It’s sort of ironic to use “At Last” as your wedding song when you’re only like, 8 years old when you get married. Ok, I was 22 but I might as well have been 8. I think the only reason my mother didn’t run screaming in terror when her 21 year old came home for Christmas with a diamond ring and a bag full of bridal magazines was that she and my dad also got married at the ripe old age of 22, exactly 30 years and 3 days before I did. And they’re still going strong.

Lucky for you my external hard drive is STILL at the computer doctor on life support so my 2000+ wedding photos are unavailable. It’s a shame really, since I could have easily posted all 2000 of them today for the wedding blog hop. There isn’t a single one I don’t absolutely love.

But since I’m working off of just a few I stole from myself on Facebook and a few I scanned in from my album I’ll try to keep this short. Short-ish. Medium length. Not ridiculously long.

I was the kind of girl who had (has) a box of stuff labeled “For My Dream Wedding” and kept a running list of which color flower/cake/bridesmaid dresses/bubbles/carpet runner/butterflies should be used for whatever month my current dream wedding took place in. I was basically Monica from Friends, although I like to think my crazy bridezilla moments were limited to breakdowns at work behind a closed office door rather than screaming fights with my bridesmaids or vendors. But who knows, maybe EVERYONE knew I was crazy. It may have been a good thing that E was deployed for 90% of our engagement or he might have called the whole thing off when I made him go to the FOURTH cake tasting because I couldn’t decide between the lemon curd or the raspberry filling.

I absolutely ADORED obsessing over those details and I happen to think everything worked out as perfectly as any wedding possibly can, from the inexplicably gorgeous weather (August in Charleston is NOT supposed to have 0% humidity) to the surprise fireworks during our rehearsal dinner cruise (put on by the city for something else but that I claimed were for me) to the leisurely carriage ride around the city between the ceremony and the reception so E and I got some quite time together before the drinking reception started.

Sometimes I remember every detail so well I can’t believe 2004 was 6 whole years ago and not yesterday. And sometimes it feels like the whole day was just something I saw in a movie once. But either way it was totally amazing.

Our church, on the corner of Queen & Church St, Charleston SC

Going to the chapel

And we got married

My dress tried to eat the flowergirl

My girls. Their only request was that my wedding colors NOT be blush and bashful.

The pattern on the cake matches the lace on my dress. The photos on the guest book table are from our parents and grandparents weddings

My aunt caught us on the street to take a picture. It's one of my favorites from the whole day - the driver's face, my laugh, and Sticky Fingers in the background!

We had an open bar. I think that explains the dancing.

 Now it’s your turn! Link up all the pictures of your own wedding you want!

Today started out so well. Baby Evan not only slept through the night, he slept IN, not making a peep until 8:30 am. E is home today so I got to pass the buck on the horrible morning diaper while I took a beautifully long shower. I managed to shave both legs, including above my knees, for the first time in weeks. Our possible agenda for the day included: going to the lake, boating, swimming, walking downtown for some lunch, Ikea, watching a movie, taking the baby to the park, the aquarium, or any number of other super awesome weekday-off-of-work summer activities we rarely get to do. We decided to start with Ikea (aka Home Design DisneyWorld). I packed up the diaper bag, changed the baby and ran downstairs to feed the cats before we left.

Actually, I only made it half way down the stairs. Then I noticed the water.

And then I noticed the smell.

This isn’t the first time we’ve had plumbing problems in this house. The day I moved in (E was at sea) the sewer backed up into the basement and I stood on the bottom step just staring at the mess until my father suggested I find a phonebook and call a plumber. I didn’t even know if the house HAD a phonebook. Eventually I got a guy to come out who hemmed and hawed and poked things and removed drain covers and stuck things in pipes for a couple of hours before declaring he had no idea what was wrong but we definitely needed a new line from the house to the street so did I happen to have $2,500 as a downpayment? Plus $200 for his opinion?

I fired him. Later, my neighbor said she hired him to do some work and he was even more of an idiot that I had originally suspected.

Fortunately, that first back-up turned out to be just a result of the house being empty for 8 months and my normal use of the plumbing for a couple of days flushed everything out. I lived in happy denial for 6 months.

The second back-up involved a dozen people stomping around the house hemming and hawing and looking for the problem and never really coming up with a permanent solution besides replacing the entire line out to the street. And that time it cost $800.

So this morning, although it’s been 2 years since the last backup, when I saw the water and smelled the smell I almost cried. Our plans for the day – for the week, maybe for the month – now all revolve around wet-vacs, rubber gloves, plumbers, RotoRooter, city workers, pipe cameras, and juggling bank accounts and credit cards until we figure out what exactly we have to do and how much it’s going to cost. Our plans for next week that previously included adding pantry shelves and a new workbench for E in the basement are now scrapped. Basically all the fun and joy and happiness in our lives has been sucked up along with gallons of (literal) crap by the shop-vac. Stupid, stupid house.

*One of the weirdest parts of our old house: random basement toilet. There isn’t an actual bathroom down there, just a sort of partition made out of random pieces of leftover plywood and a door that doesn’t shut. Also, no sink. Just a toilet. Which is where all the gross disgusting stuff that doesn’t make it out to the street line comes up. BLECH.