our wedding story - part lV - the ceremony

i had so many emotions in that moment....anxious, relieved, happy, excited...you  name it i felt it.  my first thought was thank goodness it is not raining!  then i realized, this was it.  soon i would be married to my very best friend.  all of that planning for a year was all for this very special day.  i could hardly wait to walk down the aisle.

matthew took the lead and everyone followed behind.  i stood with my grandfather (pop-pop) waiting for the harpist to begin canon in d...she played it so beautifully.

the groomsman stood beside us on one walkway and the bridesmaids on the other.  their parasols looked absolutely beautiful.  the black and white photo was a snapshot taken of my mom and step-dad larry...it's one of my favorites!  i also love the photo of the boys laughing...so candid.  our friend paul was looking out for us, making sure the rain stayed away :)

matthew and i wanted our ceremony to reflect us and our personalities and be filled with many memorable moments.  we organized our entire ceremony from beginning to end with poems and other writing that we thought fit perfectly into our day.  one of our favorite moments was the reading of "oh the places you'll go" by dr. seuss that our dear friend kathy read for us.  my favorite line read:

And will you succeed?

Yes! You will, indeed!

(98 and 3 / 4 one hundred percent guaranteed.)

KIDS, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

 

matthew and i exchanged traditional vows and also wrote our own personal vows to each other.  my gosh i barely made it through...but it was beautiful.  i won't go through all of our written vows, but i will say we both made references to lady gaga - me telling him "i love you because it doesn't bother you that i insist on blaring the car radio whenever a lady gaga song comes on" and him telling me "i love you because of your free spirit and how you jam out to lady gaga in the car."  completely unplanned i must say!

after the exchange of our vows and rings matthew's cousin morgan who has an absolutely amazing voice, sang somewhere over the rainbow while matthew and i did our unity.  we decided on a unity tree instead of a candle.  our mother's placed soil into the potted tree and both matthew and i watered it.  it was beautiful, different and so us!

the most memorable part of our wedding ceremony without a doubt was the butterfly release.  we wanted a special moment in our ceremony dedicated to the loved ones whose lives were lost before our celebration day.  our harpist played wind beneath my wings while matthew and i released one monarch butterfly at a time.  we had 12 of them, each and every one of them floated beautifully in the air upon their release.

one of the best parts about it is that they stayed in the courtyard for most of the evening...i can remember seeing several floating around during all the dancing.

it was time for our first kiss as husband and wife.  all of our guests got party blowers and larry held up an applause sign to get everyone going!  and that was it...we were husband and wife!  we exchanged some happy tears with friends and family and then came time to celebrate!

all photos taken by corey rourke