the day before the dive

August 4, 2011: The Day Before Our Wedding

The Plan:

Move everything into our new apartment and then drive up to Prescott to help set up for our reception.  Then drive back to Phoenix that night.  Stay with my parents at their motel room.

What actually happened:

I woke up early [though still later than I had planned - it's a weakness, I'll admit], and tried to hurry and get my [endless] list of last-minute tasks done.  Melissa [Tim's sister] and her boyfriend, Brad, got to my house a little early [being late is not a weakness of the Devey family].  Then Tim arrived and the moving began.

At first everything seemed to be going so well; Melissa and Brad were a big help and later more of the Devey family showed up to help.  [There are a plethora of pluses marrying into a 10-children, very sweet family.]  Then, all at once, time seemed to slow.  We just weren't getting things done in the time-frame we had hoped.  [I attribute this to the fact that I own way too much junk memorabilia.]  We finally finished at 3:30pm.  I called my mom, frustrated.  If we left right then - dripping sweat and all - we would get to Prescott by 5:30pm.  Which meant if we were to get back by a decent hour, we'd have to leave Prescott in a very short two hours or so.  Conclusion: not worth it.  We were to stay in Phoenix and let our family and friends do all the set-up.  [Confession: I still feel guilty about this.  I wanted to help.  I really did.  And I really wanted to get a glimpse of what my reception might look like.  Thank goodness for good friends and picture messaging, I suppose.]

After we finished moving everything up three flights of stairs in 110 degree torture [I'm amazed Tim's family still wanted us to get married], we all went to eat at In-N-Out.  [There was absolutely no way we were going to be able to cook anything in our unpacked, disorganized kitchen.  Not that anyone expected us to.]  Then we went back to the apartment and tried to clean and organize a little bit.  [We didn't really want to come back from our honeymoon not knowing where anything was.]

It was an odd feeling.  The apartment was ours but not quite.  It was the place where I would no longer have girl roommates.  Combine what had been "his" and "hers" into "ours."  Home - almost.  It was getting so real.  Our excitement was almost tangible.

My family called to say that they would get to Phoenix much later than expected, so I decided to just stay at our apartment that night.  I said goodbye to my fiance for the last time, and prayed to God I would get some sleep.

p.s.  Blogger keeps redlining "Devey," as if to inform me that my new last name isn't spelled correctly.  Suckers.

Editor's Note: The entire day was made far more manageable because of a smoothie made for me in the morning by a certain best friend/roommate.  She is welcome to make me those even now that I am married.  You know.  If she wants.