coffee & Cinnamon Crunch bagels for later! That man, he's the best! After we got our coffee we walked down to the beach and enjoyed the quiet sunrise together.

After all that we went to a delicious breakfast with my in laws and then to the courthouse to apply for our marriage license, which was the easiest thing in the world! Fifteen minutes and a simple form later. We had the rest of the day to do whatever. Whatever was going back to my parent's beach house and going to the beach. My brother and sister in law came in not long after we got there. They had gotten off a plane from Greece the day before then drove from Georgia to Florida for us! We all hit the beach and enjoyed some sun and waves.

The first picture is our son in the ocean. I guess the water was a little chilly.
The second on is my brother and grandma on the shore line.
Next is my Mom and Drago.
A line of bathing beauties.
My brother and Drago on the shore and my son in the water.
And last, my brother and Drago in the sand.


During the whole time on the beach I was texting our friends Greg & Crystal to see if they wanted to meet us and hang out with us. Greg was the best man and Crystal was my hair and make-up girl. They're good friends of ours. They joined us later on in the day & we hung out at my parent's beach house. Crystal was doing a trial run on my sister in law's hair which was fun since, as she put it, she was "3 shipwrecks in". Shipwrecks were apparently huge alcoholic drinks that she was drinking before getting there. There were lots of laughs and memories made that day.

It was at this point the guys all disappeared to the back deck.

And it wasn't long until everyone went their own ways to get ready for the rehearsal dinner even though we didn't have a rehearsal.
Stay tuned tomorrow for that part of the story.


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