Once upon a time there was a beautiful Princess, who loved books and was raised by the kind and benevolent King and Queen to be not only crafty and clever, but generous and giving. She did many good deeds for the kingdom, volunteering her time and talents, where she met a silly minister and they quickly became friends.
Every summer the Princess and the Queen would meet with the silly minister to throw elaborately-crafted, themed parties and care for many tired, smelly walking people.
They had great fun.
And raised money and junk for charity also.
Every summer the Princess and the Queen would meet with the silly minister to throw elaborately-crafted, themed parties and care for many tired, smelly walking people.
They had great fun.
And raised money and junk for charity also.
One day the beautiful Princess met her Prince Charming and knew there something special, magical and musical happening between them. They faced many trials and tribulations, faced fire swamps, slayed dragons and fell in love all storybook-like.
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| I worked this into the cerermony quietly right before the vows. From 123Photobucket.com |
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| ACTUAL VENUE. The ceremony took place on that landing on the right. TheCopernicusCenter |
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| Bodhran, Celtic drum. from musicbrokers.com |
The silly minister stumbled through the ceremony with a shaky, mouse voice through tears and some people in attendance even said they could hear her.
Meh, it's all legal and done now.
The End
And that’s pretty much the story of my first wedding.
It was the MOST FUN wedding. The crafty bride did so much of everything herself, I'm amazed by some people. She had paper flowers made from pages of books, mixed in with REAL flowers for her bouquet and everyone's flowers.
I didn't get a picture, but here's an example below from good ole Pinterest. They were gorgeous and very clever, like everything she does.
The tables were all named for fictional places like Hogsmeade, Gotham and Emerald City and we sat in Casterly Rock. We made sure like Lannisters to always pay our debts, though we didn't have sex with our siblings or murder anyone, really anyone at all.
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Yes, each and every table had these gorgeous candle pots and 3 beautiful hard-cover books like this one. At the rehearsal dinner, each table had a painted quill in an inkpot, which she crafted with mod podge and ink herself. She not only was a Girl Scout, she works for them.
Perfect day, beautiful couple, wonderful families. I was very glad to be a part of it. It's one of the best things I've ever done actually. Knowing I was part of joining two amazing people, and stepping a wee bit outside of my comfort zone. I used to have a pretty bad fear of any kind of public (or even mostly private) speaking. While volunteering for the 3-Day Walk for Breast Cancer, ironically where I met the bride and her mother, they needed speakers for several training and Crew meetings.
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| The Queen, bride's mother, no doubt the reason she's so amazing. |
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| Look how THRILLED I appear to be. Yeah, enthusiasm took awhile.....still waiting. |
It's the closest we come in our time to slaying a dragon and I highly recommend it.
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| The flower girl carried a sign like this one. thewritersloop.me I didn't have my camera with me most of the day for pictures. |
Well done, Reverend! It sounds like a FABULOUS wedding! Just the kind I like to go to -- imaginative, unique, not the same old cookie-cutter style.
ReplyDeleteYES, exactly! I forgot to mention the flowers! They made paper flowers from pages of books, which they added to REAL flowers and it looked absolutely gorgeous. I never got a picture of them, I was too caught up in the fairytale. The Mother of the Bride and her daughters are some of THEE most crafty, well-read people I've ever met. They are the reason I started reading George RR Martin's books, which I often say is the best thing that ever happened to me in my life, so they're obviously some of my favorite people ever. It was such an honor to be part of this day.
DeleteI came back to see the new photos you posted -- those book-page flowers are AMAZING!
DeleteAren't they clever?? The men's boutineers (sp?) were book flowers and they really looked great.
DeleteAwww yeah! Nicely done! This wedding sounds like it would have been a blast to attend. My wife made the flowers for our wedding, too (out of different quirky materials), but she didn't use book pages. That's an awesome touch. Give me this kind of wedding over a cheesy "Disney princess" wedding any day.
ReplyDeleteIt was definitely very clever. I LOVE when people put their own touches on it. Good for your bride making her own flowers, that is very cool. I know I don't have that in me, so we just ran away to Vegas and had a coke-out Elvis handle all the little touches for our wedding. It was pretty perfect, and really fun.
