Bride's Blog
May 17, 2007 - The Day Before the Day Before the Big Day!
Today was an amazing day. I was "off" from work. Ray went in to his job. Around 9:15AM, John, the HVAC guy, arrived to check our air conditioning. Shortly after he arrived, there was a knock on the door and I went out to find one VERY large box on the front step. The FedEx guy was just stepping back into his truck and I waited thinking he would come back with another box or two. After all, 400 long-stem roses couldn’t possibly fit in this one box. But the guy got in his truck and drove away! I was a little anxious that he had forgotten a box of our flowers on his truck. I went ahead and dragged the box at my feet inside. I got it as far as the dining room and opened it up. Sure enough, inside this box were 400 roses, looking a little worse for wear.
When John was done his check, we chatted briefly. He congratulated me on our upcoming wedding and added that that same day he would be attending the Preakness in hopes of doing some networking and building his business. I wished him luck and let him know the forecast was calling for rain. John, thank goodness, helped me lift the huge box of roses onto the kitchen counter before he left.
For the next three hours, I stood at the sink, cutting each of the 400 stems under water (per the directions), pulling off the lower leaves, and sticking them into the buckets of water with special salts added. Then I grabbed a bite to eat and ran some errands... returned the uncomfortable shoes to DSW, bought new tennis shoes at Lady Foot Locker, and went to Michael’s to pick up some ivory ribbon for making the corsages and boutonničres. I also stopped to pick up some snacks for our flower stripping party. I got home about 3:45PM. About 4:30, Laura, Ray’s cousin, arrived and just a few minutes later, Ray came in the door. The three of us set up in the kitchen to strip the roses of their thorns and additional leaves. It went faster than I expected. We were done in about an hour and a half. We had some snacks, showed Laura some of the wedding trinkets, and she went on her way. Ray took the roses into the basement where it was much cooler. We ate some nachos for dinner and took a fifteen minute break.
Ray’s parents stopped by on their way home from dinner and we visited with them for a while. We showed them the roses and chatted about wedding outfits and such. Next, I started crafting the boutonničres and corsages. It was a lot of fun, but more time consuming then I expected. I made a mini bouquet for Ray’s mom. It turned out really sweet. The whole process took about two hours.
Off and on, we worked on packing. Ray ran to his mother’s house to pick up some Mason jars to prop up the bouquets (for tomorrow) and came home with two wedding cards, one from each of his parents. We took a break from packing and sat down together to open the cards. I was overwhelmed by their generosity. We paused to appreciate the moment and took a deep breath.
We did some more packing. I went to bed about 11:30. Ray stayed up doing laundry and burning back up CD’s of our wedding music, just in case. Like I said, it was an amazing day!