Well we won't get wedding photos for a month yet, we just got a HD to ship off to our videographer so we can have a copy of all the raw footage as well, and we still haven't even gotten honeymoon pictures posted to facebook. And Renee's still in the middle of thankyous (I'm not allowed to do them), trying to knock out some every night. Today is our one month anniversary, which is hard to believe. We've also scheduled a house warming for the first weekend of August, so we're trying to get the spare room cleaned up and move in the remainder of Renee's stuff in there (her bed, so we have a spare, her desk, so we can both work in there, and her filing cabinet. So we probably won't post any pics of the house until we get everything in order.
The wedding was fantastic. It basically went off perfectly with one scary hitch. Recalling details is somewhat hard, things are sort of a blur.
The night before was rehearsal, Alea was very nearly late. She got stuck in NHL playoffs (game five or six, I think) traffic trying to get to the church. The most memorable thing about rehearsal was Alea sprinting down the aisle when she did arrive. We whipped through the ceremony twice and everything seemed good. We went off to rehearsal dinner at Renee's favorite restaurant. There we had a few speeches from bridal party people who wanted to speechify, and gave out gifts, Renee had gotten jewelry for her bridesmaids and I got kindles for my groomspeople. I figured this was a good way to bridge the gap of experience between all my friends, my brother and I grew up playing videogames as did Dusty and I though we would also trade all our scifi & star wars books back and forth. Cristina and I had tons of college classes together and are constantly recommending books to each other, and well Alea=Ender's Game. I didn't like any of the other groomsparty gifts that were suggested on wedding sites, very few worked for a mixed gender party, and they rarely seemed commensurate in value to the typical bridal party gift of jewelry. That night, my family and I relaxed around the pool, then my brother, cousin and I went out for beers.
I got to the church with my groomsman, Dusty, and my brother. We met my dad there (since he had to ferry my mom and sisters around earlier as they got hair and makeup done). And everyone got dressed and waited around for the photographer. We got pictures with my wedding party and he got some of me by myself. Alea got to decorate the car. Then it was kind of a waiting game, trying to remember everything I was supposed to do. About twenty minutes before the wedding lots of people started arriving. I got a bit tired of accepting all the congratulations, and didn't want to get tied up, so I went and 'hid' in the area where we'd be entering from. I was somewhat nervous, but just focused on breathing and trying not to stress about anything, or really think of anything that could go wrong. Just breathing seemed to work, though every single person that came back there kept continually asking me if I was okay, which was irritating, because I felt fine for the most part, it was to avoid stress of too many people that I absconded.
In any event, the groom's party soon entered and then waited for all the bridal party to come down the aisle. Renee looked absolutely wonderful, and once I saw her, all nerves vanished. The church has a great organ, and the Bridal March or whatever sounds fabulous on it.
Due to some confusion with the rehearsal, I jumped the gun a bit at the point where I say, "I will" which was before her dad says, "her mother and I" because in rehearsal, the pastor said he'd ask me the question to which I was supposed to respond I will. He asked a question, paused and I responded, turned out he had a few lines he was supposed to say before I gave my answer, oh well, it got a good laugh.
Then, I went down to Renee and her dad, and we followed the pastor back up on the stage too soon (I did know we weren't supposed to go up yet, but Renee started, and so I had to follow (this may have been for the best).
As we were walking up, Renee's Dad went to sit down, But he was struggling to sit, and sort of half-collapsed into his pew, clutching his
left side. Although Renee's back was to that side, because we'd turned sideways at that point, she caught it out of the corner of her eye and I could tell she was freaked out. I could see pretty clearly Renee's mom, loosening his tie, unbuttening his jacket and undoing the button on his collar. He didn't look good, but was waving off help somewhat, one of Renee's mom's good friends that was helping with the wedding is also an ER nurse (as is her husband) so they were basically up at the front anyway, and moved in to help her dad, though he was waving off assistance.
The pastor had no clue this was happening, I was keeping up with it with occasional glances over there, and Renee, who couldn't turn around or crane her head around, kept trying to look sideways to see. I kept mouthing to her, it's okay, and "he's okay" because he did look alright, in general, and there were a lot of people there that I trusted that if a heart attack were happening would stop the ceremony to get him to a hospital.
All of this happened in about thirty seconds or less, most of the audience not watching Mike was as unaware as the pastor, and by this point, the pastor started asking us questions, and then there were hymns and music and readings and more questions and stuff and then the vows. All of those details, despite being involved in all the picking and choosing of it are pretty much a blur. I know I helped pick the readings, but I can barely remember my sisters as distinct individuals reading, it's very blurred. I know we had the John Lennon song, "Grow Old with Me" (in the style of Mary Chapin Carpenter) sung, but I barely remember it. and we had Renee's favorite hymn. We walked out to Water music on the organ. :-p Sorry I'm bad with so many of these details.
