We're married!!

Vows are a very important part of the ceremony.  Obviously.  From the very beginning, Richard told me he didn't want to repeat his vows, he wanted to say them from memory if he couldn't write his own.  Since we couldn't write our own, we memorized them.  I remember him walking around the apartment repeating them to himself.  We even had a post it on our bedroom wall with them written down so every time we went to leave the room, we'd see them.

So first we stated our intentions. (aka, have babies & raise them to be Catholic. Kidding! That's only one part of it.)  :)

Then comes the vows.  Richard went first and he did it perfectly.  Me?  I had a problem.

After Richard, I whispered to Father Manny saying, I don't think I can remember all of that.  So why are we all giggling in the photo above?  Because once he got me started, I remembered it all!  Also, it turns out that everybody heard me whisper that too.  It's funny but I kind of wish that nobody did.  Oh well.

 

After we exchanged vows, we gathered at the altar and prayed.  If you look at the picture above, you'll see my brother holding my bouquet.  Would you believe that I've looked at that picture quite a few times and didn't notice it until I included it in this post?  Love that I'm still discovering the amazingness in our wedding photos!

Then we went to pray to the Virgin Mary.  We decided to do this together instead of just me because two heads and prayers are better than one, right?  When we were walking back to hug our moms, I looked at my brother who was supposed to hand off 2 daisies to us.  He just looked at me and shook his head.  Ok...so we don't have flowers to give our moms but we still have our hugs.  

  
I thought it was cute that Richard's dad decided to get in on the hugging.  

We took our places back at the kneeler that we didn't use and we were presented!  St. Clement doesn't say "you may now kiss the bride." (Nor do they say "speak now or forever hold your piece"...which didn't calm my nightmares, unfortunately.)  I don't remember what Father Manny said but I know we were excited about it.  

 Best first kiss ever, if I do say so myself.  :)

And just like walking down the aisle, I don't remember seeing anyone as we were walking back up the aisle.  There are pictures that I look at and I say to myself "wow, I didn't know that they were at the ceremony!"  Really, nothing else existed but us.  I'm so lucky that we got to have such a wonderful ceremony.  For us, it was just perfect.


xoxo