With three months to go before the wedding, I’m focusing on self-improvement. I’ve been putting off exercise and beauty regimens for long enough, but now it’s time to get down to business. I know I’m going to look back on my wedding pictures forever and I want to look and feel good in those photos. So here are my goals: I want to lose five to 10 pounds before the wedding. I want to tone my arms and lose inches on my stomach and waist. I’ve joined a health club and have been going at least three times a week for about three weeks now. I like the exercise, but the hard part for me is limiting my calories. I like food (who doesn’t?), so this part is tough.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to work out next week because I’m getting LASIK today (maybe as you read this!), and I’m not supposed to work out for a week after the surgery. LASIK is another part of the improving-myself process. I’ve always wanted the option to not wear glasses (especially while walking down the aisle!) but I have major problems putting contacts in my eyes. When I try to put them in, my eyes water like crazy and get really puffy. So LASIK it is…wish me luck!

In addition to that, I’m stepping up the beauty routine. I’m going to start using self-tanner, teeth-whitening strips, face and body scrubs, and I’m going to get a few facials before the wedding. Whew! I have to say, all of this stuff takes dedication—and time and money. All this maintenance is not really “me” so it’s tough, but hopefully I can stick to it for three months!

Last week, Justin and I sent out invitations to the rehearsal dinner, which got us excited for the night before our wedding. When we started planning the rehearsal dinner, we wanted to have it at a locally-owned place, not a chain restaurant. We didn’t have many choices—most of the local places we checked out we either didn’t like or they charged too much for a group dinner.

Then my Dad suggested we hold the dinner at the top floor of the building he works in, the Hulman Memorial Student Union at Indiana State University. He’s attended many events there and likes the food and the catering staff.

The top floor of the Union is the university’s presidential floor and it’s nice and beautifully decorated. When you step out of the elevator, you see a small lobby with a fireplace and stately-looking chairs. If you walk down the hall to the right, there are more meeting rooms—one is a lounge with another fireplace and some comfy chairs. This is where the staff will set up the bar for us, and where we’ll have a DVD running of a slideshow we’re putting together.

After a pre-dinner drink, we’ll head to the other end of the 9th floor, where the biggest meeting room is located. It has large windows with a great view of…Terre Haute. New York City it’s not, but I sort of like that the room where we’re having the rehearsal dinner overlooks my hometown.

Towards the end of dinner, Justin and I will probably give out gifts to our wedding party and thank everyone for coming and for supporting us throughout our lives and as a couple. I’ve got some sentimental gifts up my sleeve and I’ll be giving a speech, so I know that my tears will flow. I just have to keep it under control enough so that I don’t have puffy eyes the next morning!

Photo courtesy of www.indstate.edu.

Last Sunday, Justin and I capped off our four-day weekend with a trip to the Queens Center Mall. Buying wedding rings has been on our to-do list for weeks now, and we finally got some time to look for them.

When we got there, we went straight to the mall directory, looked up all the jewelry stores, and started hitting them. At a few places, they ignored us, so we left. A few other places didn’t sell platinum wedding bands, and couldn’t custom order them either (my engagement ring is platinum, so I want my band in the same metal). So our last option was Kay Jewelers, where my engagement ring is from. At first, Justin didn’t want to go there, because the 34th Street location screwed up a few things when he got my ring (including sending a clearly-marked bill to our apartment before he proposed—I saw it). But this was a different location, so we decided to try it. The saleswoman showed us a few rings, none of which I liked. I was getting discouraged after all these stores. Then, she pulled out a slim, simple band with a row of 17 round diamonds in a prong setting. The woman said they could have it made in platinum, and I was sold. (See picture below.) I’m glad we ordered when we did—it’s going to take 60 days to get here!

After ordering my wedding band and getting my engagement ring cleaned and inspected, we headed over to the case that holds the men’s rings. Justin wanted something plain, and we both liked a white gold brushed-finish ring, but it was a bit pricey. So we went with a similar-looking titanium band (see picture below).

We both breathed a huge sigh of relief—this is something we’d wanted to get done for a while and we could now go home and check it off our list—whew!

Photos courtesy of kay.com.

Paul and I left for our honeymoon two days after the wedding so we could recoup the day after. But by the time we left our hotel in Staten Island, ate brunch, were picked up by my family, gathered our things from our respective parents’ houses, and arrived back at our apartment in Queens, it was nighttime…and we still had to pack. We got a measly four hours of sleep before hopping in a cab to JFK airport.

