From the Mr. and Mrs.

I'm sure you know what this post will be about. We got married! All the hard work and planning paid off. Everything was great. Sunday, September 4th was the big day, but really the whole thing started the Wednesday before. We flew into KC and Wednesday morning and headed off to our separate families. I had dress fittings and other wedding related tasks to accomplish, Corey had similar errands to run, minus the dress of course. That evening my mom and her best friend Mary, threw a "Spa night." Basically it was a bunch of girls getting pedicures and manicures and drunk. The night was a blast! I don't know what Corey did that evening, but I don't know if I care either... I was drunk. Thursday night Corey and I met up with one of Corey's (and now my) best friends, Brian Schwartz. We ate dinner at Han Shin...mmm Japanese steak house. Afterwards we met up with Brian Thalblum at Johnny's Tavern. It was fun, but a little pointless for me to be there since I just watched the guys play Golden Tee, not to mention I had to get up early the next day.

On Friday I woke my ass up early and headed back to Independence for yet another dress fitting. My sister was already in town and my cousin JoRae arrived that afternoon. This night was the bachelor and bachlorette parties. Corey and the guys played golf in the morning, BBQed in the evening and prayed with orphan children that night. Us girls ate (and drank plenty of wine) dinner at Bucca de Beppos where we enticed the cute waiters to dance for me. Thanks mom! Afterwards we went to Mi Cocina's for more drinking and dancing, where Nikki Dupont and her "tassles" were the life of the party. Pretty much the night continued with more drinking and hanging out at various parts of the Plaza. A few of us went back to our hotel at the Fairmont to hang out more. The night was great. Some of those girls I hadn't seen in years.

Saturday was the rehearsal dinner. BBQ at Zarda's, hey we were in KC, what do you expect? Corey's brother Aaron put together a trivia game for us to see who knew each other better and my sister Briette gave a wonderful speech. I, of course, wasn't ready to go to bed any time soon so I went out with Corey and a few people for a while and met up with Briette, Anna and Ali late that night at the Embassy Suites where we were staying. They were all asleep when I got in. Luckily I fell asleep fairly quickly, but not without getting some good giggling in once I woke them up. I can't imagine how Corey fell asleep. He was by himself at his parents and already suffers insomnia on a somewhat regular basis.

Sunday morning the girls had to start getting ready at 10am. That's right, a whole 8 hours before the wedding. We had a great time though, getting our hair done, laughing and eating lunch together. I haven't hung out with my girlfriends like that in such a long time. It was such a good memory.

The wedding started at 6pm. I honestly wasn't nervous. Well, maybe a little about my vows (we wrote our own). While I was waiting to start, the girls kept asking how I was so calm, but you know, when it's the right thing to do, there's nothing to worry about. When the doors opened and I saw Corey for the first time, I was blown away. He looked soooo handsome and the reaction I got from him was priceless. I pretty much remained intact until the vows and at that point I finally started crying. The ceremony was beautiful. We had asked our friend Dan Walsh get ordained so that he could officiate the ceremony. It was really special having someone close to us bring our new lives together. I could go on and on about the wedding, but the best way to sum it up would be to say it was the best day of my life. These memories are priceless and it is so dear to my heart that so many of our loved ones could share this day with us. The wedding went off flawlessly and the reception was pretty close, but none of that matters because there was so much love in the room that that's the part I will always remember.

I'll post pictures later as I get them.

-Mrs. Rittmaster (hee hee)