Ouch. Sorry, Zen.

Zen - data point of one - my Mirena hasn't increased my headaches. The whole monthly process, for me, has been hugely better than it used to be.

Karate tournament was yesterday. CJ just moved into the 17-34, black belt group. This is the most competitive/hard core division. He placed 2nd in kata (forms). We were both happily shocked. Then it came to sparring. We were surprised right off that all the competitors were more in the 17-21 range and there were only 7 of them. CJ did well and ended up in the match for 3rd and 4th place against a second degree black belt (CJ just earned his black belt in March). His sparring looked FANTASTIC. After a hard hit to his opponents shoulder which had been dislocated a couple of months ago, he had to kneel while the guy got attention to make sure his shoulder was ok. Two/three hits later, CJ took a slam to his face which rocked him back. Now his opponent had to kneel while CJ got attention. Once his bloody nose was attended to, the match continued. I don't remember the final score, but he lost and took 4th place. (Which is fantastic given his competition). So a little while after the match, CJ was checking out his nose and asked my training partner (a nurse) to look at it. Yep, broken. So far no black eyes, but his nose has a bit of extra character now.

LOOOOONG post ahoy!

Teppy and Tim are married by now!

I hope she had more fun than stress.

Guys, I need to vent to you, because I don't want to do it anywhere else (certainly not Facebook). If I can talk about the REALLY hurtful part, I'm hoping that I can move past it and focus my memories on the good parts.

The Good Parts:
I am indescribably happy to be Tim's wife. Tim's family is...amazing. So, so amazing. My brother officiating was the only thing that almost made me cry. He was spectacular. We ended up having great weather and a fire pit in the evening. Our friends are hilarious and awesome. My family is great, and worked their asses off for the wedding. Everyone said how gorgeous my dress was (even the bartender and servers). Tim's niece said I looked better in the dress than the model in the picture online. Lots of people told us that our ceremony -- particularly our vows -- made them cry.

We *intended* our last dance to be "At Last," but we really weren't in a weepy emotional place, so as the song wound down, I said to Tim "We have to play the Pina Colada song for my brother," because he loves it as much as I do (I only found this out a week ago). So I sprinted over to the laptop and cued it up. So for the *actual* last dance of my wedding, *I* danced with my brother, and Tim danced with our guy friend Coyote. It was awesome.

The Rant:
I am INCREDIBLY unhappy with the way the B&B treated us. I can't state that strongly enough. The event they double-booked (the Underground Railroad tour), that the owner never told us about ahead of time, but when I found out about it independently she ASSURED me that "the wedding is the top priority!" and that the tour really wouldn't even be a big deal, WAS, in fact, a HUGE deal.

When we arrived at 2:00 -- which is when the owner told us we could come and start setting up -- there were literally 50 people touring the B&B, including the bedrooms, and nothing was set up for the wedding. Nothing. In fact, they were running a "cafe" as part of the Underground Railroad tour in one of the rooms we needed for the wedding. There were historical reenactors there and a damn banjo band out front just plucking away. So showing up early to set up was 100% fucking pointless, and there were so many people in the B&B that we couldn't do anything.

I walked in the dining room, realized it wasn't set up, looked on the patio and realized that it also wasn't set up for the ceremony, and I lost my shit on an epic scale. I had to go up to the room (through dozens of people streaming up and down the staircase, trying to go in the guest rooms) and I just sobbed for about 20 minutes. (I had not, for the record, done my makeup yet.) My mom came in, yelled at me "Calm down! You NEED TO CALM DOWN!!!" which made me yell back at her "NEVER tell someone who's upset to calm down!" and I looked at Tim and said, "Get her out of here NOW."

Tim, who is a rock star, just calmly walked over to my mom and said "Let me handle this, please. Come back in a little bit." The photographer showed up while I was freaking out, and tried to calm me down, too. We needed to get ready so we could do early pictures, but then the house and grounds were jam-packed full of strangers so we couldn't get pictures because people kept walking through.