It was a smooth flight down, and we only had to wait five minutes before boarding our connecting flight from Puerto Rico to Antigua. Every person on that plane was clearly a newlywed, as evidenced by their age (predominantly 20-somethings), their unmistakable glow, and the so-shiny-they-must-be-new wedding rings.

When we deplaned, someone from our hotel quickly greeted us and sped us through customs. After a half-hour drive through the villages, we had arrived at Hermitage Bay. The open-air lobby looked out onto turquoise water. We were given cool towels and delicious mojitos. After a quick orientation, a buggy took us up the mountain to our room.

We saw our private infinity pool, the wrap-around veranda with lounge-like couches, and the unobstructed view of ocean and grass-covered mountains, and we laughed: It was so beautiful, we couldn’t believe that this would be ours for a week. Inside was equally impressive. The spacious cottage had high, sloped ceilings, and huge wood doors that could open onto the veranda. There were his and hers closets, a big bathroom with his and hers sinks and mirrors and an oversize tub, and an outdoor shower.

Each morning (or afternoon, depending on when we got out of bed!), we’d call a buggy to bring us down to the restaurant. There was only one, but with only a dozen or so other couples around, there were always plenty of seats. There were different fresh-squeezed juices like cantaloupe and tree melon, and yummy food like eggs florentine and smoked salmon wraps. After eating, we’d lie on the beach, sip frozen drinks, and read, or head back up to our cottage to hang out in our pool. We got massages one day (free because we were on our honeymoon!), kayaked another (the tide took us out farther than we would have liked, so we vowed never to kayak again), and played Scrabble and chess whenever they were available in the board game library. It rained for about 10 minutes one day but other than that, it was 80s and sunny all the time.

Before dinner, we’d usually watch a couple of episodes of Law&Order on our flat-screen TV (pretty much all of their channels were US ones). Then we’d go to dinner. The menu was limited, but it changed every night. Paul and I, despite being picky eaters, always found something to eat, and we always enjoyed it. There was music at dinner some nights, but my favorite was the steel drum band on our last evening.

We weren’t used to being so at ease, but we liked it. All of the wedding drama seemed to melt away, and with each passing day, we were more relaxed.

I wish I could say that honeymoon bliss stayed with us as we returned to reality, but with finding an apartment, getting a mortgage, and starting a new job, Hermitage Bay was soon nothing more than a memory. But what a wonderful memory it is

This is my last post, so thank you for reading, helping me celebrate the high highs, and rooting for me during the low lows of wedding planning.

The reception was glorious. After the entire wedding party piled into the limo and drove over to the Opera House, we went up the back stairway into a lovely sitting room already set up with an appetizer station. The catering staff kept checking on us to see if we needed more food or champagne, but I could barely eat I was so excited. Soon our DJ Jesse came back and lined us up for the introduction, and it was time to go inside the main room.

After we took a seat at our sweetheart table, we had speeches from both sides of the family. On my side of the family, my dad gave a welcome toast followed by extremely heartfelt (and tear-jerking) speeches from my mother and sister. Then my little brother got up and said the following: “All I can say is: thank God for more testosterone in this family. I mean, I was hoping that my mom would still be able to pop out a brother for me, but now I have four of them.” I almost fell out of my chair I was laughing so hard.

Then Aaron’s brother/best man Sylvan gave a beautiful toast, and it was time for dinner. Afterwards, Aaron and I did our first dance, followed by dances with my dad and his mother. The rest of the night was a blur of dancing, cake-eating, and drinking champagne, punctuated by a beautiful slideshow that our videographer Andy put together. Loretta, the coordinator at the Opera House, kept everything running smoothly, and even helped me do my bustle after I realized that I forgot to have it done at the church.

Everything went by so quickly in one happy blur, but I will always remember the end of the reception as long as I live. After we had one last dance, all of the guests ran outside of the Opera House in front of Aaron and I, and were given tiny packets of bubbles. They lined the cobblestone alley outside of the Opera House, and Aaron and I passed through a tunnel of bubbles as we walked up to our limo. It was one of the most beautiful moments I have ever experienced.

Here are some more pictures from the reception. This one is Aaron and I dancing during our first dance:

Here is my sister/maid of honor Elise and I:

Here Aaron and I are sitting at our sweetheart table:

This is me and Kaitlin, a friend from college:

This is me and my dad:

Here I am dancing with my dad and Aaron is dancing with his mom:

This is my last post, and I just want to thank Pash Weddings for the opportunity to share this part of my life with you all over the past few months. If you’re interested in reading more about what my life is like now that Aaron and I are married, please check out my new blog, Martha & Marie. Thank you all again and take care!

