did they really think we'd behave ourselves?

We skipped lots of "traditional" stuff at our wedding. No bouquet or garter toss (I think they're lame & demeaning, respectively), no money dance (gross) unless you count having "10 Dollar" by M.I.A. in my playlist, and no "dance, monkey!"-type glass clinking allowed. We just got married, for peet's, sake ... wait 2 minutes, and you'll probably see us lip-locking of our own accord.

Of course, some people either a) couldn't control the impulse to try, or b) had developed both mild spastic conditions and an inability to stop clenching their cutlery (weird, I know) ... and there was a single glass-clinking incident. One. At which the Mr. & I turned and laid a serious smooch on the people nearest to us.


That was pretty much the only time anyone clinked a damn glass. Weird, huh? Although I did hear the other groomsmen were disappointed that the Mr. didn't try to slip Double-L the tongue.

And here we'd decided not to make any statement about our support for marriage equality, so as to avoid starting a political argument at our wedding.* Whoops!

* I did hear about the political argument that a few of our guests got into at dinner. Thank you to all involved for keeping your voices down, and thus allowing me to remain blissfully ignorant of said conversation.

when I need to remind myself ...

... that having my picture taken when I'm not wearing make-up is not cause for alarm, I'm going to look at this photo. I'm pretty sure I cried every bit of it off during the ceremony. And yet ...

(Seriously -- what is up with that pose in the entry below this?!?)

wedding recap: random reflections

There's something funny about having a wedding in a public place -- in our case, a city park that's also a tourist attraction. But the size of our wedding (30-ish people in a site that can hold up to 250) didn't exactly call for ushers, and without amplified music I somehow thought we'd be ... unobtrusive?

On such a gorgeous Saturday, the POFA is filled with people taking photos -- I saw a quinceñera and one other wedding party -- not to mention locals soaking up the nice weather. I figured that the folks setting up (the groomsmen & My Dad) might have to flash our permit to shoo people away from the area we'd reserved, but didn't think much more about it.

What I didn't expect was that when we turned to walk down the aisle together, a crowd had gathered & was watching us. As in, they hadn't just glanced our way & kept going -- they'd stopped & listened. We must've had at least 70 extra people who clapped & cheered for us during our recessional. Amazing.

Also: apparently it's good luck to get your picture taken with the bride & groom.

wedding recap: the ceremony

We got crazy-lucky with the venue for our ceremony. There's normally a two year waiting list for the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, but it's been undergoing a multi-phase earthquake retrofitting for several years. (The history of the POFA is a fascinating mix of art & happenstance -- it was never meant to be a permanent structure, but citizen's groups & philanthropists have banded together to save it several times. Those efforts continue to this day.) The previous phase finished early, which meant that it was available from mid-May through mid-August. Construction began again on Monday, so there won't be any more weddings there until at least late 2010. Like I said ... crazy-lucky!

This was the set-up for our intimate 30-person ceremony:

I was walked down the aisle by both by mom & dad.
I don't recall what I said at that moment, but it must've been funny.

The paper pomanders took forever to make, but really looked pretty.

Our officiant was a friend who's wedding we went to last year -- she's getting her master's degree in theology, and was thrilled that we asked her to marry us. Having someone who really knows us was wonderful.
Thank goodness she asked us to take each other's hands -- I was so emotional that I needed to hang onto him.

Part of our ceremony included honoring our parents.

Two of our friends gave readings.
This is our friend T reading Sonnet 119 by William Shakespeare. The groomsman on the far right, R, read "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" by Dr. Seuss. The fact that they came to us independently with those passages shows just how well our friends know us!

I've heard lots of people talk about how, after all the craziness of planning, the actual day just flies by ... but I felt incredibly present for the entire thing. The hugeness of the step we were taking, the love that we were expressing for each other, the people who were present to share the moment & support us -- it was almost overwhelming, but I didn't miss a thing.

We said our vows, exchanged rings ... and then we were married.

all pics except 2nd from bottom by Marija Thomas Photography

2nd from bottom by His Mom

I know, I know ...

