The Ring Book

The front of the Ring Book

We wanted something our ring bearer could carry that was large enough to actually carry (and not just hold).  It also needed to have some kind of thing that detached so the rings could be passed around for our guests to bless the rings during the ceremony. In the end, I bought a cardboard book from the craft store Micheal’s, some scrapbook paper and pulled out my handy-dandy modge-podge glue. Voila! In about two hours time, I had our ring book. For the detachable part, I cut some styrofoam and covered it in leftover fabric.  Then I modge-podged a tinier box (with a tinier section of fabric covered styrofoam inside of it) for the rings themselves!

Now, our book serves as a place to hold cards from friends and mementos from the wedding.

Congratulatory Flags and Streamers

This was super simple and only took one evening to complete.

We displayed them in a vase and had our flower girl and ring bearer ask guests to take them as they arrived at the ceremony.

Supplies: Dowel Rods, Ribbon, Scrapbook Paper, Stamps and Ink, Hot Glue, Hole-Punch, Scissors
The ribbon streamers were easy to assemble and quick to make.  Simply knot the ribbon on the dowel rod and add a drop of hot glue to keep them secured. The flags were a little more difficult.  I cut the scrapbook paper into triangles and rectangles. Then we stamped different words onto each. Once the ink dried, we made two holes with the hole puncher, thread the dowel through and secured with hot glue.

Huzzah, Woot and Yay made the final wording cut. The second 'O' in 'Woot' is actually an upside-down Q with the tail cut off!!

The Programs
I mentioned in the Details recap that I printed the program at a local copy store. We used the ‘Jane Austen’ font from dafont.com and Eccentric from Microsoft Word. I went a little… um… unnecessarily crazy after they were printed though. I thought they were too plain. Cue: final trip to Micheal’s to buy a die-cut and an assembly line of friends punching those fleur-de-lis out of the sides.

We also made the stamp design from those removable stamps you can buy at any craft store. I would recommend getting one of those if you are planning on doing any kind of stamping for your wedding! You can see through the top of the stamper and re-arrange as needed!

The Bouquets

This was by far the most labor intensive DIY project we did.  Way way back in my early blogger days for SYE, I posted about the saddest attempt at fabric flowers ever.  It really was bad.  The trial and error on this project was insane. However, the price point was beyond worth it.  I think, and I say think because I’m sure I’ve lost some of the receipts, but once we figured out how to make the flowers, I only spent about $125 on the fabric, beads and floral supplies needed for our bouquets, the bridesmate bouquets AND corsages for the flower girl, ring bearer and my step-mother.  And the result was gorgeous.

One of the wrist corsages

A bridesmate bouquet

I cannot take credit for the paper book flowers.  Those are by etsy vendor Danamazing, who is truly amazing. She got those suckers to me so fast and they were never damaged from shipping! Oragami is not my thing and I was so lucky to find her! Deborah’s bouquet had more book-flowers than mine. Though we both love literature, she is definitely the more avid reader out of the two of us.

Deborah's Bouquet on left. My bouquet on right.

Supplies: Fabric (silk and tulle), beads of some sort (we used faux pearls mainly), glue gun, scissors, floral wire and tape. The key is to trace out tons of circles in varying sizes and shapes. I ruined one of our cooking prep bowl sets by endlessly tracing them around the fabric with a sharpie marker. Once cut (a rotary cutter or scissors) lightly move the edges of the circle around an open flame. This prevents the edges from fraying. Then stack different sizes and fabrics together and hot glue each piece.  Attach the floral wire on the bottom and then tape the whole thing up! We would have flower parties and spend hours tracing, cutting and burning the edges.  Then on another night, we would assemble. Finally, when it was getting closer to our wedding day, we created the bouquets.  I added a little extra tulle around the bottom to hide the stems.

You can see the 'underside' of the bouquet with the tulle. We did not make those adorable cake toppers. Those are from the great etsy vendor The Girl In Yellow!

A word to those thinking of making their own fabric flower bouquets: this takes a lot of time. No, Seriously. I can’t even tell you the hours logged, but I know we started working on these six months before the wedding! Daunting, yes.  Rewarding? More than I can tell you!  Heck, these bouquets will still look gorgeous years and years from now and Deborah and I will be the ones all shriveled up and grey in our old age! I am so happy that our wedding bouquets will always look the same as on the day we got married.

