A little video of our time in Costa Rica for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!
So when we left off, my dad was escorting me down the aisle, Don was waiting at the end and the guests were taking pictures. I didn’t notice at the time, but Don was a little choked up (either that or the wind was getting to him which is entirely possibly).
Photo by Jaimie Reese Peterson
My father gave me a hug and Don asked the officiant if he could kiss me yet. Jeffrey had a good sense of humor and the crowd all laughed, but Jeffrey did protect my honor by telling Don he had to wait until after our vows.
Photo by Jaimie Reese Peterson
Jeffrey began the ceremony with a welcome and then asked our friend Suzanne to read a poem. That’s when we realized everyone was still standing. In fact, I think I may have said, “Oh, they’re still standing.” Very bridal. At any rate, everyone chuckled again when Jeff told them they could be seated.
Here’s a picture of Suzanne reading Beyond What, by Alice Walker. She barely even got squeaky (her major concern!).
Photo by Jaimie Reese Peterson
After the first reading we began our vows. We both said, “I do.” Don was first, and then me. After I agreed, Don breathed an audible sigh of relief and feigned wiping the sweat off his brow. I know this was feigned because it was freezing! In fact, it was around this time that my teeth started to chatter.
Photo by Erin Bonilla
Then we exchanged vows. Don recited his beautifully, but I, of course, got emotional. The first line was, “Don, I choose you to be my husband.” I started to cry. That’s when the next round of hilarity started.
The second line was, “To respect you, to care for you and to grow with you.”
I was trying to compose myself to go on but I couldn’t find my voice through the tears. This is when Don laughed. And that’s when Jeffrey laughed. Because, as it turned out, the line that I couldn’t quite choke out was, “To respect you.” Don said, “I know I make that tough for you most days.” And that’s when everyone else laughed, including me.
Later people told me they thought I was laughing about respecting him the whole time, but really I was crying from having spoken the previous line and knowing that Don would be beside me, sharing my life, forever and ever. I was so glad that Don made the joke, though. Even though I was more or less crying during the rest of my vows, I was able to get through them effortlessly after he made me laugh.
And then, mercifully, we had a break while my oldest friend (the friend I have known the longest that is - not actually my OLDEST friend), Dawn, read an Appache wedding blessing. Here she is doing so:
Photo by Jaimie Reese Peterson
One of the lines in the blessing is “Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other.” I was really hoping that Don would start sharing his warmth at that moment because I was freezing. So when Jeffrey told us to take hands, Don leaned over to blow on my hands and warm them up. It must have looked like he wanted to kiss them, though, because Jeff said, “Not yet!”
Finally, we exchanged rings. Don had a small moment of panic when he glanced at my hand and realized that I had forgotten to remove my engagement ring. But, I slipped it off quickly and we proceeded. I don’t even think anyone noticed.
Photo by Genie Gratto
At last! We were married. You know what came next …
Photo by Linda Bouchillon
Up next: Choosing the readings
So when I left off last, Don was at our chuppah waiting for me and our guests were taking pictures like mad. Oh, I should mention that Don MADE that chuppah from the bamboo that grows in our backyard.
<Insert “AWWW” here.>
Yeah, he’s romantic AND handy.
So there he is, waiting for me. But first we have to seat our moms.
Penelope enters on Steven’s arm:
(How pretty is she in her purple dress?)
And then comes my mom, Maggie, with Don’s brother Patrick.
(Speaking of pretty … and she looks so happy, too. See Don? I told you she likes you.)
And FINALLY it was time for me to meet Don on the beach. I was giddy and excited and everything a bride should be. For real. Look:
I know, right? My dad looks just as happy as me.
In fact, he was telling me a cute story around the time this picture was taken. When I was a little girl I LOVED going to the beach all year long. No matter how cold it was though, I always wanted to go in the water. If my parents turned their heads for just one minute, I’d be peeling off my dress and taking off my diaper and headed for the Atlantic.
