Across the Shoreline: You came for me in fast forward

After making our way up slopey beaches, leaping into the air, and leaning on the people who were there for us to lean on, my brand new wife and I go some time to ourselves.

Sort of.

One very vivid memory I have of the day was finishing our pictures with our brigadeers and suddenly realizing I could take off my dress.  You guys, the dress was pretty.  It satisfied whatever need I had to wear a dress, and whatever need other people had for me to wear a dress.  I liked how it looked.  And I was ready to get the eff out of it.  And then?  All comfortable and still dolled up, it was time to spend some time with my wife.  Oh yeah, and our photographer.

Check out the rings on those fingers!  These were some of the best moments of a day full of best moments.  It was just the two of us, and the instructions we were given were essentially, “Act like you just got married and you’re happy about it.”  Um, no problem.

After a few photos outside the building and out by the water, we wandered into the woods. At this point, I was just on a strange, thrilled, calm high. I couldn’t believe we were married. I couldn’t believe there was still so much of the day to do, and I was excited about all of it, even though I could hardly comprehend that there was more of it. It all felt surreal –

– and what better way to ground yourself in the craziness of all of that than to find your new wife and remind yourselves of each other? So, unprompted, we had our first dance. No music, just the two of us, spontaneous-kitchen-dancing-style.

You guys? I for serious love her.

Across the Shoreline: The Brigadeers

Our bridal brigade kind of rocked, and it was superfun spending time with them after the ceremony.

At that point, we were both all kinds of wrapped up in each other, and, as I remember it, drifting through our photographer’s instructions and laughing a lot. These people were exactly the right people to understand that, to get that we were a little out of it, riding on this Marriage High, and enjoying it right alongside us.

Here’s a note: if your photographer tells you to do something that sounds a little silly, like, “Hey, everyone walk towards me up this sandy and possibly dangerous slope and don’t fall!” – she knows what she’s talking about. Some of these pictures felt a little ridiculous while we were doing them, but we were thrilled with how they came out. Let it be known to the world, we love Ellie Leonardsmith.

Here’s another note: having a second, secret photographer taking the same pictures from another perspective is kind of awesome. A lot of our photos were fantastic surprises, and it was really fun to see what our guests were probably seeing!

Finally, we got a few shots with our “sisters” – mine biological, and my wife’s as close as you can get.

Next up, I get out of my dress (ooh la la) and the two of us sneak off into the woods…

Across the Shoreline: The biggest smiles

First of all, my wife is kind of amazing.  I have been dealing with some pretty major anxiety for the last, oh, 13 days, and she has been a rockstar.  She checks in with me, she lets me whine or cry, she makes sure I’m taking the right amount of meds, she reminds me to check in with my doctor.  Ladylove, you are wonderful.

So while we’re talking about the other member of my fantastic marriage, why not show you some more pretty pictures?  After we danced our way back up the aisle, we took off together!  I had heard of couples taking some time between the ceremony and reception to have some quiet time together, to giggle and be excited and take in the enormity of it all, and somewhere along the line we decided that the ideal place to do this was in a boat.

Don’t worry! We do know enough about boats to realize that we won’t go far without paddles or while facing the same direction…

This made for a lot of fun and some pretty great pictures, but we also had a lot of people looking at us.  I didn’t feel like we could go very far (Look! Everyone’s waiting for us! They’re waving! They’re staring! Are they bored?), but it was really wonderful to get out on the water, just the two of us.  There were two guys out fishing and they seemed to get a kick out of us, two brides, out on the water, too.

We made our way back in, took a group picture, and then it was family picture time.

all of our friends and family, except our amazing photographer friend. we know she was there because we have all these amazing pictures without her in them. thanks Ellie!

They say you have to smile a lot, and we did.  The thing was, though, that it wasn’t hard to smile a lot.  We were pretty damn happy.  People kept saying, “Kiss! Kiss!” so we kept kissing and making faces.  It was all sort of whirlwindy and wonderful.

us with our immediate families

us with a portion of my extended family (I LOVE my grandma and brother in this picture!)

I think the prompt was "everyone look at Bird!" How could I NOT make a face? Also, isn't my family beautiful? The answer is yes.

us with Turtle's mom and grandpa. I love this picture.

