Preparation. Oh How Exciting. Not Really.

The Pug family (me, Kevin and two pugs) flew from NYC to San Francisco on the Tuesday night before the wedding to finish preparations and spend quality time with the families.  


My awesome sister and her husband had taken care of making many of the paper details (i.e. programs and menus, which I will post about later), but we had to make the OOT bags and take care of the crapload of other stuff that crops up before a wedding.  


Like getting our marriage license on Thursday from San Francisco City Hall...

And afterwards gathered the families for dinner and good times, which necessarily involved cake (from Emporio Rulli, for anyone interested because it was lemme eat the whole thing get your hands off my cake kinda good)...

Kevin looks sad. Too bad.

On Friday, the day before the wedding, it was time to pack the cars and drive down to Half Moon Bay.  The following is a partial list:


-Paper goods (menus, programs, table numbers, guestbook sign, drink menu, etc.)
-Three gallons of lavender honey syrup for our signature cocktail
-Guestbook and pens
-Rose petals for random decorations
-70 LED votives and votive holders
-Ceremony binder
-Planning binder
-Dress, shoes, earrings, rings, etc.
-iPod
-Backup music CD's
-Cake topper
-Steamer
-Dress
-Crochet hook (for looping all those attractive but pesky buttons on the back of my dress)
-Emergency kit
-Vendor contracts and checks
-Five pugs (must not forget the pugs!!)
-etc.


And I'm not even a DIY bride, so I'm sure this list is paltry in comparison to others.  My parents left first, and then my sister, brother in law and I finished packing their station wagon and were ready to hit the road!


Or maybe not. When my sister turned the key in the ignition, an unholy sound screeched and sputtered out of the car. After several attempts of waiting and trying again, and even trying to jump start the car multiple times to no avail, my sister was on the phone to roadside assistance and I began to contemplate whether having to rent another car for the weekend would really be that bad.

Oddly, we all stayed really calm. I was kind of like, meh, we'll get there somehow. At least the wedding wasn't that day, right? And karma repaid us with a very nice roadside assistance operator who, upon hearing that we needed to get to a wedding, dispatched someone ASAP, who came in 20 minutes and restarted the dead battery in 2 seconds. (Naturally karma didn't have to kill the battery in the first place, but who's keeping track?)


And for reals, this time, off we went. When we arrived at the hotel, our site coordinator treated us to a lovely lunch while the members of my family frantically ran around dropping of OOT bags, unpacking, and walking the dogs. I am so selfish.


Anyone experience some last minute snags before the wedding?