Our Wedding: The Ceremony

When all of us girls arrived at the Science Museum, there was a brief time of hectic-ness, as my
wonderful sister literally TOOK OFF HER SHOES AND RAN around the building and inside to get a couple things needed for the ceremony.  Seriously, how many people who have had their hair done for almost ten hours, have carefully put on their makeup, and are all dressed up ready to go, will just run around in the heat with no hesitation? Not many! lol

We all lined up along the fence so that we wouldn't be seen and all I could think of was, "I'm SO happy it's not raining, but my gosh it's hot!!"  I was peaking through the fence and I could see the tables set up for cocktail hour. These were the first decorations I'd really seen of the day and I was so excited!!

I could hear the music playing, but it didn't hit me that the song playing was the song our grandparents & parents were to be seated to. Then I
thought, "oh my gosh, annnnny minute now!!"  I know I asked my sister a hundred times if my dress looked okay for when I turned the corner, because I was first going to have to enter holding my dress up with one hand. That's because I had steps to walk down first!!  The song for the wedding party to enter to began playing, and all the bridesmaids started walking.  As I walked closer to the gate, I could see the guys all walking in as well.  However, even though I watched them come in, somehow, I don't even remember seeing Matt at all, which was okay because it still left that element of surprise.   When I got to the gate to meet Dad, several family friends were also standing at the gate, and it just reminded me of how many friends & family from different times in our lives came from all over to spend this special evening with us!

After walking down the steps and across the bridge, something happened that I'm sure everyone saw--I stepped on the front of my dress! The only thing that ran through my mind was, "This should not be happening..." only because when we had my dressed hemmed, I walked in it a lot with my wedding heels and could walk fine in it!  I couldn't figure out why that happened, but I whispered to Dad as I was a little bit frustrated, "okay, I'm not doing this" {meaning, I'm not going to struggle the whole way down!}, so I quickly switched my bouquet to my other hand, and held my dress the rest of the way.  I didn't even care how it looked, I just wanted to get down to Matt! {And stay in time with the music..haha}

The story with my dress:  Later that evening, I was looking in the mirror, checking the back of my hair, etc., and I looked at my dress.  I thought, "my dress looks lower on my back than it did when I last tried it on." After the wedding, people asked me if I lost any weight within the week before the wedding from stress.  I kept looking back on that week: I wasn't really stressed--everything was pretty much done! I was still at work for three of those days, so I had breakfast, snack, lunch and dinner everyday. Ah-ha! That Thursday and Friday I was off from work and didn't eat as much! I don't remember having lunch on Thursday, and I know for a fact I didn't eat breakfast on Friday.  If I did eat lunch on Friday, it wasn't much.  And I already mentioned last Friday that on the day of the wedding, I hardly ate anything! So, that's all I can figure happened with my dress--I hadn't been eating as much, so of course it slipped down a little. 

Since we had to change the ceremony set up during the rehearsal, I didn't walk down a middle aisle.  Instead, the aisle went behind all of the chairs and over to the outside aisle of the bride's side of the ceremony.  I remember seeing a lot of people, but it wasn't until I got towards the front and started seeing my family that I really remember seeing people! Then finally, I turned the corner and saw my future husband!

I was so glad that we had planned a short ceremony, because like I said earlier, it was HOT.  So hot that my fingers had swelled up a bit and Matt had to really work to put my ring on!! haha.  We had a traditional ceremony with the "Love is patient, Love is kind" scripture reading, vows, rings, sand ceremony & a little bit of music.  More specific details about ceremony parts will be in a later post, but for now, I hope you enjoy these pictures from the ceremony!! 
 

I definitely had to share this picture...mainly only for Abby's expression.

To all the bridesmaids: I had no idea you were standing with the sun in your eyes the whole time!

So sorry!

After the ceremony, all of the wedding party and our parents and grandparents gathered at the back to let all of the guests head over to cocktail hour before we took formal pictures.

It was fun just gathering with everyone for just a couple minutes without having to do anything!