Next up: our kickass bridal brigade photos!

You know, I used to think that all the family portraits were sort of silly and not for me.  The truth of it all is that it was really fun getting to spend time running in and out of these little groups, and hearing our photographer prompt everyone, and having so many people around us, all being so excited!  The only thing I regret about these pictures is that I wish I had more! I wish I had some with just my siblings or with each of my parents individually, or each of my grandparents.  But I do love what we had.  If you’re on the fence, more is best! That’s my new take on things.  If you’ve done it already, what’s yours?  If not, what are your thoughts?

Across the Shoreline: Done with patient waiting

On Wednesday I got to hang out with the always-fabulous Mrs. Octopus, who has been writing some stellar wedding recaps, most of which bring tears to my eyes or at least make smile.  So there we were, cuddling with her dog and talking about how cold we always are and the abilities of the amazing seltzer-making machine, when she suddenly declares, “You know, you really need to write your recaps.”  We talked about other stuff, too, but really? Yes, I do need to write my recaps.  So welcome back to Wedding Recap Land, where we last talked about our vows.  This is a bit long because I just want to tell you all about it!

As we finished reading each other our vows for the first time, our rings returned from their travels among our guests.

About a week before the wedding, we met with our  minister to go over the script of the ceremony.  There were some things we really wanted her to include and other things where we said, “If you can just get the gist of this idea, we trust however you’re going to say it.”  After she all, she is a minister, she’s done a lot of weddings, and we really like her and the sermons she has given in the past.

What I mean to say here is that I don’t actually know exactly what we said about the rings.  She talked about what they represented, and maybe said something about how we use our hands for almost everything in our lives, and that in everything, the rings will be a reminder of our promises to each other today.  We repeated after her, which I really liked; we could hold hands and look at each other for all of this.

After all of the repeating and the promises came this:

With this ring, I give you my promise to honor you, to be faithful to you, and to share my love and life with you in all ways, always. With this ring, I thee wed. And I put the ring on her finger.

Then she repeated her promises, and said the same: With this ring, I give you my promise to honor you, to be faithful to you, and to share my love and life with you in all ways, always. With this ring, I thee wed. And she put the ring on my finger.

Turtle’s long-time dance teacher and friend stood up to give our final reading by Rumi:

Face that lights my face, you spin
intelligence into these particles
I am. Your wind shivers my tree.
My mouth tastes sweet with your name
in it. You make my dance daring enough
to finish. No more timidity! Let
fruit fall and wind turn my roots up
in the air, done with patient waiting.

At this point, it’s all a little bit of a blur.  A blur of happy, of Oh My God we’re married, I think – are we married? Has she declared it? I think we’re married! Somewhere in there, our minister said, “By the power vested in me by God and the state of Massachusetts, I now declare you legally married!” Everyone whose face you can see in this picture is absolutely beaming.

And then I think she gave us permission to kiss.  So we did:

Which was closely followed by our flinging our arms around each other in utter joy.  I love the looks on everyone’s faces here:

You know how sometimes you’re just like, “Why do I/you/we/they need a wedding?  Why not just go to the courthouse, or just stay together and make that decision every day? That’s romantic.  Who needs a piece of paper?”  If you do know what I’m talking about, then you also knwo that there are about a million different entirely-accurate answers to that question.  But this picture here reminds me of one of them: here, we are thrilled to have each other, and everyone around us is thrilled that we have each other.  Here, we have just promised big things and all we want is to be in each other’s arms, full of that joy.  This is a picture I can look back on and forget that my wife didn’t take out the dog or that we’re worried about our heating bill or that I’m supposed to be cleaning the house rather than writing thing (maybe that last one is irrelevant, but oh well).  This picture brings all of the Love, all of the Yes and the I Do back to the surface for me.

Okay, now hit play:

We stood there, grinning, in front of everyone and waiting for the music to start, and when it did we rocked our way back up that aisle (please note my grandmother’s wonderful expression here; she’s in the amazing orange):

If you missed anything, you can catch up here.

Across the Shoreline: What This Would Mean

Our vows were something of a production in the making.  We originally thought we would write them together, but that ended in both of us snapping at each other and one of us walking away (um, that one might have been me. Might have been.).  We eventually decided that we would write them on our own and then compare… and that evolved into “Our vows are a secret to be revealed on our wedding day! And also it’s a contest – most tears elicited wins!”

