Real Weddings: Our Wedding Day

Today I finally got around to picking photos for our wedding album (yes, 19 months later...) and it took me back to that wonderful, amazing, fall day a year and a half ago. It then dawned on me that while we talk about being newlyweds on this blog, we haven't actually talked about the day we got married! So here is the short long version...

We got married on November 28, 2009 in Clarkston, MI (my home town). Because I am Catholic and Nick is Jewish, we actually had two ceremonies. We were legally married in the Catholic church, a decision we decided from day one was best for us, and then we had a symbolic Jewish ceremony later in the evening at the reception hall.

The entire week before the wedding I was a mess, the events leading up to the wedding were almost comical at this point and I was ready to just say “screw it” and elope in Las Vegas! I was already very stressed out due to breaking 3 of my toes and having 5" heels to wear on my wedding day, a family friend died the week of the wedding, my mom, sister, and nephew all got sick with the swine flu and my dad had come down with some sort of sickness that kept him in bed until about 30 minutes before the ceremony (little did I know that he would end up in the ER at midnight, but more on that later...).. Somehow, the morning of the wedding, we woke up to clear blue skies and 50 degree weather- at least I had this going for me!! My friend Elisa came over did my hair, and some of the girls in the wedding party, and then I went to get my makeup done. My photographer met us at the salon where I was getting my hair done and that's when it really started to feel real!

After my make up was set we headed home, packed the cars and headed to the church. I got dressed at the church, took some pictures with my girls, and then it was time to go!

The minute my dad walked me to the beginning of the aisle all of my stress melted away. My dad, who you would never know had a 104 degree fever, kept whispering things in my ear like ''let's skip'' and ''don't fall'', and it took everything for me not to crack up.

The ceremony was beautiful and really touching. The priest talked a lot on how to combine our two faiths into one and using that to teach us to listen and learn from one another. We didn't have a full mass as we felt it would be long and awkward being that about 60% of our guests were Jewish, but the ceremony still lasted about 40 minutes.

After the ceremony we headed to our little downtown area and took some photos of the wedding party. 

Cocktail hour started at 6pm at our reception hall, Indianwood Country Club, and at 6:45 our Jewish Ceremony started. It was so amazing to be able to have this ceremony. It was much more personalized than the Catholic ceremony as we got to write our own vows and letters to each other that were then read aloud. I was so happy to be able to incorporate all of Nick's traditions and customs into our wedding day. During this ceremony I had actually changed to wear my mom's wedding dress from 1979. Only my mom knew I was doing this- the look on my dad's face when he realized what I was wearing was priceless. 

 After the Jewish ceremony, the real party started. We danced until midnight and everyone had a great time. Even with all of the stress of our day and worrying about my family, I would still not change a thing about our wedding day. Looking back now, we laugh at everything that went on, but it was such an amazing day filled with love that I would never take back!

***After the reception, my dad got rushed to the ER by my two brother-in-laws and he was there for a week. Turns out he had some sort of infection. The whole night I was so worried about him, but I didn't know just how bad sick he actually was. It really makes me love my dad even more that although all night I told him to leave the reception and go to the Dr's, and that his health was more important than my wedding day, he not only stayed, you would have never, ever known just how sick he was.