The Wedding that was *ALMOST* a Disaster!

Congratulations to Melissa and Rosendo Escobar!

Yes, that's right.  My sister finally got married yesterday!  We are all so happy for her.  But I gotta tell you, this wedding almost became a huge disaster for me.  

Last Thursday I went to work as normal.  I decided to try out a new place for lunch.  Ordered an expensive-ass $7 salad with asiago dressing, which I'd never ate before.

Friday morning, I woke up COVERED in hives!  Now, I've gotten hives before but it was never like this.  Usually I'd get like, one or two hives if I was in the sun too long, and only the skin that had been exposed to the direct sunlight would be affected.  This was not the case on Friday morning.  I remember having a really stressful dream about a little boy and a horse drowning in the ocean (don't ask) and I also remember waking up a few times throughout the night, itching myself and wondering if a spider or mosquito had gotten into my bed.  But when I woke up and realized I had hives all over, I started to freak out a bit.

My mom, Rachel and I had to do some last-minute wedding shopping, and we stopped at Target and I got some Benadryl and some anti-itch cream.  Usually that does the trick on my hives.  I took two Benadryls, got all loopy and out of it, slathered on the anti-itch cream and went to bed, hoping for clearer skin in the morning.  

Saturday, I woke up with even MORE hives.  Like, ALL OVER MY FACE!  Now I was really freaking out.  It was the day of the Rehearsal Dinner!  Danny was coming over!  The wedding was the following day!  How the hell was I going to survive the festivities looking like a freakshow??  

I went to my mom, crying and stressing out.  We were supposed to go get manicures and stuff.  Mom suggested that she take me to the Urgent Care Center instead of manicures, but I insisted that I didn't want to miss out on wedding stuff.  So we went to Sue's Nails or whatever, despite me being covering from head to toe in disgusting red puffy blotches.  I felt really bad for my manicurist, but I assured her it was allergies (though I still haven't figured out WHAT I'm allergic to) and she did a lovely job on my nails anyway.

Afterwards, we went to the Urgent Care Center and I finally got to see a doctor.  She seemed to think that I'd been mixing too many vitamin supplements (I'd been feeling sick and coughing cuz my Mom had been sick the week before, so I was taking vitamin C and D pills trying to get well) and told me to stop taking any unnecessary pills.  But to keep taking the Benadryl.  I begged her to give me something to clear up my skin so I could get through the wedding without looking horrible, so I got a temporary prescription for steroids.

An hour later, I got my roids and took em immediately, hoping to look ok for the Rehearsal Dinner.  By the time Danny arrived at my house, my skin was clearing up fairly well.  (Thankfully!  My dress was halter style!)  He barely even believed that I had hives at all.  We went out to dinner and met up with the rest of the family and had a lovely time.  

Sunday, I woke up and the hives were back!!  NOOOOO!!!!!  It was 8am and my legs were super itchy.  I was thankful to not have hives on my FACE like the day before, but I was still uncomfortable and worried about the hives spreading again, so I had my roids and Benadryl cocktail right away.  

Melissa and Rachel getting ready.

We set off for the hair salon to get ready.  I opted to not get my hair done in that half-ponytail because I was worried that I'd need to use my hair to cover any potential blotches on my face.  I did get my makeup done by the professional because well... obviously I might need it.  I put on dark pantyhose and my bridesmaids dress, and Dan and I drove out to the Coral House to start setting up for the wedding.

When we arrived, I was greeted by Sarah, the photographer we'd hired for the wedding.  She and I went to high school together so we are friendly, and the first thing she said to me was, "Don't freak out, but you can't set up for the reception."  Meanwhile I'm carrying a basket of crap I needed to set up, and Dan was hauling a huge 20x30" poster of my sister and my brother-in-law.  

Apparently, Melissa had forgotten to remind me about the fact that there was another cocktail hour scheduled in the room she'd booked, which wasn't going to end until the time when her wedding ceremony was supposed to start.  How was I supposed to set up all this stuff, if I'm supposed to be outside being the Maid of Honor at the same time?  I immediately started taking out my frustration on the poor Coral House staff.  We'd been assigned a Maitre D named Robert, and he tried to calm me down while relaying news like, "the centerpieces haven't been delivered by the florist yet" and "you can't set up for the ceremony either because there's another ceremony going on outside right now."  I wanted to rip his head off.  The most they let me do was put the seating chart and guestbook on a little table that would be wheeled in later.  Oh and they got me the easels I'd requested to display the posters I'd made.  

