The Luckiest: Thursday.

Well, here we go, hive. It's Octo-recap time!

Except, here's the thing. I was a terrible blogger and took zero pictures of the days leading up to the wedding, including the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. I still want to write about them, though! I've done my best to scrounge up some rehearsal photos, but not much otherwise. So, these first few posts will have almost no pictures. Can you bear with me? I promise to keep it short and sweet!

Thursday was the first real day of our wedding weekend. Mr. Octo and I were in Pittsburgh, my parents were in Pittsburgh, FIL Octo was in Pittsburgh, and our family and friends were starting to pour in as well. I have heard many times from many brides before me that once guests start rolling into town in preparation for the wedding, things get really exciting and fun. Sooooo true: I felt so bubbly and excited as more and more and more of my favorite people kept arriving. The positive energy was just palpable.

That didn't mean we spent the day lounging and basking in the joyfully buzzing atmosphere, though. We had errands, errands, errands, errands. Mr. Octo and I actually split up for most of the day, and I ran around from big box store to big box store with the Parents Octopus, while Mr. Octo finished up his groomsman-gift shopping with his dad. (Yes, he did indeed procrastinate in an epic way on this task.) It was busy, but not stressful--I never felt that we wouldn't get everything finished.

After, seriously, hours and hours of task-accomplishing and errand-running with my parents, we all headed back to the hotel, where MOH/Sister Lauren, Bridesmaid Leigha, Bridesmaid Katie, and a bunch of my aunts and uncles had arrived over the course of the day. I was SO happy to see them, and it felt more than a little surreal that our wedding weekend was seriously, really, truly here, and in the process of unfolding in front of my face.

That night, Mr. Octo, my parents, and the bridesmaids who were already there all got together in our hotel room for a good old-fashioned OOT-bag-stuffing session. We set up an assembly line, and all the bags were done within an hour. For a nightcap, Bridesmaids Katie, Leigha, Lauren stuck around and watched Jersey Shore with Mr. Octo and I. FUN TIMES!

In retrospect, our actual wedding did go by as quickly as everyone told me it would. The whole wedding weekend? Not so much. I don't feel sad about the way our wedding flew by, because I spent so much quality time with my closest family members and friends in the days leading up to and after it. When I think back on that whole series of days, it practically has a golden aura around it in my memory, it was such an exciting, fun, and special time. Man, I loved our wedding. I can already tell that writing these recaps is going to be fun.

Did you get a lot of quality time with your people during your wedding weekend?