Whimsical September

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one year ago the chaos began

My life (and Jamie’s) did a complete 180 on Black Friday 2010, and one year later, I seriously could not be more thankful for the chaos the decisions that started to roll on that day!

I don’t think I’ve ever written down the sequence of events that changed our wedding date from June 2nd, 2012 to January 15th, 2011, which is a total shame because it’s quite the story!! I’m telling you – the big guy upstairs has the BEST sense of humor, the BEST plan for our lives, and I am SO thankful that everything fell into place EXACTLY the way it did.

and here’s how it did. 🙂

Austin, Texas. Visting Jamie’s mom (his dad had recently deployed to Kuwait for a year). Tonya (my MIL) is at work and Jamie and I are flipping out/losing our minds over the Iron Bowl. Once we realized that Bama was going to lose to Auburn in the most horrific loss I’d ever seen, I called my parents to scream about it with them. Mom starts telling me a story about how Jenn (my sister) had been talking with her friend’s parents the day before (who are retired Army) and about how they thought me and Jamie were being SO DUMB by waiting until after he returned from deployment to get married. I got snippy with my mom about how I’m tired of hearing that from people, and I hung up a few minutes later.

Once I got off the phone, I started venting to Jamie about how I was tired of people telling me that “we are being dumb/silly/not very smart by waiting until he got back to get married”. Jamie had NO sympathy WHATSOEVER; He’d been trying to convince we of this since we got engaged, but I had my MANY reasons for waiting until he was back and wasn’t willing to budge. Silly me. 😉

But this time, something inside of me said “Erica, hear him out. Try and understand why he wants to get married before he leaves.” So I did.
And he was right. We needed to do this.

Now at this point I’m excited. Jamie’s excited. But we knew there was NO WAY we could pull off a wedding before Jamie would leave for Afghanistan (which we assumed would be the end of February 2011 – three months away). So we made the decision to have a civil ceremony during Christmas Break (VERY VERY common in the military) and have the church wedding/reception as planned in 2012. Jamie’s mom was all about this (she’s a military wife so she totally gets it).

So the next two days we started trying to sort out the details of this civil ceremony, but I was uneasy about all of this, and Jamie and Tonya knew it. Not unhappy about marrying Jamie (because I was ecstatic) but unhappy that this is the way it was going to be. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a civil ceremony (it’s actually a great option for many military couples), but I just wasn’t happy about it for us.

But whatever. That’s our only option.

So now it’s Sunday and I’m sitting in Dallas during my five-hour layover. My parents are driving home from Pennsylvania, and I couldn’t wait ANOTHER SECOND to tell them what decisions had been made over the weekend.

So I told them. And it didn’t go over well. Besides the initial SHOCK of it, they know me well enough to know that’s not what my heart really desired.

We hung up, and I starting crying in the airport like an idiot. And my mind is RACING.

What the heck are we going to do?
 I hate the military.
No, I don’t  hate the military, but I just want to be married.
Why am I never 100% content and excited about a date that Jamie and I should finally get married? AH.
This is ridiculous.

When I got over my pity party, I got out my iPhone and started blankly researching for three hours the pros and cons of civil ceremonies. I am certain I read over two dozen message boards from military fiances and wives that had previously been in my position. Have I said yet how common a situation somewhat like this is? Thought so.

As I was about to board my flight, I found a suggestion from a girl to do a beach wedding, and she listed a dozen reasons why this worked out perfectly for her and her husband.

Immediately, a lightbulb goes off in my head. One of my best friends, Amy Skridulis, had JUST helped her big sister Laura pull off HER beach wedding two weeks prior, and I had already stalked all of her pictures and thought she had the most beautiful wedding I had ever seen. I even had made a comment to my mom about how much I loved her wedding from the pictures I saw.

Well, well, well! Guess who had ALREADY planned to pick me up at the airport that night in Huntsville so that we could see each other for the first time in MONTHS. The incredible Amy Marie Skridulis (she lives in Denver, fyi). So as I was boarding my flight I sent her a text and asked her if her mom would be home that night and if I could talk with her about Laura’s wedding. She responded “yes”. 🙂

Three hours later, me, Amy, Amy’s mom Rosemary, and Rosemary’s friend David were all sitting in the Skridulis’ living room talking about how exactly I could pull off this wedding. MIND YOU I had not even told my parents about this yet. When Amy drove me home at midnight, I was squealing inside because I KNEW that this was the perfect solution. I called Jamie and he thought it was BRILLIANT.

Perfect. Now to get over some hurdles.

-telling our parents
-figuring out finances
-taking a break from planning my sister’s upcoming wedding
-getting Jamie’s dad home from Kuwait
-PLANNING ALL OF THIS IN SEVEN WEEKS. OH CRAP.

On Monday after work I told my mom. Then we told Dad. Then Dad called Jamie and put him on speakerphone. Received my parent’s blessings and SUPPORT  for a wedding to be held in seven weeks.(PRAISE THE FLIPPING LORD!).

The rest of Monday night is a total blur. All I remember is calling my best friends to tell them the news and ask them to be my bridesmaids (I had only asked four prior to this night and had to ask the other four on the phone!). Every single one of my bridesmaids screamed with me, cried with me, and decided that I would have everything that any other bride would have. I was so overwhelmed with love.

Jamie’s mom was shocked and excited! Keith (my father-in-law) busted his tail to get his two week r&r approved for the wedding, and once he called to say he’d be coming home, I was ecstatic.

Everything fell into place. Mom and I had already paid half of my dresss off in September (why in the world I felt like ordering my dress 20 months before the wedding I have no idea, but I was SO GLAD I had done that later!!!). Unfortunately, the bridal shoppe couldn’t get my dress in in time, so the sold me the one off the rack!! We had to do some alterations, but I was SO BEYOND THANKFUL that they did that for me!

One week after making the decision to push the wedding up, our beloved dog Sandy was put to sleep. Mom and I both took off work that day when we took her to the vet, and then spent a few hours crying our eyes out. That afternoon we decided to pick ourselves UP because we had wedding work to do! We decided to go to Belk and look at Mother of the Bride dresses and found my mom’s dress for $37!!! It was a pricing error on the tag, but they still sold it for us at that price! Have you SEEN my mom’s dress from my wedding?! She looked the most beautiful I had ever seen her!

In 40 days, the entire wedding was planned. I had two bridal showers, one bachelorette party, and created and administered semester exams. Jamie’s friends in Arizona threw him a bachelor party. We spent two weeks together in Madison celebrating Christmas and three days in Destin meeting with our vendors and getting our marriage license.

Can’t forget about Madison, Alabama’s worst snowstorm in many, many years. That was quite the curveball, but everyone made it down to the beach safe and sound.

Several people have asked me if I would suggest planning a wedding in that short amount of time and just getting it “over with”.  The short answer – NO. I am KIND OF OCD about making to-do lists and planning every detail of every day, so that really helped in making sure everything got DONE. I never dwelled on ANYTHING. I just moved from one task to the next to the next.  But if you DO want to plan a wedding like I did, feel freeee to ask for help!

So in a nutshell, one year ago I made the best decision of my life. To marry my rockstar of a husband in January 2011. Awesome. 🙂

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