A proper wedding post
Currently: married 11 days. :)
The wedding weekend itself was a tad bit insane, as all events with large quantities of family tend to be. My brother had gotten married in December, and very few people were able to come. My parents decided, then, that they wanted to do a "picnic" in Vermont the day before my wedding for him and my sister-in-law, so that they could celebrate with family and some of his friends. This was a fantastic idea in theory - we'd have family from all over there that weekend for the main event, and they would also go to the picnic. The insane bit was that my sister-in-law suggested that they make traditional Kyrgyz food (oh, yeah, she's from Kyrgyzstan, and my aunts and uncles and parents flew her mother over for the picnic/wedding/couple of weeks). And then we made a ton of it, which turned out to be much, much more than was actually needed. We cooked for two days straight. It was insane. I maintain: the picnic would have worked out better if we'd kept it simple with sandwiches and potato chips.
But the weekend was a fun kind of crazy. The evening after the picnic all afternoon, we had our unofficial "rehearsal" dinner. There was no rehearsing, but all of our guests were from out of town...so we had pizza at American Flatbread in Middlebury, and it was great. I didn't sit down the whole evening! There must have been over 100 people there. At the end of the night, I ate stashed leftovers because I hadn't managed to get more than a small rectangle of pizza all evening. We left after midnight after everyone else had gone, and then we stayed up for another couple of hours to get back to Bristol, shower, and deal with nails. This was the night before our wedding, after all! In general, it was a great evening with lots of friends and family.
The day of wedding was... surreal. Fun, but...strange. I woke up with a stomachache from nerves, barely managed to hold down my breakfast scone. We then commenced the hair process, as Lizzie's youngest sister was doing it for us, and the dressing...
Right before the wedding, the rabbi cornered us in our room, closed the door, and talked us through some stuff. She was...amazing. During that time, Linda (the proprietor who helped us organize everything while we were not in Vermont) came in and told us that there was a harpist and flutist from New York Philharmonic who were at the Inn for some other business and, upon finding out that it was a Gay Wedding, wanted to play for us during our social hour. (I think maybe their agent is a lesbian? Or something?) But it was a most pleasant surprise! :)
The ceremony itself was perfect, with the exception of the many mosquitos. I'm not a sappy person, in general, but the ceremony made me cry multiple times. The rabbi was amazing, the friends and family that gave us blessings did a great job, the ceremony itself felt more meaningful than I could have imagined.
Then there were pictures. By the end of the pictures shoot, I was so sick having my picture taken and organizing people. The reception was lovely, the food was awesome, the cake was just what we had wanted, our flowers exceeded expectations, and everything was fun. I'm sure lots of people talk about how lovely their weddings were in retrospect. Honestly, though, I don't think my glowing take on it is idealized in any; it was fun. I had fun. I think the guests had fun.
Pictures that my brother took on my camera are now posted online! See here! There are a lot of repeats and most of them aren't awesome, but they're what I've got at the moment. :)
The wedding weekend itself was a tad bit insane, as all events with large quantities of family tend to be. My brother had gotten married in December, and very few people were able to come. My parents decided, then, that they wanted to do a "picnic" in Vermont the day before my wedding for him and my sister-in-law, so that they could celebrate with family and some of his friends. This was a fantastic idea in theory - we'd have family from all over there that weekend for the main event, and they would also go to the picnic. The insane bit was that my sister-in-law suggested that they make traditional Kyrgyz food (oh, yeah, she's from Kyrgyzstan, and my aunts and uncles and parents flew her mother over for the picnic/wedding/couple of weeks). And then we made a ton of it, which turned out to be much, much more than was actually needed. We cooked for two days straight. It was insane. I maintain: the picnic would have worked out better if we'd kept it simple with sandwiches and potato chips.
But the weekend was a fun kind of crazy. The evening after the picnic all afternoon, we had our unofficial "rehearsal" dinner. There was no rehearsing, but all of our guests were from out of town...so we had pizza at American Flatbread in Middlebury, and it was great. I didn't sit down the whole evening! There must have been over 100 people there. At the end of the night, I ate stashed leftovers because I hadn't managed to get more than a small rectangle of pizza all evening. We left after midnight after everyone else had gone, and then we stayed up for another couple of hours to get back to Bristol, shower, and deal with nails. This was the night before our wedding, after all! In general, it was a great evening with lots of friends and family.
The day of wedding was... surreal. Fun, but...strange. I woke up with a stomachache from nerves, barely managed to hold down my breakfast scone. We then commenced the hair process, as Lizzie's youngest sister was doing it for us, and the dressing...
Right before the wedding, the rabbi cornered us in our room, closed the door, and talked us through some stuff. She was...amazing. During that time, Linda (the proprietor who helped us organize everything while we were not in Vermont) came in and told us that there was a harpist and flutist from New York Philharmonic who were at the Inn for some other business and, upon finding out that it was a Gay Wedding, wanted to play for us during our social hour. (I think maybe their agent is a lesbian? Or something?) But it was a most pleasant surprise! :)
The ceremony itself was perfect, with the exception of the many mosquitos. I'm not a sappy person, in general, but the ceremony made me cry multiple times. The rabbi was amazing, the friends and family that gave us blessings did a great job, the ceremony itself felt more meaningful than I could have imagined.
Then there were pictures. By the end of the pictures shoot, I was so sick having my picture taken and organizing people. The reception was lovely, the food was awesome, the cake was just what we had wanted, our flowers exceeded expectations, and everything was fun. I'm sure lots of people talk about how lovely their weddings were in retrospect. Honestly, though, I don't think my glowing take on it is idealized in any; it was fun. I had fun. I think the guests had fun.
Pictures that my brother took on my camera are now posted online! See here! There are a lot of repeats and most of them aren't awesome, but they're what I've got at the moment. :)