So my dad was relating this memory and I said, “Don’t worry. I’m not planning to do that today.”
It turns out, getting married on the beach is intimate. The aisle is narrow. The seats are close. People on the end of the aisle are smiling and touching my arm and whispering to me.
And at the end of the aisle is Don, grinning ear to ear and waiting to become my husband.
The first two pictures were taken by Genie Gratto and Tom Bridge shot the last one.
Next up: We say “I do.”
There are 9 days until the wedding and we can now officially start checking the weather. Be warned that long range forecasts are rarely accurate … but it’s fun to watch. If you have a different weather Web site you prefer, the zip code in Ocean City is 21842.
According the Weather channel, Saturday, May 2 will have a high of 64 degrees and a low of 53 degrees with a 20 percent chance of rain.
And if it turns out that there is an 80 percent chance of rain and it’s only 46 degrees, it won’t matter. At the end of the day, I’ll still be married to Don. Although our guests should bring coats in that scenario as there is no heat at the reception venue!
04
Apr
Dancin’ in Your Wooden Shoes, In a Wedding Gown
Author: Susan | Category: beach, beauty, ceremony, dressI am wearing Vera Wang on my wedding day.
No, really. I am.
On my feet.
(Warning - picture of my feet below the fold) Read more…
12
Jan
Check Baby, Check Baby, One, Two, Three, Four
Author: Susan | Category: beach, ceremony, locationHere’s a list of all the stuff we’ve checked off the list in the last two days:
- Ordered the sound system for the ceremony and reception
- Ordered the paper lanterns for the ceiling over the dance floor at the reception venue
- Investigated chair rentals for the ceremony
- Officially notified the Town of Ocean City of our wish to use a stretch of beach for the ceremony
- Selected the officiant, signed the contract and paid the deposit
Plugging away; stay tuned.
Don and I seem to only know talented and smart and generous people. In addition to the friends who have been helping me with various DIY projects related to throwing our almost vendor-less wedding, we also know a bunch of gifted professional, near professional and amateur photographers.
I have known one of these photographers, Chris Anderson, for more than half of my life. He’s a full time photojournalist for a local paper, brilliant and one of my closest friends. AND he’s agreed to photograph our wedding. Sort-of.
See, Chris also is an invited guest at our wedding and we wanted (and he wanted) to make sure he still gets to be a guest. But the more we thought about it, the more we really wanted someone we know to photograph it. I have this idea, perhaps misguided, that if you have a personal relationship with the photographer the images will be more authentic somehow.
So we came up with a plan that works on just about every level. Don and I decided to have most of our wedding pictures taken BEFORE the wedding. It’s a great idea for us because we’re not particularly superstitious and don’t have any ideas that seeing each before the wedding is naughty. Plus getting the pictures taken early means that we get to attend our own cocktail hour and hang out with our friends and family.
Also - and this is my favorite part - since we’re getting the pictures made 
early, we can have them taken just about anywhere in Ocean City. So we decided that we want to have them taken about 40 blocks from the wedding site - at the inlet in Ocean City where we can have some standard beach pictures, pictures with the pier in the background and pictures on the rocks of the inlet PLUS pictures on the boardwalk. The idea of having pictures of Don in his tux and me in my wedding dress on the carousel at Trimper’s or the bumper cars, playing skee ball or eating cotton candy makes me positively swoon with happiness.
There are a couple of shots we need during the actual ceremony and a few to be taken immediately following the ceremony (after we have our rings on), but the hardest work will be done and Chris can get on with the business of being a guest.
Yay for talented friends!
Oh, and as for those other photographers we know … well, they might end up being asked to take a picture or two also.
They’re here. Our save the date cards arrived … for the second time.
The first time they arrived, last week, there was a big black box over most of the informational side. I was on my way to New York so Don took care of it (yay! good and helpful fiance!) and the replacements were sent out. There’s still a small printing issue (everything is just a bit too high on on the back of the card so that the line touches the top, but doesn’t touch the bottom), but I think I’m using these anyway because the mistake is likely ours and it’s a pretty small detail.