The contest part was mostly a joke.

We both spent a lot of time scouring the internet for inspiration, and sharing a lot of the inspiration we found.  While we did look at a lot of people’s vows to each other, the ones we came up with were ours, and because of the sacredness of them, I am not going to share them all here.  But! I will share some of them.

“Turtle, 11 months ago, after you finally agreed to marry me, I sat down outside and thought about what this would mean, and here is some of what I wrote:

I know it won’t always be like THIS, it won’t always be the way it is right now, and things change over years and decades.  But I think we could always have this important place for each other, and we could always value each other this way, and have whatever adventures we are having together – in Massachusetts or Oregon or New Hampshire or New York.  With one dog or five… or, fine, just two.  It’s amazing and wonderful and lucky that we can both live the lives that we have individually dreamed about and they can fit together so perfectly, almost make the other’s POSSIBLE, almost fill in the spots we maybe didn’t realize were empty to start with.  I feel blessed to have you.

“Today, I, Bird, take you, Turtle, to be my wife, and, in doing so, I take you to be my partner, friend, and closest family…

“I promise to rejoice with you in the good times and to struggle with you in the bad… I promise to support you and to have faith in you… and to give thanks for you always.

“I realize that we will grow and change in our life together… I promise that I will return to the words we are saying to each other here today and to try always to live by them.  I will be my best self for you, for me, and for us… I am proud from this day forward to be called your wife.”

Then it was Turtle’s turn.

“Bird, you are the sweetest part of my day… Today, I ask you to be my truest companion, my cherished partner, and my wife.

“I promise to love you when love is simple and when love is complex.  I promise to create with you a home filled with joy, kindness, respect, and comfort.  Our home will be abundant with experiences that have shaped – and will always shape – our shared life:  more tea than we could ever hope to drink, a porch filled with plants in various states of aliveness, falling asleep on the couch, figuring out who takes out the dog and who feeds the cats, stopping whatever separate tasks we are engrossed in to dance around the kitchen, and all the other adventures that make up this blessing that is our life.”

AND THEN. I debated not stopping her, my beautiful about-to-be wife, in the middle of her vows.  But then I realized that I couldn’t not stop her: I don’t remember what I said, because I felt bad about interrupting, but I said something and I grabbed her arms as a beautiful hawk flew right over our heads.

I can’t express how powerful this moment was.  The hawk was much closer than you see it in this picture; it was right there.  It felt like a wonderful, beautiful blessing from the world.

After a few minutes, we all recollected ourselves and continued:

“I am unspeakably blessed that I have found my home in you and that one part of our journey has ended and another one begun.”

Turtle’s vows were, I think, the part of the ceremony for which I was most present.  I did not want to miss a word, an ounce of meaning, a look in her eye.  I soaked up those vows.  Funny, though, I also kept thinking, “Ooh, that is GOOD! I should have said that!”

I was going to tell you what my favorite line of her vows were… but I went back and read them again and realized I would have to post all of it, every word.  Each line is full of meaning, intention, and *us*.  I am so lucky, you guys.

How did your vow-writing go, or how do you see it going?  Did you/will you share beforehand, or surprise each other on your wedding day?

Across the Shoreline: The Wonder That’s Keeping The Stars Apart

One thing that was really important in planning our wedding was to make our guests feel involved.  We didn’t want them to just be people who were there to watch, and we didn’t invite anyone who would want to just come and watch.  We wanted people there because they have been important in our lives individually, and we hope they continue to be important in our lives as a family.  We wanted these people to be present, intentional witnesses to our union, and to actively acknowledge and support us.  A huge part of this was the ring ceremony.

We had been to a couple of weddings in the year before ours in which the rings were passed around to each guest for them to hold and bless.  A few months before our wedding, one of our friends lost her wedding ring; she looked down one day and the ring was gone.  As a gift, her wife had her own wedding ring melted down and divided into two rings, and the two of them celebrated still having rings that had been warmed by their family and friends.  This story made the blessing of the rings so much bigger for me, and I realized that there is power even in the small blessings that we bestow on small things.

