Time for post number three for this week of wedding posts.  The wedding was so pretty, wasn’t it.  I’m a little bias, but what can I say.  Now it’s time for the party.  We had our reception at our home church.  It was such a pretty room, with lots of space.  Since our wedding topped out at over 400 people (I know I know crazy right?) we needed the room while making it cute still.  We did minimal decorations, because frankly who needs them?  And who really thinks about them, or cares?  People are more apt to remember sentimental and special things then the $100 flower arrangement in the giant clear vase in the middle of your table.  When people walked in they could view the wedding pictures of the two people who had previously shared this wedding date.  Our center pieces were a simple white rose, a picture of Christopher and I throughout our dating history, which by that time had already been like five years if you can believe that.  There was also a wedding picture of one of our family members on the tables.  It was so cool and I got so many comments, even years after the wedding was over, including many friends who followed suit..which is the biggest compliment as far as I”m concerned.  We did a lot of special things that day.  Our music was carefully picked to reflect our personalities and stuff.  We had a special dance to honor those in the service – military, fire, police…which was really meant to honor my husband’s best childhood friend who couldn’t be a part of special day because he was deployed with the Marine Corp.  We had a dance to figure out who the couple was that had been married the longest and presented the woman with a bridal bouquet of her own.  We had two who had been married for 46 years!  Such a testament to beauty of marriage.  Still makes me swoon with romantic thoughts.

One very cool and sentimental part of our wedding was the food, if you can believe that.  I had known the caterer since I was twelve.  I became very close with the family and ever since I was twelve he’d been saying I’m doing the food at your wedding.  So nine years later, after having passed the business on, we hired the company for our special day.  I walk into the church and who do I see….he had come back to run the catering that day.  I totally bawled my head off.   Every person we had at our wedding meant something to us.  None of those attendance were people that were random friends of our parents, which is crazy to think about it because it was so many people.  But Christopher and I had been involved with so much – volunteer work, boyscouts, dance, two churches over the years, different jobs, family friends that remained close to us over the years.  I even had a kindergarten teacher who my family went to church with as well.  We played a slideshow during our first dance, which happened to be the first slow dance we ever danced to on that very first date to junior prom – Angel of Mine by Monica…which incidentally I had engraved on his wedding band.  Mine says, “My Princess” and then the date in military form of course, LOL – 14AUG2004.  Such a nerd.  Our cake topper was my parent’s cake topper, with a couple things added to it like purple roses and some green ribbon.

Now onto some pictures……

Today is the big day.  I can’t believe that I have been married to my husband for eight years, well at like 3pm I will have been.  It really does seem like yesterday, even if that does sound absolutely ridiculously sappy sweet cutie tootie.  It’s true though.  My wedding was just about everything that I could have hoped for.  My parents and I worked hard for almost two years scrimping and saving.  The military made sure that engagment was a bit longer than we had originally planned; but waiting for that white wedding was everything that I could have hoped for.  I know there are plenty of military peeps that go do a courthouse and all that, and then have that white wedding later.  That’s fine, but let me just say that I was so glad that we waited and did things this way.

We got married in a darling church, that looked like a church – with pews and stained glass.  Our pastor and my basically, almost, not biological grandfather assisted.  My dad grew up with his kids.  It was pretty amazing and sentimental to have him be a part of it.  We had a very formal ceremony.  Our pastor wore robes, we lit unity candles and shared our first communion together.  We had a kneeling bench to receive a blessing.  Two very important people were missing from that day, my grandmother and my aunt (my mom’s best friend).  Our junior bridesmaids carried roses in memory of them, and my friend sang a song that was one of my aunt’s very favorite songs.  We said an older version of the traditional vows, saying “until only by death are we parted.”  Doesn’t seem different but its just a more formal way of saying, “until death do we part.”    I walked down the aisle to the wedding march from The Sleeping Beauty Ballet, since I was a dancer for many years.  As people were being seated we played nothing but love songs, from across the decades.  Our friend also sang a beautiful song by Edwin McCain before we were came in.  There were so many wonderful, small, special things that made it truly our day, unique and lovely in its own right.  The most special was probably that we were the third generation on my side of the family to get married that day.  My mom’s parents (whom I was very close to) and my aunt and uncle.  It was very cool and we incorporated that into the wedding in little ways.  And we came back up the aisle to The Rocky Theme, the hubby’s favorite movie.  That was a huge hit and my best friend’s dad, who was a radio host, even talked about it that following monday!  Oh man, the memories, and so much fun.  But nothing better than pictures could really say more……..