I Can't Believe It's Time

It's 1:00 a.m. on the day of our wedding, and I'm writing this from my hotel room.  Party Person N is asleep nearby and junior party person M is asleep in the living room (yes, my hotel room has a living room!), yet here I am so amped up that I can barely even fathom the thought of closing my eyes.  I know I need to sleep, but I feel this intense need to keep my eyes open and take all of this in - like sleeping for even a second might mean missing out on part of this crazy-wonderful-magical time.  I've been sensing the 'wedding bubble' around me all day today, and I know that the feeling of this moment won't last forever.  I'm trying very hard to take the sage advice offered in my bee twin Miss Seal's last post, and just breathe and stay in that moment for as long as I can.  

Tomorrow morning I will wake up and do a little bit of a decoration set-up, then I will sit back and wait for all the rest of the meticulously planned pieces to fall into place.  To say that I'm thrilled wouldn't even begin to cover it.  :-)

To the hive: Thank you so much for all of your help, advice, support, and kind words over these last few months.  Sharing our planning with you has been an amazing journey, and I've learned so much about myself along the way.  I look forward to having some time post-wedding to write more about the personal aspects of our planning process, and of course I can't wait to show you how all the details come together!

To Mr. FW: Tonight when you teared up as I was reading my vows at the rehearsal, I was reminded of why I'm marrying you - because you are deeply touched by this commitment we are making to each other, and I know you don't take that for granted.  Right now those vows are just words on a page, but you know that those words are truly written in my heart and that this little wedding thing we're doing tomorrow is just the incredible celebration of a love that's already rock solid.  After so many months and years of planning and preparation for this day, I am ready beyond words.  

And with that, I'm finally turning in for the night.  See you all on the other side!

Ms. Ferris Wheel's Wild Ride Begins!

*deep breath*

...  and away we go! 

image by Idle Type via Wikipedia

So hellooooooooooooo hive!  Can I even tell you how surreal it is to be writing this post for you?!  I'm trying to find the words to describe the crazy shock and disbelief I feel right now, but to be honest I'm still a little bit worried that someone's gonna realize their mistake and yank my Bee card before I've even gotten started.  (That doesn't happen, right?  Right?!?)  Because I was just having this incredibly normal morning, waiting on hold with an incredibly normal telephone representative, when I decided to multitask (per uzsh) by checking my incredibly normal email.  I thoughtlessly clicked on the newest message in my inbox, but at the same moment I saw the words "think you'd be a great addition to the Weddingbee team" I was also hearing this representative woman insistently asking me for my employer identification number and password, so I didn't at all get to process what I was reading.  When I finally got off the phone and re-read the email (oh, only about a zillion times), that's when my morning became decidely not normal.  It all started to sink in.   

I... am... a... Bee!!!!!!!!  (Still shaking my head as I type that.  Wowza!)

And just who is this Bee, you're wondering?  Oh, I'm so very glad you asked.   

{the Ferris Wheels, on the Matterhorn at Disneyland}

By day (and some nights and about half the weekend {workaholics unite!}) I'm a psychologist working in a university counseling center with a part-time private practice.  By night I'm an absolute hobby fiend who always has my eye on the next craft/talent/skill/project du jour.  (Mr. Ferris Wheel would like to add that my hobbies include "planning the future" and "running the numbers" - not mutually exclusive.)  As you can probably already tell, I love ellipses, parentheses, hyphens, asterisks, brackets, and any other grammatical device or punctuation marks that will let me continue with ridiculously run-on sentences without the point being completely lost in all my wordiness.  To top it all off, I'm an optimist with a snappy sense of humor (if I do say so myself) and a meticulous eye for detail. 

Mr. Ferris Wheel is a psychologist as well (except kinda not quite because he doesn't graduate until May - small details), and by the time our wedding rolls around in November we will have been together for 6 amazing/stressful/formative/love-filled years (cue collective "aww...").  After slogging through 2 doctoral programs, 2 dissertations, 2 internships, 1 post-doc, 1 funemployment, 1 surgery, and 2 moves we decided we finally felt "ready" (whatever that means) to make our commitment all official and such.

For 11 months now we've been working to create a non-traditional, fun, chic, handmade wedding in a fairly typical hotel ballroom in downtown San Francisco.  (Don't worry - I'll explain all of that in more detail later.)  And I'm so glad to have y'all along for the ride!

{this time inside the Haunted Mansion}

Oh, and before I forget...  Why Ferris Wheel?  Well, the icon is adorable, I love carnival rides (Mr. FW could actually be convinced to ride a ferris wheel), it kinda fits with an unintentional circle-y wedding theme that's started to develop, and I happened to see a ferris wheel the day before getting my acceptance email (it's a sign!).  But Mr. FW had his reasons as well, and to prove it here is the verbatim list he sent me over Gchat:

[Mr. Ferris Wheel]:  i like ferris wheel for the follwoing reasons:
1. "Ms.Ferris Wheel" sounds better than all but a couple others
2. The picure is easily the coolest
3. The icon is representative of things in our wedding
4. It is something at the carnival that we could actually do together.  Because if you ever take me on one of those spinny things again i reserve the right to throw up on your shoes
5. i think ferris wheels are romantic-sounding
6.  I think Ferris Wheel IS actually something almost everyone would identify as being associated with a carnival.  Unlike, for example, bunting
7. Now I also know you're leaning towards it too
And 8. I think it lends itself more readily than some of the others to be incorporated into our wedding somehow
WHEW!
me:  Awesome
I'm gonna be Ms. Ferris Wheel
!!!!

Who could argue with such logic?!  So Ms. Ferris Wheel it was.

{celebrating at our favorite restaurant with a homemade ferris wheel card, given to me by Mr. FW}

Hang on tight, Hive, cuz I have a feeling this is going to be one wild, bumpy, and thrilling ride!  Whee!

P.S. Only after I sent many an excited message to other people did I realize that Ferris Wheel looks a lot like Ferris Whee! and that makes me infinitely happy.  Don't you agree?