Practice makes perfect

So ... the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner ...

You should know that I really didn't expect it to be that complicated. I'd never been to a wedding where there were invitations to the rehearsal dinner -- probably because I'd never been in a wedding before. I guess I just expected 1) that everyone who was invited would KNOW they were invited. (We did spread it around via word of mouth that all our out of town guests were welcome to attend. Some, apparently, didn't get the word.) Oops? 2) that people know that the attire to rehearsal dinners, even ones that are held in church basements, have semi-formal dress code. The Bunny bridesmaids and my family managed to get the message.

(I was bossy as I told people where to stand, I guess.)

But apparently our groomsmen were unaware of this tradition.

Hrm. Either I was WAY off base in my guess that most people know what to wear to a rehearsal dinner, or our groomsmen were particularly clueless. I'm not going to take a guess at which one of those it was. No matter which was the case, I feel like an idiot.

Note that my fiance was looking particularly dapper. He meets expectations. All others? FAIL. I have only myself to blame.

Enough about that. Here's me and my dad practicing our aisle-walking skills. This dry run made me very grateful that I was planning on wearing flats on the wedding day. Even these wedges were sinking in the ground!

I decided to wear my mother's veil for the rehearsal. What? There are only so many days in your life when you're allowed to wear a veil, ladies. Milk it for all it's worth!

So, yeah. Other than the dress code snafu, everything went really well at the rehearsal. I was AMPED! This was really happening!

Before we move on, I want to emphasize the importance of rehearsal dinner invitations. I thought they seemed like a waste of time and money, but it turned out they were kind of important. I made several people VERY uncomfortable by ignoring one small detail. :( As Nike says, just do it, ladies and gentlemen.

Anyone else fall into the same trap I did? Please tell me I'm not alone!

(all photos by family members)

BBC: The final countdown (6 days)

Welcome back to the Bunny Bridal Countdown, hosted by Mrs. Bunny!

When we last left our intrepid heroine, she was one week away from her wedding and had the night of her life bowling a turkey at her bachelorette party.

The week before our wedding was absolute insanity. I won't give you the play by play because that would take forever, but let's just say it involved moving both Mr. B and I out of our apartments, designing a newspaper/program from scratch, resolving an issue with our musicians, who had suddenly refused to play the wedding, and attempting to complete about 5 million DIY projects that were only half finished. On top of all of the above, we both worked Monday and Tuesday, racing against the newspaper deadline to file our copy for the next two weeks before we left for our honeymoon.

Fortunately, I had my best friend, Bethany, in town from Japan and MOH Sister Bunny to help me every step of the way.

I also had this little fella:

This was my book -- my bible, my master to-do list. Want to see how much work we did in the last few days before the wedding?

That's Bethany's handwriting, by the way. If it looks like total insanity, that's because it was. Here's what was on the list:

-fix bangs
-Biore pore perfect
-fingernails
-toenails - touch up
-eyebrows - get done?
-test-run-makeup
-Assemble center piece items
-create playlist CDs
-laundry
-fix hair flower
-paper chains
-bathroom baskets
-gather platters
-assemble guestbook
-necklaces - photos
-choc. chip cookies
-find topper
-scan photo
-OOT bags
-assemble free items
-RW&B bracelets
-Joanne fabrics - tie boxes
-Olive Garden
-Mr. Bunny's ring engraving
-pick up programs
-buy parent cards
-new social security card
-marriage license

Sister Bunny, Mama Bunny, and Grandma Bunny bake and decorate cookies

Brother Bunny and Sister Bunny's (now ex) boyfriend work on the newspaper chain

In the last 4-5 days before the wedding, we got all of these done! And I couldn't have done it without my BFFs.

Bethany, me and Sister Bunny at the rehearsal dinner (photo courtesy of a wedding guest!)

What about you? Who can you count on to pull all your last minute details together?

