Wedding Party

The invitation read:

Do you love looking at wedding photos? I do. Let's see yours, please! On Thursday, June 26th, play along with me at my Virtual Wedding Party. Post photos from your wedding - they can be pretty or funny or just pretty funny! Tell us a story! What happened at your wedding? Did Aunt Marge trip and fall on the cake? Who caught the bouquet, and did they get married yet? We'd love to hear it. Don't spare any details.

Excellent idea, don't you think?

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I thought that I would start off with two of my

most favorite wedding pictures ... EVER

Here's my Omi (Mom's mom) on her wedding day:

and this is Omi and Grandpa Pitcarin:

so romantic and dreamy, don't you think? *sighs*

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Ok, now onto my own story ...

Before I share, I'll give you a little background info ... Don and I started dating in June of 1997. He asked me to marry him right around Halloween and we were married on November 22, 1997. Yep, five months later.

When he "popped the question" I wasn't even sure that he had asked. I was just waking up and actually thought that I was dreaming, so ... I didn't answer. The day happened like almost any other. That night (over a game of backgammon) he said, "you never answered my question" ... ok, so it was real ... and I said, "yes". That simple. It's important to note that I am the Queen of Second Guessing myself and almost everything I do. This was one of those rare occasions when I didn't pause and just reacted from the core of my being; I'm convinced it's the best decision I have ever made.

So, we sent out our wedding invitations (a bunch of post cards that I ... and he ... had collected throughout the years - some were of beautiful places, works of art, cute post cards, sweet ones, funny - they ran the whole gammit) and started planning - we had a little over a month to pull it off. Thank heavens for our moms and our friends!

We decided to have the wedding in the back yard of one of my dearest friends in AZ - we had just over 40 invitee's RSVP and the house/yard could easily accomodate that number. Don's mom and brother flew in a few nights before the wedding - it was the first time I met either of them ... thankfully, we had soooo much going on and soooooo much to do that there wasn't time to not like each other (and actually we all got along splendidly! - sometimes I am a really lucky girl). I put together all the wedding favors - a polished rock & a chocolate lady bug placed in a pretty piece of lace and tied with a ribbon. The food planning was easy, too: simple snacks out - cheeses, crackers, shrimp, nuts, veggies, etc. and after the ceremony Don would grill a bunch of sheesh kabobs - lots of veggies, filet & shrimp. We opted for fruit pies from Marie Calendars rather than a wedding cake ... we had so many pies that some of the guests would leave with an entire pie. There'd be a full bar (thanks to the mom-in-law) and plenty of great music (thanks to the house DJ).

Flash forward to the wedding day. Our friends came to help out, so even the set up seemed like a party. We all spent most of the morning setting up chairs & getting the food ready - there was tons of laughter in the house. My girlfriend (and hair stylist), Beth, came over to do my hair and make-up, so I actually ended up looking put together.

Friends started arriving and there was such a casual atmosphere ... pretty laid back, actually. The minister showed up ... and that's when we realized that our marriage license was back at our apartment - oops. My best friend, Tom (the person that was supposed to "give me away"), decided to jump into the nearest auto and fly back to our place to pick it up ... wouldn't you know it, he was in a fender bender and ended up missing the entire ceremony (the minister decided to go ahead with the service & planned to visit our apartment the next morning to sign the license). My mom had bought me a lovely eggplant colored Laura Ashley dress (completely inappropriate for a back yard wedding - and what was I thinking getting a PURPLE dress - but I loved it. I still have it and it's perfect for a nice dinner party). Don wore jeans and a lightweight long sleeve pullover (he looked/was way more comfortable than me). The minister was a strange duck. He talked about the wind in the trees and other more random stuff (while Kinu, our Shiba Inu, proceeded to lift her leg awfully close to his trousers) ... I don't really recall what he said, but I do remember trembling and I remember hearing Don say, "Yep" ... and his sweet kiss. Suddenly I was a Mrs. ... How weird. Cool, but weird.

My girlfriend, Jody, took a whole role of black and white photo's during and right after the ceremony and then did one of the cleverest things ... during our "reception" she snuck out to a one hour photo place, had the pictures developed and put a handful in one of those multi-picture frames.

This is my absolute favorite photo from our wedding:

Hmmm ... those two just might actually like each other, eh?

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Random Tidbits (wedding related, of course):

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We had a tatoo artist at our wedding (to do our wedding bands for us). Big mistake. Not the tatoo's, the artist (not so much an artist). Don's tatoo isn't great, but mine looked like a horrible prison tat, sooooo after the party dust settled we spent some time with a wire brush and that gritty orange soap stuff and tried to remove as much ink from my finger as possible. Not a pleasant experience, but it did help lighten the tatoo.

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The minister showed up at our place the next morning to complete the paperwork. Remember how Tom was supposed to give me away? Well, he was supposed to come over to be a witness for the paperwork ... guess what ... he was LATE and missed the whole shebang ... we did have him sign our copy just the same.

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OH! and the poor minister forgot about the cabinets right above his head ... he stood up too fast after signing on his dotted line and wacked his head so hard it made my teeth hurt!

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Don's wedding gift to me was a beautiful wooden backgammon board.

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Not long after the wedding (about 10 days, actually), Don and I moved to Baltimore, MD (and if you want to call driving 2000+ miles across country in a U-haul a honeymoon, I wouldn't neccessarily disagree with you) ... as we entered VA we were treated to one of the most amazing meteor showers I have ever seen.

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We stopped someplace in VA and had a really crabby guy attempt to fix my wedding band; he was pretty clueless, too. I ended up having to draw what I wanted right on my finger and went over it with his gun (I'm left handed, too) ... it now looks like a messy XOX ... ah well. watcha gonna do?)

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Sadie was born one week after our first wedding anniversary.

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At the rehearsal dinner of my most funnelest girlfriend we were served some terrific food ... it was so good infact, there was a party crasher:

This praying mantis must have really liked the red frosting ... it was kind enough to pose long enough for me to get a few snaps (before picking a fight with me and trying to take my head off!)

That face!

If you've made it this far then I believe you have time for one more wedding tidbit ... I became an ordained minister just so I could perform the ceremony of my best friend (from high school) Tom - the same one that was in a fender bender on my wedding day ... AND for the beginning of the service I recited the wedding scene from The Princess Bride ...

"Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday.

Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam...

And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva..."