Next Up: So Long, Farewell…
The rest of our wedding recap posts can be found at the links below:

Our Reception
Married and Ready to Party!
Our Ceremony, Part 2
The Ceremony, Part 1
Post-Portrait Shenanigans
Group Photos
Our First Look
Deborah Getting Ready
Michelle Getting Ready

All photos from our photographer, Katherine O’Brien.

Hey there!

*timid steps into the blogosphere*

Remember me? Sorry I dropped off the face of the earth for a little bit! I sort of fractured my tailbone and ended up on all sorts of crazy medications, missed work for a week and then had a terrible reaction to the steroids they put me on.  It has been an unpleasant month.  But I’m back! And not only am I back, I am back with pretty pictures!

These are all the little things that didn’t fit into my other recaps! I made our programs on Adobe Illustrator.  I downloaded the font Jane Austen from dafont.com and used a pre-designed template.

Ring shots!

You may recognize the photo under our rings from our engagement photos. Our photographer, Katherine O’Brien, surprised us with a guestbook filled with our engagement photos! This was the front cover.

This garland hung above us during the ceremony on the front lawn. The flowers were done by the florist at the Astin Mansion.

We wanted to continue our book theme throughout the reception decor. In the beginning, I planned on doing all of the reception decor as well, but then reality set in and I realized I did not want to murder all of my friends and family from the stress of doing absolutely.everything. It was a good plan! The florist at the Astin did a great job with our reception flowers!

The tall centerpieces for the reception

A close up. The flowers were orchids and small book flowers.

We had a mix of tall and short centerpieces. Sadly, we didn’t spend much time inside after dinner because we were too busy dancing the night away outside!

As beautiful as our centerpieces were, I feel like we could have used the money elsewhere in the end.  However, hindsight is always 20/20, right? I don’t necessarily regret spending the money on reception decor, but I do wonder what we could’ve done with it.  One thing I do not regret spending money on– cake.  Our cakes were pretty much works of art. I know that sounds a little dramatic, but they really were!

Beautiful and delicious.

My final recap post is next: D.I.Y. Details

Can’t remember other posts from my wedding because I’ve been m.i.a. for so long? You can check them out here:

Our Reception
Married and Ready to Party!
Our Ceremony, Part 2
The Ceremony, Part 1
Post-Portrait Shenanigans
Group Photos
Our First Look
Deborah Getting Ready
Michelle Getting Ready

All photos from our photographer, Katherine O’Brien.

Not just single ladies were invited to participate in our bouquet throw.  We wanted anyone and everyone who wanted a piece of the action.  And we told the crowd the whoever caught each of our bouquets would win a very nice bottle of champagne.

We threw our bouquets at the same time, to encourage a scramble!

After a tumble that took them across the dance floor, only three people remained in the battle. Joey won out and enjoyed a bottle of Rosa Regale.

Now, it was just time to dance. And dance we did!

Shout! A little bit softer now...

My father and step-mother enjoying a nice slow dance.

Everyone seemed to be having a great time!

Then our DJ played the Grease Megamix (you know, with all of the greatest hits smushed into one). Well, the slightly tipsy musical theatre geeks , drunk on love and champagne, were ready to rock out. Bridesmate Jeffy did a full slide all the away across the dance floor on the line “I’ve got chills their multiplying.”  It was epic.

Our photographer captures the fantastic slide...

So epic, that dear sweet Jeffy, split his pants.

And the fantastic results! Thankfully, Jeffy was wearing wedding appropriate undergarments.

It was quite the party. We are both so happy that everyone had such a great time! The dancing kept going on an on.  We had a conga line, a dance off, and our DJ made sure to throw in some slow songs so folks could catch their breath!  Everyone was having fun and goofing off– including us:

Torro!

Note to those who have a lace gown: The bustle is going to be really heavy. REALLY heavy.  The way my train was cut, I couldn’t do the three-point bustle (with three hooks or buttons).  I only had one at the base of my back, and that shiz got heavy.  It actually pulled so much that the zipper started pulling away from the dress on one side. By that time, the bustle was just annoying, so I held the dress for the rest of the evening (and pretending to be a bull fighter……..)

I believe we are discussing how it may be time to call it a night.

We planned on dancing through into the late hours of the evening. It didn’t happen.  You see, everyone started to get really sleepy.

