Married!

Hello everybody!!

We did it! Finally, we got married!! We are now Mr. and Mrs. Trent Stapleton. I thought I would write a little summary of wedding weekend first, and then do another post a little later for the honeymoon. This will be Erin's version of the story, so if any of you read this only for Trent's witty entries, I'm just warning you. I'll try to be witty, too. TRY being the keyword...

The weekend really started on Thursday when we had a birthday dinner for my sister-in-law Jennifer, myself, and my twin Kelsey at Henry's. If anyone has not been to Henry's in downtown Acworth, you should pretty much stop what you're doing now and head down there. It's delicious. Cajun, but even I like it, and I think mild things are way too hot to eat. Just my family got together and celebrated, and it really kicked off the weekend for us. Family started getting into town, and it began to sink in...

Friday was a packed day starting with a morning rehearsal at Piedmont Park. Thank God for my friend Ashley who did the run through with everyone and told us all where we needed to be and when. THANK YOU Ashley! It was very smooth frankly because we had awesome bridesmaids, groomsmen and family. Wade (the ringbearer) also made it all the way down the aisle during the rehearsal like a pro and gave us all hope that it would work just the same way during the actual ceremony.

After the rehearsal the boys went off to play a manly game of Whoorly Ball (I have NO idea how to spell that, so please don't judge me). If you don't know what this is, I like to describe it as lacross in bumper cars. You each have your own bumper car and those little hand net things and try to score goals. It can get pretty violent... I'm pretty sure some of the boys had bruises afterwards. The girls had a really nice lunch in the way cute Viriginia Highlands area and then kind of dispersed and did nails.

The rehearsal dinner was DELICIOUS at a yummy Italian place called Scalini's. We had a really great time with my family, Trent's family, and all the massive bridal party that we had. In case you didn't know, there were 11 each of bm and gm plus a ring bearer and a lovely Yorkie flower girl. We played a slideshow I made that I am going to attempt to post on this blog a little bit later so you can see baby Erin & Trent. Pretty cute if I do say so myself. So a huge thanks to the Stapleton's for a wonderful rehearsal dinner.

Wedding morning came with a lovely forcast of thunderstorms starting at 1pm and going through the rest of the day. I kept my fingers crossed for this to be false since the ceremony was supposed to be outside. Girls went to the hotel and got all pretty with hair and makeup, and the boys met for some fun foozball games at the Stapleton household. Ceremony started at 6:30 and ladies had to be there at 3:00 to start getting dressed and take pictures. When we got there the ceremony was all set up and ready to go... under the tent. I was slightly heartbroken, but they assured me it was only a precaution and it would be much easier to move the setup outside than it would have been to move it inside. So I put my heart back together and got ready for pictures. I got the girl's monogrammed umbrellas for a gift and had them bring them along just in case. We got some really cute photos of the umbrellas and the girls. I love them! I also had a pair of galoshes (again, I can't really spell well) that I had as another precaution. Boys arrived at 5 for pictures, and still no rain!!

I was waiting in the bride room trying to stay calm and be thankful for some air conditioner when I was told that they were moving the ceremony setup outside! The rain had held off! I couldn't have been happier! Although the ceremony would have been fine in either location, and the wedding ceremony is not about the look of it all but about the joining of two people into one, I still had always pictured the ceremony outside, so I was very relieved. The next thing they told me was that the cake had yet to arrive. Ha! Oh well, I thought, as long as it's here before it's time to cut it, I don't mind! The ceremony got off a slightly late start because of some lovely traffic caused by the Jazz festival that was going on, which also provided the backdrop and background music for our ceremony. No worries, though, it allowed for some extra people to join the audience.

**The rest of the story will be explained in the next post...