DeleteThank you! You would have LOVED all the crafty, bookish things. I'm sooo glad I didn't donk anything up, it's like a weight is lifted!
ReplyDeleteYay for Joy! You did it, and I am sure you did a beautiful job!
ReplyDeleteThanks Sarah. Half the place couldn't even HEAR me, but the half of the room where the speaker was facing said they heard most of it. Whoopsy. Should have done a sound check. I wanted to, but for some reason most of the dress clothes I have don't have good pockets, so I didn't carry my phone with me. There weren't any clocks, so I had no idea what time it was. I should have borrowed a watch maybe ? Who knows, my hindsight isn't even 20/20! But the bride and groom heard me, and that's the key thing. It was a great experience.
DeleteThe reception is held in the main hall. The place was gorgeous and perfect for a wedding. I have been to several weddings here but it hasn't gotten old. The Wedding location in Chicago is absolutely beautiful and the views are breathtaking.
ReplyDeleteI didn't get to see most of the building, this reception was held in a beautiful room to the right of this staircase with exposed brick, lots of character. It IS a great place, very classicly beautiful and not the same as every other wedding venue! It's called The Copernicus Center if anyone reading is interested, on Lawrence in Chicago. Gorgeous.
DeleteYou are spectacular. The entire wedding sounds fantastic. Like you, i just love when a wedding is anything but the traditional mash-up of money and bridezilla. Congratulations on officiating your first marriage and I hope that you have the opportunity to perform many more.
ReplyDeletehahaha far from it. Just helping out a friend, glad to be able to be a part of their day. And YES! I've been to sooooo many weddings and 99% of them are exactly the same. zzZZZzZZzZzzz it's nice when someone puts their own touch into things. I hope so too. My husband says I should advertise my services, but I'm not sure it's the kind of thing you can really charge much money for ? plus it would almost always be on the weekends I'm guessing, and almost always in dress clothes. As I always say, if I have to dress up? I better be getting a juicy paycheck!
DeleteCongratulations to the happy couple! And, of course, congrats to you too for getting through a public speaking event. I'm also not a fan of those but I somehow manage to muddle my way through. Maybe you could help me give some pointers to the 87% of the members of all the presentation groups in my classes.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Vinny. I wish I could offer some useful advice, at first when I HAD to speak publicly, mostly small groups for work, I just focused on the task and never looked up from the laptop I was conducting the meeting from. That helped, but it probably creeped out clients and co-workers. During the wedding when I felt like I was going to cry, I just focused on the WORDS printed on my note cards, like looking at the letters and not thinking about their meaning. And I said "Mawwaige" like that priest from The Princess Bride, but quietly so only the couple and I could hear it. That made us laugh and we forgot about crying until the end. Sooooo, probably not helpful stuff over here.
DeleteI would say PRACTICE. When I had to give demonstrations, trainings, and even for this I read the words a thousand times so at least I felt confident I knew the material. That helped with nerves at least ? Yeah, I won't be selling a Public Speech Workshop anytime soon.
Congrats! I love an atypical wedding.
ReplyDeleteMe too!
DeleteWow! Nicely done, ma'am! And what a creative wedding. I love that. I always feel like weddings are so stiff and formal. A little imagination goes a long way.
ReplyDeleteCongrats to you and to the happy couple!
You're right. Especially when you get to that point in your life when you go to at least 3-4 weddings every year. They all seem the same, and it's hard to even remember who did what. Thanks, Sandy!
DeleteWow! I love that the first wedding you officiate is so very unique!! Congrats!!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, when I first saw the title of this post, I mistook it to be a post about your first marriage! LOL! Then, I remembered that you had posted pics on Facebook!
Thank you. hahaha, I need to work on my titles, I stink at that. Half the time I forget to put ANY title and it just grabs the first sentence of the post! So I try to put up a working title and come up with something better before hitting "Publish" but like many, I failed to do that with this one. Thanks for reading.
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