The slow dancing turned into slow swaying.

The swaying turned into standing.

We decided to cut the reception short by about forty-five minutes.  Since our wedding was on a Sunday, most wedding guests had to leave around nine or ten in the evening.  By 10:30, only the out of towners and those who had already called in late for work were still there.

It was time for our exit. I’m going to confess something to you, and I super hope you don’t judge me for this.

We did a fake exit.

Yup. We did the big goodbye and then turned around and helped our friends clean up. Neither of us felt good about making our friends do all the dirty work. Even though we had to turn around right after we walked out, it was still exhilarating and lovely. It was an honest end of the evening, despite us having to go back into the venue. And since I’m being 100% honest, I really wanted a shot of us kissing with sparklers.

Totally worth it.

As always, each moment and gorgeous photo is from our photographer, Katherine O’Brien.

Next Up: The Details

Want to see more photos from the wedding? You can check out other recaps here:

Our Reception
Married and Ready to Party!
Our Ceremony, Part 2
The Ceremony, Part 1
Post-Portrait Shenanigans
Group Photos
Our First Look
Deborah Getting Ready
Michelle Getting Ready

2. Get Married!! (Check)

3. Eat amazing food and have some cake (Check)

4. Get the sword.

Wait.

What?

Oh yes, I said sword.

Why a sword? Well, when cutting a Croquembouche (also known as a French wedding cake) it is tradition to cut it with a sword.  Well, cut isn’t exactly the right term. You have to slice it with a sword. Which is exactly what we did.

Truth be told... this was not our first attempt. Our first was a swing and miss. The second time-- nailed it.

To prevent cream puff carnage all over our dance floor, linens were placed under the cake.  Good thing too, we knocked the top of that sucker right out of the park. My favorite thing about our second wedding cake? I mean, other than getting to swing at it with sword, is that no one waited for plates or forks or any form of etiquette.  We all just dug right in.

The cake was made by a family friend and pastry chef! And yes, it really was *that* good.

The men from our toasts . Wouldn't Jeffy make a dapper Doctor Who?

Before our first dance, we first did our toasts.  Our whole idea for the evening was that we wanted to get all of the traditional wedding stuff (food, cake, thank yous, toasts) done first, so the remainder of the evening would be open to dancing.  I think it worked really well.  But anyway, the toasts were touching (my father somehow made a Rod Stewart song lyric incredibly endearing), hilarious (Deborah’s brother, John, apologized for cutting the fur off of his cat and then blaming Deborah for it when they were little), tear inducing (Bridesmate Ashlea, who lives in Ohio, reminded us how distance and love are never problems) and nostalgic (Jeffy recounted how I first came out to him on April Fool’s Day– when I quickly retracted my statement and said April Fools!, he never believed I was lying in the first place).

Then, it was time for our first dance.  To be honest, I think we had around 7 ‘first dance song’ contenders.  We decided on “Let’s Fall in Love” as sung by Alanis Morrisette a week before because we needed to make a decision… STAT. Here’s a tip: LOOK AT HOW LONG YOUR FIRST DANCE SONG IS. Sorry for yelling that, but I really wanted to get the point across.

Seriously, y’all. Deborah and I aren’t Fred and Ginger, but we can hold our own…. for a while. This song was epically long.  And, since we thought we could just dance for a wee bit and be done with everyone staring at us, we never choreographed anything out. Big. Ol. Mistake. This song draaaagggeed on. There are only so many times you can ‘spin in, spin out, spin around’.

We did have fun swirling around in our dresses though.

About two minutes through the song, we invited friends to join us on the dance floor. Deborah and her brother decided to not do a dance together because as she puts it “I feel like the two of us together is just a big awkward-fest. No one wants to watch that.”  My dad and I did do a dance, and then my dad and Deborah did a dance too!

We danced to "Michelle, My Belle", which is the song I was named after. Hey! Guess who is crying in this picture? Hint: Not My Dad. Happy tears-- a reoccurring theme.

With official dances out of the way (and another round of waterproof mascara for me), it was time to get our party on.

Nothing like a break-dancing party guest to get the reception rocking!