Previously, on the BBC:

The Showers (30+ days)
Dress disaster (28 days)
Dress decision (25 days)
Bunny goes Playboy (23 days)
Cake-speriments, Part I (23 days)
Cake-speriments, Part II
Hoppin’ to my hairdo
The part where everything went wrong
Runaway Bride, Parts I and II
Bachelorette Party, Parts I and II

One year ago

One year ago today, Mr. Bunny and I held hands in front of our family and friends and promised to love, cherish and support each other -- for as long as we both shall live.

Photo by Lian Dziura

I know I've been bad about getting around to my recaps, but oh, this year has been good. We've fought, we've made up, we've shared fears, we've dreamed big. Mr. B encouraged me to quit the job I hated so much and start my own business. And I did. And he's helped me every step of the way.

So today, we celebrated one year! When I woke up this morning, we had tons of facebook messages from family and friends congratulating us. I said, "It's like it's our birthday or something!" and he said, "It IS our birthday! It's the birthday of our family!" Awwww.

Being just as cash-strapped as we were last year when planning our wedding (possibly even more so), we tried to plan a day that wouldn't cost us too much money. We started by going out to lunch at a local Italian restaurant, Marcella's. Then we went across the street to honor our Paper Anniversary buy buying a couple books at Barnes & Noble. Continuing with the paper theme, we headed to order some prints of wedding pictures (which we plan to frame and hang around our house tomorrow).

And of course, we had to eat the top tier of our wedding cake. Here's what we looked like cutting our cake one year ago:

Photo by Lian Dziura

And here's the top tier of our cake today!

A little the worse for the wear after 12 months triple wrapped in cellophane, trapped in a tupperware and stored in my uncle's commercial grade freezer.

So, funny story ... when Mr. Bunny and I were getting ready to cut our cake on the wedding day, I suddenly realized that we hadn't talked about this before. He had no idea how little I wanted cake smashed in my face at that moment. As we were being pushed toward our cake and everyone gathered around to watch, I turned to Mr. B and hissed at him in a witchy tone "Do NOT smash cake in my face!" Then we both smiled like nothing had happened and went through the motions.

Afterward, I apologized to him about the way I said that. As much as I didn't want it to be, our wedding was pretty stressful for me. If we had talked it out ahead of time and planned on smashing just a little cake on each other's faces, I would have been totally fine. But just NOT knowing what he was going to do at that point was too much for me to handle. Mr. B confessed to me that he was bummed out that I wouldn't let him. Poor guy, unable to participate in one of the wedding traditions he was most looking forward to!

So after we fed each other cake today, guess what we did?

He got me good! (Don't worry, Mr. B got a faceful of cake, too.) And here are the cake's remains:

As Mr. B has never been a big fan of cake, I also got us this deliciousness:

A Reese's Cup Blizzard cake from DQ. Yes, it looks like a 10 year old decorated it. I'm pretty sure it will taste good, though.

Mr. Bunny needs me to run to the store to get lighter fluid so we can cook turkey burgers on the grill, so I'll leave you with a question he asked me this morning: What do you (or did you, if you're already married) imagine yourself doing on your one year anniversary?

Bunny Bachelorette, Part II

At the end of Bunny Bachelorette, Part I, I left you all guessing where we headed for the party.

If you guessed bowling, you were right!


Hmm ... which one is mine?

We headed out to a small town outside Columbus, Plain City, for our bowling excursion. The bowling alley there is small and quiet, usually. It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere.


Once we got there, we hung up our fancy shoes ...



... and exchanged them for bowling shoes. We looked sooooo good. ;)

Right girls?

Sister Bunny gave me a whole roll of quarters and told me to take over the jukebox just in time for cosmic bowling!



It was a bachelorette party, so of course I kept the pop music rollin'. Britney, Christina, and the Backstreet Boys were all invited.