After the first two poems, our minister took the rings from my brother, who had been keeping them safely (and nervously) in his pocket. Note: giving your wedding rings to a sixteen year old boy and making him stand in front of 50 strangers in nice clothes can be really, really intimidating.

My awesome brother, concentrating.

First, Ellen talked a little bit about the significance of the rings, and then she read a Celtic explanation that Turtle had found and loved:

May the element of Air bless these rings.  Air is at the beginning of all things, the direction of East, and the dawning of a new day.  May your lives through the reminder of these rings be blessed with continuing renewal of love.

May the element of Fire bless these rings. Fire is the passion within your love, the spark of love itself, the heat of anger, and the warmth of compassion.  It is the direction of South, the heat of midday.  May your lives through the reminder of these rings be blessed with continual warmth.

May the element of Water bless these rings.  Water nourishes and replenishes us, the waters of emotion and harmony pour vitality into our lives.  It is the direction of West, the afternoon and evening.  May your lives through the reminder of these rings be blessed with fulfillment and contentment.

May the element of Earth bless these rings.  All life springs from the earth and returns to the earth, the direction of North, the nighttime.  May your lives through the reminder of these rings be blessed with strength and solidity.

She finished with, “And now, Bird and Turtle invite all of you to pass the rings between one another, pausing to say a prayer, a blessing, a best wish for the future, or simply warm them with your love, before passing them along,” and the rings were off:

As the rings traveled, my other bridesman read e. e. cummings’ i carry your heart. To be honest, Turtle really wanted this poem, but at first I didn’t; I thought it was too cliche, too overused.  Who doesn’t have this poem as part of their relationship?  And then she told me that it’s our wedding, it doesn’t matter what other people do in their relationships, this is a poem that is important and authentic for us.  And it seemed like the perfect poem for Ean to read, so that’s what happened.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

The rings were still moving, and our minister had everyone say something about how they promised to affirm and support us.  I don’t really remember what she said, but I do remember that we spent an enormous amount of time picking out the words from various places and editing them excessively before giving them to her… and now I have no idea what they were.  Funny how that works.  So our community affirmed our relationship, and then my sister gave a reading:

Messenger, by Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

As the rings continued to pass from hand to hand among our family and friends, we prepared to say our vows…

Across the Shoreline: Why I Wake Early

(Oh, hey! Happy 200th post to me!  Thanks everyone for sticking around – really, you are awesome. Now let’s talk some more about my wonderful wedding. Okay? Okay.)

We got married at 10 am.  Originally I didn’t realize this was a big dream of mine, but once Turtle agreed to it, it seemed like no other time could possibly have felt right for me.  The air was crisp; we both wore sweaters right up until we walked in for the ceremony.  It was perfect.  Also, I couldn’t (and still can’t) imagine having to wait all day for the ceremony; I don’t understand how you’re not just nervous all day.  Maybe you are.  As it was, I hadn’t eaten much at all in the two days leading up to the wedding, and I was relieved to be able to jump right in.

So here we are, ready to go.  Our minister Ellen welcomed everyone and talked a little bit about the importance of marriage.  Then Turtle’s best friend gave a reading (that is my brother’s serious face, not an angry face – don’t worry!):

Why I Wake Early, by Mary Oliver
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

I can tell you that in her head, she’s all, “Wow, we’re really doing this, and it is wonderful. We’re getting married! And you look really pretty.”

I know that because it was what was going through my head, too.

One of my oldest friends (we’ve known each other for 21 years! Crazy!) read next:

Prayer for a Marriage, by Steve Scafidi
When we are old one night and the moon
arcs over the house like an antique
China saucer and the teacup sun
follows somewhere far behind
I hope the stars deepen to a shine
so bright you could read by it
if you liked and the sadness
we will have known go away
for awhile – in this hour or two
before sleep – and that we kiss
standing in the kitchen not fighting
gravity so much as embodying
its sweet force, and I hope we kiss
like we do today knowing so much
good is said in this primitive tongue
from the wild first surprising ones
to the lower dizzy ten thousand
infinitely slower ones—and I hope
while we stand there in the kitchen
making tea and kissing, the whistle
of the teapot wakes the neighbors.

