Wedding Recap: Pre-Wedding Week

Since I have word that I'll have the rest of my professional pictures next week I thought I'd start writing up my recap of the wedding week.

Our wedding was at my parent's home in Palo Cedro, California (the far Northern part of the state). We live in Sacramento so I went up there on Wednesday to start working on things. I initially thought that was way too much time, but it ended up being necessary to get stuff done in a relaxed way.

On Thursday my mom and I drove around buying food supplies. We also stopped at a few farm stands to pick up produce for the salads she was making for the wedding. This was also the day I'd planned on picking up the free flowers we'd been offered, but lost the address.
My best friend, and one of my brideswomen came into town on Thursday afternoon so we spent the afternoon working on finishing up DIY projects with my sister (who made those signs with wood we found in my parent's burn pile) and setting up the yard as much as possible. It was so, absolutely wonderful to have her there. We've been friends since we were toddlers and she's such a relaxing person for me. My husband's mom and stepdad arrived on Thursday evening so my parents had them over for dinner and we all hung out for a bit until they got tired and went back to their b&b. A short while after that the husband-to-be got into town (he had to pick up the dj equipment from his old college radio station and that was the earliest he could get it). We all went to the bar near my parents house and played a few rounds of pool. For some reason my friend and I, normally horrible pool players, rocked the table that night.
On Friday morning we had the port o' potty, rental tables, chairs, and dance floor delivered. It was due to rain on Friday afternoon so we avoided setting stuff up for as long as possible. We spent a lot of the morning prepping the flowers while my parents worked on their yard.

Friday afternoon my friend and I disappeared for a few hours to get our nails done. Totally unnecessary, but it was REALLY REALLY nice to just SIT for an hour or so and not have to think about wedding stuff. People kept calling me to ask me silly questions (Like where my dad should put the pots of flowers he'd purchased, that I had no idea he'd purchased). I basically decided from that point on that I did not care how things happened and let go of being hung up on any details. It felt really awesome to do that.

Friday night we did a really informal dinner at my parents house. While I'd originally wanted to do a more formal rehearsal dinner, I realized a few weeks before the wedding that there was going to be enough left to be done Friday afternoon, that leaving the house would be stressful. My parents bought a bunch of tamales from farmer's market and we had people bring beer, chips, salsa, etc. People who came over helped set things up and I didn't feel bad for hiding out with my sister and friend finishing up flowers while other people kept themselves busy.
After dinner we drove to the B&B we were staying at and met the rest of our wedding party friends (who were driving up from far away places and missed dinner). We all hung out in our bedroom, amazing wine, and wrote ridiculous journal entries in the hotel room journal for a few hours before heading to bed.