WEDDING

This is going to be really long. I realized we forgot to ask someone to video tape the wedding!!!!!! So I have to write everything I can remember while it's fresh in my mind.

Yesterday was the most wonderfully beautiful day ever.

The girls and I got up for our hair and make up appointment at 9 and finished setting up the reception site. Fortunately the salon and the site are in the same building.

We got to my house around noon. The groomsmen were supposed to be there already, but of course they were half an hour late. So they got dressed and got ready for their pictures, and us girls ate some lunch and then got ready. We then had our girl picture session and after that Erik and I got to see each other. He waited at the front of the aisle, at the arbor that he and my dad built together.. It was so amazing! We never wanted to stop hugging each other! Then we started our couples photo shoot, but some serious thundering and lightning started happening. We had been told that the rain may start around 5, and our ceremony was at 4 so I wasn't too worried about it.... The ceremony was supposed to be outside in our backyard, btw... But this thunder was SO loud, so we knew the rain would be on top of us at any moment.. We ran inside and right when we stepped in the door it literally started DOWN POURING. A rain I haven't seen in awhile... A torrential downpour, if you will. It was crazy! It was only 2 o 'clock so we thought it might blow over, but decided to head to our rain location to finish up family pictures, and then if it cleared up we would come back. It took us a little while to get all the family members over to the church... by the time we got there, it was probably 3 o clock... still a crazy downpour of rain.. our pastor said she watched a tree get hit by lightning and fall down. And I don't remember the last time I heard thunder so loud!!!! Our niece, Abby, 2, was just in pieces, she was soooo scared! Her mom said that she NEVER gets that way during storms! But it was just sooo loud..

Luckily, the bridesmaids and groomsmen read my mind from my house and brought everything over from the church. We finished up pictures... but it was pretty hectic! Amazingly enough, I wasn't the least bit bummed about the weather.. We got to take a ton of pictures outside in the yard. And I think I was just in a euphoric state of mind and could not be fazed.

After family pictures were over, Pastor Barb took me aside and said she wanted to talk to us individually. She asked me, "Why are you walking towards Erik today? What do you love about him?" So I told her a couple things, and then she asked, "What about for the future, what are you looking forward to?" So I told her. Later one of my bridesmaids told me that she was watching me throughout this little interaction, and she said I was positively glowing!

We had scheduled about 45 minutes before the ceremony for downtime, and I was going to look over my vows then, but because of the rain and the move to the rain location, although it was only about 2 minutes from my house, there was little time before the ceremony. I quickly read through my vows, and made a couple of quick edits... and then it was time to go! The only way to go from our section of the church to where we were going to enter was to go outside... Although we were lacking the torrential rain fall of earlier, it was still raining quite a bit, so some one had to shuffle back and forth carrying an umbrella to escort the bridal party, me and the flower girls, over to the entrance. And then it was go time!

Ceremony Details!

The music was played by my childhood friend, Blake... and he did a BEAUTIFUL job. Actually, I should say that before the ceremony started, my dad and lyla were up at the piano next to him, and Lyla was clinking keys with Blake! AH! CAN'T WAIT TO SEE PICS OF THAT :)! Anyway. So the prelude music was "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds. The processional music was "River Flows in You" By Yiruma... So the bridal party entered, and then the flower girls... and they were so funny! They are 6, 4, and 2! One of them had to be carried down the aisle by her dad haha. And then I entered.... and .. I was bawling!! Right from the beginning! It was just so amazing, I was SO happy, and the song just made me die! I have been imagining myself walking down the aisle to that song, and to finally have it happening was too much. Many, many tears. I reached the front and hugged my also crying dad, and then I was with Erik... Our pastor, my best friend's mom, said some beautiful words to us. And we said, "I do." And then we had our readings... Colossians 3:12-17 and a quote from Louis de Bernieres.. I love this quote so I am sharing it here.

"Love is a temporary madness; it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion. That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.”

Erik's sisters did the readings... and Kari, who read the second one, was all choked up, which made me cry a lot, plus the reading, I looove... the combo of the two was too much.

And then Pastor Barb said a short meditation on the readings we had chosen.. And I cried a lot more. She was saying how we chose a reading from literature and a reading from Scripture, and then she said that she had something to read from our own words, and read what we had said privately to her before the ceremony began.. Ours both started with "She's an amazing mother" and "He's an amazing father." The things that Erik had said were so sweet and heartfelt, and I couldn't help but to cry more... Pastor Barb said to remember these and read them because they are our own gospel... I said my vows, which I can share here sometime, but if I did it now this would be EXTRA long. Actually I didn't cry too much during my vows.. very close, but no tears. I was getting down to business, I guess. And then Erik said his vows, and then I did cry. They were so sweet and so heartfelt... Ahhh. I'll share both our vows here in another post! Mostly so I can remember them always.

