Life back to normal…

Life is finally getting back to normal. We have all of our thank yous out, a few gifts exchanged and the “wedding room” in the basement is in some kind of organized. I have had a chance to go through the left over decorations, throw what we don’t want and organize the crap we want to keep for whatever reason.

Getting back to work was a struggle for both of us. The honeymoon was awesome and after having 2 weeks away from work, it was really hard to get back into the swing of it. I am still working at Wal-Mart part-time a couple nights a week and Randy is still traveling for Dak. Not as big of a deal now to have some extra things to do with the wedding all over with :(

I just want to thank everyone again for coming and celebrating with us. I finally have the pictures that the DJ took at the wedding posted at Shutterfly. Follow the link and check them out. There are some pretty good ones! I just cannot say enough how amazing the day was for both of us. From the beginning of the day to the end, it was just incredible and so so soooooo much fun! I would love to relive the day, just to completely enjoy it once again.

For anyone that is getting married in the future…I do have a little advice for you. Take it or leave it, this is just from my experience…

1. Be organized. I tried to have everything figured out to a T exactly how I wanted things for the reception decoration, church, and all the little details on the day of. When the big day finally came, there were very few questions of how something was suppose to go because I had it all figured out. There were no surprises that this or that was missing or a quick decision had to be made.

2. If you decided to try something new…make sure everyone knows their part. The reason we decided to do something different for our dollar dance is because it seems like it always takes forever and one line is always longer than the other. So we decided to try something that we saw at a wedding and it was a huge success. The wedding party went around and sold tickets for a chance to win a dance with the bride and groom. Like a 50/50 raffle at a basketball game. Once all the tickets were collected, we pick 5 or 6 those folks “win” and get to dance with us. Total flop. We didn’t really tell our wedding party that we needed them to sell tickets. Rip them apart, keep one, and give one to the guest. Our wedding party was either feeling, very very good, and wanted to dance or didn’t have a clue what we were asking them to do. It was a total flop and I wish that we would have just don’t the traditional dollar dance and limited the songs.

3. Let people help you. I was organized and prepared to do everything myself if needed. On the day of the wedding, let everyone help you…they want to. Everyone wants you to enjoy your day and not to have a care in the world. If you need something or want something…tell someone, and it will get done. I had forgotten my camera battery in the hotel the morning of the wedding. I couldn’t go get it, nor did I ask anyone too. I then didn’t have my camera until ¾ of the way through the dance. I know I have everyone else’s pictures, but I should have just asked someone to get it. People kept asking me all night if I needed anything!

4. Stay sober. I drank very little at my wedding dance. I had a few drinks on the party bus and a little Champagne, but I felt great the next morning. The day goes by so quickly and it is so hard to remember what happened that if I would have had more to drink, I wouldn’t have remembered anything and would have been really upset with myself. So much time goes into planning, I wanted to see how it all played out. Heck after the dance I was sober, and drove a car full of people to Perkins after the dance!

5. Dance, dance, dance. If you want a fun dance, the wedding party has to be on the dance floor. I gave my wedding party a little pep talk before we headed into the reception. I reminded them that they were the wedding party and they were setting the tone for the night. I refused to have a lame-o dance that everyone sat and didn’t boogie…so I made it pretty clear to people to have fun! Our wedding party came through with flying colors and it was a great party! Also, you have to remember that everyone knows where the bride and groom are all night and they are watching you to see if you are having fun. If you are dancing and having a good time, the rest of your guests will follow. If you hang out in the back of the reception hall and choose not to dance, don’t be surprised if your dance is a little bit of a flop.

6. Fake eyelashes are a must. I cried more and had probably one of the most emotional days of my life, but my make-up looked great! No mascara to run and the pictures looked good too. I didn’t have anything fancy, just some Maybelline ones that I picked up at Wal-Mart. Buy 2 sets and practice putting them on first, before the day of the wedding. The glue that came with mine wasn’t the best so I bought some separate glue that ended up lasting throughout the night.

7. Plan some time to talk to your guest. We thought we had this covered. Our plan for the night was to arrive at the reception at 6:00, eat at 6:15. Cut the cake, watch the slide show, give our speeches and have everything done by 7:30 to have 1 hour to mingle with everyone and the dance would start at 8:30. I should have had the cake cut before everyone ate so people could go though the line and grab their cake, not have to get back up again after they were done eating. We should have ran the slideshow while people were eating, because once people got up to get their cake, no one wanted to sit back down. And our speeches should have been given while people were sitting down as well. The small bit of chaos that went down, and not having things timed out as well as I would have liked, gave us no time to go around and individually talk to most of our guests. The danced was ready to start, and we needed to be on the dance floor. Once we were out there, there was no getting us off. The music was good and everyone was having fun. I wish we would have had that hour to mingle with our guest. Sorry everyone! That is one day that you for sure need to be in 2 places at once!

8. Write a speech. Don’t leave it up to chance. I was very happy with the way everything turned out, but I would not have been in any shape to think of something off the top of my head at that very moment. There were so many people to thank and to acknowledge and I wanted everyone to know how much it meant to us that they came. I also thought I would be very nervous to stand up and talk to everyone, but wasn’t at all. I was very at ease and knew that I was talking to friends and family that were their to support us. Just be prepared, start early, tweak it, add to it, and have it printed off and ready on the day of.

9. Take lots and lots of pictures. Between the pictures uploaded to Shutterfly from our guests, the pictures I took, and the pictures our DJ took, it has been so much fun looking through them all to see everyone and everything we may have missed. After the day is all over, you do just have the pictures to remember the day. Make sure they are good and you have lots of them!

10. Hire a videoagrapher. I went back and fourth on this one I don’t know how many times. Do I spend the money? Will it be worth it? I ended up running into an old college buddy of mine this past spring at a wedding. We got to talking and I found out that he started his own business…videoing weddings. I got his card and thought, and thought, and thought about it. Finally about 2 months before the wedding, I booked him. I just cannot tell you how much of a blur the day really is. The ceremony…don’t remember much after starting to walk down the aisle, the speeches, I really don’t remember much of what was said, and all the other little things that we missed, we have now. Also, you have no idea what is going to happen. If someone would have tried to tell me that my grandma would be rushed to the emergency room the night before the wedding I would have said your crazy…but it happened and she missed the wedding. I am soooooo happy that I decided to hire the videoagrapher because now she has the ceremony, reception line, the speeches and our first dance and cake cutting to see. Book someone!

I am still waiting on our professional wedding pictures, but will get them uploaded to Shutterfly when they arrive. After our big hobo day weekend (SDSU homecoming) I am hoping to get the honeymoon pictures on their too. We got our computer back last night so within the week I should have the Mexico pictures up. Keep checking back!! Also, I have still had some people not able to get the Shutterfly link to work. If you can’t get in my clicking on the link, try typing in the address. I’m not sure what the deal is with it! The link again is http://thedeckerschillingwedding.shutterfly.com/

Shutterfly

Ok...I had a typo with the Shutterfly username for everyone. We tried to take some of the work out of uploading and created a generic username and password. I typed it wrong in my last post.

The user name is schilling@hotmail.com, password is august29.

http://thedeckerschillingwedding.shutterfly.com/