Here are the cards:
See how “Please save the date …” is closer to the top of the card than “Love, Don and Susan” is to the bottom? Maybe I could trim the bottom on the paper cutter and make it more even? Or maybe I should I shrug the whole thing off and forget about the small error?
When we were in Ocean City for the food tasting, we took a bunch of pictures on the beach including the image used on the front of the postcard above. We took those two starfish with us (it’s a recurring theme for the wedding) and started off down the beach. I wrote the various text items that we needed and Don plopped the starfish down and took the pictures. We went straight down the beach for about a block.
Assuming that the centering issue doesn’t make me change my mind above using this version, the next step is to get them addressed. Ack!
One of the biggest outstanding items in our wedding planning process is finding someone to actually perform the deed. A wedding celebrant. An officiate.
It’s a struggle because we’re not religious. I mean - really - not religious. So I don’t want a weekend minister who follows a pretty standard, ‘We’re gathered before God’ kind-of ceremony. And yet, I want our vows to be meaningful and heartfelt and symbolic of our relationship. I’m not sure a clerk of the court brings that sentiment to the table.
In a recent e-mail conversation with a potential celebrant I was asked to elaborate a little on what we’re looking for in the service and our feelings about the ceremony. This is an excerpt of what I said:
We’re not religious, or quite honestly even particularly spiritual people - just the kind of people who believe that when presented with the opportunity to behave admirably or poorly, the choice should be clear. Don is more or less a Buddhist and I’m basically agnostic.
We don’t see our marriage as “two souls becoming one”. We’re getting married because we make each other better, stronger individual people and that’s what we want reflected in the service. We’re very excited to marry one another, but we don’t think of this as the most important day in our lives, or even the most important day in our relationship - there will be days ahead that are equally important (sometimes for happy reasons, sometimes for sad reasons) and we’re looking forward to facing those days together.
We picked Ocean City for several reasons. One is that we both grew up in beach towns and feel connected to the water (Don’s from Miami). But the other big reason is that we wanted someplace meaningful to which we had a connection. We looked at probably 60 places (yay! Internet), but kept coming back to Ocean City.
So, what do you think? Does it sound like us? Is that what you would expect from our ceremony?
If you heard any of our early ideas for wedding venues and locations, you might be wondering what ever happened to Key West. We’d thought about getting married there for as long as we’d thought about getting married (well, either there or Puerto Rico … but Key West was the first choice).
In the beginning, we thought we’d have a really small wedding. That’s because we didn’t really spend a lot of time thinking about what the term small wedding meant. So, of course we could easily pull off a destination wedding in a place like Key West. But when we realized that destination weddings are either really really small - like 12 people - or really really expensive - like fancy hotels - we had to re-consider. Well, that’s true at least for Key West.
First we made a list of who we wanted there. There’s a lot of you suckers, it turns out. Our first list had 76 people on it and there were others it made us sad not to write down. The places we liked best in Key West could hold 40 people max! The properties big enough for our group were super expensive. One small hotel (8 or 10 rooms maybe - but with a big outdoor event space) told us that first we would rent out the whole property for $20,000 and THEN we’d pick our catering and bar packages, decor, music, linens and so on. Uh, no.
Plus, being so far away from home made my whole idea of DIY wedding a little harder.
The cost for guests would be crazy, too. If we had the wedding in March or April, we were looking at room rates of $300 or more at some of those hotels big enough to accommodate us.
When we started looking closer to home we realized that my hometown also is a beach and also allows our guests to have a little getaway. It’s not Key West - it’s not even CLOSE to Key West (physically or conceptually), but there is ocean and bay and sand and pretty sunsets and a lot of things important to us. And we could invite more of you.
As of 5 p.m. Thursday, I STILL haven’t heard from the caterer so we’re not ruling out eloping yet … but he claims we’ll have some menu samples and costs by the end of the week so you might get to see our vows after all.