Being the awesome maid of honor that she is, Sister Bunny also bought me a couple rounds of rum and coke. What? Just cause hardly anyone else was drinking didn't mean I couldn't. I'm a lightweight, so those two drinks made me tipsy. As an unexpected side effect, my bowling drastically improved throughout the night. It was the only time I've ever bowled a turkey!



I rarely dance, but this occasion called for it. The other girls had a good time, too, I think.


My cousin rocks the air guitar. Oh yes.

And a shot of all the girls together!

After we wrapped up our evening of bowling, we headed back to the house that held our ginormous fort, where we built a bonfire outside, ate s'mores, skinny dipped in a private pond, and stayed up past our bedtimes. It was excellent.

Consider this blog post proof that you don't need alcohol or plastic penises to have an awesome bachelorette party (but the booze might just make you a better bowler!).

Wanna tell me about the best bachelorette party you've ever been to? I'd love to hear about it!

Bunny Bachelorette -- Part 1

Now that all the drama is out of the way, it's time for the fun stuff!

Sister Bunny rolled in to town one week before the wedding and managed to get together a kickin' bachelorette party while I was at work that day.

Keep in mind, we had several underage attendees and many others who don't drink, so our fun was (mostly) adrenaline generated.

The Bunny bridesmaids kept me in the dark about the party plans, so I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I showed up at my cousins house after work that Friday, and this is what I saw:


See those blankets tacked up along the ceiling? Yes, that is one GINORMOUS slumber-party style fort! Of course they focused the decor on blue and pink, the main wedding colors.

After oohing and aahhing at the amazing fort, the first thing on my agenda was to get my fancy duds on. My girls brought me a little something extra to wear, too!

Feather boas are so in this year, dahling.

The girls had some fun activities for us to do while we waited for everyone to show up ...


Coloring pages from princess coloring books. :) SO FUN. And old skool.


You can see how excited I was. And also what excellent color-ers my friends are.



They wrote me goofy and sweet notes on their pictures. I have them all saved and am going to scrapbook these at some point. (Whoever colored this thought it looked like swaddling clothes, I guess? Also note her frankenstein/skunk hair.)

Then it was time for me to surprise my girls right back. I got them all presents ...

Ring Pops! I figured if I got to enjoy my bling, they should get some too, right? Honey Bunny and Erma love a good ring pop.


As does Sister Bunny. Ooh la la!

Once everyone arrived, it was time to roll. Of course, the girls wanted to make sure I didn't know where we were headed, so they put some preventative measures in place.


Don't I look fantastic? Mr. Bunny says this is one of his favorite photos of me ever. Thanks, Mr. B. :P

I have to admit, I have a pretty good sense of direction, so even with the blindfold on, I had a fairly good idea of where we were headed. They had to take some extra turns to throw me off.

P.S. Like my Pretty Pretty Princess crown? I loved that game when I was a kid, so Honey Bunny and I bought a new version a couple years ago just for kicks.

This is getting really long, so you're going to have to wait to find out where we ended up. Any guesses? All I'm going to say is that this party was right up my alley. :)

BBC pause: Anxiety, Fear and the Holy Spirit

I feel the need to explain a little more thoroughly about the role that my religious beliefs played in Runaway Bride, Parts I and II.

You already know that I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder about a year before our wedding. It was a huge step for me to recognize that most of the time, what I was feeling was anxiety based in physiology and not much else.

Many types of modern Christian thinking put a lot of emphasis on "experiencing God" -- letting spirituality touch our emotions. That's not a bad thing. I've had some beautiful sprititual-emotional experiences.

source

But too often, even after my diagnosis, I've let my tendency toward anxiety and emotions overtake my more rational side. At times, I've wrongly believed what I was feeling was what some Christians would call "the leading of the Holy Spirit," when in fact, what was going on was nothing more than wishful thinking or just plain old cold feet.

I don't believe that the pastor's message on Father's Day Sunday and Mr. Bunny's absence from church was a sign from God that we weren't meant to be together. It just was an incident that reinforced one of the fears I had about our relationship. I gave that fear too much power -- so much that I believed it was from God.

