Monday, July 12, 2010

I Give You This Ring...

It's time for part 2 of the wedding weekend recap!


Getting Ready and Ceremony


I was a little nervous about the whole getting ready process. We started at 9 am and we were not expecting to be done until 2:45 or so. Yeah, I was more than a little jealous of all the guests that could spend the day at the beach! I spent most of the day looking like this...


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Hot, I know. It came together though, don't worry...


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I don't mind getting my hair done, but I am less than a fan of getting my make up done. I survived it all though, and the day went by slightly quicker than I thought it would. Plus I had snacks to get me through...


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Eventually all of our dresses were on and it was time for Eric and my "first look." If you couldn't tell already- Eric did not do a whole lot of "traditional" things, so you can probably guess that we saw each other before the wedding. We really wanted to take pictures before the ceremony so we could enjoy more time with our guests. This meant we got to have a special "first look" when we saw each other.


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Then we headed down to the beach for pictures...


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I am a little nervous about the squinting in beach pictures- mainly because as we've discussed before I am an abnormally ridiculous squinter, but my amazing photographer has assured me that even if people are squinting a little bit, it's worth it for the gorgeous beach background.


Anyway, after pictures we had a little time to relax and spy on people coming to ceremony from the upstairs window :)


Truthfully, I normally see wedding ceremonies as a necessary evil to make it through before the massive party of the wedding begins. I've been to some good ones, but I always prefer the reception. However, at my wedding, I think the ceremony was my favorite part of the day and night. The ceremony was set to be outside, and if you read my blog often you know I was more than a little nervous about the weather. I checked it at about 1:00pm to see the chances we'd get a 5:30 wedding in, and it said "100% chance of rain!" Somehow I managed to not panic and then I realized I had looked up the weather at home and not at the Cape. Even so, my Dad and I were watching the clouds roll in as we waited to walk down the aisle. Scary!


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So here is the deal with our ceremony. Pretty soon after we got engaged Eric and I had the idea to have a friend marry us. We considered churches but it was hard to find one that worked logistically for us, so we decided on an outdoor wedding which is really what we both wanted anyways. We decided on Eric's friend Brian as the officiant. Brian has been a good friend of Eric's for many years, it's partly responsible for Eric and I getting together AND has the perfect personality to lead a ceremony. He took it 100 % seriously, he practiced a lot and his girlfriend got him a nice portfolio to hold his script and highlighted his lines for him :) Eric made sure he got a one day license to marry us of course! I never had any doubt that Brian would do an amazing job but he even surpassed my expectations and I love that it's not some random person in all of our pictures!




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Once we decided Brian would marry us, I quickly realized this meant I was writing the ceremony. Of course I had absolutely no idea how to write a marriage ceremony so I turned to the same place I go whenever I don't know something... google. One Friday afternoon I came home from work and just wrote the whole ceremony beginning to end. Most of it I found online, but I picked and chose what was "us." My favorite part by far was our vows. I posted our whole ceremony today in case you want to read it. For the vows part, we used a version of the Scottish Handfasting Ceremony. The basic idea of these vows is that there will be hard times in a marriage, we will burden each other or make each other angry, but in the end we will work together to make sure that these hard times only make us stronger and more in love. To add another special twist, we used "chords" made of Scottish tartan's to "bind" us together. Eric's grandmother sewed together the tartan from his family (Mitchell- his great grandmother) and my family (Muir- my grandmother) to make the chords and then we had our first three bridesmaids and groomsmen put them over us as each binding was made. It's a bit hard to explain and I think everyone who heard about it had no idea how it would work, but it went quite smoothly I think :)




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After all of these chords were draped over our hands, Brian said, "The knots of this binding are not formed by these chords, but instead by your vows. Either of you may drop the chords, for as always, you hold in your own hands the making or breaking of this union."


The only obvious glitch that occurred during the ceremony was when Mike (Eric's brother) gave me Eric's ring and I put it on, and then Eric was supposed to give me my ring, but he didn't have it yet. If you read the ceremony you can see this was 100 % my fault. For some reason I decided to have Brian say "Mike, please give Kelly the ring..." not, "Mike, please give Eric and Kelly the rings" or go back and have him say separately, "Mike, please give Eric the ring". Oops. Honestly though, I kind of liked the glitch, it added even more personality and truthfulness to the ceremony. Eric and I are definitely capable of laughing at ourselves :)


At the end, it was time to kiss...