Okay, I lied a little bit. I said all of the official dances were over. As far as Deborah knew, all the official dances were over. You see, Deborah told me eons before we got engaged that she always had wanted a “spontaneous” pre-choreographed dance number at her wedding. She thought I forgot about such things, but my mind is like a bear trap! Initially, I wanted to do Mambo! from West Side Story, but quickly realized that it would take waaaay too much time to learn.  Instead, I spread the word to watch a certain music video and told party guests that if they knew the dance to step in…..

If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it.....

Oh-a-oh-oh-a-ohhhh yeah. We did the Single Ladies dance. Two of our wedding party got a chance to learn the actual routine from the choreographer (dang you, New Yorkers!). Other guests and bridesmates knew enough to just rock it out!

Did you know Beyonce once said this was a love song about Jay-Z? He was the one 'to put a ring on it'. It makes me like the song even more.

It was fantastic! And Deborah was so surprised! Now, every time I hear that song I think of us dancing around and Deborah laughing hysterically! We danced a little more. Some slow songs, some fast songs, some fun songs– and then our fantastic DJ did something remarkable.

He unknowingly played the song that would mark the rest of the evening. Since he knew we were Broadway folk, he played a Broadway song.  But not any ol’ Broadway song,  he played Seasons of Love from Rent. Usually, Deborah and I think of this song as a bit of a cheese-fest. I think it comes from hearing it All.The.Time. We goofed off for a bit (interpretive dance, mayhaps?) but then the heart and honesty of the song got to all of us and everyone (pretty much) ended up in a circle.

And we sang. We sang joyously.  We sang at the top of our lungs.  Friends took turns singing verses and the amount of love present was.. well, I don’t really have words for it really.  It was that special.

Measure Your Life In Love.

As always, each moment and gorgeous photo is from our photographer, Katherine O’Brien.

Next Up: The Rest of the Evening (aka someone splits his pants on the dance floor)

Want to read more about our wedding? Check out the past recaps:

Married and Ready to Party!
Our Ceremony, Part 2
The Ceremony, Part 1
Post-Portrait Shenanigans
Group Photos
Our First Look
Deborah Getting Ready
Michelle Getting Ready

Now it was time to make it 100% official and sign our wedding certificate. It was a fantastic feeling to sign under ‘bride’.

In hindsight, it would have really been great to have either our flower girl or ring bearer stand beside the certificate throughout the night and ask guests to sign it.  A lot of people signed our guest book that our photographer made us, but not the certificate. We did manage to get mostly everyone, and we got straggler signatures in the weeks after the wedding.

Our venue set up was ideal for an entrance into the ‘backyard’ for the beginning of our reception.  We entered to the Overture from Candide, which is boisterous and so much fun.  It really set the tone for the rest of the evening.  Y’all, I cannot even begin to tell you how amazing it felt to be introduced as Mrs. and Mrs. Campbell-Greene! Friends said we were smiling so much, that even our eyebrows were smiling.  It was overwhelming– but in a very good way!

Our reception entrance!

Happy Excited Guests!

Since everyone was gathered around for our entrance, we took a moment to thank everyone for being there. If you have a chance, try and write out your thank-yous before hand.  I thought we could just wing it, and I’m sure we left people out.  It was also really hard to think of things on the spot!

Deborah was happy and eloquent in her speech!

I wanted to thank my parents for their support and love, since it was so important to us. Can you guess how my speech went?

I'm pretty sure I'm saying 'I thought I was done crying today!'

With our thank yous done and our tummies rumbling, it was time to eat! I never got a chance to tell SYE reader’s about our delicious food that was being served. We had grilled chicken with cilantro-lime sauce, cranberry rubbed pork tenderloin, sundried tomato pasta (for our vegetarian friends), green beans almondine, and a MASHED POTATO BAR. Yes, you read that right.  Delicious mashed potato goodness, served in martini glasses with all the fixings.

Potato-y- goodness

It was dee-li-cious. And the potato bar was a huge hit! We also served a salad with cranberries and goat cheese for folks who were looking for a little lighter meal.  Wedding day tip: Make sure you eat, but please do not eat too much. I had to take my corset off after dinner (thankfully my dress was fine without it).  But going from nibbling on food all day to a full blown epic meal was a little more than we had bargained for!

But no rest for the married weary! Stuffed to the brim with great food, we then had to cut our cake! Amazing dessert on top of a great meal?! This is why some people say getting married is the best day of your life! (you know, besides all the love and commitment stuff).

