Wedding re-cap: Pre-ceremony to vows.
I figure that while I am randomly awake at 8:25 a.m. (really, I’ve been up since 7 after going to bed at 2… ugh) I should go ahead and write a recap of the wedding, especially as I still remember lots of it.
The rehearsal dinner was Friday night. Rehearsal went well with the Bearman children running amok around the church. Then the caterer severely botched their job and for some reason decided the only way to compensate was to comp the whole catering. The catering wasn’t very expensive, in relation to how catering usually goes, but I’ll just throw out there that it was a much more enjoyable meal after it was free. Plus, even if they’d just comp-ed a little, they were totally still missing the correct amount of silverware for us so it would have gone poorly. This makes me glad that I went through a national chain instead of somewhere local, even though somewhere local would’ve gotten it right in the first place. The rehearsal was really nice in general though and I enjoyed getting to spend quality time with our best friends.
Basically, I woke up at about 8:30 or 9 yesterday and went into the kitchen where I found my boutonnieres safe in the fridge. I realized the night before that I had miscounted and that I actually needed 9 instead of 8, so i put a new one together quickly and then watched some Homeward Bound with my parents. I think except for the Father-Daughter Dance, the only/most crying I did yesterday was at the end of that movie because I forgot that Shadow actually did make it back over the hill so I was just as excited as the family was to find out he was returning too.
After the movie and my shower and hair-doing, I had to cut the stems off the bouquets for the bridesmaids and myself. This was hilarious as I held the bouquet and my mom cut the stems with a pruning shear and then the dog, Maco, who is the fattest and really likes to keep things for himself picked up all the stems as they fell and carried them back to his bed. Apparently they didn’t taste good because he didn’t seem too interested in keeping them from there, but he did enjoy catching them in his mouth and such.
Mom got sort of frustrated after the flowers because my dad and brother were taking forever to get ready, largely because they took forever to wake up. I pointed out that they were taking a separate car so it really didn’t matter if they were running late, her yelling at them was only making us late. So finally we left and got to the church at about 10-till-11.
Sarah started doing my makeup which looked beautiful and even better than it had in the trial. She did a orange/peach/pink eye shadow that was just beautiful and made me all sparkly. I don’t usually wear or even like makeup so I was glad that I really loved how it turned out. Karl started his day of photos with that one and we got going. It seemed to me that when my makeup was being applied was the only real chance I had to sit all day. Partially because, after that, I got into my dress which made sitting more of a decision than it had previously been. Also, I was just busy-busy after I put my dress on.
Eventually, we all made it upstairs to do pictures. Kyle and I did see each other before the ceremony, but first we took a picture of us holding hands unable to see each other from around the corner of the church. Then, we started to see each other. I think by that point it had just been so burdensome not being able to see him and trying to avoid him. I’m really glad we got to see each other because it gave us some private time before the ceremony.
Of course, he’s more involved in the early part of the ceremony than the bride, so I also enjoyed the quality time with the bridesmaid’s in which we chatted about whether I was really ready and if I was nervous and we made several jokes about jilting. In the end though, I just new that what I wanted to do was walk down the aisle and marry Kyle, and so that is exactly what I did.
I’ll say that I think the ceremony was beautiful and we got a lot of compliments on it. It also was nice cos it lasted a full 40 minutes which is about the time I was aiming for. I, for one, only got a little quivery during the ceremony and mostly did not cry. I thought I would cry maybe when everyone stood for me but I was just so happy to see everyone that I just got exceptionally happy. Too happy to cry, even.
The readings worked so well and the homily was absolutely beautiful. He focussed on the examples of marital love that the Bible gives, from Jacob and Rachel in Genesis, to Solomon, to Tobias in Tobit. He mentioned a prayer in Tobit that was prayed by Tobias and Sarah: “Take pity on us, and allow us to live together to a happy old age.”
I am happy we were able to personalize the ceremony so much. Kyle and I went to a lot of work to figure out what would be best in our ceremony and I think our friends appreciated what was there. For one, we had an intercession about self-determination in marriage, civilly. Also, I think people thought it was cute that we prayed for debate, and maybe more so that we prayed for topical debates in the “Depth and breadth of the resolution.” Also, the priest announced as “Jess MyLast and Kyle HisLast for the first time as partners for life.” Which was cool. I wasn’t sure if the Church would do that partners for life thing since they sort of invented the “Man and wife” part. But at the very least I wanted “husband and wife” and they saw no problem saying our first choice.
After the ceremony, we basically were busy entertaining and being entertained from 2 p.m. until 2 a.m. which is a long time to party. But I will try to get that post up soon. I just wanted to make sure the wedding was recorded because people tell me I will forget it.