Showered with Lots of Love & Surprises

At the end of June, MOH Tessa and her amazing mom – My Auntie Rucksack– threw me the best shower a girl could ask for. I knew the date (I’m not one for surprises when it comes to having to dress up and look pretty) but I didn’t know much about the details – including the guest list. It was such a surprise to have so many of my wonderful girlfriends in attendance.

Surrounded by the lovliest of girls

Celebrating with MOH Tessa, Auntie Rucksack, and Momma Rucksack

The best semi-surprise was that my FMIL & FSIL flew in from Minnesota to attend! They were planning on keeping it a total secret, but then decided to tell me because a) a couple of weeks ago I was having a bad day and they thought I could use something happy and b) FMIL said she would have killed her Mother-in-Law if she had ever shown up for a 4 day stay unannounced.  Best In-Laws ever, I tell you!

BM F, me and FMIL Rucksack

We made a whole weekend of their visit, and FMIL Rucksack took FSIL F and me into the city for a girls’ day of shopping and a Broadway show! We saw Cinderella and it was amazing! We all cried at Ella and Topher’s finale wedding. 

Photos by FSIL/BM F

On Sunday, I got to spend the morning relaxing by walking downtown in sweats for a leisurely breakfast, getting my nails done (in neon coral) and lounging in the sun with BM F while drinking Bloody Mary’s. It was such a perfect start to the day. 

At 1:45, we headed out the door and arrived at my aunt’s house just as they were finishing set-up. We were the first “guests” to arrive which was perfect so that we didn’t walk into a swarm of people. It gave me a chance to introduce everyone and to chat with each girl as they walked in.

My old roommate Jem, Cupcake, and Goody after hitting the wonderful bar

My aunt’s backyard is just this amazing oasis of garden perfection and she and Tessa made it even more amazing for my shower.

I wish I got a picture of the food spread, but I was clearly very focused on the bar instead! Someone actually had to remind me to eat because I was so busy visiting with everyone. I realize now why everyone says it’s so hard to eat at your own wedding. Hopefully there will be people reminding me there too!

I should have requested a better cake shot, but at least this is fitting of our personalities

I did get a picture of the cake though. It was beautiful and I heard it was also really tasty. My aunt made me chocolate covered strawberries since I couldn’t eat the cake and those were super yummy!

So obviously, I’m a little out of order here. In between lunch and dessert, we also did a lot of gift opening. I’m not going to lie, I was so excited about this part. But once we got there, I realized “wow this is awkward.” I also had 2 glasses of sangria in me at this point, so I was a little flustered. And did I mention it was eighty billion degrees in the sun? Well, the first couple of gifts I was all like “Oh this is weird….am I smiling enough?....do I look appreciative?....can everyone see the sweat puddle forming underneath me?” but eventually I got the hang of things.

Hard working flower girl handing me yet another gift

My flower girl was the best helper. She handed me every single present (even the heavy ones), then took the ribbons to BM Veronica for my ribbon bouquet, and came out with the best one liners: “Whew – I think I’m getting in my workout of the day!” and "There's no business like show business!"

If I look confused here, it's because I totally am. I was told to unwrap this before reading the card and was very surprised to find a big jar of....um...things? I honestly had no clue what I was looking at. There were patches of some sort, coins, action figures, a lucky rabbits foot and so so much more. The card explained that this was a jar of all of Mr. Rucksack's treasures that he saved when he was a little boy. I thanked FMIL and then announced "Mr. Rucksackis going to be so pissed when I tell him that I have a jar of really cool things and I'm not going to share with him!"

The toys are mine! All mine!

One of my favorite parts of the day was after most of the guests had gone home and there were just a few of us left. By this point, Mr. Rucksack had joined me so that he could thank everyone on their way out. I was sweaty and exhausted, but since it was just our families and a couple of close friends left I was able to take my shoes off, put my hair in a ponytail and just relax. We had so much fun reminiscing and laughing until we were crying. Plus, Mr. Rucksack was being super mushy. It doesn’t happen too often so when it does it’s adorably funny. He kept hugging and kissing me and for some reason trying to dip me, all while saying “We’re getting married! We’re really getting married!”

A mushy Mr. Rucksack happy from love and because I shared his jar of treasures with him

The shower really made the whole wedding so much more real. It was like a sneak peek into the wedding with our guests.

All the BMs in one place: Tessa, Goody, F, Flower Girl, me, Penny, Veronica and Cupcake

Momma Rucksack, me, my grandma's best friend, Auntie Rucksack, and MOH Tessa

We both still have warm fuzzies from such an amazing weekend!