That friend got married three years ago; it was an honor to be in her wedding, and it was really special to have her be a part of our wedding, too.  An enormous part of what made our wedding so spectacular were all of the people who appeared to support us.  Here is some advice I have, because I’m married now so that means I know things: invite the people who are important.  You can invite people who aren’t, too, just don’t forget the people who are, even if they live a state or two away or even moved to stupid Chicago or stupid California or stupid other far away places.

I know these recaps are a little scattered: it’s because I can’t quite capture exactly what happened that day, I can’t describe exactly the feelings I felt or what I saw or the truth of the day, so I’m just letting it pour out the way it wants to pour out.  Maybe at the end it’ll all make sense, but in the meantime you can read some really good poems and look at some pretty pictures.

We picked these poems because they spoke to things that felt important to us, which is probably why most people pick the readings they pick.  We chose the first poem because 1. we love Mary Oliver like crazy (and! She was a lesbian! Extra points for her.), and 2. it was the perfect way to express the joy that we felt at this day, this time, and the fact that people were willing to wake early to trek out to Littleton to witness and support our commitment to each other.  Plus, I really do like waking early.  We chose the second poem because, I think, it speaks to the difficulty of marriage; it will not all be easy (the sadness/ we will have known go away/ for awhile). But I do hope that someday, when we are old, we will have known sadness and we will have survived the sadness and we will still be making tea and kissing each other in the kitchen.

I like to think that every piece of our wedding had a piece of our marriage in it, or inspires a bit of our marriage in a very real way.  Here is where it all started, here is where it was all embodied.

Ahem. Next up: the rings.

Did you have readings that felt really meaningful to you?  How did you find them, and what made them feel so important?

(If you missed anything, you can still catch up!)

Across the Shoreline: Glory Bound

Happy December, everyone! I don’t know about you, but I appreciate the snow while it’s here and often dread it until then.  So how about we take a look back at a warm-ish and awesome day in the fall? Yes, let’s.

After our first look, it was time to head to the ceremony itself.

Here’s something big, folks: I was prepared to feel something really enormous.  I was ready for something powerful to take me over.  I had tissues in my pocket, and I was ready for the tears… and they never came.  The whole time, it was like I was watching from just outside.  Were these the words we had asked the minister to read? Why, yes, they were, and they did sound quite nice.  Was that the meaningful poem? Yes, it was.  Hmm, I can see why we chose it.  Hey, are we doing things in the right order?

This didn’t make the ceremony less special to me.  I look through these pictures and it’s almost like my world has shifted a little; I am moved enormously now.  But at the time, I was so focused on how it was going that I had trouble being there for it.  Now, every picture brings back the emotion from the whole day.

Anyway, on with it. (All photos by Ellie Leonardsmith or Alison Abreu-Garcia.)

Our ceremony location was absolutely beautiful.

I love this picture of our minister, excited and happy before the ceremony starts. I like to think that this is how everyone looked that morning.

My little brother walked my mom down the aisle.  It was a big production to get him to dress up; he agreed to wear the shirt and pants that were actually somewhere near his waist, though he would not wear a belt or tuck the shirt in.  He was thrilled to be allowed to wear a bowtie.

Turtle’s grandpa and mom walked down the aisle together.

My sister and my dad came down – I love how they’re both smiling here.  I wish I could have seen this a little less through the “Eek I’m next!” frame… it’s nice to have the pictures to look back on.

At this point, the music started! We finally decided on what music we were going to play for our entrance two nights before the wedding. Just like deciding what time to get married, I can’t imagine having any other music. So, listen to the music below. Our bridal brigade started to come in when the music began, and then we came in at the Hallelujah (at 1:24). How can you not get goosebumps here? You can’t. Especially if you just took off your sweater and are, you know, about to get married.

We had asked all of our bridal brigade to wear either a navy blue dress or khakis, a white shirt, and a blue tie or bowtie (bowtie for my little brother, of course).  They picked whatever they wanted in their price range, and may I just say they all looked amazing?  I love these people.  Also, you may notice some of them were carrying books. Yes, there were books in our ceremony!  As someone who always wrote “reading and writing” as a “hobby” or “additional interest” anytime possible, I thought the books were kind of amazing.  They all had the readings we wanted – yes, the individual poems were important, but so were the books themselves.  Who needs to carry flowers down the aisle when you can carry e.e. cummings?

