Wedding Recap: Our Ceremony Exit

So I wanted to dedicate a special post just to our ceremony exit because of a few funny moments with “Cathy”….read on….

So every church has it’s special “rules” and if you can’t tell from the pictures I posted in the ceremony post, my Catholic church is EXTREMELY traditional and has very strict guidelines as to what is allowed and what is not allowed.

When we first started the wedding preparation process we met with a few key people. First, we decided to use a priest from a different parish to conduct our mass/ceremony. The main priest (who does weddings) at my particular church isn’t exactly my favorite and isn’t so super “friendly” seeming. I wanted to make sure that the priest who would be conducting our ceremony was not only someone that M. and I really could connect with during our pre-marriage sessions, but someone who could carry the ceremony and make it somewhat “entertaining” for our guests.

Another person we had to meet with was the church wedding coordinator. No, not the wedding planners that we hired for the day-of, but instead the REQUIRED by the church wedding coordinator…we’ll call her Cathy. Cathy was very nice throughout the process, but unfortunately (or maybe not) I did not have the opportunity to interact with her as much as my poor mother did.

So Cathy met with my mother one afternoon to discuss different aspects of our ceremony. One thing that was brought up was the floral arrangements we planned on placing on the altar in memory of my grandfather and M.’s grandmother. We had planned on using these floral arrangements (they were very large) again at our reception and because we had a break between the ceremony and the reception this was most certainly an option. I mean, we could have paid for another two large pieces for the reception, but we felt like we should reuse these already beautiful pieces. Cathy had a different idea. She told my mother that it was customary that the family leave the floral arrangements as an offering for mass the next day. Well, as much as we would’ve LOVED to leave the beautiful arrangements for the enjoyment of mass participants on Sunday, we decided against it. Cathy snarled her lip and turned up her nose and was obviously not pleased with this decision, but the discussions went on.

After going through the rest of the aspects of the ceremony they arrived at the “exit” portion. My mom (and me) loved the idea of doing an “exit” from the church. The front of my church is absolutely beautiful (I think) and in the daylight, I knew it would be really pretty and very memorable. Well, Cathy did not agree. She quickly noted…NO BIRDSEED, NO CONFETTI and NO ROSE PETALS! Well why you ask?! Simple…Cathy’s response was to the effect of….”people will slip and fall and SHE would have to be the one to clean it all up afterwards and SHE didn’t have time to clean up after us.” While I suppose I could go along with her answer...I'm pretty sure that before every mass in the fall, they're not out there sweeping up all of the dead leaves on the ground...and I'm ALMOST POSITIVE that a fresh rose petal is just about the same thinness as a dead leaf....just saying.

I’m sure at this point my mom, on the inside, was dying laughing…or fuming…one of the two for sure. You see, we had to pay Cathy for serving as our wedding ceremony coordinator…but not because we necessarily wanted to, because we were REQUIRED to by the church. Well, my mom thought this whole thing was just crazy – we had to pay (a crazy amount) to get married in the church that I was baptized in, paid tuition to and attended the parish school from K-8th grade in, and the same church my dad has given donations to EVERY SINGLE YEAR since they first moved to the town. We were REQUIRED to pay Cathy for her ceremony “coordination” even though it seemed the only thing she would be doing the day of the wedding would be standing around to make sure people stood in the right place before going up on the altar (where she no longer had any control over anything anyway) and then she wouldn’t even be able to clean up a few rose petals after the ceremony?! Craziness people, pure craziness.

So my mom did what all smart moms would do. She buttered her up and convinced her to allow us to do a rose petal exit as long as our wedding day-of coordinators (the ones we actually wanted to hire) cleaned up after us. Jeeze! :)

So on to the actual exit – it was beautiful!!! M. and I finished the ceremony, walked down the aisle, out of the church doors arm and arm, newly confirmed as husband and wife and circled back around to the side door of the church where we could enter to take one more trip down the aisle so that we could make our “exit”!!

It seems somewhat contrived, I know, but in actuality it was SUPER fun, because this time, after we walked through our friends and family standing on each side of the church entrance throwing pale pink and creamy colored rose petals towards us, with the church bells chiming at the oh-so-perfect moment, we had the chance to stop for a moment, look all around at our friends and family and say ‘hello!’ Not to mention we had the chance to see our beautiful "get-away" car sitting right outside of the church all decorated (Thanks, Kristy!!!) with the adorable decorations that me, my mom, and my sister made just a week and half before! I loved the moment; it’s one that I will never forget!!

After the “exit” we made our way back into the church (one last time, I promise!) to take a few posed photographs. I know that it’s not the “trend” these days to do the standard posed photographs, but it’s meaningful to have a few posed shots in the church with our family and grandparents.

I’m still (of course) dying to see the professional photographs – and as soon as I get them back I will be sure to share! :)