Our Wedding: The Ceremony

Hands down, this was the best part of our wedding day. I really thought I'd be more of a reception centered bride, but this was where I remember exploding love the most. Makes sense too, right. Backtracking a bit, with the help of A Practical Wedding I wrote our ceremony. Some original bits from scratch, some mended together with stuff I found, I tweaked some bits and then brought it to Jon. He put his touch on things and then we gave it to our officiant and best friend to Jon to put his spin on things. By the end, it was how all 3 of us loved it.

We also wrote our own vows. We decided on the loose format of having a dialogue of whatever we want to say at the beginning and to end with a set of our vows that begin with "I Promise". We read them to each other once before the big day to see if we were in the right direction. After hearing mine, Jon re-edited his. It wasn't this easy, their were several drafts to begin with, but the hard part was editing down.

Our "offich" front and center. Julian was also a groomsmen. We picked him because he is one of Jon's best friends, has known us throughout our whole beginning and courtship to where we are today, he is a teacher-so he is great at public speaking and generally because we love him! He took his role seriously but had fun with it and it was so amazing to have someone we know and love performing such an intimate moment.

 Hey, you take your chances with a 3 year old ring bearer. 

Overall, Landon was fantastic. Shy guy made it down the aisle, 

handed the pillow to Jon and jumped to Grandma!

That's my cue. I was set to walk out of the pool house and to my dad at the end of the pool. On this short walk by myself I walked past our wedding cake and seeing it for the first time I remember thinking how awesome it looked! Haha.

 Aw, my Dad looked so handsome! 

I think you can see that the First Look did not make Jon 

any less emotional when he saw me come down that aisle.

 

 I really toyed with having the "Who presents this woman for marriage?" bit...but ultimately kept that in there and had my Dad respond with "She comes of her own accord, but her mother and I support her" (Thanks, Joanna!)

Reading our vows. We even got some laughs! And later I heard that our vows made people cry their faces off. I don't know why, but that was really satisfying. ;)

"Jon, you may kiss your bride"

Hooray!! Our recessional was "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" by Tears for Fears. The instrumental opening of that song gives me goosebumps every time and is one of those perfect "sun shining through your car with the windows rolled down" feelings. It was absolutely perfect.

 All images by Kate Harrison Photography.

Up next: Reception!!