This week’s dilemma: What to do about the bar at the wedding. I think the thing I’m struggling with most is how to estimate how much people will drink. I’ve searched around and here are the options that I’ve heard of/can think of:

-Cash bar (which some consider tacky, but is common in some parts of the country)
-Cocktail hour hosted with full bar, cash bar rest of the night
-Cocktail hour hosted, a few hours of the reception hosted, then cash bar rest of the night
-Cocktail hour hosted with beer, wine and signature drink, then only beer and wine the rest of the night (with liquor/mixed drinks available for people to buy if they want)
-My friend had three kegs and a certain amount of wine and when it was gone, it was gone. Then it was a cash bar
-Full open bar
-Could also close the bar during dinner

Hosting a full bar is just so expensive (and not always a good idea if you’ve got heavy drinkers at the wedding, which we will), so I think what we might do is pay for beer, wine and signature drinks at the cocktail hour; close the bar during dinner; and serve beer and wine the rest of the night (with liquor/mixed drinks available for people who want to buy it).

With this option, we would cut costs by limiting drinks at the cocktail hour, by having no drinks during dinner (and spreading the word about that at the cocktail hour so that people can grab one last drink at the cocktail hour to last them through dinner) and by having just beer and wine during the rest of the night.

What do you think—what did you do at your wedding or what are you planning to do?

(Happy Fourth of July, everyone!)

By the time we arrived at the park for our photo session, my fantastic photographer, Gail Chatelain, had already shot Paul, his groomsmen, and his family. Paul was now waiting on the other end of the park so he couldn’t peek at me before our “moment.”

As romantic as it is for a groom to see his gussied-up bride for the first time when she walks down the aisle, it couldn’t work for us. Our ceremony and reception were in the same location so the cocktail hour was our only time for photos–and we didn’t want to miss it. After a long walk to Paul, we got our first glimpses of each other, and it felt pretty special.

It probably seemed like hours for the rest of the group, but the portrait session flew by for me, even though we took many more at the hall. Though the sky was cloudy, there was hardly a drizzle the whole time. I was too consumed with posing and smiling to remember how nervous I was about the weather.

My flower girl and her parents arrived. Then the priest and the rabbi. Then our ceremony guitarist. Soon, we were lining up for a quick ceremony rehearsal. There were so many things to remember: Where to stand, when to turn, when to hold hands. I thought we’d never pull it off.

But somehow, we did. In fact, the sun even came out as our guitarist strummed the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.” The rabbi and priest seamlessly switched off conducting the ceremony. Paul and I were still battling colds, so there was a lot of sniffling, and, at one point, I was in desperate need for a tissue that no one had, but other than that, the ceremony was gaffe-free. The rabbi, who had only met us once before, personalized the ceremony with, “We know Meredith decided to marry Paul when she was 13. Paul, when did you decide?” Sheepishly, Paul responded, “A bit later.” Everyone chuckled. Suddenly, we were husband and wife, smiling ear to ear, wearing our shiny rings, and walking up the aisle as our guitarist played “Cherub Rock,” by the Smashing Pumpkins.

As the last person walked into the indoor cocktail hour, the sky turned black and it poured rain. I couldn’t care less. The day’s outdoor events were over, and we made it through without a drop.

I am thrilled to report that I had an amazing time at the party. Sure, there were little things that went wrong: The tablecloths were yellow, not “sandalwood.” After the bread ceremony, no one received a piece of bread! My veil fell out and we couldn’t get it back in. The toss bouquet went missing and I had to use my real one (luckily, my sister caught it so it’s still in my parents’ house). But I knew that no one’s good time would be ruined by slightly-off details, so I just forgot about them.

The highlights:

• Taking a shot of soco and lime, despite my protest, before we were announced at the reception.
• Being totally unaware of the hundred plus people snapping photos as Paul and I danced our first dance.
• Falling out of the chair as I was hoisted into the air during the hora.
• Shouting “Tin roof! Rusty!” into the microphone during “Love Shack.”
• Taking an extra bite of our yummy cake during the cake-cutting ceremony.

Was all the drama worth it in the end? I’m not sure. But I do know that I loved every moment of my wedding day and was so in love with Paul and life in general. I was also sure that I could not WAIT to get to the honeymoon.