wedding moments
Aug. 18th, 2007 02:44 pmBack from mini-moon vacation to S.IL wineries. More on that later. I've been terribly lax about posting about my wedding.

That's a pic of my bridegrl Amy giving her wedding speech. I'm the one in red, of course, with Shawn next to me. It was a happy day and I'm thrilled that I was able to do exactly what I wanted and still provide a great time for everyone. Here are some favorite moments:
1. Everyone getting their makeup done in the hotel room beforehand (even my brideboy Josh got his dark circles covered and some individual lashes put on). I laid out the wings and everyone tried them on, shaking off as much glitter as we could. I decided against wearing the wings I'd gotten for me because I was afraid it would just be too much with the bright red dress/shoes/black fishnets/tiara. But against the black dresses they looked lovely, and the vinyl batwings were perfect for Josh.
2. Headed off one emergency...we'd forgotten the poem that Josh was going to read. I was upset until Shawn discovered the museum had a wireless connection. Best Man Colin printed it out and all was saved.
3. Walked in and was immediately engulfed in a sea of people, all of whom wanted to talk to me. That was a little crazy, but people were good about getting alcohol for me. Yay, alcohol. I had been worried about the museum being too small, but the set up was actually perfect. The flowers that I had ordered from a flower shop the day before had arrived...red orchids for the girls and dark purple calla lilies for me.
4. We totally winged the ceremony. We attempted getting everyone together for a rehearsal the night before, but it was completely different now that there were chairs and tables set up. The processional (string quartet version of "Just Like Heaven") started before we were ready. I had to yell for Michelle before she walked down so I could hand her her bouquet. Ray still had his glass of wine in his hand. Flower girl Diane had rose petals stuffed down the front of her dress and threw them out from her cleavage. Can't wait to see pictures of that.
5. Shawn and I seriously wrote the vows the day before. Or at least I started them and he finished them. They're locked in his emails to Grahm, so I might have to ask him to copy and paste them into the comments. But it was stuff like, "Will you give neck rubs when the world gets hard and laugh when it takes itself too seriously." Later on one of Shawn's friends said, "You two actually had acheivable vows. Usually they're stuff like, 'I'll love you till the stars go out,' and nobody believes them, but things like neck rubs and good food are in the realm of possibility."
6. Josh read the poem we'd picked out, "Falling In Love Is Like Owning a Dog". Then Grahm read our vows, reading them exactly the way Shawn sent them to him..."Do you, blank, take Jessica to be your husband/wife?" When he read them to me I said I do before he read the last line. I think people found that cute and endearing, but I'll still be mortified till the end of my days.
7. Speeches! Dinner! More drinking! Dancing! Once people got some food in them, it turned into a huge dance party. I was excited about having really good food at my wedding, but I was so preoccupied with being social that I could barely choke down my pesto tortellini and caprese salad. If you were at my wedding, please comment about the food because I was much more about the bar than the pasta station that night.
8. Our dj rocked. My problem with traditional weddings is that long ago it was decided that proper music for a wedding is bad 70's disco. Seriously, what is up with that? We had our dj play mostly new wave and britpop, and it was fantastic. There was music for my parents and their friends too, but good stuff like David Bowie and the Rolling Stones. Quite frankly, my family were fine with whatever was playing. One of my favorite moments was watching my mom and aunts getting down to "Girls and Boys" by Blur. Pretty soon the whole wedding was a hardcore dance party. Michelle commented the next day that it was the horniest wedding ever because people were hooking up and dancing sexy all around us. Hee hee.
9. Honestly, everyone had fun across the board. People from my friends to my mom's friends to my great aunts were telling me that it was the best wedding they'd ever been to. There was such a great energy flowing and no bad wedding drama that I could see. Rock.
10. We got kicked out at midnight (leaving the floor covered with smeared rose petals and alcohol) and I think everyone split into different afterparties. We had some people come back to our hotel room with us, but at that point the adrenaline we'd been riding on all night crashed and Shawn and I just drank water while we all chatted.
I'm just so happy we got to have this amazing party and were able to do it exactly the way we wanted and it all worked out. I'm dying to post more pictures, but we haven't gotten them back yet. Hopefully sometime this week. Honestly, I think the pictures will say more than I ever could about the whole night.

