QOTD: tell us about your wedding

[awkwardpenguin]

For those of you who have had weddings or commitment ceremonies, tell us about them.  What was the theme/vibe?  How many guests?  Highlight of the day?

For those that haven't had one, do you think some day you might like to?  Why/why not?  Any fantasies about what it would be like?

Bonus question because I am curious: did you picture/fantasize about your wedding when you were growing up?

[2moms2b]

We had a wedding in 2007 even though it is not recognized by our state. It was a bittersweet affair. We had about 45 people attend. M's entire family came while my family (all but my little brother and sister) no showed. I had a big feeling that was going to happen as my mom told me how hard it was for her but it still hurt like hell. My mom wouldn't even allow me to invite her family as she wasn't ready for me to be out to them. They weren't ready and I was being too stubborn to wait. Now looking back it's a subject we never speak of as it drags up too many feelings for both parties.

We plan on doing a another small casual ceremony when we make 10 years (next year) and my parents should come to this one. I told M I wanted to do this as I want to be able to look back and remember it being a happy day not one that brings so much joy mixed with pain. I hate pretending it pretty much never happened.

The original one was in a barn on a ranch. It was amazing scenery. I wore a dress and M wore a suit. The next one we are wearing khaki shorts and white shirts with the boys matching us. We want to do it outdoors in October/November when the weather gets back into the low 80s. We are doing it in a field on her parents property and inviting a ton more people as we will only have to pay for food and drinks. I smile thinking about the next one.

[2moms2b]

Oh on the fantasizing part, I pretty much told everyone that asked I was never getting married as I didn't believe in marriage. At the time I was too young to really vocalize why. My mom would tell me to hush I was being silly and of course I was going to get married. Too bad it looks like I still won't have a legal marriage for a while living in the great state of Texas.

[ct]

This is my favorite topic

I spent 2 years planning our wedding and loved everything about it. It was smallish (50ppl) and at a winery. The weather was absolute perfection (evening, late august). We had an outdoor ceremony out in the vineyard followed by a cocktail hour in the winery's tasting room and dinner under the stars on this beautiful stone patio. The whole day had a casual cocktail-party feel. Aside from the police checking in briefly because the alarm had gone off across the street, it was drama-free (and even that wasn't very much drama). It was a really magical summer evening. I wish I could do it a million times again

[twotrue]

What was the theme/vibe?  We got married in Provincetown, MA but we did not have a beach wedding. It was in a lovely little garden of a B&B.  I don't know about theme/vibe.  I guess small, family, low-key (although that depends on what wedding you are comparing it to), and fun.

How many guests?  About 40.  Everyone except 6 people flew in from CA so this was a much larger wedding than we expected.  We seriously didn't expect so many people to fly out to support us.

Highlight of
the day? I loved our ceremony. And K surprised me with mac&cheese in a martini glass at our reception.  And our first dance was fun.  But I think what I really liked was going out to the bars after all was done.  I changed out of my dress but still wore my veil (which is one of my favorite things EVAH!) and pretty much all of the under age 50 guests came out with us.  We danced, drank, played games, and just had a great time.  Then of course we got late night pizza as all good P-Town partiers do and spent the remaining hours of the night chatting away in the garden of the B&B we had rented out. 


Bonus question because I am curious: did you picture/fantasize about your wedding when you were growing up?  Yes.  I had wedding magazines from an early age and worked as a professional wedding coordinator for awhile.

[ElsaVonM]

We got married in Boston about three weeks after the law changed in 2004. We'd been engaged and planning the wedding for a year, so the timing was coincidental and amazing The day of our wedding also turned out to be the day of the Pride parade. We had a late morning wedding at a church near Copley Square and an afternoon reception at a lovely, sunlight-filled restaurant that we rented out for the occasion. The parade was going by as our guests walked to the reception, and the guys on the leather bar float cheered for us. At the reception we had a classical guitarist, unlimited Champagne, and lots of fun finger food (dates wrapped in bacon, bruschetta, all the good stuff). My brother gave a toast and we just went around to different tables and talked to people and laughed and ate cake. It was very relaxed and I had too much Champagne.

We had, I think, about 65 guests. Both of our families were 1000+ miles away, so we didn't expect cousins or less-close friends to attend. We didn't really have a theme, but our invitations had periwinkle and pale sage green flowers on a white background, and we had the cake made to match, and our bridesmaids wore similar colors. The cake was divine - two orange Grand Marnier layers and one amaretto layer from The Icing on The Cake in Newton. Their cake is beyond.

