Wedding Adventures!

I will apologize now that there are not many pictures in this post. I promise I am working on collecting them from the various sources and will share them as I get them.
Well the wedding weekend started on Thursday for me. My bfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff Ashley drove with me to Gulfport on Thursday, May 24th. We awoke at the crack of dawn and got on the road. Ashley is not a morning person and she let me know it very quickly upon waking her. However, soon she was her normal quirky self and we had an absolutely fantastic 10 hour drive. We spent our time making a list of every state license plate we saw (no multiples) and soon set a goal for ourselves to have a list of all 50 states in one day. We made really good time, though I may have been attempting to time travel occasionally... We reached Gulfport around 1530. After waiting at the gate entrance for base for 15 minutes while they took my license, insurance, and registration for my car and finally gave me a pass onto base, we cruised around base wasting some time until Garrett was out of school and trying to complete our mission. Finally having only two plates missing from our list, we went and checked into our hotel, which was conveniently just across the street from Garrett's dorm! I couldn't have planned it better if I had tried. As Ashley and I were still waiting, we collapsed onto our inviting bed and soon discovered that it was more comfortable than any bed I've ever had at home... Down comforter and amazing pillows; I immediately knew I could get used to it. Ashley fell asleep almost instantly, I was much too anxious to fall asleep. Finally I got the call from Garrett that he was ready. I hopped out of bed, grabbed my room key, and left Ashley sleeping nicely.
I walked quickly across the street and parking lot and stood waiting outside of the doors to Garrett's dorm. I was wearing my 'Future Mrs. Bowen' jersey and people kept coming out and telling me he was coming. I met Garrett's roommate before I even saw Garrett... Finally, after taking his dear sweet time, Garrett emerged from the building. We pulled each other into a nice good hug and kiss. We then learned that people were ready to head to the movie that we had planned earlier. So I ran back to the room to grab my car keys and see if Ashley was interested in coming still. Ashley had seen the movie before, so she opted out of going to continue sleeping. So I headed over to the dorm with my car and found Garrett and a friend of his, Michael Levison, coming in our car. Garrett wanted to drive, of course. So we headed to the theater following another truck full of people. We were seeing The Hunger Games. It was Garrett, Levison, and I, as well as three other classmates of Garrett. After the movie we went to eat at TGIF. I had told Ashley to call me if she woke and wanted to come hang with us, but still hadn't heard from her at this point. I knew we still had sandwich stuff from our drive and that she at least wouldn't starve. Finally around 2300 I believe, Garrett had to be back in his dorm. I quietly snuck back into my room. The blinds were still open, and especially because we were on the ground floor facing the hotel parking lot, I tried to quietly close them before getting in bed. BAD idea... All of a sudden a loud crashing sounds and I find the blinds falling on top of me, bruising my shoulder, and waking Ash. Though all I get out of her is a mumbled 'If you wanted to wake me, you could have just shook me.' and she turned over and fell back asleep. I was cracking up, but decided not to make even more of a ruckus by trying to put them back up where they belong.  So, I crawled into bed, Garrett called, and I was out like a light.
Friday the 26th dawned early, but I was excited. Ashley woke, saw the blinds on the floor, and said 'They got you too?' I soon learned that they had fallen on her when she had tried to close them earlier while I was gone, and she had just put them back up. So yes, we were a pair of winners in our hotel room. We showered and dressed and were pressed to hurry by a hungry man who was soon to be my husband. We walked across the street to meet Garrett and Levison at McDonald's for breakfast. Levison was coming with us to New Orleans for our big shin-dig. So we eat, Levison and Garrett head back to the dorm to pack, and Ashley and I put all of our stuff back into the car. We finally head out of Gulfport about 1030 or 1100. Garrett makes the drive to New Orleans (a little over an hour drive) and we get all the way to the Parish office where we are to purchase our marriage license. When Garrett comes around the car and opens my door, he looks at me and says 'Do you know what I forgot? ... My birth certificate.' First words out of my mouth, 'You're kidding, right?'. But no, he was not. So the four of us piled back into the car at 1215 or so and headed BACK to Gulfport. By this time Garrett had been hitting the rumble strip on the side of the road quite a bit and Levison and Ashley were joking and complaining about the driver. They even filled out a complaint card to be filed with the 'Future Mrs. Bowen'. We reach Gulfport and Garrett runs up to his room. We switch, so that I am driving BACK to New Orleans. The judge's office had called me Thursday to see when we were coming by to pay and to give the marriage license and everything. I told her that we would bring it by Friday. But the office closes at 1500 on Fridays and there was no way we were getting back to New Orleans, getting our marriage license and making it over to the office by then. Although, I'm pretty sure I made it back to New Orleans in about 45 minutes flat... In my defense, I was still one of the slowest people on the road. We made it back just before 1500 I believe but by the time we went up to the marriage license office, it was too late to go over to the judges office. Luckily I called as we were first heading back to Gulfport to tell her the situation and she totally understood and said we could just do everything on Saturday, just to make sure we brought exact change. So after the few minutes it took to get our license, the four of us were pretty hungry. We headed to Taco Bell to eat and kill some time before Garrett's friend, Gabe, came in on the Greyhound at 1730. We soon realized that we would not have enough room for all of our stuff plus the five of us in my little car. So we got permission from the hotel we were staying at to take our stuff and have it held behind the counter until the people who the rooms were actually under came to check in. Thus freeing up a lot of space in my car. After picking up Gabe from the station, we headed back to the hotel to check in and hang around for a bit. After not too long, my family showed up including my parents, brother Dathan, sister Shalynna, and my Aunt Judy. Everyone was rather hungry except maybe Levison, Ashley, Garrett and I since we had eaten not too long ago. So we headed around the corner to this little Italian place that at first looked a tad sketch to me, but we soon discovered was actually surprisingly good. Garrett and I, being ourselves, after finishing eating what we could of our shared spaghetti plate, got up and began dancing near the back, out of the way. We had no music, but just danced and talked some. Our waitress spotted us and told us we were going to make her cry if we didn't stop. The rest of our table was quick to point out that we were getting married the next day, and wasn't it rather obvious? She was extremely happy for us and offered many congratulations. After dinner Garrett and the guys left for their super secret 'Bachelor Party' in which they went to see Men in Black 3.
I found it almost hard to fall asleep, even though I was so tired from everything. Ashley and I stayed up talking about everything. Finally I managed to fall asleep and woke early to begin getting ready. Soon after doing Ashley's hair however, I realized it was not good that I had decided not to bring hair spray...