I'm being lazy. I know. I'm supposed to be filing daily reports filled with pictures & ancedotes from "the big day" ... and yet, I'm not. I owe at least 3 posts to the good people at Weddzilla, who added me to their team just in time for my Blog Ennui to set in. So what gives?

Mostly, I've just been busy getting back to my regular life. The Mr. is hard at work, and I'm wrestling with the geometry problem of fitting two lives into this 1-bedroom apartment. And anyone who wants proof that this is True Love: I emptied a closet for him. I put clothes into boxes into storage. I put away my cashmere, dammit! (Sure, it's August in Los Angeles, and I'll swap those out with my tank tops for the 3 weeks in January when it gets brisk here -- but that's not the point.)

We've also been overwhelmed with the generosity of our friends. The UPS guy & I are totally bonding (I think he looks tired; he thinks we need an air conditioner -- apparently, I'm literally a hot mess) as he brings us more boxes of awesomeness, nearly every day. I'm itching to get cracking on the thank-yous, but the Mr. has An Idea for those, so it's going to take a little extra time.

Also, for everyone who asks me "when do I get to see pictures?", my stock reply is "as soon as I get to see them!" And after seeing the first few picks from our ceremony in San Francisco, our photographer is forever my hero & can take all the damn time she needs/pleases.

Here's just a little bit of what I'm talking about:

The boys after they finished primping. They clean up pretty nice.

Putting the hat/veil/thingy on for the first of many times (silly wind!) with T -- I can't thank her enough for all her help. (Not just with the hat.)

Checking my ... "dress" ... with His Sis. Double-stick tape is your friend!

More soon, I promise.

playing catch-up

I figure I should probably finish posting about all the stuff leading up to the wedding before I start on the recaps. (Besides, I might have more photos by then.) So: here's my last 2 major projects.

1) Programs: The Mr. & I had agreed on the idea of fan programs (you know -- an outdoor wedding in August) quite a while back. But we hadn't finalized details like music choices until frighteningly close to the event itself. Good thing: we had exactly enough paper left over from making the invitations for these. Bad thing: I spent the better part of 2 days assembling them, becoming progressively less & less concerned with any semblance of "perfection."

This is what I started with.

This is the finished product.
Getting from point A to point B entailed a second trip to Kinko's when I realized I hadn't saved the file as a PDF, which caused my pretty script font to reset to something I think is called "Nerd-tastic Robot", making yet another trip to Target when I ran out of glue dots, and a stop at Michael's on our way out of town because I ran out of ribbon after making about 10 of them. Good times. But hey -- they're pretty.

2) Flowers: In a move that suprised even me, I decided to "wing it" when it came to the flowers. The Mr. & I swung by the S.F. Flower Mart on Friday morning & bought stuff we liked that was the right colors. Good thing: nice hotels will bring you all the extra vases you ask for, and even cart away the copious trimmings. Bad thing: I was hideously optimistic in estimating how much time the assembly would require.

This is what we started with:
From left to right, those are jade roses, white lilies dyed blue, cream roses and white freesia. I'm normally not a fan of dyed flowers, but the lilies pulled the color into their petals along the veins, which created an amazing, delicate stripey effect. We both gasped out loud when we saw them. Total cost of the above 7 bunches: $50 cash. And we found street parking -- woot!

After going through a lot of this:
and thoroughly soaking the jeans I was wearing, I ended up with these:


My bouquet was made of the cream roses and the freesia. It smelled amazing.

And these are my ultra-fab b-maids holding their bouquets of the jade roses, freesia & lilies.
I finished making them & wrapping them with florist's tape the day before, and plunked them in those hotel-furnished vases. At about 11 a.m. the day of, I just wrapped the stems with dusty blue ribbon. The groom's boutoniere was a single cream rose to match mine, and the g-men each had a jade rose. (That part was the Mr's idea -- oh yes, he's that good!)

This is my favorite picture of them -- all the flowers together:
Ps: if you are useless at maintaing nicely-manicured hands, fluffy flowers are your friend!

first 4 pics by me
last 4 pics by Marija Thomas Photography

first peek

I love this picture. And to be clear: I totally would've jumped, too -- but I was afraid I'd never extract my heels from the grass.