That's a pic of my bridegrl Amy giving her wedding speech. I'm the one in red, of course, with Shawn next to me. It was a happy day and I'm thrilled that I was able to do exactly what I wanted and still provide a great time for everyone. Here are some favorite moments:
1. Everyone getting their makeup done in the hotel room beforehand (even my brideboy Josh got his dark circles covered and some individual lashes put on). I laid out the wings and everyone tried them on, shaking off as much glitter as we could. I decided against wearing the wings I'd gotten for me because I was afraid it would just be too much with the bright red dress/shoes/black fishnets/tiara. But against the black dresses they looked lovely, and the vinyl batwings were perfect for Josh.
2. Headed off one emergency...we'd forgotten the poem that Josh was going to read. I was upset until Shawn discovered the museum had a wireless connection. Best Man Colin printed it out and all was saved.
3. Walked in and was immediately engulfed in a sea of people, all of whom wanted to talk to me. That was a little crazy, but people were good about getting alcohol for me. Yay, alcohol. I had been worried about the museum being too small, but the set up was actually perfect. The flowers that I had ordered from a flower shop the day before had arrived...red orchids for the girls and dark purple calla lilies for me.
4. We totally winged the ceremony. We attempted getting everyone together for a rehearsal the night before, but it was completely different now that there were chairs and tables set up. The processional (string quartet version of "Just Like Heaven") started before we were ready. I had to yell for Michelle before she walked down so I could hand her her bouquet. Ray still had his glass of wine in his hand. Flower girl Diane had rose petals stuffed down the front of her dress and threw them out from her cleavage. Can't wait to see pictures of that.
5. Shawn and I seriously wrote the vows the day before. Or at least I started them and he finished them. They're locked in his emails to Grahm, so I might have to ask him to copy and paste them into the comments. But it was stuff like, "Will you give neck rubs when the world gets hard and laugh when it takes itself too seriously." Later on one of Shawn's friends said, "You two actually had acheivable vows. Usually they're stuff like, 'I'll love you till the stars go out,' and nobody believes them, but things like neck rubs and good food are in the realm of possibility."
6. Josh read the poem we'd picked out, "Falling In Love Is Like Owning a Dog". Then Grahm read our vows, reading them exactly the way Shawn sent them to him..."Do you, blank, take Jessica to be your husband/wife?" When he read them to me I said I do before he read the last line. I think people found that cute and endearing, but I'll still be mortified till the end of my days.
7. Speeches! Dinner! More drinking! Dancing! Once people got some food in them, it turned into a huge dance party. I was excited about having really good food at my wedding, but I was so preoccupied with being social that I could barely choke down my pesto tortellini and caprese salad. If you were at my wedding, please comment about the food because I was much more about the bar than the pasta station that night.
8. Our dj rocked. My problem with traditional weddings is that long ago it was decided that proper music for a wedding is bad 70's disco. Seriously, what is up with that? We had our dj play mostly new wave and britpop, and it was fantastic. There was music for my parents and their friends too, but good stuff like David Bowie and the Rolling Stones. Quite frankly, my family were fine with whatever was playing. One of my favorite moments was watching my mom and aunts getting down to "Girls and Boys" by Blur. Pretty soon the whole wedding was a hardcore dance party. Michelle commented the next day that it was the horniest wedding ever because people were hooking up and dancing sexy all around us. Hee hee.
9. Honestly, everyone had fun across the board. People from my friends to my mom's friends to my great aunts were telling me that it was the best wedding they'd ever been to. There was such a great energy flowing and no bad wedding drama that I could see. Rock.
10. We got kicked out at midnight (leaving the floor covered with smeared rose petals and alcohol) and I think everyone split into different afterparties. We had some people come back to our hotel room with us, but at that point the adrenaline we'd been riding on all night crashed and Shawn and I just drank water while we all chatted.
I'm just so happy we got to have this amazing party and were able to do it exactly the way we wanted and it all worked out. I'm dying to post more pictures, but we haven't gotten them back yet. Hopefully sometime this week. Honestly, I think the pictures will say more than I ever could about the whole night.