After the wedding we went back to our hotel to relax before meeting our out-of-town guests for dinner at Marche Movenpick, which is sadly gone now. That place was fun for groups. It was a great day.

I couldn't pick a highlight, but one thing that sticks out in my mind is that my aunt burst into tears when she saw us in our wedding dresses. She was a young lesbian in the 70s and it was just unbelievable to her that we were about to be legally married. That was a good hug

[eratmama]

For those of you who have had weddings or commitment ceremonies, tell us about them.  What was the theme/vibe? Friday evening, urban outdoorsy

 How many guests?  125 ended up coming. We could have gone smaller, but it was important to my parents that many of the people invited to my brother's wedding were also invited to ours. I took it as a sweet show of support.

Highlight of the day? I loved the day. One highlight- standing inside glass windows watching all these people from different parts of our lives come together. Preparing to walk down the aisle.

I have a distinct memory of standing arm in arm with L listening to sweet toasts.




[/span]Bonus question because I am curious: did you picture/fantasize about your wedding when you were growing up?[/quote]


Not really. I dreamed about certain parts, but I wasn't "that girl"

[ballandchain]

We got married in MA in August 2007, at an old barn that had been converted into an event space. Our ceremony was outside on conservation land and the reception was inside the barn. We kept things relatively casual; I wore a simple ivory dress and my wife wore linen pants and a button-down shirt. We had local wildflowers for centerpieces, made over 100 jars of strawberry jam for favors, and served brownie sundaes instead of wedding cake. I loved it.

We had about 125 guests. My dad told me he had 3 daughters and had planned on paying for 3 weddings, so we invited most of our family and friends. I loved walking down the aisle together with everyone we loved standing on either side of us.

[kershnic]

Apr 16, 2013 13:48:20 GMT -5 ct said:

This is my favorite topic

:Y:

[kershnic]

Apr 16, 2013 13:34:07 GMT -5 awkwardpenguin said:

For those of you who have had weddings or commitment ceremonies, tell us about them.  What was the theme/vibe?  How many guests?  Highlight of the day?

For those that haven't had one, do you think some day you might like to?  Why/why not?  Any fantasies about what it would be like?

Bonus question because I am curious: did you picture/fantasize about your wedding when you were growing up?

For those of you who have had weddings or commitment ceremonies, tell us about them.  What was the theme/vibe?  How many guests?  Highlight of the day?

We had a legal wedding that was just us plus my sister, BIL, and nephews.  Took place outside at a UU church in MA at a labyrinth.  There were wild turkeys and it was really really hot and I had hand foot and mouth disease.  

Our *real* wedding ceremony was at my childhood church (UU) in Minnesota officiated by my parents' minister, and the reception was at a downtown Minneapolis mansion that is used for such events.  We had about 125 guests.  Our colors were a very jewel tone red and a dark eggplant purple - the red was DW's and purple was mine.  Our bridesmaids wore the same dress in the colors of whose side they were on.  We put a ton of effort into coordinating the flower colors and ribbons to coordinate and reflect both sides but be her color for her and mine for me.  It was evening and a pretty classic mansion wedding and I loved it.  I think I might have enjoyed planning it and reminiscing about it (including looking at the pictures!) more than the actual day though.  Being the center of attention and stressing over all the little details was a lot of things.  We did a minimoon afterwards to a B&B which was lovely.  Oh yeah, and it was November in Minnesota and a brilliant clear sunny 65 degree day!!  That kind of luck is impossible.

Bonus question because I am curious: did you picture/fantasize about your wedding when you were growing up?

No, not really.  I remember playing MASH with friends and not really getting why they wanted to obsess about things like wedding colors.  I always figured I'd get married (to a man, I thought) but wasn't very excited about the wedding planning part.  Even when my sister got married when I was in college I thought my mom and sister had totally lost their marbles when it came to planning.  But then I did the same thing.  

[ssg73]

We were married 5 years ago last week in Boston. We had the ceremony and reception at the State Room with floor to ceiling windows overlooking Boston harbor. It was about 135 people and I wish it was a little smaller. We never expected all the people we invited to come. It was really nice. I was recovering from my broken foot so I was in some major pain. I loved my cake it was so pretty. I loved all the details we put into the day. Our theme was blue and brown with bird accents. We had our invitations custom made on Etsy and made lots of things for the. I loved the programs and pockets that we made to hang off the chairs. I think my favorite part of the day was going down to take pictures in faniuel hall. It was just the two of us and it was so much fun.

