Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow...

It's been awhile, I know.  I got sick for a couple of weeks and it's also National Novel Writing Month...I plan on being a winner again this year.  Alright, enough with the excuses.  On to the snow-I mean wedding-recap!

Since it was lightly snowing when we made our way to the church, I knew there was a good chance of it still snowing when we got out.  This is Chicago, after all.  I'm pretty stoked that it was, personally.  Don't get me wrong, it was cold but the pictures look great!  (And you'll notice that the junior bridesmaid is missing from these photos.  The cold was a bit of a shock for her so she sat in the limo for these.)

That's me holding up my dress.  While the following pictures were taken, Nicole was on the sidelines helping me bustle it up again.  (What would I have done without her?!)

love this one, don't you?

I think I jumped for joy when I saw this image.

So following pictures of the boys, Jake took a few of me.  I kinda love them.  Ok, I do love them.  I'm not ashamed to say it. 

snow in my hair :) 

cute with just a bit of a goofy air...yeah, that's me.

And with that, we made our way to the limo with the wedding party.  Tune in next time for the last batch of wedding party photos! :)

xoxo 

Breaking tradition

Immediately after we walked down the aisle, we were in a little corner of the church where people couldn't stop and see us.  Nope, we didn't get a send off.  Our church didn't allow that.  I was going to do ribbon wands just to break the rules but when it came down to it, I just didn't do it.  I'm ok that we didn't have it.  I knew people were happy for us.

And so the madness of pictures began.  We did the traditional portraits in the church.  While they weren't something that I needed personally, they turned out pretty well.  Don't get me wrong, I wanted pictures with my family but I don't like the traditional kind of thing.  I'm much more of a candid shot picture kind of girl.

While Richard was taking pictures either with his family or by himself, my mom said we should bustle my dress.  Good idea.  We tried to do so but my mom couldn't find the loop.  Nicole took a look and we discovered that the loop had mysteriously disappeared.  Thankfully, Nicole had a sewing kit on her so we were able to fix it!

After a few traditional pictures, we decided to get a little goofy & call out boy band poses...these are some of my favorites of the entire day.

punch! 

point!

dance break.

things get serious...or confusing.

Good thing we did all that warming up because this is what we were going out into immediately afterward...

xoxo

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

 

Anything but typical

Well, unless we're talking about the music.  That was totally Catholic, totally typical.  Believe me, I didn't want but in the end, I don't remember hearing any music at all during walking down the aisle or walking back up the aisle.  So let's pretend there was a different song playing, the one that I had picked out since 2005: Finale B from Rent. I prefer the movie version but if you know it at all, you get a big hug from me!

So we left off where my mom was handed kleenex from Nicole as she started crying.  Somehow, she got it together as we walked through the doors.  

Let's be honest here.  All I saw was smiling heads.  I didn't know who exactly they were while looking at them but I knew they were smiling at me.  Close to about halfway down the aisle, I thought omg, look at Richard!  When I did, I didn't see any one of those smiling heads but him.  All I saw was him.  Mom, Dad...can we walk a little faster?  

Here's a fun point in our ceremony.  You know how the bride and groom hug her parents?  I hugged my dad first, then my mom.  And my mom wouldn't let go.

It's not because she didn't want me to get married or anything, she just said she didn't know what was happening to her, she was just overcome with emotion.  When she did let go and we made our way up to the kneeler (that we did not use, thanks to Richard!) our priest said "Welcome and thanks Mom for letting go."  

I handed my bouquet off to my little brother who placed it on the pew.  He wasn't going to hold that thing.  :)  

Our friends Tracy and Jillian read the readings and Fr. Manny read the gospel.  Before he began his homily, he waved us over to the pew in front of my parents.

As for his homily, I've never heard one so personal.  I still haven't.  During our last meeting with him, he asked us to write him a letter about why and how we knew the other was meant for us.  He referenced those and read out some of the things we said.  I don't remember much of it and I'm glad that it came from those letters that we still have.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

It's a really good thing when people are talking about your ceremony, people.  Among the comments I heard were that they loved our priest, how personal it was and that they were so happy to know that love like ours existed.  Those are pretty high compliments, don't you think?  Words cannot express how grateful I am that we had Fr. Manny as our officiant.


Coming up next...vows are exchanged & everyone hears me whisper something. :)

xoxo

In this case, we do need to turn around.

We all pile into the limo and we're ready to go.  With me are my parents, my brother Joe (aka, bro of honor), my cousins jr bridesmaid and flower girl and Jake.  We pull away from the hotel and I play with the radio station, as my dad is talking up a storm to Jake.  Jr bridesmaid is looking out the window and flower girl is taking in the sights of her first limo.  

 this is such a cool picture. I saw it, loved it and knew that Jake got us.

I look at my mom who is sitting next to me and I ask "you have the rings, right?"  Can you guess her answer?

She gasps like a deer just ran out in front of her while she was driving and her hands fly up over her face.  Everyone snaps their heads in her direction.  Joe fills them in and the adults are shocked.  As for me, I'm perfectly fine.  I don't think I could be that calm on a normal day but nothing could really freak me out that day.  We tell the driver to turn around and I text Richard to tell him my mom forgot the rings.  I still have his response: "Yikes. Ok no worries.  It'll all start on time."

Joe says he fufilled his duties as bro of honor by running up to the hotel room to get the rings.  He was just as calm as me, but he usually is anyway.

We made it to the church in time, thankfully.  We were the ones with the programs, flowers...and the bride!

We gathered in the bride's room where we met with our priest a couple times.  MIL & SIL were already in the room when we got there.  Our florist Patty was there as well to give flower girl her flower basket.  Snag #2...she wanted a bouquet and literally threw the basket down with all the force she could muster.  My dad, standing next to me said, I told you that you shouldn't have involved her.  My only bridezilla moment was when I looked at him and told him that it was my decision and he needs to stay out of it.  Glad Jake was taking pictures of the church at this time.  


A few minutes later, the woman making sure our ceremony came in the room and said it was time.  Everyone lined up and I was about to make my way through a doorway from the rectory to the church but someone said the name Richard and I immediately backed up and hid behind a tall set of filing cabinets.  When we were given the all clear, we lined up by the door.  I was arm in arm with my parents already, watching everyone walk down the aisle.  Nicole was standing there next to us and she saw my mom starting to get emotional.  She handed her a little package of tissues so she had something to cry into when she reached the pew.  That girl thought of everything.  I was in awe of her all day.


I couldn't wait to walk down that aisle to my groom.


xoxo