The Rucksacks with their Mommies

With MOH Tessa

Did your shower make the wedding finally seem real to you to? I feel like there’s finally an end of planning in sight!

We missed our shower!

Yikes, right?

Fortunately we weren’t actually expected to attend our first shower which took place in Minnesota while we were still in Connecticut. FMIL Rucksack had the brilliant idea for a virtual shower in which the Minnesota family would meet at Panera and Facetime with us so that we could join in on the fun. Sadly, Panera’s bandwidth couldn’t handle all that fun so Mr. Rucksack and I spent 10 minutes or so looking like this while we waited:

 After we realized it wasn’t going to work, we called his mom via the much less technological cellphone and were able to speak briefly with everyone. Which mostly just consisted of each person on the other end saying “What?? It’s so loud in here! I can’t hear you, but we love you!”

I was kind of bummed that we couldn’t celebrate with everyone, but it seemed like they had a nice time catching up and eating lemon cookies.

A few days later we received a big box in the mail. It was our shower in a box since the virtual shower had fallen through!

So many fun things!

I’d love to tell you that since we were able to open our shower in the privacy of our own home that we were in pajamas or naked, but no such luck. We were still dressed from Friday at work. Which is probably a good thing for you since we got to take pictures of us with our awesome gifts.

The Beez helps out, even though lacking opposable thumbs.

Seriously, there was so much stuff packed in one box. We were spoiled!

FMIL Rucksack made this for me based on a quilt I pinned over a year ago. Isn’t that amazing? We’re hanging it up over the bed in the guest room. No Beez dog hair allowed on this baby!

She also made us these Connecticut & Minnesota dish towels. She’s one crafty momma. 

Corksicle! We love this thing!

Seriously, we have the best family! So even though we were sad we missed all of the fun, it was pretty fun and low-key to open everything alone too and it was great practice for my Connecticut shower just a few days later.

Did you have a virtual or "in a box" shower? What was your favorite gift? I'm loving all of the handmade heirlooms!

Fatherless Brides

This post is a really tricky one for me to write. I spent most of my life convincing myself (and my mom) that I was just fine without a dad, and really I was. I grew up to be a smart, funny, pretty, accomplished lady. I have a great mom and an amazing extended family. I am lucky in so many ways.

However, over the last couple of years I've grown increasingly angry. It came to a head last summer when my dad's son (my half-brother) died at the age of 22. He and I weren't close, in fact we'd only spoken through email. And yet, it killed me. There were months of grieving and being angry at my dad. It's starting to get better, but I don't think I'll ever get over the fact that I missed out on knowing my sibling.

Wedding planning, too, has put an emphasis on the fatherless part of who I am as a person. I can get over my father giving me away on my wedding day. My mom - if she isn't crying too hard - will be walking me down the aisle and I wouldn't want it any other way. The aspects that bother me are things I never could have imagined would come up.

For instance, I obviously won't be having a father-daughter dance. I'm sure nobody will miss this, but selfishly I also don't want Mr. Rucksack to dance with his mother. I feel like their dance will put emphasis on the fact that I didn't get to dance with my dad. Even if nobody else thinks that way, I will and it will put a significant damper on my mood. I feel so selfish and childish thinking that way, but the pain has grown so significant that I really don't think I can not feel this way. (We will be inviting everyone to the dance floor after our first dance and Mr. Rucksack will dance with his mom at that point while I...awkwardly hug my mom? Not sure yet.)

The other thing that upset me? I will have to leave my father's name blank on our marriage license. Since he's not on my birth certificate and isn't part of my life, he doesn't get to go on my marriage license either. For some reason, this is just heartbreaking to me. I looked online for some guidance and all I found was a book titled My Ancestor was a Bastard with helpful tips for what to do if while researching your genealogy you come across a bastard relative with no father listed. Cue the tears. So many tears. And also a little bit of laughter.

I've been really into genealogy and have gone pretty far back (the 1500's!) on both sides of my family. Thinking about how my future relatives would be stuck with one branch of my tree made me realize: I have no right to my father's genealogical history. It was devastating. Did I mention that I was also reading Game of Thrones at this point? I couldn't have felt more like Jon Snow.

It's really hard trying to deal with all of these emotional issues while planning the wedding, especially since there's no solution. I've learned that my dad doesn't want to be my dad. He'll occasionally send me an email or a postcard but I've long since given up hope that we're going to have some sort of Hollywood ending where he suddenly realizes all that he's missed. I know it's something that I just need to deal with, but it's so sad. 28 years can go by, but the hurt doesn't lessen.

Who else is dealing with wedding related daddy issues? How do you "get over it?"