My brother Chris is here!!

He basically flew in via the same route I took to come here in October: United Airlines, Orlando to San Francisco, San Francisco to Modesto. Got a WAY early start this morning, got stuck in San Francisco longer than we expected due to flight delays, but he finally rolled down the local airstrip early this afternoon.

You have no idea how glad I was to see Chris. I missed him a lot and have been bouncing off the walls with excitement for weeks over knowing that he’d be here this week for the wedding; I haven’t seen him since leaving Orlando for good in December. We came back to the house, he met and played with Samson, he got the grand tour. Drove him out to the country club to show him around the venue. Gave him the basic rundown of event plans and the jobs we need him to do. Then we drove over to Kristi’s parents’ house to introduce them to Chris and take everyone out to dinner at El Rosal, our favorite local Mexican dive. Great food and fun all around.

I really enjoyed watching Don proudly touring Chris through his woodshop, opening cabinets and showing off tools and in-process projects, Chris connecting with him over a love of woodworking.

I feel like my family is represented here now: less like I’m joining someone else’s family than we are bringing two families together. I didn’t fully appreciate until this afternoon how much I psychologically needed that feeling before rolling forward with Saturday’s wedding in calm spirit and mind.

Tomorrow: My friends Em and Jason arrive from Orlando! They land in Sacramento in early afternoon and then drive down. Kristi goes in for the final trial run of her hair and makeup. The bunch of us go fetch the tables and chairs back to Kristi’s parents’ place for Thursday’s rehearsal dinner. Then Chris and I spend a few hours of guy time, Em and Jason arrive, and we do an outdoor grill dinner here at the house for the Florida gang.

Tomorrow’s really the last of the calm free time we’ll have before the wedding on Saturday.

As I write this, it is about 7:30pm on Saturday evening. One week from now, we’ll be married and enjoying our reception dinner.

It’s hard to believe that almost a year has gone by since we formally decided to join our lives together. In some ways, it feels a lot longer; in others, a lot shorter. Some days it seems like we can feel every moment tick patiently by, one after another.. and others, like weeks and months are speeding forward in a jumbled blur.

We were talking the other night about the wedding, ours and weddings in general. It’s interesting how your perspective changes during the engagement process. At first, it’s easy to look at the wedding as Your Special Day, an event that revolves around the two of you and your love for each other and how lucky you were to find each other. But months later, as the show’s getting ready to go on, you’ve arrived at a very different position. It’s about the families and friends, and our gratitude for the love and generosity they’ve contributed to our lives; it’s our own humble opportunity to offer those contributions to each other, to share the relationships that mean most to us.

More to the point, the engagement process is about dismantling our lives as single people, and using the pieces to build a new life as a married couple. And the wedding is our chance to thank the people who are opting to be part of that new life.

Most of the plans are done now. We have a to-do list of last minute things, mostly small tasks and bits and pieces that need to be done before the wedding or honeymoon. And of course we have a week of events to successfully launch. But everything’s prepped and on the launch pad and ready to go now.

All the clothes are fitted and ready. Hotel rooms are ready; out-of-town guests start arriving on Tuesday. The rehearsal dinner has been planned out and is being prepared. The wedding venue, vendors, etc. have all been arranged and confirmed. We have a handful of things to cover between now and Tuesday, and then it’s a matter of getting every done that needs to be done. But it’s all lined up now and ready to go.

We have about 130 guests RSVPed for the event, and we heard from the last two of them this afternoon; there’s still a few people that probably won’t be able to make it, but whom we’d love to see attend, so we’re holding out hope for them. But at this point we have all the seats and tables planned out and are pretty confident about the turnout next Saturday.

We’re looking so forward to this next week. Seriously, it feels like we’ve spent the last year working hard to create a single memorable week that wouldn’t drive us into either nervous breakdowns or bankruptcy.. and it feels like we somehow managed it. Knock on wood, anyway.