September 29th, 2009 | 
Author: This was originally posted on my blog http://www.jaythornton.net/blog. Check out jaythornton.net for all my typical life and work posts!
For anyone living under rocks, Friday, September 18th, 2009 I got married to the most wonderful, hottest awesome girl out there. Needless to say the past few months have been out of control. Follow the wedding planning with a weekend in the woods then a fairly unique trip to Mexico and I’m about 15 blog posts behind… and that’s not even considering all I’ve got to catch up on with work, which oddly enough, is why I’m writing this. Welcome to my brain lube.
In case you’d like the back-story on the wedding, check out http://www.ryandjay.com for all things leading up to the wedding. You’ll note that the posts stop at the exact same moment posts here at jaythornton.net stopped, exactly one workweek before the wedding. By then, we were in crunch time. So now I’ll try to get everyone caught up to at least the wedding day… here goes.
The both of us were lucky enough to have less than a full workweek the week leading up to the wedding. I took Thursday and Friday off and my lovely wife added Wednesday to hers, which worked out well given that out-of-town guests actually started showing up on Monday. Ry’s mother was first to arrive, followed by Jess and Ambrose on Wednesday and the rest of the guys/girls and family on Thursday, just in time for the rehearsal dinner.
I spent a decent amount of time early in the week repairing the quad after some internal breakage the prior weekend at the bachelor party. Thanks to Ben for helping break and almost single-handedly repairing the 400 for the coming weekend. I had a great time hanging out in the garage and turning wrenches and I’m sure he did too. One final break on Wednesday and we were hoping and praying for a second overnight delivery before Saturday morning… but we’ll get back to that.
Ry spent the bulk of her time getting ready, organizing all those things that brides-to-be do on the day of the wedding and hanging out with Ben’s wife while we worked. We spent Wednesday night hanging out with Ambrose at the house, enjoying good conversation and better adult beverages, preparing for the herd to show up the next day.
Thursday, rehearsal dinner day, opened kind of quietly. I was starting to feel the organizer’s stress as I coordinated plane landings/airport pickups of two out-of-towners, Pat and Carl, while trying to make sure my Dad, Grandmother, and out-of-town usher all made it to the rehearsal on time. Oddly enough, everyone made it there on time but the bridesmaids. There, I said it. The rehearsal went well (read very quickly) and except for that moment when I was facing my bride-to-be and it got real, really quick, the whole event is pretty much a blur. Dinner was great at my mom’s house. We all ate way too much then moved the party to Eddy Haskells for a night cap.
Everyone retired to their various sleeping spots for the night around 1am with all plans for the big day loosely prepared. The girls would be out of the house by about 10am and all the guys would be to the house for steaks and beer somewhere around noon. Knowing my guys, I told them to be at the house my 10:30am, the first ones arrived about 11:45, I got there a little after noon and Mark got there about 1pm. I’m glad I said 10:30 and not noon. We would have never made it.
Steaks were great, the day was perfect and overall, I had a really relaxing and fun time. We passed the guitar around and the guys all got to know each other by way of embarrassing Jay stories. It was really great that everyone got along so well. We all got cleaned up and dressed after a late lunch and about 5pm we shoved off, picked up the little man from day care en route and made it to Dickson street right on time, if not a little early.
After a bunch of photos, a little direction from our awesome coordinator, and a lot of waiting for the girl pictures to come to a close, we were underway… and the rest, is for another blog-post.
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Who else had a great time this weekend? As many know and some were in attendance for, this weekend was the last hoorah for FMT and my self and I might have to concede defeat to the girls. My night out was actually an overnighter to my favorite woods and the girls did Dickson Street. Exact details on the Bachelorette party will have to come from Ryann but I am led to believe that there was a hospital visit made. Sorry Kim.
A small group of guys took off for Huntsville early Saturday morning, set up camp and started running four wheelers. My Brother in law, best man, and another friend had their first shots of Jegermeister around the 11 o’clock hour with me, officially starting the party. That bottle, a smaller version of it, and many beers were gone before dark, as were the friend and brother in law. We were joined by my step father briefly and by my new friend Ben a little later, keeping the crowds constantly changing and fun.
Mark brought some killer smoked chicken and corn for lunch and dinner was provided by Scott, deer stew/chili that was un-friggin-believable. I was gone by midnight. I did forget to change into my jeans before riding so my calf is about medium-rare right now. I also broke a clutch linkage inside the case on my quad, which has to be fixed before this weekend, and I hurt pretty much all over. So there’s a rough recap, forgive the lack of details as they’re still coming back to me and thanks to everyone that was involved. I had an awesome time. It was perfect.
I’m looking forward to seeing everyone this weekend. We’ve already received our first out-of0-town guests and the rest of them should start trickling in tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday so the houses should be full pretty quickly. See you all soon! Wish me luck on getting everything done before Friday.
