RE-POST: Wedding Recap: The Wedding Ceremony/Mass

The ceremony was clearly the most important part of the day and I was pleased that everything went so beautifully and smoothly. Actually, when I first heard the music playing while I was waiting in the “brides room” downstairs I couldn’t wait to get down the aisle to meet my groom!!

It was also somewhat surreal – all of the work that my mom and I put into planning this monumental event was finally happening. That same string quartet that we picked out just months before was playing the music that we had selected for the prelude and they were about to play the pieces we had selected for the grandmothers, mothers and bridesmaids walk down the aisle. The flower combinations that I had dreamed of were sitting on the table in vases of water right next to me, the bridesmaid ensembles I had picked out were now being donned by some of the most beautiful and wonderful friends a girl could ask for – and I, well I was standing in the very dress that I chose exactly a year before and it fit beautifully due to all of the hard work I put in at the gym for the many months leading up to that day. Surreal, but wonderful.

I waited to put my dress on until the last minute so that it could be nice and crisp for my walk down the aisle. After putting the gown on I noticed that in my reflection in the little mirror on the wall there looked to be little bumps/creases underneath my dress. I figured with the many, many layers underneath I could get away with wearing the adorable “I Do” white pair of lacy hanky-panky’s that my mom gifted me for my bachelorette party, but I was not willing to have the bumps, so I will admit, here on the blog for the entire world to see…I decided to take them off for the ceremony! :) I guess that’s the naughty Catholic school girl coming out in me…let’s be honest, I did go to Catholic school from K-high school! :) OK, just kidding, that was slightly inappropriate to say on my wedding ceremony recap, but I really did take them off for the ceremony! I had no other choice – I didn’t want all of those yucky creases and bumps to show up on the pictures!

Underwear or not…my dress was on and my mom put on my veil and blusher (I wore a layer of my mom’s veil from her wedding day as my blusher) and I was ready to go! My mom left the room first and then my bridesmaids grabbed their beautiful bouquets of the most gorgeous pale pink peonies, pale peach David Austin roses, and creamy roses and headed for the door. My younger sister/maid of honor held my bouquet of huge pale pink peonies, creamy white ranunculus, pale peach David Austin roses, pale pink lisianthus, and accents of cream sweet pea and stephanotis. I absolutely loved my bouquet. **I didn’t want a completely white bouquet and our florist did a wonderful job making the bridesmaid bouquets a little more vibrant while mine was slightly more toned down.**

So our little group made our way to the back of the church (or the front, whichever way you see it) where we lined up. I picked up the front of my dress while one of the lovely church wedding coordinators held my train. It was SO nice outside that day – definitely hot and very sunny, but not overly humid-- a beautiful day! I still wasn’t having any nervous feelings at all and when I saw my wedding planners waiting for me outside of the church doors smiling it made me very excited.

When they opened the doors for me stand in the little area between the doors leading directly to the church I saw my dad for the first time since being all dressed up and it immediately put me at ease. My dad and my relationship isn't one that I would call super duper lovey-dovey like some fathers with their daughters. While of course we have the father/daughter connection, we have a very easy relationship and one where there is usually a lot of laughter. While waiting in the “in-between” we laughed and chatted about the many different memories I had made in the church since I was a young girl – we talked about my baptism, first communion, the time I “crowned Mary” in front of the entire student body (I wrote an essay about Mary that was chosen out of all of the essay’s submitted by students at my school), the time that I was chosen to narrate the Christmas play – mind you I was the youngest person to ever do this, my eighth grade graduation, high school graduation and my confirmation. It was wonderful to be so relaxed right before walking down the aisle – I wasn’t worried about anything, and when I heard the trumpets playing the fanfare and the doors swung open I had a huge smile on my face and not a doubt in my mind that marrying M. was the best decision of my life.

My dad was on my arm and I was confident and ready to marry the man of my dreams. During my walk down the aisle I did have small moments of barely-there tears, but they were most certainly tears of excitement. I had the chance to glance at some of the guests piled into the pews, but most importantly I saw my handsome groom waiting for me at the front of the church, on the altar, with a huge smile on his face. When we made it to the end, my dad lifted my blusher, gave me a kiss on my cheek and smiled as he handed me off to my soon-to-be husband. The moment was beautiful and one I will never forget – the two men that I love the most smiling ear-to-ear about what was to happen only minutes later.

I looked into M.’s eyes and said, “hi!” Of course he told me how beautiful I looked and with huge smiles on our faces we walked up the stairs to start the beautiful mass that would unite us for the rest of our lives. Everything about the ceremony went smoothly, and having Monsignor as our officiant was honestly one of the best decisions we made about the entire wedding process. He put everyone at ease and I have never attended a mass that flowed as beautifully as ours did that day.

Of course our first kiss as a married couple was magical too, but before we could have that special kiss I knew that we needed to reenact the exact thing that oddly brought us together in the first place. So instead of jumping right into our first kiss after Monsignor pronounced us man and wife, we smiled at each other, shook hands (if you need to know the back-story, see HERE) and then proceeded to lock lips!

Our recessional was beautiful – the trumpets played along with the string quartet and we made our way down the aisle as man and wife with friends and family surrounding us in applause...