Everyone had arrived, and were standing, waiting for us to enter.

My parents and one set of grandparents watching us come in.

Turtle’s mom and grandpa watching us arrive.

(You guys!? Isn't she SO PRETTY?! She is the prettiest. Whoa I am lucky.)

And here we are, ready for the big words.

Funny story here: I could not look out at everyone.  I did once, and everyone was looking at me! It made me really nervous, so I looked at Turtle for the rest of the time.  Also I knew I wanted to hold her hands, but I didn’t know if I was supposed to, or how I was supposed to do it while holding flowers.  The solution came when our minister told us we could give the flowers to our bridal brigade and hold each others’ hands.  Lots of choices that are tough to make when all your favorite people are staring at you! Luckily, marrying her was not one of the tough choices.

Did you find yourself as present as you anticipated being?

(In case you missed anything, first we spent time with all our people and then we got ready.  See all Across the Shoreline posts here.)

Across the Shoreline: Making it up as we go along

Let’s continue with the recaps, shall we?

After our rehearsal in the backyard, it was time to actually get ready for this thing.  To be completely honest, I was sort of winging it at this point: I hadn’t really made a timeline beyond “Arrive at lodge around 9:30,” and the ceremony was set to start at 10.  At some point I had a vision of all of our bridal brigade in our room with us, helping us get ready and drinking champagne or mimosas and toasting ourselves and each other… yeah, I may have already mentioned that some of my envisionings did not come to fruition.  For one thing, 8:30 or even 9 am really is too early for champagne; for another, our room was very spacious for two people, but was crowded with more than three.  So everyone else bopped around the rest of the inn while we got ready.

um, I am the worst at makeup, and found the fact that I was spending so much time trying to put it on and asking a lot of questions HIGHLY amusing.

my wife looks like a model. you're so pretty, wife!

So we did do our basic getting-ready stuff together: makeup, gathering our things.  No one else knows how to reassure me the way Turtle does, or gives me honest feedback about weird stuff my hair is doing.  I wouldn’t have been comfortable getting ready with anyone else.  The only downside was that when I was like, “HELP ME WITH MY MAKEUP!” she was all, “Woman! I am doing my own makeup!”  Luckily one of her bridal brigade knew what she was doing and appeared to assist me.

I had decided the day before that I wanted a first look.  We didn’t get the long, amazing picture-worthy moment that a lot of people have had, but we did have a moment that was just us, when it all sort of hit me.  I started to tear up, and Turtle said, “Bird! Not now! Stop!” and then we went and got married.  So, again, not quite the big, long intimate moment I had thought it would be. Oh well.

Anyway, trying to get the First Look meant that we had to do some getting ready separately.  After first getting ready with makeup, etc, at the Inn, we packed up all our stuff and Turtle’s mom drove us to the Lodge, where we each took over a bathroom for the final touches.

I didn't actually have many final touches. My awesome Sister/Moh helped me with my shoes...

and then we took in the results of our hard work...

The whole Old, New, Borrowed, Blue thing hadn’t been important to me leading up to the wedding… and then my mother offered me something old, borrowed, and blue: the necklace I am wearing.  It’s tough to see in this picture, but it’s a small sapphire surrounded by diamonds, and it’s the necklace that my paternal grandmother gave to my mom on my parents’ wedding day.  I was really touched that my mother offered it to me for our wedding, and I was really proud to wear it that day.

In the meantime, Turtle was getting ready with her mom and friends…

 

Turtle had a little more getting ready to do than I did

one of my favorite pictures from our wedding

And finally, we were ready to see each other.  It was a carefully choreographed process; friend directed me outside and I waited at the bottom of the stairs with my back to do the door…

looking up to see my fancied-up Fancee...