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So, we are getting down to the wire. 9 days and counting and I will be “The Mrs. Thornton”. Finally got around to buying the cake and a few other last minute items! Still a lot left to do, but nothing that we cant handle! The $$ keep adding up, but its worth every penny for what will most likely be the most important decision we make for the rest of our lives! As we draw even closer the time just flies by. Saturday we will be bach’ing it up! The guys are doing some real male bonding in the deep woods of Huntsville and we ladies will be tearing it up with a night on the town (which I am sure will involve my girlfriends humiliating me with silly party games at some point)!
As I sit back and look at this major life change the one thing that resounds in my head is that I am blessed. I never thought I could be so happy and so loved. Since the moment we started seeing eachother our closest friends said we would marry, to which both of us said, “No way!” Guess they were right. The one thing I hear over and over from friends is that they can tell just by looking at us how much we love eachother.
We have both come a long way to get to this point and I know that we will have the most amazing marriage! We both worship the ground the other walks on. I am Jays biggest fan and he is mine. We get a long, and if we disagree (though not often) we work it out! As corny as it sounds, he completes me while allowing me to have my own identity at the same time! We need each other without being needy of each other.
I can’t wait to share this day with all of our amazing friends and family, and again, feel so blessed that we have so many wonderful people to share it with. I am reminded of one of my favorite scriptures. 1 Corinthians 13:7 that says “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” I believe that real love, “Agape” love, like Christ has for us, does just this. This is the love I strive to achieve daily.
Look forward to seeing you all in 9 days 
Where did the last two weeks go? It’s officially September and we’re not even watching the days fly by anymore. It’s like we wake up confused because it’s Thursday when it’s supposed to be Tuesday. We are, in fact, in a wormhole now. Did you ever see that Futurama where the time crystals were all screwed up and time kept leaping forward without notice? Well, that’s where we are.
So without further ado, I bring you the update. We’ve since bought the cakes, ordered the passports, sent the music to the DJ, ordered new, more baller napkins, and received RSVP’s for almost 100 people and we haven’t even gotten half of the RSVPs we sent out back. That said; get there on time or early, particularly if you’d like to sit during the ceremony. I think we’ll seat the immediate family, elders, and women first, then hold a cage match out front for the remaining seats. Or we could Indian leg wrestle. Your choice.
The final pieces of the planning puzzle are the bachelor/bachelorette parties. The girls are apparently blowing it up on a grand scale. All of what is planned is beyond me. The guys, on the other hand, are heading for the woods. We’re leaving on Saturday morning and coming back sometime on Sunday. Those that wish to attend, contact Scott at shachmann@hotmail.com. He responds in ALL CAPS but fear not, he always types that loud. Contact either of us for directions and get ready for 24 hours of 4 wheeling, camping, and a steady flow of beer and beer’s ugly cousin Jegarmeister.
For those of you that can’t make it to the festivities, next weekend, you will be missed and we hope you can make it to the big day. After that we’re looking forward to a camping night with good friends on Saturday, then we’re off to Mexico… to sleep… a lot.
By the time most of you read this, we’ve already hit the “1 month and counting” mark on the big countdown. I though that this would be a good time to update the masses. Where to begin…
- We’ve got a marriage license. We did that today over lunch. Now there’s no turning back. I mean, who could, in their right mind, forfeit $58 dollars in filing fees? I do have to admit it was a little weird signing on the dotted line today. It was like the first “official” act.
- The groomsmen, and I say this with great zeal, are all measured and tuxes are ordered. For some strange reason I figured it was going to be a source of drama coordinating suit fittings across three states and two time zones but we somehow made it. Pat was measured today, closing out the bunch. Good job guys, you’re earning those groomsmen’s gifts.
- On that note – groomsmen’s gifs are ordered. They should be in any minute now.
- Invites are out! Thanks to a huge helping hand by my sister / the matron of honor, the invitations have been assembled, addressed and mailed. We’re even getting RSVP’s back which reminds me, guys, get those back to us soon.
So that’s where we are to this point. We’ve had a little drama here and there, I’ll let FMT tell you about the dress scare, but for the most part it is coming together. Now we’ve got a few more big steps left, music for the dj and the cakes… hey, don’t judge. We’ve got time. We’re not even killing each other yet. I think this is the beginning of something beautiful.
So I got a new job as the Creative Director for Collective Bias, a social media agency bringing shoppers and brands together and they wanted me to go to Chicago for a BlogHer event. They wanted me to go so much that they flew FMT out as well. I’ll cut to the chase and let you know, it roooocked! Here’s the Reader’s Digest version.
We left early Friday afternoon, after my exit interview at Hunt and drove to Tulsa for the quick flight. We made it to Chi-Town in time to meet up with the new crew at a Collective Bias / Hershey tweet-up at the James hotel. Great times, drinks, and chocolate was had by all and away we went, on a search for showers, more drinks and dinner. Texas de Brazil was the meal of the night.
Saturday we woke up early and helped with the set up for a huge party at the sexiest bowling alley I’ve ever seen. If you have a chance, check out Lucky Strike on Illinois Ave. Killer. Live music, prizes, great food, and the list goes on and on. From there it was a quick breakdown and a (very) late dinner leading to a crash out and early wake up for shopping.