By this time, the musicians for my Dad's 4-piece band had started arriving and were wanting to know where they were supposed to put their instruments and do a sound check.  I continued to berate poor Robert and demand a place for them to put their stuff.  Robert got a little divider for the room and told the musicians to put their stuff behind it, and assured me that nobody would touch their stuff.  I wasn't pleased but at this point... what could I do?  

My Dad, Rachel and her boyfriend Jesse arrived soon after.  Rachel tried to help me set up, but as we weren't really allowed to do anything, we went up to the bridal suite to wait for Melissa.  Dad stayed downstairs to greet his band mates and the invited guests who had started to trickle in.  By this time, it was about 12:30pm, which was when Melissa was supposed to arrive.

Rachel tells me that she just called Melissa, who was waiting at the house for my mom.  Apparently my Mom was still at the salon, getting her makeup done.  We couldn't understand why it was taking so long, and why they were running so late.  They didn't even leave the house until like 12:45... and the ceremony was supposed to start at 1!  

By 1PM Melissa had hurriedly arrived, and I was running around trying to get the marriage license signed by the witnesses (one of whom was also late) so that the ceremony could actually HAPPEN.  Poor Melissa had to rush and get into her dress and take a few solo portraits before we all went downstairs and headed out to the ceremony site.

I was extremely pleased to see that the ceremony site was all set up, everyone had their wedding programs and bubbles and everything was fine.  This was when I started to calm down.  The string quartet was playing lovely songs and it wasn't too sunny, so I wasn't worried about having a flare up of my hives.  We got into our line-up and Pachelbel's Cannon began to play.  Danny and I walked down the aisle, had a little kiss on the cheek and things began to move a little more quickly then.  

My main concern at this point was to not cry.  I didn't wanna get all emotional infront of everyone, despite how I'd been so stressed out in the days leading up to this event because of my mysterious allergies.  Not to mention the whole fiasco of the morning.  But we all made it through the ceremony without sobbing or ruining makeup.  It was very beautiful and I was really happy for them!

Melissa and Rosendo - MARRIED!

While the rest of the guests went in to the reception (and I had no idea how the room was going to look, since I couldn't set it up or do anything at this point) we stayed and took portraits and stuff.  I am tempted to post some of the pics here on the blog.  Sarah sent me some teaser pics today, like the one I posted above, so I am really excited to see the rest!  Here's a really stupid pic of me and my sisters!

Yeah I'm making a REALLY ATTRACTIVE face.  Wah.

Let's not comment on how Melissa and Rachel look pretty identical and I'm looking the other way, like a brown haired retarded misfit.  Whatever!  At least I don't have any hives in these pictures, right?  That would've been a lot worse.

We finally made it inside, just in time to have a couple of pieces of fruit that remained from the cocktail hour.  The room actually looked very nice.  The floral centerpieces arrived after all, and everything was set up pretty much exactly how I would have wanted it.  I gotta give props to Robert, the Maitre D!  At this point I no longer hated him and was much more agreeable as I continued to bug him the rest of the afternoon to coordinate the rest of the 'events' of the reception.  

The First Dance

The reception was really nice!  Melissa and Rosendo had a lovely first dance, and then she had a Father/Daughter dance.  Even our iPod sound system was running smoothly.  Rachel and I gave a toast to the new couple and I finally got to sit down and actually enjoy myself!

Apparently a mistake had been made when the salads were served.  My family's table was the last to get their salads, and it wasn't the Caesar Salad that we'd ordered.  So everyone else at the party had to eat the weirdo gross looking salad that had been originally brought out, while my family's table got to have the yummy caesar salads that I wanted!  Suckers!  

We did some dancing, ate some AMAZING Chateau-Briand filet mignon or whatever it was (it was freaking sweet!) and had an all around awesome time!  I was so glad that the party went smoothly, everyone had a good time, and I even got Danny to dance the Horah.  Not to mention he and I had some nice romantic slow-dancing too.  It was really fun!  OH and I should mention the very important news regarding the fact that I caught the BOUQUET and apparently will be the next to get married.  We'll see about that...  (but it was fun to beat out all the other single girls on the dance floor!  lol)

So even though I'd almost shown up looking like a blotched freak show, and I couldn't set up anything for the reception beforehand as I'd planned, not to mention the fact that the bride was almost a half hour late to her own wedding, everything worked out!

Anyway...  Congratulations to Melissa and Rosendo!  They are off on their honeymoon in Atlantic City right now.  I should be getting the rest of the wedding photos early next week.  I have to get the disposable cameras developed too.  I can't wait to see everything and put the wedding album together!

Now the only issue is that I still have hives.  They were on my face again today.  WTF???  Sigh.