Our first of two cakes was this amazing book cake from Cinderella Stories. Deborah and I both are huge nerds and love reading, so it seemed very appropriate to have a book cake! We had three flavors (Chocolate Tuxedo, Carrot Cake, and White Chocolate Raspberry) and three fun titles The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Fellowship of the Ring and Love’s Labours Won.

We had both warned each other that smashing a very good piece of cake into the other’s face was a waste of cake, so we opted for the sweeter alternative.

and a sweet kiss too!

We were so stuffed from dinner that we didn’t really eat that much of the cake that night.  It was okay though, we had more than enough to take home, and the cake was good for another two weeks.

All Photos By Katherine O’Brien Photography.
Next Up: Time to Dance!
Want to See More Texas Wedding Recaps? Check Out:

The Ceremony, Part 1
Post-Portrait Shenanigans
Group Photos
Our First Look
Deborah Getting Ready
Michelle Getting Ready

My first recap ceremony post was focused on our readings and the beginning of our ceremony.  This second post is about the second part of our ceremony.   After our first two readings, we said our vows.  They began with our officiant saying, “Will you each promise to take pride and joy at seeing the other continue to learn and grow, and when your partner’s life grows in one direction, will you try to bend and grow together?” and we responded We Will! We then said our vows.  We didn’t want to use traditional vows and agreed that writing our own vows wasn’t really for us.  Instead, we chose e.e. cummings poem “I Carry Your Heart With Me (I Carry It In My Heart)“. We chose this poem for two reasons:

1. It is gorgeous, beautiful and so well written.

2. It has a sort-of call and response that worked for our vows.

During our vows, our rings were being passed around through our guests. I have heard this called a blessing of the rings and a ring warming.  You can choose whatever term you like! Regardless of what it is actually called, this was one of the most special components of our ceremony.  It was so special to us to include all of of friends and family that had gathered with us to celebrate our marriage.

Towards the beginning of our ceremony, our officiant, Spike Gillespie, said the following:

Deborah and Michelle have each selected a ring that will be worn every day to symbolize their commitment to one another, and to keep as  a token of remembrance when they are not able to be together.  They would like to take a moment to pass the rings among their assembled friends and family, asking that as you hold the rings in your hands, you pass your blessing and wishes of good luck on them on them through the rings.

The plan was for the rings to be ‘warmed’ by the end of our vows, but plans, schmans!  Our friends and family were really blessing our rings!

Thankfully, we had a back-up plan (we sort of figured it would take a wee bit longer than we thought).  Our musicians played Ingrid Michaelson’s ‘The Way I Am.’  Here’s an excerpt of the song:

If you were falling, then I would catch you
You need a light, I’d find a match
Cause I love the way you say good morning
And you take me the way I am
If you are chilly, here take my sweater
Your head is aching; I’ll make it better
Cause I love you more than I could ever promise
And you take me the way I am

Jeffy was the last to bless the rings. I was told later that he started to give the rings back to our officiant,Spike, but then stopped and gave them this kiss (Thank you, Katherine O’Brien for capturing it). FYI… My happy tears? They are still flowing (during the ceremony and now as I write this recap).  AND!  The joy just kept going during our ring exchange.

Our ring exchange was composed of an excerpt from The X-Files episode Amor Fati (Season 7) and Finding Nemo.  It sounds nerdy. I know. In reality, it is so so nerdy, but it is so us.  Deborah and I first started talking about our relationship after many late nights watching X-Files episodes. We began with X-Files and it seemed fitting that we would have some kind of nod to that in our ceremony.

I won’t get into the super nerd-tastic details of two X-file fans views on Mulder and Scully’s relationship (i.e.  why it is a perfect relationship that started in friendship and built on trust and respect).  Yes, yes, I know we are discussing two fictional characters right now, which is why I’m just going to get to what we actually said:

You are my friend and you tell me the truth.  Even when the world is falling apart:  you are my constant, my touchstone. When I look at you, I’m home.

I told you there were happy tears!

With rings blessed and exchanged, our friend Sonya began our final reading, Why Marriage? by Mari Nichols-Haining

Because marriages do not fail, people fail
When they enter into marriage expecting another to make them whole…
Together we create our marriage…
Because with this understanding
The possibilities are limitless.

