The Details, Part 3

When I think of the details at our wedding, I always hear someone telling me how much they loved all the little touches of us that we had.  Honestly, that was one of my favorite things too.  I loved making this wedding ours. 

(we still have a stack of these from paper stories.)

we made sure our guests got both Chicago Cubs & Detroit Tigers cookies.

Just a note here...see those menus tucked in between the napkin?  Yeah, we totally didn't know that we were going to have those through the hotel until we saw them ourselves at our sweetheart table.  Good things I decided to not order some myself!

 and the Hard Rock provided us with some pretty cool decor too!

we'll discuss the floral centerpieces some other time. I'm proud of the HP book though!

I feel lucky that we were able to find such amazing people to help us pull all of this off.  It really was just a dream come true kind of day.  Including the music & dancing, which we'll talk about next time! :)

xoxo 

Cake for one YEAR!

Since our one YEAR anniversary is coming up in just a matter of DAYS, I thought that deserved some cake.  

How awesome is that cake topper that my husband designed & built?  It's made after the gazebo he built for his Eagle Scout project back in his hometown.  We visit it every chance we get.

Also, that is totally an owl on top.  A nod to Hedwig, of course.

We didn't get a bite of our cake beyond just cutting it but we will get our fill on our anniversary, I'm sure.  We didn't save the top but our baker is going to make us a new one.  He even offered to put words on it again if we wanted.  Lucky kids, don't you think?  In more ways than one.


Happy one year, maz!  It's been a fun, trying, memorable, stressful, wonderful, full of love year and I can't wait to see what lies ahead for us. <3

xoxo

Father/Daughter, Mother/Son Dance

The song my dad picked is not really a song and I don't even know it's name but I do know that he picked it when he was a little kid.  I also know that he heard it the week before the wedding and he and my mom cried together.  I wasn't going to say no to that.  Would you?

That's my dad.  And it makes me smile.

Then it was Richard's turn with his mom.  He picked this song: 

Because he's cute and he *loved* the Lion King so much that when his friends wanted to listen to Green Day, he wanted to listen to this.  It was so fitting.

Then this happened. 

 
Sometimes, you just need to have a little tradition because you want to.  Or you're just trying to keep the peace.  Whatever the reason, go with the flow.  It's not going to ruin your day.  It's going to make people happy and have more fun.  I'm not saying bow down to every single thing that your parents, his or her parents, your aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc. want you to have.  They just want to be a part of your wedding too. 

Speaking of which, next time we'll talk about something I did for my mom.  

xoxo

First Dance

What else are you going to call this post?  The moment I've been dreaming of all my life?  I've picked at least 5 songs for this specific moment in my entire lifetime?  (Don't lie, you know you have.)  When I was 6, planning to have a double wedding with my cousin at Wrigley Field where she was marrying Jordan Knight and I was marrying Joey McIntyre from the New Kids on the Block.  At this time, I think my song was Please Don't Go Girl. 

 

Then when I grew up, I chose the following song.  Unfortunately, the man who asked me to marry him wasn't too fond of it.  (sad face!)

Romantic, right?  I came a long way from choosing old boy band songs.  (Let's be honest though, if Joe and I were friends, he'd be singing *something* at the wedding!)

The song that we did end up choosing might be a little weird for some, but we like it.  Whenever I hear it, I always think how Richard could have wrote those words exactly.  We promised not to over play our song so we wouldn't get sick of it so neither of us have heard it since the wedding.  (Ok, I heard it on the radio once and I immediately started screaming NOOOOOOOO and turned it off.)

Ok, enough rambling.  Here's the song for you to listen to while you scroll through. :)

Ah, the dream comes alive. :)  Happiness.

Until next time!

xoxo

Speech!

Once we sat at our sweetheart table that was on a riser and spotlights on it (neither of those things were chosen by me, by the way), it was time for speeches to begin.  I'll be honest.  I was a little bit nervous.  There were only boys speaking!  How could they possibly get away with not saying anything completely embarrassing?  

First up, was the best man...

