The Wedding (Part 1)

So even though it is in retrospect, I would love to go back and reflect on the amazing wedding we just had and equally amazing honeymoon. My incredible husband, Kevin - yeah, it is still strange to say and write it - and I have now been married three weeks now as of yesterday. We actually "celebrated" our old anniversary of six years yesterday with a simple movie outing to Get Smart. I have to say it is a little strange to have a new anniversary after celebrating this one for all this time. It's almost like you "forget" all the time you were together before you get married. Anyway, regardless that we have a new wedding anniversary, we decided we would still acknowledge our old ones.

So for those of you who don't really know the back story, Kevin and I were engaged for three and a half years before we got married, making it a long awaited event. As the bride I have to say it was well worth the wait. We wanted our wedding to be unique and reflect us as a couple. We also wanted to have a wedding where everyone had a wonderful time. I don't believe we could have asked for a better weekend and for a nicer turnout of all the work everyone put into the event.

Admittedly, I was a little bit nervous about the thunderstorms that we had that day. I hadn't really worried about the weather until the day before. As fate would have it, the morning of the wedding after we got our hair done, it was pouring! We had to go to Macy's to get plastic bags to put over our heads (and there are some fun lurking photos of those moments somewhere). Yes - I did shed a few tears over the rain and over other small details, but overall I am happy to report that I was no "Bridezilla" and wasn't a basket case. I like to believe I was anyway. (Man, I felt zen compared to some of those brides on those reality shows.) I think I can attribute my peace and sanity to my wonderful bridesmaids (Christine, Erin K., Nora, Amelia, Deidra and Caroline) and maid of honor (Erin W.).

It did end up being a "Miracle Wedding" as many people called it because it stopped raining right at 3pm just in time for pictures at my house. And lo and behold, the sun actually came out at 5:00pm for our 5:30pm ceremony. That was all I could ask for...but then it got even better...

The ceremony ended up going off without a hitch. Our wedding had a theatre theme since we met doing theatre and it still is a very important part of our lives. We had several very important people play a part in our day - our bridal party consisted of several close family members and friends from over the years. My maid of honor was my sister, Erin, and Kevin had two best men, Andrew and Mark, friends from his childhood. (The other groomsmen were Philip, Adam, Brian, Fulvio and Mike D.) Our flower girl and ring bearer, were Kevin's niece and nephew, Caroline and Bryce who did a wonderful job at 4 and 2 years old. We also had Kevin's sister Chrissa, and our friend Ryan read selections in the ceremony.

Our officiant was one of my mentors and college professors in theatre from American University, Caleen Sinnette Jennings. She delivered a beautiful ceremony and I am thankful for her contribution to this day in our lives. We had our bridal party speak quotes about love and then Caleen expertly crafted them into her dialogue about how "marriage is like good theatre." We were lucky enough to have ceremony musicians comprised of friends and family, who were equally brilliant. We chose some non-traditional wedding music ranging from the Beach Boys, to "Beauty and the Beast", to songs from A Mighty Wind and Love Actually. I believe it was a nice selection that really reflected us a couple.

(While I am on non-traditional items, I have to say "I told you so" to all of you who gave me funny looks when I said my wedding colors were red, purple and yellow...many of you changed your mind when you saw it together!)