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And then we were outta there...




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We had a receiving line to leave the ceremony, and we got to say hi to everyone. It was fun to see everyone, especially my 2 little students- one was a girl I had two years ago, and another was a girl I've been tutoring for over a year now- I'm pretty sure I've told stories about her before. After the receiving line we took a few pictures and then... the rain came down. Yup, you heard that right. We got our ceremony and receiving line done and then within 5 minutes the rain started. It was amazing. And, the rain caused one of the coolest parts of the night...but you'll have to wait until tomorrow morning to hear about that! It's bed time for this married woman :)



21 comments:

  1. Oh wow Kelly. You look BEAUTIFUL!! I am breathless. Amazing, absolutely amazing. I love the picture of the two of you up on the alter, holding hands. I can see Eric's face and he looks so happy., and giddy.

    I really think it's a good idea to do the pics before the ceremony. I hate waiting around when I'm at a wedding! And, it does allow you to meet and greet with your guests more. You're such a great couple, so thoughtful.

    Thanks for sharing this post and all your wonderful pics. Is the cake next?!

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  2. Congratulations! Oh you look so much in love and everything is perfect!
    Your dress just divine!

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  3. Sounds absolutely fabulous! Congratulations, and you look gorgeous in the photos... and the weather fairy was holding the rain just for you, how nice :o) Stunning!!!!!

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  4. I love it!!! I just shed a happy tear for you! :o)

    Honestly you looked beautiful! I don't give away wedding day compliments cheaply. I'll say people looked nice but seldom do I love their dress but I LOVED your dress. I could totally see myself wearing something similar. And it suited you to a T. Ah......you made a lovely bride!

    And this post . . . this post warmed my engaged girl heart! :o)

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  5. I wasn't tearing up while just reading your ceremony script. Nope. Not at all....

    I'm just so freaking happy for you! You looked beautiful, that dress is amazing, and I absolutely LOVE that picture of the first kiss! I'm so glad the rain held off and you had a perfect day :)

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  6. Kelly, you look ah-mazing!!! I love the cord ceremony - what a nice and personal touch!

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  7. youre just gorgeous. love the dress!

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  8. absolutely beautiful Kelly! I am so glad you are posting all this!!

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  9. Kelly, everything looked beautiful!! And our dress our really similar - which I love! :-) And I'm glad the weather held out for you and that you were able to have the day you wanted.

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  10. Oooh the ceremony looks gorgeous outside and you're a beautiful bride!!!

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  11. You look gorgeous, Kelly! I just love your dress! And how perfect that it didn't rain. What a relief!

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  12. At first I was thinking "oh i'm so happy the rain held out so they at least got awesome pictures". then i was overjoyed as i kept reading and it held out for your ceremony too! so excited for you. you look beautiful!

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  13. Kelly, you looked beautiful! And I'm so glad the weather held for you. The ceremony looks so meaningful....good job writing it. I hope you are enjoying the post-wedding days before your honeymoon. We took a day before we left for Hawaii and it was much needed to rest and regroup and spend time with family.

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  14. The pictures look wonderful. Can you believe you're a married woman now?! I can't wait to see and hear more about it.

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  15. You looked STUNNING in your dress - great choice!

    AWESOME that the weather cooperated just *perfectly* for you (phew).

    Sounds like it was a beautiful and meaningful ceremony.

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  16. I completely agree with you - the ceremony was my favorite part by far!

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  17. I love your bridesmaid dresses! The pictures look fabulous!

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  18. Kelly you look AMAZING! You were truly glowing and both you and Eric look so happy!

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  19. you look beautiful! Congrats again. Loving these recaps!

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  20. I know I am horribly late (I am so ashamed - seriously!) but CONGRATULATIONS!!!! You look so happy and I am so glad to know that married life is going so well :)

    I loved reading your wedding-related posts... they brought tears to my eyes!!! :)

    All the best to you and Eric! :)

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