April 6, 2009 Pre-ceremony

(All photos in this post by Matthew Szlakowicz)

It was definitely my idea for IC and I to spend the night before our wedding apart. His plan, though, was for me to stay with him until he fell asleep and then I'd move to another bedroom. As awesome as that idea was, that didn't happen. What did happen is that he fell asleep in what was to be my bed, woke up at 8am, and moved to one of the other bedrooms. Then, and this is the best part, when he was leaving the hotel room for the day, he'd yell to me from the other bedroom, thinking this somehow maintained the "not seeing each other before the wedding" superstition.

I didn't have bridesmaids so I wasn't entirely clear on what I should be doing. The hair and make-up lady was coming at 10 to start with guests who had requested her services. I wouldn't have anything going on till about 3. So I went to lay out on the deck, Elizabeth Grant eyepads under my eyes and Crest whitening strips on my teeth, ipod on. I was alerted to someone's presence only when my sun turned mysteriously to shade. It was Matthew, the photographer. Where are the rings, where is the dress, where is the groom? Oh, I did have things I was supposed to be doing? Who knew? My chill time pretty much ended there. I got in the bath and my wedding day began.

There were a lot of people in my room so I decided to head down to the spa for a manicure instead of having someone come up. I like my alone time, even on the day I am to wed. I emailed IC to tell him to avoid the pool area which I'd have to cross to get to the spa. Unfortunately, I accidentally sent the email to his work address and not his personal address which he was checking. So, as I stopped to say hi to some guests by the pool on my way to the spa, I saw IC walking hurriedly on the other side of the pool. We both looked immediately away. So much for not seeing each other. He looked worried to me, which made me worry too. Turned out later that he was rushing around to finish putting together the Hebrew music for the hora part of the reception.

I got a truly phenomenal manicure, Tamika at Exhale Spa rocksssssss! People kept raving about her massages, I didn't get to try but I have to say this was the best manicure I ever got outside of NYC (come on, ladies, admit it, manicures outside NY are...weird).

When I came back to my room, there was a commotion and I heard Matthew yell out "don't freak out!" And then I saw this:



Oh, just my dress hanging on the balcony? Why would that freak me out? Apparently other brides might not like their dress in such a precarious position right before its big moment. I was fine with it. I was probably more nervous about this:



Then I got my hair and make-up done (seriously check out my nails in this shot, so good!):



I was going pretty natural, hair-wise and was in decision mode about whether I wanted a flower in my hair. As for make-up, I thought Shenique did a good job but I'm pretty finicky so when she was done I ended up taking off the eyeliner she had put on me and some of the eyeshadow.

The Matthew took some shots of me:







And I decided to go with the flower in the hair:



I asked Matthew how IC was doing and he assured me he was fine. He showed me a shot he had just taken of my almost-husband:



I couldn't wait to see him. I was so giddy.