Thomas woke up when our alarms went off around 7am. We had coffee ready, just hit the 'on' button. Ate a little breakfast. Did various primping things. Thomas could pretty much get dressed, but I had to wait until I had my hair done to put on anything more than stockings, chemise, and boots (remember, boots first, then corset!).

Just a few words about my outfit -- I adore this burgundy velvet Victorian bustle gown and plan to wear it as often a possible! It fit beautifully, thanks to Truly Victorian's custom bodice pattern and Thomas' stepmom Deb's fine craftsmanship. The skirt was a swirling dream of velvet with a long train, all wonderfully made by my costumer a.g.f friend Yosa. I made the black cotton chemise and burgundy cotton corset myself from the Laughing Moon pattern given as a birthday gift from Ronda of a.g.f and Dragonfly Designs.

The only flaw in the outfit was the petticoat, which fought tooth and nail with the hooks on my black suede granny boots all day. The netting on the petticoat hem was completely shredded after dancing all afternoon. Oh well, it was a cheap $40 petticoat, not an investment piece like the rest of the outfit.

I wore the dress with a vintage tiara and a short clip-on veil that I made of embroidered black lace accented with eight burgundy ribbon roses (one for each year Thomas and I have been together so far).

Elisa was a little late to arrive and we probably should have left about 20 more minutes for hair. Thomas started getting really impatient about 10 till 10am -- the time we'd told everyone to be at the Capital Club. I told him if he was that worried about it, just go; we'd take a cab. So he left in a bit of a huff, and I started calling taxi companies while Elisa continued to curl my hair.

Months earlier, I had resolved to worry about wedding crap up until 3/26/00, and then, on the day of, I would not worry or get anxious about anything. I planned to be supremely calm, and even in the face of Thomas' abrupt departure, I strove to remain so. Luckily, just as Elisa was finishing my hair, Scott arrived to drive us to the Capital Club. We quickly finished dressing and hopped into his rental car. If it weren't for the ambulance on San Carlos Ave., we would have arrived before 10:30am. Happily, Thomas was quite apologetic when we arrived.

Thomas' POV:
Months earlier I'd made the same resolution. In retrospect of the moring of the wedding day, however, I remember being consumed with the notion that we'd ought to stick with our own proclomation to everyone to arrive at 10 a.m. sharp. If we weren't, we would be starting off the day with a small betrayal and potential annoyance for everyone else. In my impatience, I decided that getting to the Capital Club on time might at least save some face and allow for the groomsmen (providing they were all there) to begin getting photos taken with our great photographer Erica. Alas, although Erica and all of the groomsmen were soon present upon my arrival, Erica decided that this was not to be, preferring to wait a bit longer (for Trystan and the rest of the bridesmaids to arrive) to assess the situation.

Let me also just say how f'n cool our attendants were! James was ready with his vibrant and cheery smile. As I was parking my car, Scott and he called to me from the upstairs waiting room. I was immediately relieved by their greeting -- and then swamped by everyone with the same question: "Um, where's the bride??" A few explanations later, Scott and I quickly decided it would be really nice if he could go pick up Trystan and Elisa so that they didn't have to take some potentially smelly and dirty cab. The thought of that made me ill. Much love for Scott for accepting the mission of retrieving the women ...what a guy. :) Chris had our Starbucks orders ready to go downstairs, and within no time Trystan had arrived. As soon as I saw my lovely bride in her outfit for the first time, any laden tension over the earlier snafu melted away and we made up kissy-face style. All was to be well ...

Trystan's POV:
Most everyone else was on time. Erica Connors, the photographer, had already started shooting. She did a very journalistic style series of shots of me entering. She did this rapid-fire type of shooting a lot throughout the day, and I can't wait to see the results!

Marilyn Kromrey, the floral designer, arrived shortly thereafter with the personal flowers. I was really pleased with the bouquets -- they were just the tight little nosegays I'd wanted! Unfortunately, the heather and pepper berries we'd talked about for my bouquet weren't available, so she just used more of these wonderful dark red Cara Mia roses.

We took tons of posed pictures before the ceremony -- all the gents together, all the ladies together, me and Thomas together and separately, each of us with each of our families, our immediate families with us. It was a bit tedious, but at least Erica did a lot of unusual shots on the steps and with the columns.

The one real irritation was when this group of about six to eight strangers showed up at about 12:15 to look at the Club. First off, they were totally in the way of the pictures we were taking on the front stairs. Secondly, Kevin had apparently told them they could come by at noon to see our wedding setup! When *we* were looking at the place before the wedding, we were told to make appointments so we didn't disturb other people's events.

I had my first and last bridal fit of the day, asking how they'd like it if we dropped in and interrupted their wedding. Thomas asked Chris to go find Kevin and get these people the hell outta here, and I yelled after him "feel free to kick some ass back there and get rid of these people!"

on to Part 2