[2brides]

We got married in March 2003 in DC (years before it was legal here.) It was a short 11am ceremony followed by brunch. We did both at a funky boutique hotel. There were 50 ppl there (my parents came, L's did not.) We wrote the ceremony ourselves and it was very "us." I wore a simple long ivory wedding dress and L wore a long black dress. We didn't have attendants, but did have 5 of our friends do readings. The colors were sage and ivory. My favorite part of our ceremony was that we had family ship in small stones/pebbles from places we played as kids (mine were from outside the cottage my grandparents owned in Maine and L's from a stream in TN.) We handed them out and asked people to make a wish for us on them and at the end place them in a fountain that we now have in our house.

The week we signed the contract on the venue, L's job was eliminated (I was in grad school so this was an issue!) and we met with the RE to get L pregnant.) Because we were paying for everything ourselves and we had a sudden loss of income and were planning on TTC quickly, we did a lot of DIY/friends. I made the programs, a friend did the flowers, a friend's mother did the cake, and we just did champagne with brunch vs an open bar. We had a harpist and flutist doing music.

There were actually a lot of glitches in both the ceremony and the reception. Our officiant called L by a male name similar to hers...3x during the ceremony. The menu we'd chosen was completely f'd up - the catering guy left 2 weeks before the wedding and the new person sent the menu to L to finalize and she didn't read it thinking we'd been over it 100x times with them - meaning we didn't get the much coveted banana stuffed french toast and a few of the other things we wanted.

When it was over we had to rush an hour home, pick up our dog, and drive her to a friend's house, and then drive an hour back. The dog was old and senile and wouldn't have gotten in the car with anyone else, but it totally killed the high we were on. When we got back, we went to dinner with about 30 of our friends who were from out of town. That was a lot of fun. When we got back a few friends came back to our hotel room to eat cake while L and I laid in bed in our pjs 1/2 asleep. They walked out and we fell asleep.

We've never really talked about having a legal ceremony. I am waiting to see what happens with the SCOTUS.

I guess I thought about my future wedding when I was little. I didn't obsess about it, or cut out pics, but I wondered what it would be like. When I came out, I didn't think it would ever happen though.

[awkwardpenguin]

We got married in 2011 in Massachusetts. I'm from there and we wanted it to be legal. We had our ceremony on the beach in Harwich, and our reception in a family friend's backyard with a tent in West Harwich. We wanted it to be fun and uniquely us. Our ceremony was performed by a UU minister from our friend's church - she was absolutely amazing and helped both C and I to feel calm and comfortable and keep the most important aspects of the day (the marriage, the commitment, the vows) at the center of our planning.

Our reception theme was "sophisticated children's birthday party". We decorated with pinwheels and buntings, had a bounce house and a pinata, mini corn dogs and funnel cakes for apps and bbq for the main meal. We had around 50 guests, and it was intimate and perfect. We had both a "first bounce" in the bounce house and a first dance.

My favorite moment of the day was the few minutes C and I set aside between the ceremony and the reception to exchange little gifts and have a moment for just the two of us.

[rikkiandjulie]

Julie and I had a pretty traditional wedding on August 8, 2008. We both wore dresses, and our colors were black and pink. The pink popped like crazy, and I loved it. We both did. The vibe was pretty mellow, but still crazy. Everyone we invited attended, and then some. We had probably 160 people all said and done. It was a lot. My highlight of the day was when J and I took a ride in her brothers convertible mustang before the reception. It was so much fun. I was also really happy we wrote the ceremony, and had a family friend read it. We were legally married in Iowa on our one year anniversary. It wasn't legally the first time around.

I planned the wedding for nearly a year. If I could do it over I would invite less people, and be a lot less bridezilla. I was young and a bit to controlling at times, but I just wish we had less people, so we could have a nicer reception hall. But at the time it seemed like more people was a better trade off. It wasn't. We don't talk to over half of the people the came, and most of them don't even get a christmas card now. Oh well. It was a blast.

Bonus question because I am curious: did you picture/fantasize about your wedding when you were growing up? YEp!


Read more: pandce.proboards.com/thread/164715/qotd-tell-wedding#ixzz2QsaSeZwG

[awkwardpenguin]

Oh, I didn't answer my own bonus question. I never thought about my wedding as a kid. It didn't occur to me that I'd want to get married when I grew up. In retrospect, that seems a little weird.