Finally, we had our hand fasting.  We chose to do a hand fasting for a variety of reasons.  The biggest reasons were our cultural backgrounds (a stretch, but it was there) and the fact that we wanted some epic finality to the ceremony. A handfasting is so beautiful (on epic scale) and allowed us be married in more than just a ring exchange.  Since we weren’t having a religious ceremony and we couldn’t have  civil ceremony, we wanted SOMETHING! The handfasting was considered a legal form of marriage in Scotland until the early 20th century.  Hey, if it was good enough for our ancestors, it is good enough for us!

My only experience with hand fasting was one I experienced at a Pagan wedding I had attended.  Our friend Jennifer is Pagan and a bit of a write, so I asked her if she would be willing to speak about what a hand fasting was and the type of ceremony that would be taking place.  I also asked if she knew of any blessings we could read during the hand fasting (that weren’t too spiritual). Jennifer went above and beyond.  When she couldn’t find a blessing she liked, she wrote one herself.  And it is beautiful, lovely, perfect, touching, amazing, insert-any-feel-good-word-here:

Michelle and Deborah,
May your love be like the fire of two flames, beginning separately
but joining together to reflect the light and warmth you create together into the lives of others.
May your wisdom be like a river flowing into a sea, so you may give truth and knowledge freely to each other.
May your honesty be like the meeting of winds, sometimes moving storms and
sometimes creating them, but ending always in peace.
May your strength be like the slow meeting of two mountains,
pushing each other past all obstacles up into the sky.
By the grace of the goddess, blessed be

Then, Spike fastened our hands together with our hand fasting cord, and pronounced us married in front of our friends, family and everyone else in the entire world! Then we were told ‘You May Kiss Your Bride!’ and we did!!!!

We were then presented as Mrs. and Mrs. Campbell-Greene and walked back down the aisle to My Girl by the Temptations  as  two smiling, overwhelmed with love, married ladies.

Our bridesmates give a resouding cheer!

We hopped into our awesome vintage car and as we left, our bridesmates all shouted ‘Huzzah! Huzzah!’  It was awesome, in the original meaning of the word– awe inspiring and amazing. Even months down the road, I remember so much from our ceremony.  A lot of friends said it would be a blur, but there are so many beautiful moments that still stand out, crystal clear, in my mind.

All photos by Katherine O’Brien Photography

Next up: Our Reception!

Want to read more? Here are more posts from our wedding:

The Ceremony, Part 1
Post-Portrait Shenanigans
Group Photos
Our First Look
Deborah Getting Ready
Michelle Getting Ready

In the car! About to get married!

Our music for the ceremony and reception was by the incredibly awesome Acoustic Production out of Houston, TX.  Our bridesmates walked down to an instrumental version of ‘Im Yours’ by Jason Mraz.

Our flower girl, one of my current students, had always wanted to be a flower girl in a wedding since she was 5 years old. I thought it was really special that she was so enthusiastic about being a flower girl in our wedding.  We had tons of extra die-cut fleur-de-lis from our ceremony programs, so we added those in with the red rose petals to make use of them– and it turned out to be a great combination.

She took her job very seriously and deftly paved our way with flowers and fleur-de-lis

And now, it was time for us to walk! I was trying my hardest to not be a ‘stage-manager’ about everything and focus on the moment instead of the timing of who was going and when. It was really hard, I’m not going to lie.  But I think I did a good job once my dad and I started walking.  Deborah and I never really had too many discussions on who was walking down the aisle when. Initially we wanted to do something that involved both of us walking at the same time from opposite sides and meeting in the middle. But, our venue layout  didn’t really work with that idea, and it would’ve just been awkward. It worked out (things always do– remember that brides and grooms to be).  I had always imagined watching Deborah walk down the aisle, so I went first and Deborah was second.

My dad told me to enjoy the adventure. He is a great and wise man.

Deborah's brother, John, joked about tripping her down the aisle to calm nerves. We both walked down to the instrumental version of 'All You Need is Love' by The Beatles.

Seeing Deborah walking down the aisle with a huge smile and full of excitement, I’m pretty sure I got teary eyed then.  It was just this amazing moment that I will never forget.

Our officiant, Spike Gillespie, encouraged us to do a family hug, instead of a traditional, hand-shaking, hand-off thing. We all came together, hugged, and thus began our ceremony.