So my aunt found Garrett and asked him to run to the store to pick some up for us. It was soon discovered that my future husband was extremely forgetful this weekend. He had already been to the store to pick up socks and shoes, which he had also forgotten in Gulfport, along with his flight cap. So Garrett could not stay outside long on this day. Garrett and the guys left for the judge's office in my car and I went with my family in the van. After we arrived, the judge was not there yet, Garrett and I were still unable to see each other in proper wedding tradition. After the judge had arrived and Garrett had gone in to pay and to get things going, I waited outside with my Dad and Shalynna and Ashley to get the okay to walk in.

After walking in, being handed off by my dad, it sort of turns into a blur of just staring into Garrett's eyes, shedding tears of happiness, repeating what I'm told, and yearning for the day we are bound together for eternity.

 Every promise I made 'until death do us part' was made in my heart for eternity. I hope that Garrett was able to see that in my eyes and feel it in the death grip I had on his hand. Garrett didn't cry, but I definitely saw those big brown eyes of his feeling the same thing I was, he just didn't let the tears spill over. I promise that I am also working on getting the digital copy of the recording to add to this blog eventually, and if I don't make it before September, we are going to show it in September at a BBQ on the 14th.
After lots of pictures and signing all the official documents, we headed out to find a place to eat. After some brief miscommunication and frustration on the part of the bride and groom, we finally set up camp at the Clearview Mall across the highway from our hotel that had this wonderful restaurant called  Zea's. While waiting for them to get the table ready, I found I had an amazingly sweet message from my best friend Kirstin congratulating me and wishing us the best.

THE best strawberry lemonade I have ever had. It was so incredibly good! If you ever go to New Orleans, I highly recommend this place. The food was excellent as well. Though my sandwich was MUCH larger than I had anticipated. I was only able to eat half of it. We enjoyed ourselves a lot eating great food, having family and friends with us, and wishing more could have joined us for this small shindig.

This is the small cake that I had my manager at work make to bring along. I love the cake topper so much because it is Garrett and I exactly. He is always dipping me into a kiss and dancing. The hair colors were not correct when I ordered it, but I had no inclination to pay $7.50 per head to change it and be disappointed that they didn't come out right. However, my Aunt Alice happened to be in town when my cake topper came in the mail. She being the artist that she is immediately volunteered to correct the color and make it as real as possible. She did a superb job! Garrett and I proceeded to put napkins down our front and cut the cake. Both of us wary when we finally got our piece because we knew what was coming.

I think I did a fantastic job though. I got it up his nose and all over. :) Hopefully pictures I collect will have some non-blurry ones of the outcome of this palm-to-face moment. 

After cleaning up from the cake mess, we all headed back to our respective hotel rooms to change. After changing and hanging out for a while Garrett, Gabe, Ashley, Levison, and I headed to the French Quarter. After finally finding atrociously expensive parking we wandered over to Cafe du Monde for beigneits. They were rather good and not very expensive to get a plate of three. After eating Levison wanted to get a picture of the 'Bourbon St' sign. It was getting dark by this time, and Garrett was not exactly stoked to be around so many people getting drunk on a Saturday night of a long weekend. He was very tense and protective the whole time; walking behind Ashley and I constantly with one hand clenched on my shirt and the other in a fist over his wallet. Needless to say, we did not stay long. 

Well that about sums up the days leading up to our wedding. We had many more adventures the following days, but I will save those for another time. We love you all, and wish those that couldn't make it, could have. We look forward to celebrating with you September 15th when Garrett can come back to San Antonio.