We flew out around 4pm, landed in Tulsa, talked catering with the god mother over some ribeye’s and brats then an effed up journey back to the house, arriving at midnight. Plenty of time to crash and wake up an hour later than last Monday to arrive at my new job early… nice!
Check out the pictures! Let us know what you think!
So, all my best girls showed up for a rocking Bridal Shower. Betsy did an awesome job with the decorations and the sentiment was heart-warming. She had random framed pictures of Jay and me in black and white placed on different table tops throughout the venue. The food was awesome and the company was even better! Kim, Brandy, and Tai keep the mood light while we ate and visited. With the wedding less than 2 months away, the reality of everything is really starting to set in. We have had some definite last minute set backs (like 2 rouge attendants), but overall it is all going smoothly. I will say that the thing on my mind more than just wedding plans and details, is the after effect of it all. I can’t help but wonder (especially the closer to the big day we get) what life will be like after there is not a wedding to plan. I wonder if Jay and I will go back to the way we were before we were planning the wedding, or if we will shift into a “married” state of mind that differs from our current relationship. I am looking forward to weekends at home doing yard work and having friends over for BBQs. I am looking forward to family vacations, and getting more involved in church together. I AM looking forward to the wedding, but even more so, I am looking forward to seeing what life will have to offer us when we are not just Jay and Ryann, when we are not spending the majority of our free time planning this one event. I am looking forward to what life has to offer us after all this. What’s in store for Mr. and Mrs. Thornton, besides endless love and happiness, because that’s a given The clocks a tickin’ and I can’t wait to see you all there!
PS… on a side note, Betsy gave birth to a beautiful baby boy on Thursday, July 16th, and I am so proud to have a brand new nephew!!! Ok, a few more shower pics below!
I know, we keep saying this, but for real, no more trips. The fourth was a quick kid tour-de-force though… and even a blast for us grownups. We took off on the 4th for Kansas City and actually got the timing about perfect. For those of you with small children, get a pen… it’s ok, I’ll wait…
Ready? Here’s the scoop. It’s all about the schedule. We didn’t give them enough time to get bored. We left Saturday morning and drove directly from Springdale to the Kansas City Zoo. Drive time with a couple of stops for food, drinks, and bathrooms, four hours. The kids rode well and stayed relatively quiet on route due to early morning grogginess. We stayed until close and still made it to the hotel in time to get checked in, eat, run to Walmart, and hit the pool before it closed at 8pm. By this time the kids were zombies. We hit the hotel room, turned on some kid shows and watched the kids drop like rocks.
Sunday morning we woke up about 8:30am, packed, checked out, loaded the car, and went to Denny’s for breakfast. The older blonde is all about her pancakes. After a healthy dose of sugar and bread we went back to Walmart (yeah, we were big planners on this trip) and then to the water park that was attached to our hotel. The place was killer and the kids had a blast. We only had one near-meltdown and made it out of there around 3pm. We swung through McDonalds for a late lunch and hit the road for home.
Both kids were asleep in about 20 minutes and slept until we had to stop for gas around the halfway point. They rode great the rest of the way home and we made it back a little after 6pm. Plenty of time to unwind a bit, get to bed at a reasonable hour and make it to work begrudgingly on Monday. That is the quick family trip perfected!
With everything going on over the past few weeks and months, we really needed a moment to step away and last weekend proved perfect. The kids were with their dad and we got the invite to head to Eureka Springs with friends for an overnighter of relaxation and bar hopping… you know, the usual for Eureka.
I started my Saturday shortly after 4am driving down to Searcy to help my best man pick up a minivan and tow it back which pushed our departure back a bit but we were on our way by 3pm. The drive was great as usual. Despite the almost triple digit heat we even opened the sunroof for a while in the mountains and let the Rehab blast through the quiet hillbilly outposts en route. That band has been a part of our trip since our first trip over a year ago. Now we both associate a few of their songs with Eureka. Pretty funny associating a funny Atlanta hip-hop meets rock band with a hippy town but I digress.
We started our afternoon at the Balcony as usual. Beers, white wings, jalapeño and onion straws, and half of a philly each and we were ready for the pool. We soaked up some sun by the pool, had a couple of adult beverages served up in gas station styrofoam and for the first time in a while, I was completely calm. Didn’t put one thought to work and simply enjoyed the moment.
As the sun faded, we hit it to the room to get cleaned up and headed out for the night. The friends we came there to hang out with decided to sleep off the previous night but we met up with another group of friends directly and had a big-ole time, shutting our night down sometime after 1am, wrapping up my 21 hour day and having a great time.
The next morning we woke up early to get to breakfast then sobered up by the pool and headed out before 11am to get back to reality, the kids, and the dogs, refreshed for once. Thanks for a great time to everyone we hung out with while we were there. Hope to see you all again really soon in Eureka. We love it there.
Click the picture at the top to see some of the pictures!
