Welcome to our Wedding  Journal

Thursday, Oct. 31, 2002, 6:00a.m.

Alarm went off for Amanda to get up and get showered- I woke up with a Texas-sized migraine. FABULOUS!!! After getting an average of four hours of sleep for the past four days, I guess my body had had enough and was rebelling. I went to my purse- one migraine pill left- oh man! Forgot to pick up the refill before leaving Atlanta! Took the one pill and prayed it would work. Tried the cold wet washcloth on the forehead routine to try to calm the headache while Amanda showered. It didn’t work.

So we dressed in our button-up shirts and prepped to get our hair done, called Doug and Kat to make sure they had the list of items to take over to the lodge (we were meeting them there) and headed out to the hairdressers.

We stopped at a bagel place and picked up fruit and bagels and drinks (caffeine anyone?) and I tried to eat something, fighting off the nausea my migraine was causing and called my mom and asked her to bring the savior, Excedrin Migraine. She said she’d bring the bottle and I hoped it would be in time. . .my headache was going nowhere fast.

We got to the hairdresser and I sat down and grimaced at every bobby pin that felt like a stake being driven into my brain (not Joselyn’s fault- but the fault of the migraine!), felt like I was going to pass out and puke, and couldn’t figure out if it was the migraine, nervousness, feeling like a bride, or if it was some weird combination of all of the above.

I managed to make it through the hour-long torture session *ahem* I mean, hairdresser’s appointment, and running late, we drove back to the hotel, me leaning forward in my seat so my hear didn’t get flattened against the seat, called Kat, told her we were running behind, that the photographer should start with Doug.

Amanda and I got back to the hotel, ran into Ansley and Julia in the hotel lobby (waved) =) and then ran upstairs to get all our clothes and throw on some makeup for the day. (Ha ha, me throwing on makeup) So we changed into the appropriate undergarments, and loaded up the car.

When we arrived at the park, the Photographer was there, Kat and Doug, my brother, Jami and Darron and some park rangers. Eh??

Seems there was some miscommunication and the park rangers on site didn’t realize that the Girl Scouts owned the rights to authorize weddings at the lodge (which was who we had rented the site from) so Kat was having a fun conversation with one of the park rangers about what we were doing that day, and then I came up and explained we were having a wedding and we had gotten approval from the Girl Scouts, so on and so forth, etc. . . So after making me feel extremely guilty, but that’s about it (other than putting us extremely behind schedule), they left, and we were onto prepare for the wedding!!!

So Amanda and I went upstairs to change while I watched the photographer and Doug outside and almost started crying, he looked so handsome out there in his kilt and jacket, all spiffied up.  ;)

Amanda helped me into my dress and jewelry, stuffed a hanky (provided by a very thoughtful Amanda’s mom) down my sleeve (just in case) and then we went down to greet the photographer, David Wright, and his assistant, Charlene. We walked out to do my pictures and Doug went back to help Kat and Amanda finish setting up chairs and Amanda and Kat finish getting dressed.

Doug and I had decided to have chairs set up for our parents and grandparents and then have everyone else stand. Over each chair, we had tied a ribbon to a handkerchief, folded around a handwritten thank you note for each of the “special guests.” Each of these notes was personalized by myself or Doug just thanking them for whatever thing in our lives and then a note about the handkerchief, just in case. (My mother, I know, was grateful) a small daisy pomp was tucked into the top of the package and the person’s name was written on the outside of the note so he or she could see where they were to sit.

At any rate, Kat, Jami, Darron and Tony set all this up while the rest of us were getting ready- thank goodness Kat has short hair (no primping required)!

So we did my pictures, then we did the pictures of me and Doug together, as everyone was arriving – finally my mother arrived, Excedrin migraine in tow!!!!   Woo-hoo!!!

I took three, and it started kicking in. The down-side is the small stomach-ache that occurs, but it’s definitely the lesser of the two evils when it is a question of that or a migraine.

I chose the tummy-ache.

So after the pics of me and my soon-to-be husband (very soon!) We started gathering family members together and taking pictures of various groups, family members, individual candids, things like that. It was a lot of fun (or would have been if I hadn’t been standing there with my stomach tied in knots).

Everyone looked GREAT in their costumes. It was so much fun to see everyone as they walked up in their outfits. Especially the hand-made ones and the really creative ones.