Here’s part of the thing of it: I had thought that moments I had seen online, loved, and planned would feel the same way I imagined them. I had seen other people’s pictures of first looks, of getting ready, and I felt all warm and fuzzy for their groups of friends drinking champagne and relaxing with them; I felt giddy and excited for their first intimate moments together in their wedding garb. I was excited about the privacy of it, the excitement of it. And then, you guys? That’s not what we had. There were people who helped us get to the “first look” by telling us when to go, telling me when to turn around… all standing there watching. There was our photographer, waiting to catch this posed moment between us. It was not small and intimate; there was Turtle telling me not to cry, and then we had to rush off to the ceremony itself because it was nearly 10 am already, and we had to be on time! But you know what else? It really, really didn’t matter. The whole morning was so full of love, of anticipation and excitement. Everyone around us for our, ahem, “private first look” was beaming; they were thrilled to be a part of that moment, to see our excitement, to be there for us. It was perfect.

Did you or do you plan to get ready together? Have a first look? If you did, did it go as you had thought it would?

Across the Shoreline: The Night Before and Rehearsal

I’ve been really nervous about writing recaps of our wedding because I don’t want to break it.  The whole thing was so magical and important and special that part of me has been afraid some of that will be lost if I let it out in to the world.  But then two things happened: first, we had some friends over and played a slide show of our wedding, and it was so moving for everyone that I just felt better afterward.  Nothing was lost.  And second, another bee started her recaps, and I am just loving following her wedding.  Really, it is kind of amazing (/weird?) how warm and fuzzy reading her recaps makes me.  So, with the hope that putting all of this out into the world increases the general warm fuzziness, I’m going for it.

We had lots of big plans a month or two before our wedding about how things would go.  You guys, things did not go remotely the way Bird-in-May thought they would.  We were going to have a nice rehearsal the day before, a big group dinner with all of our out of town guests, and then go home to our apartment and get ready there in the morning.  Did I already mention that’s not what happened?

We spent the day before the wedding running around and finishing last minute stuff, with friends and family also swarming around finishing last minute stuff.  Awesome Friend Laurie drove to a printer half an hour away to pick up our Ketubah, which I had printed at 3pm the day before our wedding.  Seriously.  That is some quality last minute planning, folks.  Somehow, we all ended up at the Inn in Littleton where Turtle and I were spending the night before and the night of our wedding.  From there, we piled into a car and went to dinner at one restaurant, realized we had juggled cars all wrong, argued over (delicious) dinner, made up in the women’s bathroom, and then I went to my second (also delicious) dinner with my extended family, and then Turtle appeared, met everyone she hadn’t met yet, and we finally got back to the inn.  That sentence was probably almost as exhausting for you to read as the whole thing was for us to experience.

dancing at the inn the night before: thumbs up to this whole shebang!

But you know what?  As crazy as all of that was – and dude, it was crazy – it is one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend.  Everyone was arriving, everyone was so happy to see us, and we were all so excited!  The inn was beautiful, everyone who was staying there loved it as much as we did, and it was amazing to settle in and realize that this whole wedding thing was really happening, and that we were ready for it.  Really, realizing that it really was all coming together was such an amazing feeling.

Turtle and I did end up staying together the night before the wedding, but I promise we were chaste.  We figured that we were both already going to sleep badly because of nerves, and we didn’t want to go it alone.  I honestly don’t remember how I slept, or even waking up the next morning, but I do remember the sudden influx of people at the inn, because – crazy and last-minute as we are – we had decided to have the rehearsal at the inn an hour and a half before the wedding.  Fun!

DELICIOUS breakfast at the inn! (That lovely lady on the left is the famous E. Leonardsmith, our amazing photog!)

Guys, I cannot recommend doing a rehearsal highly enough, even if you do it less than two hours before your wedding.  We had to practice processing and recessing several times, and I forgot where I was supposed to start almost every time.  Also, we determined only through rehearsing that we were going to dance up the aisle, which made for some amazing pictures.

Plus! The rehearsal was so fun! Our minister was awesome, and didn’t mind the giggling, the funny faces, and how hilarious we found all the mistakes to be.  I think it helped us shake a lot of our nerves.  Plus, there were chickens.

wedding rehearsal on the lawn at the inn

Chickens! Photos by E. Leonardsmith

I’m really glad that we had a morning wedding, because I would not have been able to wait much longer to get the whole thing started.  It was such a wonderful feeling to have everyone showing up, ready to go – at this point, I felt like I was just being carried along on this wonderful adventure.

Did you have a rehearsal? Was it similarly awesome?