We got the rings on with little difficulty, I managed to get Renee's over about half her knuckle and she discretely with basically one hand got it on the rest of the way, not sure how she did that, it was like a magic trick, she flexed her hand and I saw fingers move and suddenly it was on. No such luck with mine, she couldn't get it over my knuckle so I had to force it over, since it's a rather tight fit.
For the lighting of the unity candle, all four of our parents were supposed to come up, but via some silent agreement/signaling, just the moms came up to do it, since Renee's dad was in no shape to do so.
We exited, waited for the bridal party and family to exit, we got word that Renee's dad was okay: he never wears collared shirts or ties, and his collar was too tight and restricted his circulation a little too much, so he was having trouble breathing. On top of this he had the stress of wanting to be perfect for his little girl, so that whole walking down the aisle and giving her away part was stressful. Additionally, he hadn't eaten anything that day because he was nervous (wedding was around 4pm), but had a bud light, so his blood sugar was way low. By the time we got to pictures he was back to his normal self, the water and crackers had rejuvenated him.
By the time the bridal party had exited, Renee and I went back in down the side entrance and dismissed all the guests pew by pew. This gave everyone a chance to hug us or shake hands, congratulate us, etc. And it gave us a chance to acknowledge all our guests, it took maybe five-ten minutes but was definitely worth it. This was special to Renee because a huge part of the guests at church were people she knows there but who we couldn't also invite to the reception. Interesting side effect, we actually had time to eat at the reception without being interrupted every 10 seconds by someone else (we also made our rounds at the reception) who wanted to congratulate us because they all got that opportunity at the church. Honestly, while at our sweetheart table we were photographed by maybe half a dozen people and approached with a congratulations by fewer than that.
On the drive to the reception, our driver, a close family friend, thought it was a terrific idea to talk about what happened to Mike for half the drive, that made me mad, but I tried to diffuse the topic and change it to other topics.
At the reception, we got on a golfcart with our photographers and drove to the pond on the golfcourse for some pictures. Then we went back to the reception hall to a private room so Renee could freshen up and have her dress bustled and such like, by the time all that was done, cocktail hour upstairs was over and it was time for our grand entrance.
We had the bridal party enter in pairs, to "I'll be There for You", since Friends is Renee's favorite show of all time, and Renee and I entered to "The Power of Love" from Back to the Future (which got a huge cheer), and imo was one of Renee's best music choices of the night.
After our grand entrance we went immediately into our first dance, Zac Brown Band's "Free" which is 'our song'. We'd practiced dancing some, so we didn't have to do the hug and wobble style of 'dancing' so I got in a couple twirls, but we didn't try any dips since we'd barely practiced those.
Then we sat down, and they started serving salad, after the salads were served we had the speeches from the best man and maid of honor. My brother winged it, which is what I did at his wedding, and it was fine and nice, I've no clue what he said, other than, "I stopped playing videogames with him when he got better at them than I was." Megann had a lovely speech all written out. Neither were very long.
Then I think we did father daughter dance and mother son dance. And salad got cleared and entrees were served. During dinner, we had the two fathers give their speeches, both of which were lovely.
Then the party got started, the little girls had long since claimed the dance floor and were entertaining everyone. We got a money dance started (3 songs long) and netted almost 400, which came in handy on the honeymoon. We did lots of other dancing, helped out by our amazing Deejay. We did rounds. Our photographers stole us once or twice for pictures on the balcony, and during one dance I got a big dip and kiss in on Renee.
Then there was cake, Renee got my nose with frosting (deliberately) so since she was sneaky about dodging my attempt to return I got her nose on a second try.
More dancing and sooner than I would have thought, the night was over. Dusty drove us to our hotel, where Renee and her dad had left her car that morning.
It took nearly a half hour for the bellman of the very swanky Langham hotel to bring our bags up. Infuriating, learned my lesson not to have bellman when we could easily carry them ourselves. Also the fireplace didn't light itself, and there were no matches or a lighter.
But the hotel was Lovely, and it was in all a great experience.
The next morning we had some pastry and coffee at the hotel restaurant before packing up and heading over to Renee's house. We stopped at the camera store on the way for a new battery, because I found out at the hotel room that my camera battery had not held the charge, despite my charging it the day before. This was probably good because we had a brand new battery for the honeymoon. Then we met some of Renee's family and all my out of town family at Renee's house for brunch. There we got to spend some family time and then open all the wedding gifts/cards. Then Renee and I were off to our house. She decided to repack her suitcases and I went off to the bank to deposit all the checks/cash so that we'd have money for the honeymoon (the wedding gifts we got just about perfectly covered all our honeymoon expenses, except for the rental car upgrade). I got back to the house and made lemonade from our lemon tree since my family was coming by so my grandma could see our place before she left town. Then they were gone and a few minutes later our town car pulled up to take us to the airport. Then we were on our way to Maui!