This quote from the book Julie of the Wolves has stuck with me through the years, and I've given it far too much weight in my life:

"When fear seizes, change what you are doing. You are doing something wrong.”

I disagree. Feeling afraid doesn't necessarily mean you are doing something wrong. Feeling afraid means you are feeling afraid. Running from whatever it is you are afraid of isn't necessarily the answer. Sometimes, the solution instead is to drain fear of its power by acknowledging it, confronting it head on, and analyzing it.

Talking to Mr. Bunny, hearing his response to my concerns, seeing how sensitive he was to me -- these things were all enough to calm my heart and helped me know that Mr. B would be a willing partner as we worked on our relationship with God and with each other in the coming years.

There's not much more I can say on the subject. It all comes down to your personal beliefs about God and psychology. I can only tell you my own experience and let you know that not once since Mr. Bunny and I got married have I questioned whether I made the right choice. I love him more and more every day, and I'm convinced that I'm right in the center of where God wants me to be.

BBC: Runaway Bride, Part II (14 days)

(Read Part I)

This two-part post is called Runaway Bride, but at this point in the story, I looked more like this

source

than like this.

source

I was standing in Mr. Bunny's living room with tears streaming down my face, ready to break up with him.

I'd practiced my speech, but I was unable to say anything. All I could do was cry and hold out the engagement ring.

He sat up, confused. He was, as I recall, gentle.

"What's wrong, honey? Tell me what's wrong?"

He wouldn't take the ring. He tried to make me put it back on, but I wouldn't. I set it on the coffee table.

Together, we went outside and sat on his front porch. At some point, I wrested control of my emotions enough to explain the story.

Mr. B sat silently and listened to my tale -- how I sat in church waiting and waiting for him as the pastor preached about being a man of God ... and he wasn't there to stand up.

As I spoke, I saw Mr. Bunny's face soften.

"I'm sorry, hon. I can only imagine how that must have felt. To be waiting for me while the pastor said those things. And I was at home asleep."

He said he wanted to be that man standing up at the front of the church. And that he'd gone to bed early so that he would wake up in time to meet me, only he didn't wake up. I could see that he felt awful about what happened

It wasn't enough, of course, for him to say that. I kissed him and told him I loved him, but I wouldn't put that ring back on. Not yet.

I didn't want to face the questions from friends and family, so together we made a plan that we'd say he needed to take my engagement ring to be engraved (that actually was our original plan, since my wedding band is 3/4 open work). Instead, I wore my wedding band while Mr. Bunny and I talked and prayed about whether getting married was the right thing to do. I'm so sorry I lied to you, hive, but at the time, I couldn't live up to what was really going on.

Four days later he got down on one knee (for the first time, by the way ;) ) and asked again. And I said yes ... again.

I'd remembered what it was that drew me to Mr. B in the first place -- not that he was the perfect man that I always thought I would marry, but that he longs to be that man. He's a person who loves me, and who wants to walk through life with me, striving together to be the people that God wants us BOTH to be.

Because in spite of all the tears, all the indecision, all the times he thought I was going to cut off contact with him for good, Mr. Bunny never stopped loving me in all the best ways. He was never mean, never impatient, never once raised his voice at me, or told me I was being ridiculous, or acted angry for keeping him in limbo. I knew he was the right man because of these things, not because he shows up for church on Sundays.

And that's why I married Mr. B. He is the perfect husband for me, and I will kick your booty if you try to tell me otherwise. ;)

photo by Julian Allen

Previously, on the Bunny Bridal Countdown:

The Showers (30+ days)
Dress disaster (28 days)
Dress decision (25 days)
Bunny goes Playboy (23 days)
Cake-speriments, Part I (23 days)
Cake-speriments, Part II
Hoppin’ to my hairdo
The part where everything went wrong
Runaway Bride, Part I