The photographer, meanwhile, was fabulous, he put up with my craziness and (not to mention) my family’s craziness. And, while I know it’s his job, and he does weddings all the time, he and Charlene, his assistant were wonderful. I would recommend him to anyone! He was so great. . . and I can’t Wait to see the pictures!!!

(David Wright Photography or www.davidwrightphotography.com)

Anyway, we made it through the family photos and then David wanted to do a big group photo (great idea) so we did that. Meanwhile I was looking for Julie and Jon. Julie and Jon are our friends from Atlanta that were bringing the wedding cake from Atlanta. A friend made the cake and they were driving it up. I didn’t feel right having the ceremony without them since they had done us such a HUGE favor in bringing the cake up. So we had Rick call the restaurant where the reception was being held to find out whether the cake was there. It wasn’t. We decided to wait a little bit longer, which was good because I needed some relax time anyway. So I did some deep breathing, and Rick got a phone call saying the cake was there, but no one had seen Julie or Jon and wasn’t sure how long the cake had been there. So we decided to give them about ten more minutes, then we were going to get started.

Unfortunately, they didn’t make it, but at around 12:30 we went ahead and started. The ceremony went by in a blur for us, but everything went pretty smoothly. No one did anything too crazy, I didn’t pass out, and Doug remembered his vows. 

We were married!!

I couldn’t believe we’d made it through the ceremony. A co-worker had told me to enjoy the day because it would be over before I knew it, and it was halfway there. I mentioned this as we held hands and walked toward the limo. David (photographer) snapping pictures as we walked, and we felt like royalty. The headache was finally gone, and the knots in my stomach were starting to ease down a little.

(well, a teeny bit anyway)

We climbed into the limo and asked the driver to take a non-direct route to the restaurant, Café 123. When we got there- the first people we saw were Julie and Jon! They had made it! And the cake was beautiful, Ron (who had made the cake) had done a wonderful job and Julie had put the leaves on the cake beautifully, and they had some trouble in Kennesaw with a lost purse, which put them behind, and they didn’t want to pull up to the site late, so they just waited for us at the restaurant. Café 123 was beautiful, of course. Owned by Jody Faison, along with 12^th and Porter, and several other Nashville restaurants, it’s his fine dining restaurant, and it’s wonderful. The food was fabulous (what I ate/nibbled) and the service was great. Everyone raved about the food and the wedding cake and we had a truly fairytale day. After we cut the cake (okay, I had a little trouble getting the piece of cake out – could be because my hands were shaking.) and Amanda and Kat did their toasts, we mingled a little more and then we left to bubbles, bubbles everywhere, to our awaiting limo.
David and Charlene took more pictures of us in the limo and then David suggested we climb out the sunroof- so we did- that was fun! A bunch of our guests came out of the restaurant and were waving to us and we were waving back and all that. . .it was cute. I highly recommend the limo ride- no matter the cost. We had paid for 5 hours and ended up not needing the entire time, so we just had the chauffer drive us around for an hour after the reception. That was great relaxing time. The only thing I wish I’d thought of about the entire day was to have borrowed Kat or Amanda’s disposable cameras (I had bought each of them one for the days before and of the wedding) and taken pictures in the limo.

When we got back to the hotel, we came up to the room and Amanda and Kat had picked up Doug and my room (where Amanda and I had made a tremendous mess earlier in a “makeup frenzy” with clothes and makeup thrown all over the place. All clean! It was so sweet of them. And the best part- I picked up my cell phone- which I had left at home that morning, and, NO messages!!! 

Amanda was kind enough to help me take all the bobby pins out of my hair, and untie/weave the material. After a nice hot shower and scrubbing all the hairspray out of my hair, and makeup off, I felt back to normal, and ready to eat some food! We had a ton of packaged food left from the wedding and Doug and I dug into that. It was delicious. YUM!!!

Then, we watched Survivor and ER. I know, I know, what a way to spend our wedding night, but it was a Thursday!

It was a great day, and I couldn’t have asked for things to have gone any better. Everything was great. Truly fabulous. There were so many people involved that we wouldn’t even know where to start thanking everyone, but thanks everybody for everything. You guys are the best.

We love you.

-Brandy and Doug Kincaid