Because we couldn't do early pictures, Tim's dad was wandering around wondering aloud why he had to be there at 4:00 if no one was taking pictures (I didn't find that out until today, which is VERY good, because if I had heard him, I would have had an aneurysm).

Not doing early pictures meant we had to do them all after the ceremony, which made dinner late, and despite the fact there were appetizers and a bountiful bar, some guests were pissed that dinner was late. Since we had to do pictures before dinner, we didn't get a chance to mingle with guests before dinner, and a large handful of our guests left right after cake (mostly my family, due to legit health issues; I'm not mad that they left; I'm mad that our timeline got so fucked over that we (continued...)

( continues...) couldn't say more than hi and bye to them).

I understand that at a wedding, the bride and groom can't have 20-minute in-depth conversations with each guest. I don't need that pointed out, just to be clear. And I understand that people are going to leave when they need to leave, and they need to do what they need to do; I am also fine with that. I'm just terribly disappointed that our timeline was so fucked that we made dinner late and didn't get to talk to some of our loved ones.

Mostly, I'm really full of raaaaaage at the B&B owner. I feel like she flat-out lied to us, both by omission -- by not telling us about double-booking the venue -- and by commission, by telling us we were the fucking top priority. It threw off and screwed up our whole damn day, and my anger has nothing to do with it being my special magical princess day; it has to do with wanting to be a good host for an event we threw. Well, and the rage is because I hate being lied to.

My most charitable explanation is that the owner is a terrible manager and genuinely underestimated the impact of the Underground Railroad event. But the hospitality industry is her fucking business; it's her JOB to manage 2 events and not fucking LIE to a paying customer.

So, to sum up from the bottom of my verbose, black little heart, I don't want to look back on our wedding and see the bad part, the part where we were screwed over by our venue. I want to acknowledge that the shitty, being-screwed-over part happened, and then get past it, and remember the good parts, of which there were many.

It's funny: I've said, blithely, for so long, that if Tim and I ended up married at the end of the day, everything would be fine. But I was wrong about that. We did end up married, obviously, and that is so incredibly wonderful, my black little heart grew 2 sizes. But it turned out to NOT be the only thing that mattered about our wedding day. And I didn't expect that.

Ugh, what a poopyhead, Steph.

I think in the long run, the irritation will fade and the joy will be the only thing that matters and the thing that you remember.

I also think, if I were in your shoes, I would be demanding some money back from the B&B owner.

Dana speaks for me. In every particular, Steph.

I'm so sorry that happened and I'd be demanding a massive discount.

If you want to make it non-emotional, prorate the amount of time the facility was not available to you as the discount price.

• Total cost,
• divided by hours spent,
• minus 3 hours for non-exclusive use as promised,
• equals discount.

Tep,

At this point I think you should ask for some $$ back. You have significant complaints and the response to your complaints was inadequate. I also think the Chamber of Commerce needs to know about this.

Not sure what your contract says but the conversation you had after reading about the conflict should have bearing on the person's ability to perform.

Think about how many hours you thought you would have the facility unimpeded and how many you did.

I feel your pain, Teppy. I'm sorry that you weren't able to give your guests the experience that you wanted.

Congratulations, married lady! I can't wait to see more pictures.

I think a strongly worded letter -- understatement-- is absolutely called for, pointing each way they screwed up your event. Even if nothing comes of it, you'll feel better telling them, and you can make it clear that you will not recommend them to friends.

That said, it's still so fresh! Of course today that's the focus. But like Dana said, a few years from now all you'll remember is marrying him, and dancing, and being happy. For real. (So much got screwed up at my wedding, but I can't even tell you what anymore, aside from the limo that never showed up. All I remember is a lot of joy. And sore feet.)

And then take that money and use it to throw a party where you can spend all the time you want talking to your family. Or do something totally self-indulgent.