Here is what I do think about when I look back on our wedding:
On the day before the wedding, a ton of my family came to the Camp Wokanda, our wedding venue, and set to work. At one point, in all of the hustle and bustle, I took a moment and just stood and watched as the reception hall was transformed. One table full of cousins and uncles were stringing hundred of toy airplanes on fishing lines. Another uncle quietly hung those hundreds of toy airplanes from the rafters. A couple of aunts were decorating the tables. My Mom and my Cousin-in-law were setting up the seating chart, and a passel of younger cousins were buzzing around, running errands for everyone and generally being adorable. In that moment, it hit me how truly blessed I was. Another crew of family showed up the next day...and guess what? They immediately chipped in too: tying ribbons, helping to set up the arbor, carrying 50 benches to their proper locations and the whole time supporting the crazy bride as she ran slightly amok. It was never a question, my family just helped, and the best part is that we all ha an awesome time together.
--------------
My friends are utterly wonderful (and pretty much family at this point, they're stuck with me). All the ladies in the wedding party helped me so much in the months leading up to the wedding, but the day itself, they all really out did themselves.
I have three particularly close friends who where my bridesmaids (I had been in each of their weddings also, I was the last to tie the knot). They even let me borrow their wonderful husbands for our ushers. All the ladies got ready in a little cabin next to the dining hall/reception site. It was kind of dirty and there were spiders. It was definitely not the swanky, relaxing pictures you see on Pinterest of the bride and her bridesmaids sipping champagne in matching robes while getting their hair professionally done.
 |
| Our flower girl :) |
We all did eachother's hair, I did my own makeup, and my little cousin even gave one of the bridesmaids a quick last minute pedicure. It was crowded, it was loud, and it was completely wonderful. It reminded me of getting ready for a high school dance or having a sleep-over like we had done a hundred times before. Plus as a bonus, they all looked absolutely gorgeous as they stood by my side as I married the Love of my life.
When I was standing at the reception with soaking feet (more about that later), a bridesmaid grabbed me by the hand, dragged me too the bathroom (fending off well wishing wedding guests), got on her hands on knees to dry off my feet and put my clean and dry shoes on for me. Another friend gave a wedding speech so touching and intimate it still makes me cry to think of it, another bridesmaid was the last one at the reception hall helping my parents clean up, if that's not dedication I don't' know what is. I had many friends who where not in the bridal party, and they showed up and showed off too. One friend became an impromptu florist assistant/ coordinator. He was the one who carried my train over the ditch as I got ready to walk down the isle. When they realized all of our benches where wet , a friend and her husband grabbed towels and immediately started helping dry them off. I am blessed beyond measure with amazing friends.
Our wedding did not go as planned, and that was OK, infact it made it perfect. The plan was to have an outdoor wedding ceremony under a canopy of trees (that part did happen), an outdoor "cocktail hour" with a popcorn bar and yard games before the official reception (this is where things started to go wonky), and then an indoor reception.
The Friday before the wedding was a gorgeous June day, completely perfect, the day every brides dreams of. The wedding day was just as gorgeous, until around 4 o'clock. The rain was coming and we all knew it. My husband made the final call to go ahead with the outdoor ceremony and mid way through our pastor edited his sermon for length, which worked out well because immediately after the ceremony, when we were supposed to be having a receiving line, the heavens opened up. It didn't just rain, it monsoon-ed!
I truly loved our ceremony, because the rain held off, we were able to worship God under a canopy of His creation. After the ceremony, people literally had to go running for cover. Our ushers ferried people in our two golf carts as quickly as they could, people made friends sharing umbrellas and some people just dashed through the rain up to the dinning hall. My new husband and I spent the next few minutes embracing the rain and getting soaking wet for our wedding portraits, with an usher chasing us around with three giant umbrellas.
Our ushers got so wet helping our guests that one ended up ditching his shoes and shirt. They all looked like they had gone swimming in their clothes, and they were so generous and humble with their help it was amazing. While I embraced the rain and decided to lot let it ruin our day, I had one worry nagging in the back of my mind, My guests. I was so worried that my guests were miserably sitting in the dinning hall...dripping. Since we were supposed to be having a cocktail hour, our caterer was not ready for the 300 people to be in the reception area yet, so that meant no dinner yet. There was still the popcorn bar, and that seemed to go over well, we even had some stranded hikers take advantage of it as they waited for a break in the rain (that never did happen). As Evan and I waited to make our entrance into the reception, I was terrified that the rain had ruined the party and our guests hair/clothes/moods....until I took a peak through the window.