Spike began with "We have come together today not to mark the start of a relationship, but to acknowledge and strengthen a bond that already exists." She is a fantastic officiant and really captured the spirit of our relationship and what our ceremony meant to us.

Our first reading was Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, which was also on our wedding certificate. My dear friend, Will, gave the reading.  He is a writer and playwright, so it seemed very fitting.

"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: Oh no! It is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken."

Our next reading was done by all of our bridesmates.  We chose I Like You by Sandol Stoddard Warburg. Initially, we were going to cut it way down and have only one person read it.  We just couldn’t. All of our friends are theatrical in some form or other (either in personality, hobby, or career) and it was so fun to hear them read the different verses in their own way.

If I pretend I am drowning, you pretend you are saving me. If I am getting ready to pop a paper bag, then you are getting ready to jump HOORAY!

On the 4th of July, I like you because it's the 4th of July. On the fifth of July, I like you too. If you and I had some drums and some horns and some horses, If we had some hats and some flags and some fire engines, We could be a HOLIDAY! We could be a CELEBRATION! We could be a WHOLE PARADE!

The verses ended up dividing out really well between all of our bridal brigades and left the final verse for us:

I would go on choosing you
And you would go on choosing me
Over and Over Again

Cue: Tears. Happy Tears. Tons of happy tears. Oceans upon seas upon rivers of happy tears! They didn’t stop! They just kept on keepin’ on for the rest of the ceremony. Our next reading which was  Goodridge v. Massachusetts Department of Health (also know as the landmark ruling in Massachusetts where the state upheld the right for same-sex couples to marry). It was important to us to let those who were not as well acquainted with our passion for equality understand what we were fighting for. Our reader was an incredibly important person to both of us, but has a special place in my heart.  She was a former student of mine, the president of our school’s Gay/Straight Alliance and one of the first students I came out to. She is a  fierce and intelligent voice for equality in public schools and beyond. She already has and will continue to make waves in the fight for equality. I am so proud and happy that she was able to be an important part of our wedding.

It is undoubtedly for these concrete reasons, as well as for its intimately personal significance, that civil marriage has long been termed a “civil right.”

We had a few more elements happening that were interspersed between these three readings that culminated after our third reading, but  since this post is broken up into two posts, you’ll read about those next!

Joy was ever present and our ceremony was full of moments of laughter!

All photos by Katherine O’Brien Photography.

Past Recap Posts:

Post-Portrait Shenanigans
Group Photos
Our First Look
Deborah Getting Ready
Michelle Getting Ready

We are using this photo for our Thank You cards (which I still need to do… sorry, Martha).

Did I mention how adorable these photo props were?

Totally frame worthy.

I think we will get one of those multi-frames and put all three ‘love’ photos together.

Vintage Brides Magazine! How cool is that?!

I really enjoy all of these photos. I think they totally capture our personalities and how much fun we were having the day of the wedding.  They pretty much warm my heart every time I look at them! But now, time for something completely different:

Yes, this is an up the skirt photo.

You see, Deborah wears Soffee shorts under *everything* and though we tried in vain to find her a pair of bedazzled Bride Soffee shorts, we couldn’t find any the week of the wedding at the local bridal stores.  Still, Deborah refused to wear anything *other* than her favorite pair of shorts for the wedding.  These were her ‘something old’ and they are covered in paint for theater work days and worn to the brink of annihilation. I love that she had them capture this on film.

Again, all photos by our fantastic photographer, Katherine O’Brien.
Next post: The Ceremony  (including readings! Substance galore!)

Want to see more recap posts? Check them out here:
Group Photos
Our First Look
Michelle Getting Ready
Deborah Getting Ready

So, there isn’t a non-humble way to put this– I did 99.9999999% of our wedding planning.  Not that Deborah was ambivalent towards our wedding/pending nuptials/life together. Oh no! Just the opposite– she was just as excited and happy as I was.  When I say ‘Deborah was ambivalent towards all things wedding’ I mean she really honestly didn’t care about anything other than us actually getting married— and food. That, and she is as crafty as Mother Theresa is mean. At the beginning of wedding planning, a rather non-involved partner seemed totally ideal to me! I had been obsessed with wedding planning since I was 13. I bought wedding magazines when I was sad in high school because the pretty floral centerpieces and cakes always cheered me up. Wedding planning was my ‘thing’ and technical theatre direction is my job– I was stoked, beyond stoked– and I was also opinionated, overly organized and very. very. picky. Deborah gave me the reins on planning and I thought it was awesome.  I could change my mind,  bounce around ideas and pose questions knowing I would get a positive response.

