Eat, Drink, Marry: Wedding Lead-up

The lead-up to our wedding was just as we'd envisioned... loads of friends and family, great food and cold beer, a balance of hanging out combined with structured activities, and a general sense of mellow goodness.

Much of Trevor's family was in Duck the entire week leading up to the wedding, which was great fun. Having them there early meant we could kick back and really enjoy their company before the rush of guests arrived (plus get help assembling/eating cookies for the Welcome Bags!). We had fantastic meals over at their big house every night - the same house we took over after the wedding for our honeymoon. A typical scene from a fun dinner over there:

My parents arrived at their rental house (just on the other side of the Sanderling) on Thursday, so that night we brought them over to the festivities at Trevor's family's pad for another great dinner late into the night. By Friday morning, my siblings, their partners, plus our one and only flower girl arrived! Here's my sis - so pregnant and adorable - with our niece and flower girl Taylor petting her future cousin.

I had friends trickle in all day Friday, which was so much fun. By Friday night, my parents' house was FULL. A group from Trevor's house came over and hung out for a while too, meaning the place was slam full (to use a fave down-home expression) with fun. There was an emergency beer run involved. All night, I kept looking around just grinning... my high school pals there, my freshman year roommate there, my grad school troublemakers there, our officiant there, Trevor's sisters there... just the best feeling ever. I think 22 people slept in my parents' house on Friday night, since most folks' rentals didn't start until Saturday morning. A couple of scenes from Friday night, definitely not capturing the full-on rowdy reunion:

Unfortunately for many of us, Saturday's wakeup call was a tad too early. Hello sleepy hangovers! About a dozen folks went to play golf, and nearly 30 of us went kayaking. Being on the water is so relaxing for me that I couldn't have asked for a better activity to recharge my spirits. I have countless hilarious photos of us all loading up into our kayaks, but the one photo I didn't get, to my regret, was the scene I still have so vividly in my head: a brilliant day, sun making the water sparkle, the sound opening up in front of me and littered with yellow and orange kayaks of people I know and love, and hearing them all joke and laugh together. It was fantastic.