The newlyweds take Chicago

After we dropped the freezing bridal party off at the Hard Rock, we headed over to the spot on the river where we spent some time the first time we met.  I'm sure you're thinking "what?! isn't it colder by the water you crazy person?"  The answer is yes, it is but it's also very worth it. 

 don't be afraid to be silly. and ask your new husband to fix your dress.

we didn't put this in our album because it's on everyone's walls. :)

silly kids.

We headed back to the hotel afterwards because we were getting close to cocktail hour.  Time flies when you're having your picture taken! :)  When we got to the hotel, I thrust my purse at someone and didn't see any lip gloss for the rest of the night.  It was kinda sad...I live for my lip gloss.  Before we went up stairs, we went back outside for a few shots in front of the hotel.  (When I say a few, I mean a lot.)

 romantical :)

So there we were, standing on Michigan Avenue with a few people walking past us.  Would it surprise you to hear that not one of them said "congratulations" to us?  Yep.  Most of them just gave us weird looks.  I guess we may have looked a little crazy posing for pictures outside in the cold. :)  It was so fun though.  I'm so grateful that we had this time together, just us.  It really was kind of relaxing.  It was also worth my hair looking like a mess afterwards. 

Oh, and this post's advice is don't be afraid to be silly.  There will come a point where you will think (or if you're me, say audibly) "people are still taking pictures of me?"  It was weird to have a camera in my face all day, but we'll get to that later...  Be silly.  Pictures of you and your new husband being yourselves will be some of your favorites, I promise. 

Next time, cocktail hour where we only drank water! :) 

xoxo

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Our first place to take pictures was Olive Park.  We got out of the limo to be met by some fierce lake effect winds.  If you're from Chicago, you're probably thinking I'm crazy.  (Kinda...it's a great spot! But it definitely messed my hair up for the rest of the evening.)

Before I share those with you though, I'd like to show you one amazing photo:

 yeah, if that is not the shot that wedding dreams are made of, I don't know what is.

Needless to say, we had to turn around because there was no way that we could get anything good at that location.  Had we tried to make it to the gate, everyone would have been soaked by gigantic waves. :(  

So we moved onto our next location, Cancer Survivor's Park.  While everyone froze along with us in the wind, we still got some great shots.  

Behold some of our parents favorite photos. 

After that, we figured that we made our bridal party freeze enough so we dropped them off at the hotel.  Really brides, if you can drop your party off along the way, you definitely should.  There's no reason to make them freeze (or sweat) for hours for some pictures.  There are only so many pictures that can fit on your wall and in your wedding album, I promise.

Next up, wedding photos where we spent some time the day we met. :)

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

This isn't a trick

It's definitely a treat though!

I have all of these cute pictures of our flower girl & I wanted to share them but didn't really know where to put them, so I'm sharing a few today.  

playing with the removable strap on my purse. trying to figure out how to use it as a jump rope, I'm sure.

no, I don't think I wanna go down that aisle. 

 

That last one always makes me giggle.  I think it also captures her spirit of curiosity.  She may not have been the surest bet, especially since my aunt had to walk her down the aisle, but I'm glad she was a part of our wedding.  

Stick with your decisions, brides.  If you want a little one you're close to be a part of your wedding party, by all means you should.  Don't let anyone talk you out of it.  Do go into it with a laid back mindset though.  If this little one does or doesn't make it down the aisle, it's not going to make or break your wedding.  If anything, you'll get cute pictures out of it.  

Until next time!

xoxo

PS...no one says your flower girl needs to wear a white dress.  She very well could be wearing an Easter dress you found on sale at Target!

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