This was, ultimately, insanely frustrating. I didn’t always want a positive response, I wanted a conversation.  Deborah would always shrug and say ‘This just isn’t my thing’ which it honestly isn’t. At the time however, I could only see indecision– not her letting me make a decision, because she’d love whatever was done no matter what. To me indecision was equal to not caring, which was equal to not caring about the wedding or me. Looking back, it all seems ridiculously laughable. At the time, it was annoying to me (What do you MEAN you don’t know what song you want to walk down the aisle to?! That doesn’t even make sense! Don’t you listen to the radio?!), it was annoying to talk to my friends about (Just because we are both women doesn’t mean we are both obsessed with weddings!) and it was annoying to Deborah (Stop talking to me  like I’m one of your students! I know *how* to punch a die-cut, I’m just not good at it!).

Lots of exclamation points and exasperated sighs– but, we got through it. Deborah wasn’t much of a crafter, but she is resourceful and knows we have crafty friends.  Anytime I started getting frustrated, she would make phone calls and a mini-craft party would happen.  She can’t make fabric flowers, but she can make a delicious margarita, which is a lovely post-flower frenzy beverage.  The thing that worked for us was communication.  I would explain why I was frustrated, and she would explain her side and we would come to a conclusion or a decision .  The worst thing I could ever do was force a decision if she didn’t really want to make one (see: my post about our invitations). So, if you find yourself overwhelmed and think your fiance(e) isn’t doing much to help out, take a step back and instead of making assumptions– just ask! Okay, maybe step outside and let out a huge exasperated sigh/groan, but then put your big girl panties on, stop wallowing in your overwhelming stress and go solve the problem.  I promise, it’ll do you a world of good.

Our Wedding To-Do Breakdown:
Choosing Vendors– I found vendors in each category (photographer, invitations, etc) but  we decided together.
Food- All Deborah and it was delicious.
Dresses/Bridesmate Attire: Both of us (with Bridesmate input)
Everything Else- Me, with occasional input from bridesmates and sometimes Deborah. Example: Deborah didn’t care about table linens, but I sure as heck did!

Everyone had pockets except me!

So… we had a lot of bridesmates.  Eleven to be exact, which seemed excessive when planning (especially when sorting out who was wearing what), but ultimately, I am so glad every single one of these people stood up with and for us. We all had a blast doing group photos! Once the obligatory ‘formal’ photos were taken and our code names (Team Awesome and Team We’re Better) were created, we took it upon ourselves to up the ante with every photo. I’m sharing the silly photos because they are the ones that really represent our friends, ourselves and the general feel of the afternoon.

Team Awesome is in it to win it!

Team We're Better proves their physical strength.

Our flower girl (on the far right catching mad height) is a current student of mine.  She and the Ring Bearer (or Frodo as we called her that day) were both freshmen the year I started teaching.  Over the past four years they have become staples in my daily life, stress relievers during long days and ultimately, friends. I was so excited at how excited they were about being in the wedding!

The remarkable thing about our bridal brigades was that it was big mash-up of friend circles and not defined as ‘Deborah’s Friends’ or ‘Michelle’s Friends’.  (Ex: Caiti, the bridemsate on the far left is a former student of mine who has become really good friends with Deborah) There were definitely some distinctions but we never really had ‘sides’. Fake team names? Sure, we are competitive folks. But actual honest to goodness sides? No way. Another super awesome thing about our friends? We are all huge musical theatre geeks. This may not be a surprise! After all, I did meet Deborah in a production of Thoroughly Modern Millie.  With our competitive nature and musical theatre background,  it was just a little jump (pas-de-chat, perhaps?) to West-Side story-esque gangs. Soon enough, we were singing ‘Cool’.

There is one formal photo that is truly awesome.  Our photographer (and So You’re EnGAYged vendor!), Katherine O’Brien, took three photos on her super awesome film camera.  This one is definitely getting framed:

Want to see more from our wedding? Check out the previous recap posts:

Our First Look
Michelle Getting Ready
Deborah Getting Ready

Again, all photos by our fantastic photographer, Katherine O’Brien.