Followed by exchanging of the rings... I forgot that my MOH was supposed to give the ring to Pastor Barb and not to me so I reached for it... and then I was embarrassed and buried my face in Erik. Woops! And then we lit our unity candle... we had a candle for each of us that we lit, and then we both held a smaller one and lit it for Lyla. By the way, Lyla was SO good throughout the whole thing. She was right up front with my mom the whole time.. and making lots of noises.. "Blah blah blah bah bah bah"... Right before our vows she was doing it and Erik was like, "Lyla wants to say her vows first." It was so funny :)

Then ... declared hubby and wife and then we finally got to kiss and leave!!!!! We didn't do a receiving line because of the weather and it would've had to have been outside because the church was TINY.. we fit ALMOST all 140 people inside though... some were standing in the back. Oh well. Everyone was there, that's what matters.

So then.. a trolley to the reception.. It was meant to take us to the beach for pics but, again, because of the weather, a change of plans. We went straight to the reception site for pics there. Our photographers were SO awesome and very adaptable... Lots of people can snap a cool picture, but I would say not many are so adaptable, and so involved in all the time leading up to the event. They really helped us keep ourselves moving and getting things done and getting over to the church. I really think we would have been in bad shape without them! Anyway so we had to take pictures in this random empty room, and then some other little spots for pics of just Erik and I..

Reception Details

Entered to Cemetery Walk II by Umphreys Mcgee. Sat and ate. Tried to make rounds to all the tables and failed. Hopefully I talked to mostly everyone before the night was over though. Cut the cake and tried to talk to more people.. It's just that some people talk a LOT and then before you can move other people come over to join in on the conversation so we found ourselves stuck at times.... a receiving line would have helped that a lot... oh well. Our first dance was to a live version of My Beloved One by Ben Harper.. and then we danced with Lyla to Never Alone by Lady Antebellum.... and then our father/daughter mother/son dance was to You'll be in my Heart by Phil Collins... My dad and I started the dance out and about halfway through, Erik and his mom came in. My dad was very teary eyed and saying many sweet things to me, and he is a man of few words, so I got really emotional as well.

The bouquet toss... well, first try, I tossed it and it hit this beam on the ceiling and fell to the ground. And then I tossed it too low for everyone to try and reach it, and it went straight to my friend Michelle, who was right in the front... good luck Michelle! hehe. And then ... garter toss... Erik started to do it rubber band style backwards, and the DJ said it doesn't work if you do that, but Erik did it anyway, and it worked awesome actually, but the hilarious thing was that the garter landed on a tiny tiny string going across the ceiling .. Lanterns were hanging on it.. We couldn't believe it!!!! Everyone was cracking up... One of our photographers told Erik to shake the lantern to make it come down, but the lantern just broke off.... woops. Someone threw something at it and it came down and landed in the hands of my friend Michael Cho who proceeded to wear it on his head the rest of the night. And then the dancing started. I was really busy meeting and greeting and dancing, I didn't even get to eat my cake!!!!! How sad, because I love cake. Ours was a gift from Erik's aunt!

We danced all night! Many people had too many drinks, which was quite hilarious. Our DJ did a great job and people literally danced the entire night! He said that usually doesn't happen at the weddings he does.

We got a lot of compliments on the wedding, which made me feel so great because I had put so much work into it!!!! Everyone LOVED the centerpieces, the whole ceremony... everything! We did maple syrup made by us.. well. by my dad. And a couple of other cool things.... Pictures will do them more justice than what I'm saying here.

And then... Bed! Now we're relaxing/getting ready for our honeymoon to Costa Rica.. SO excited but SO SO SO SO SO worried about leaving Lyla for a week. Not that I don't trust our parents or Erik's parents. I just worry I'll be a mess without her! And this weekend was so busy I feel like I didn't have enough time to be with her. I wish we had another week before leaving just to snuggle her! But it will go by really fast..... i think.

One of the photographers has a fashion blog that I like and she said this really nice thing about the wedding:

"It rained today. A lot. And the ceremony was supposed to be outside. Luckily the couple had a back up location! I have to say that today’s couple really touched me. They have a beautiful daughter together and their love for each other is so apparent. The way they looked at each other all day and how calm they were while the rain poured down was so amazing. I choked up a little during the ceremony, but luckily I get to hold a big camera in front of my face so no one could tell. p.s. even Kai said he got a little emotional – and that’s sayin’ a lot. I haven’t seen him cry since our wedding (he was so cute … all red faced and teary eyed at the front of that aisle)."

This just makes me a smile a lot because we don't really know them that well, and to hear that our wedding tugged at their heart strings really means a lot. Even though our wedding day is really just about us :)

Wow, blog post of the century. If you made it this far either you 1) really love me 2) really love weddings 3) don't have a life. jk.. hahah