Instead of the traditional unity candle ceremony, we chose to do unity sand. I really liked the idea of having something tangible to keep from the ceremony that represented our lives coming together. We also chose to write our own vows - I think that was the most intimidating part of the ceremony. One of the best parts was finally seeing Kevin after waiting to see him all day. Being my best friend, it was hard to not share details with him ahead of time, like the dress. (Though I admit that I did break down and show him the veil ahead of time.) He was also looking very handsome in his black tux and purple boutonnière. (As much as I know he likes the color purple.) I mentioned that Caroline and Bryce did a very nice job with their flower girl and ring bearer positions. One of the funniest moments to me was that Caroline forgot to throw her flower petals during the processional, but she was quite original. Instead, she did the "reverse flower girl" throwing the petals in front of us on the way out during the recessional, paving the way to newly wedded bliss.The reception also had many wonderful highlights. We had several friends offer their talents in a cabaret during the cocktail hour. Kevin and I chose our favorite "love" themed songs from musicals and asked our friends to contribute their voices. Our friend Debbie also kicked ass playing piano not only for the ceremony, but also for the cabaret hour. (She also sang in the ceremony.) We were also lucky enough to have our friend Michael Sazonov emcee the event, and he definitely added some personal pizazz. At the end of the cabaret, Kev and I decided we were going to sing "There Once Was a Man (Who Loved a Woman)" from the musical The Pajama Game. I have to be honest that the singing was almost, if not more, nerve wrecking to me than the ceremony. (I have more nerves singing in front of family and friends.) But it seemed to go over well. One of my favorite moments though was a whole group of us singing "Seasons of Love" from Rent completely unrehearsed. It was just one of those moments that is unique in time, where everyone was a part of the moment in some way.

And there were many more moments during the evening that were memorable. Kevin's best men gave a very entertaining speech- or rather song- about who was truly the "best man." (Hopefully there will be a video clip in the future.) Later in the evening, my sister gave a very heartfelt speech, which meant a lot to me because I know how much thought she put into it and I know how hard it is for her to speak in large public settings.

Our first dance as a couple was "You Get Me" by Michelle Branch. It wasn't a highly choreographed dance, but the song definitely resonates for us as a couple, hence the blog title.

I definitely enjoyed dancing with my father and am glad that he chose the song. It meant more to me knowing that. Kevin and his mother also seemed to have a great time dancing together. Another part of the reception I really enjoyed was our hat dance. Stolen from the Polish tradition, we had people contribute money in top hats to dance with the bride and groom. I was thrilled to dance with so many people, even for short spurts, and was glad to see faces that I unfortunately missed later in the night.

While the whole evening stands out to me as being incredible, I guess the other major highlight from my perspective was our tango. We had worked for several weeks on a surprise choreographed dance to the tango from True Lies (choreographed by yours truly). Being a dancer all of my life, I wasn't nervous about this at all, but I know Kevin was a little worried. Fortunately, the wedding was the best time we ever did it. And we got rave reviews for it the rest of the evening.

I could go on and on about all of the wonderful parts of the wedding, but this blog really would get epic. I also know that is somewhat of a blur (as was to be expected) and that there were many other moments I missed along the way. However, I am happy to say that our wedding day was one of the happiest days of my life. Most importantly at the end of the day we were married and we were able to the share the day with soooo many family and friends. My only regret is that I wish we were able to spend more time with every individual there, but I know that reality is impossible.

As I said, the only other thing we did really want was for everyone to have a fun time and for our wedding to be a memorable event. I am thrilled to say that I think we were able to accomplish that, as many guests told us that it was "the most fun wedding," "the most unique wedding" or even "the coolest wedding" they had ever been to. Several people went back into our guest book and wrote additional notes later in the evening about the event and we even received "Thank You" notes from our guests after the event, thanking us for having them! We also had some family friends request that we have an anniversary concert every year to celebrate. I don't think we could ask for higher compliments.

There are many people we need to thank for making our wedding possible, as we never could have done it alone. (And we are starting to get around to those thank you notes finally since we are back in town). However, since this email is epic already, I am going to write a specific "thank you" blog later. However, I do want to thank all of our friends and family for being so generous. In particular, I want to thank my parents, Connie and Albert, and my new parents-in-law, Berlyn and Gene for all of their time and support on this event. It was incredible because of you! I also need to thank my sister, Erin, as well as Kevin's best men, Mark and Andrew for their continual help. As I said there are many other thanks to come..

We are still anxiously awaiting the professional photos from our photographer, but for the time being you can enjoy the ones from some of our equally professional friends. I will definitely be putting more up when we get them. You can also look forward to another blog novel soon about our Hawaiian honeymoon...

Again...THANK YOU TO ALL!

And to my new husband (and accomplice in my adventures) - I LOVE YOU!
Marriage suits us well I think...