By 48 hours before my wedding, I was so stressed that I wasn’t enjoying anything.  A couple of days before, while Paul’s mom flew to America, her partner (who was back in England because he had a heart attack a few months prior and subsequently couldn’t travel) had a second heart attack.  His son called us and we had to break the news to Paul’s mom when she got off her flight.  We had other guests arrive from England that same day and I was just beyond my stress limits.  I wanted so badly to be a good hostess to everyone, but at the same time, I was still trying to deal with all kinds of last minute things as well as keeping Paul’s mom in touch with the hospital back in England.  I can’t even describe how stressed I felt; just writing about it is making my heart race.  Ha!

The day before my wedding, there was a bridal luncheon.  I wanted the luncheon to be about the women there celebrating with me and the influence each of them had in my life at some point or another.  I wanted to create something for them to take with them so I decided on little clear boxes filled with vanilla bean scones (thank you, Starbucks, for being willing to sell me them in mass).  Luckily, my friend Christan came into town several days early to help me.  We had so much fun working on crafts together.

In addition to the scones, I had bought containers of tea from a British line of tea products.  Aren’t they precious?

I also wrote a personal note to each woman at the luncheon, thanking them for the different ways they have helped me get to this point in my life.

We set up everything in the corner of the room before the guests arrived.  Here’s what it looked like when everything got put together:

Before long, it was time for the luncheon to begin.  Here’s the table set-up:

I had a very special guest at the luncheon.  I have mentioned before that Aviean has a half-sister, who is named Ella.  Ella and Aviean are the daughters of my cousin, Israel.  Unfortunately, because Ella lives so far away, I don’t get to see her frequently but you better believe I love her just like that little Aviean-bug.  I just have to show my love to Ella in different ways — mainly through various trips to the post office since we’re so far away from each other.  You can imagine how excited I was when I found out that she and her mother were coming to my wedding!  I have never bought a second flower girl dress and basket of rose petals so fast in my life.

Later that evening, we had the rehearsal and then the rehearsal dinner.  It’s a shame I don’t have any pictures of the rehearsal dinner because it was really cute — it was themed as a “Love is in the air” type of thing and focused on how much of our dating relationship was trans-Atlantic.  Here are the darling invitations:

(Click to enlarge)

Don’t you love the hearts over Tennessee and England?  I loved these invitations.  The tables at the dinner were decorated in various travel items and then, as guests left, they were able to take a travel-themed favor with them.  I had a section called “baggage claim” where they could pick packs of pretzels, Biscoff cookies and other things you might receive if you were flying.

After the dinner, we had a little girls only event at a local bridal store.  It was part lingerie shower, part Starlite reunion.

I left the party to head home and get some sleep because the next day… was wedding day!