To begin, I haven't written a thing in a long, long while. And lately, I've been feeling the itch to write. Be it good, bad, or in between - in terms of content, style, and grammar - I need to sit down and write something. Anything. We - being Matthew and I - sat down with our new StateFarm agent on Tuesday. All we needed to do was transfer Matt from his current insurance company to mine, but we were in his office for over two hours. I don't know if it's StateFarm's mission to have incredible, family-like relationships with their customers or if our particular agent is just that personable, but we covered a lot in those two hours. And he said:
"Wow. You guys have had a busy 2015!"
You know what? We have. We got married. We traveled. We searched for a house and found it (hopefully!). And I thought, why don't I write about that? Our adventure through this life.
But first up, we got married on Saturday, July 11th. It was, hands down, the best day of my life so far, yet it went so shockingly fast (even though everyone warns you that it will, you won't be prepared for just how fast) that I hardly remember parts of it. For instance, I do not at all remember walking down the aisle. I remember linking arms with my father and squeezing my mother's hand before we started and kissing them both at the end. But this "walk to remember" does not exist in my memory.
We got engaged in 2013, so it was a very long engagement. Still, it allowed us to save and our planning process was relatively stress free. I have been in several weddings and attended even more, so my strategy was to take everything I loved from the weddings I'd been to and absolutely avoid the things I didn't like. To me - and I may be a bit biased - it equaled out to the best wedding I've ever been to.
It was also amazing to see everything I'd planned for two years come together in a beautiful way. Matt and I are pretty eclectic. And even though I knew I wanted a colorful, rustic wedding, we also wanted to inject a bit of our personality. About a month before the wedding, I started to panic. What if all these elements - rustic and eclectic - don't work together? But they really, really did.
Matt and I love movies. In fact, when we first started dating we maintained a movie review blog that got us through the first six months of what was a long-distance relationship. He really wanted to somehow incorporate that love into our wedding day. Using Photoshop, Matt created silhouettes of famously recognizable characters. We felt that, while a bit kooky, the silhouettes fit with the rusticity of the event. Seeing them on the table with their plum-colored frames against our beautiful centerpieces by Surroundings Floral in Latham, NY, it was clear we made a good and funny choice. We really had a lot of fun with it and so did our guests. In fact, we're missing about half of our frames because people were keen on taking them home.
Some other things that made our day unique:
- We went for the First Look option that is growing ever more popular these days. This gave us the opportunity to be alone together (with our photographers, of course) and talk through our feelings. At that point, I hadn't spoken to Matt in about six hours and I was really anxious to just see him. He is my best friend, after all.
- We decided to have a non-denominational ceremony, conducted by my best friend of over 25 years. He made it incredibly personal and we were able to relax and have fun up there, which we were told set the tone for the remainder of the day.
- Our programs seconded as fans, as we glued on oversized popsicle sticks. It was a hot, hot day and our guests were appreciative.
- "You Make My Dreams Come True" played us down the aisle as husband and wife.
- Our event manager at Settles Hill was the most amazing person, brilliantly professional. After the ceremony, he shuffled the bridal party and immediate family behind some trees where there was a table set up with samples from the cocktail hour and trays of drinks. We attacked that table.
- After our first dance ("You and I," Michael Bublé) we requested a second dance - "Everybody Dance Now," which immediately got everyone in the mood to party. Also, I love to dance.
- Our venue was beautiful and we had the entire place to ourselves. Because we set up a DIY Photobooth in the bar, we anticipated that our guests would mingle in both the reception and bar rooms. We did not anticipate that our guests would also gather on the outdoor patio as well as the extensive lawns. It was a gorgeous day and someone found a croquet set (I know), so without having planned it, we had a variety of activities available for everyone.
- We had a Photobooth and it was amazing.
- We had two sets of favors because we wanted to give to a cause that means something to us but we also wanted to give something tangible away. So we filled baskets with customized bottle openers and spread them out around the cocktail hour and filled a basket that we placed on the bar. We also donated to Cystic Fibrosis - I have a family member with the disease and love to support the research so that she might have a longer, healthier life.
- Our cake was cut to the tune of Cake's "Love You Madly." Not sure how many people actually made that connection, but it made me happy.
- Lastly, because our wedding ended at 10pm, we secured some space at a local bar, Cityline, for the after-party, rented a taxi to shuttle people there and provided appetizers. Cityline has an amazing restaurant that sources its food locally in addition to having an amazing beer selection. It was the perfect end to our amazing day.