It was very sweet and I know that George knows how to make the people laugh.  I do remember him talking about how Richard took him in after he moved to America from India in the third grade.  Isn't it amazing to have friends that you've been friends with forever, literally?  I don't remember most of it, sadly but I do believe my groom has the paper that he is reading off of so we have that at least.  Someone's speech that we don't have is this guy's:

Yeah, that would be my brother.  His speech was also very nice but he opened with something I'll never forget.  It was one of my favorite parts of our entire wedding day.  "Now I know what they mean when they say, always a bridesmaid, never a bride."

That's my brother.  Pulling the best things out of nowhere.  He went on to say that I've always been more introverted, having him make phone calls to radio stations to hear my favorite songs but that once I let someone in, they're with me forever.  Now my brother and I don't usually get mushy about the brother and sister stuff but he did wear that pink tie for me, got his pants hemmed the day of the wedding because he thought they were too long, froze outside, stepped into this role when things got messy with the person who originated the maid of honor roll and always smiled about it.  I may have told my parents to take him back to the hospital because I wanted a sister but knowing what I know now, I'm glad they didn't.  (Don't tell him that though, he'll never let me live it down.)

After the bro of honor speech, the groomsgirl read a prayer of grace before we ate.  

Wait...did someone say something about food?  I get to eat?!  Bring it out, I'm starving!


Next time, I promise.


xoxo

Let's get this party started!

As everyone cleared out to make their way to the reception, we just couldn't believe how quickly time was moving.  How in the world was it time for the reception to start already?

So after everyone admired our cake and lovely set up (no, I'm not gonna be modest at all!) it was time for everyone to make their entrance!

It's time to cut the cake!  I was so excited!  What were we going to cut into??

I so don't remember what we cut into.  I know it was chocolate!

Wanna know something funny?  The piece of cake that was on my fork that I gave to my husband didn't go in his mouth.  It went on my dress.  I didn't know that until after I was sitting at our table.  I remember saying to him "oh, there's cake on my dress."  To which he responded that the piece of cake I fed him didn't make it to his mouth.  Oops...  I suppose if I had a stronger emotional attachment to my dress, I might have cared but I'm not certain I would have either way.  I just got married, there were tons of people surrounding us who loved us, I just ate cake...what more could you ask for?

Coming up, how my bro of honor pulled his speech out of the sky...

xoxo

Time for cocktails!

Cocktail hour was a weird experience for me.  I don't know why, I still can't explain it but we ended up hanging out by the elevators for at least the first 20 minutes (or maybe a little more).  Maybe I wasn't ready to admit this was all going by so quickly or maybe I felt bad for not having a receiving line, I don't know.  I do know though that there were a lot of pictures taken of us in front of a Steven Tyler outfit. 

We greeted a number of people as they came into cocktail hour.  One of my favorites was seeing my friend since the fourth grade get off the elevator and scream something that no one does anymore: "JENNY!"  After people were making their way to where we were standing from the party, I figured it was high time that we joined the party.   

As we made our way in, I saw my co-workers gathered together and they insisted we get in one photo all together.  That took a while but it was hilarious. 

While we began to make our way through both rooms, Nicole came up to us, asking us if we needed something.  Would you believe the only thing we drank at cocktail hour was water?  And I finally took off my 4 and a half inch heels, not knowing how much pain I was in until they came off.  Thank you Nicole for knowing those had to come off!!

I'll be the first to admit that because we didn't come in right when we got there, we didn't make it through the entire two rooms.  In fact, we were very lucky that we made it to the second room at all.  Then we got stopped to take a whole slew of pictures with different people in my family.  At this point, I was beginning to feel like a Disney character.  And I said so repeatedly.  Luckily, I think our photographer sensed that so after a few pictures were taken, he made himself disappear into the crowd so a line wouldn't develop.  I'm used to being the one behind the camera, not in front of it.  It was strange to me that just because I was wearing a white dress all of these people wanted pictures of me or with me.  I don't think I was having a 'zilla moment, I think I was just unprepared for how much attention we would be getting that day.  (I know, how is that possible?) 

all the way from Colorado!

Cocktail hour was quickly coming to a close.  I couldn't believe how fast time was moving.  Who hit the fast forward button that day?  You need a talking to!

Next time, we'll talk details.  I'll leave you with this:

Yummy!!! 

xoxo

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