Friday, March 16, 2012

the day before the big event...

so today . . . i am thinking about tomorrow.

i am thinking about tomorrow, because last year at this time we were in las vegas for diandra's wedding, which was going to be the next day. and so a year ago on this day, we were into full blown preparations...

by mid-afternoon nearly everyone had arrived in las vegas. and when i say nearly everyone, i mean the four members of our family that were able to make the trip, and the 40 members of javier's family who were there... yes, we were a little bit outnumbered :)

our car was full of stuff. diandra and javi's car was full of stuff. because when you plan a destination wedding, it is surprising how much stuff there is to transport! diandra had found a wonderful venue, but it had a gazebo. diandra is not a fan of gazebos. in fact, when she started looking at venues, "no gazebo" was one of her first criteria. and yet, there we were. with a gazebo...clearly something had to be done. diandra's solution was to hang purple and silver christmas balls and tiny chandeliers from the gazebo. i was not seeing how that was going to help, but she kept saying, "trust me, mom, it will be pretty and sparkly!" so my mom and dad and i spent the very windy afternoon stringing purple and silver christmas balls on the gazebo. keeping those things untangled while the wind did it's best to tie them in knots was truly a group effort. i fully expected it to be a big, giant mess when we arrived for the wedding the next day, but miraculously everything stayed in place.while we were working outside, rollie was running back and forth to the airport picking up two of diandra's cousins and her best friend. after they arrived, the girls went to work setting up the tables for the reception...and the candy buffet...the candy buffet almost didn't make it to the actual wedding. the purple gummy bears were especially at risk! but finally everything was set up and ready to go...

and so the kids left. they all went back to caesar's palace to lounge by the pool, go out to dinner, and have a good time...

we went back to our room. or should i say, our suite...

...because some friends of ours gifted us with a week at their time share in las vegas. it was beautiful! it was just off the end of the strip, so it was still quick to get to the places we needed to get to, but it was out of the hustle and bustle of las vegas on the eve of st. patrick's day! it had a beautiful view of the outskirts of the city from the balcony. and it had hgtv, which turned out to be a good thing, because i spent a lot of time in front of the tv, working on a special project for diandra...

...which i will blog about later. because i have decided that this is going to be "anniversary week" on my blog. i thought i could write one blog about the preparations and one about the wedding and be done. then i started deciding what photos i wanted to use, and it quickly became apparent that i was either going to have to cut down the number of pictures i was going to post or increase the number of blogs.

i chose to increase the number of blogs. because, the pictures are just too, too beautiful to not include them all. well, not all of them, because i am pretty sure more than 1000 pictures were actually taken, but all of my favorites. well, not even all of my favorites. i have lots of favorites!

last year at this time i was overwhelmed--diandra was getting married, rollie had changed jobs, we needed to find a new house and move... my brain was on overload. and so i didn't blog this important event as it happened. which is too bad, because i am sure i have forgotten so many funny or interesting details. but at least i have the pictures. and really, the pictures tell the story...yes, there is definitely more to come :)

1 comment:

Mom said...

Lots of memories here! It was a beautiful wedding and reception. I loved the cake pops. Still feel guilty about taking so many home but they were sure good. We had a good time.