Quick side note: My husband is an Aerospace engineer and obsessed with airplanes and to celebrate this (and because we are giant kids), all the tables had piles of paper and instructions on how to build various types of paper airplanes.
The site that was before me as I looked through the window was amazing. Paper airplanes filled almost all of the available room, and laughter filled the rest. All of our family, friends, and church family were having an epic paper airplane battle. Love and happiness radiated from the room as our loved ones all bonded and laughed as the rain pelted away. My Grandma sweetly told me the rain made everything "cozy". God's timing is always perfect, even when it doesn't seem like it. Because of the rain, Evan and I were able to fully appreciate how amazing the people in our lives are, and how much they love us....soggy and all.
What I learned from my "very unperfect wedding":
1. If you pick a popular rock song as your wedding march, be prepared to break out crying in public when it starts playing over the grocery store loud speakers.
2. Your wedding guests where invited to your wedding for a reason, you love them. They truly wont mind if everything is perfect, and if they do care, they truly aren't focused on the right thing, and too bad for them. I found many wedding websites were so focused on not offending anyone or doing anything that someone might not like, they lost sight the point...its a party for people you love, and that love you.
3. DIY weddings are super fun, save quite a bit of money, but are a lot of work. Be prepared. Also DIY weddings lend themselves more towards the kind of eclectic camp/barbecue wedding we had. If you want a very shiny clean wedding, it may be harder to DIY some things.
4. It can be really fun to mix tradition and nontraditional elements of the wedding. It makes it personal. All of our wedding ceremony music was non-traditional and we loved it. Our vows were the tradition nondenominational christian vows and they were wonderful too! Don't be afraid of doing your own thing, and on the flip-side, don't be afraid of tradition because its "boring" or "uncool".
-------------
The Friday before the wedding was a gorgeous June day, completely perfect, the day every brides dreams of. The wedding day was just as gorgeous, until around 4 o'clock. The rain was coming and we all knew it. My husband made the final call to go ahead with the outdoor ceremony and mid way through our pastor edited his sermon for length, which worked out well because immediately after the ceremony, when we were supposed to be having a receiving line, the heavens opened up. It didn't just rain, it monsoon-ed!
Our ushers got so wet helping our guests that one ended up ditching his shoes and shirt. They all looked like they had gone swimming in their clothes, and they were so generous and humble with their help it was amazing. While I embraced the rain and decided to lot let it ruin our day, I had one worry nagging in the back of my mind, My guests. I was so worried that my guests were miserably sitting in the dinning hall...dripping. Since we were supposed to be having a cocktail hour, our caterer was not ready for the 300 people to be in the reception area yet, so that meant no dinner yet. There was still the popcorn bar, and that seemed to go over well, we even had some stranded hikers take advantage of it as they waited for a break in the rain (that never did happen). As Evan and I waited to make our entrance into the reception, I was terrified that the rain had ruined the party and our guests hair/clothes/moods....until I took a peak through the window.
Quick side note: My husband is an Aerospace engineer and obsessed with airplanes and to celebrate this (and because we are giant kids), all the tables had piles of paper and instructions on how to build various types of paper airplanes.
The site that was before me as I looked through the window was amazing. Paper airplanes filled almost all of the available room, and laughter filled the rest. All of our family, friends, and church family were having an epic paper airplane battle. Love and happiness radiated from the room as our loved ones all bonded and laughed as the rain pelted away. My Grandma sweetly told me the rain made everything "cozy". God's timing is always perfect, even when it doesn't seem like it. Because of the rain, Evan and I were able to fully appreciate how amazing the people in our lives are, and how much they love us....soggy and all.
What I learned from my "very unperfect wedding":
1. If you pick a popular rock song as your wedding march, be prepared to break out crying in public when it starts playing over the grocery store loud speakers.
2. Your wedding guests where invited to your wedding for a reason, you love them. They truly wont mind if everything is perfect, and if they do care, they truly aren't focused on the right thing, and too bad for them. I found many wedding websites were so focused on not offending anyone or doing anything that someone might not like, they lost sight the point...its a party for people you love, and that love you.
3. DIY weddings are super fun, save quite a bit of money, but are a lot of work. Be prepared. Also DIY weddings lend themselves more towards the kind of eclectic camp/barbecue wedding we had. If you want a very shiny clean wedding, it may be harder to DIY some things.
4. It can be really fun to mix tradition and nontraditional elements of the wedding. It makes it personal. All of our wedding ceremony music was non-traditional and we loved it. Our vows were the tradition nondenominational christian vows and they were wonderful too! Don't be afraid of doing your own thing, and on the flip-side, don't be afraid of tradition because its "boring" or "uncool".
