Tuesday, June 12, 2012

The History of Us: Part 4 (The Wedding!)


Well, thanks to everyone who read the previous "History of Us" and have commented on it to me at Walmart and such places.  I owe my faithful readers the last part of the story, the wedding.  I don't have time to replay the day (and you probably don't want to read all of that anyway), so since I only have a moment, here is a random collection of "moments" that I remember from our wedding.
 
In order to write this post, I had to dig out the enormous fancy photo album and dust it off.  I wonder (hope) these albums are a thing of the past...brides and grooms now probably get all their pictures on a nice little compact disc.
--I loved practicing the wedding "first dances" with my dad and Jeremy. I remember a stolen moment in the midst of pre-wedding craziness when Jeremy and I practiced in the dark in the parking lot of his hotel the night before the wedding. I think it was the last time we saw each other until right before the ceremony.
--Some super-fun friends from NAU volunteered to do my makeup for me.  Upon discovering that my lips were chapped at the practice makeup session before the wedding, they prescribed Chapstick and sugar for exfoliation purposes (I was supposed to put Chapstick on and then rub my lips with raw sugar to get the flakes of dead skin off).  This becomes an important detail at the wedding reception.
--Looking back at the pictures from my wedding, I realize that some of my favorite "moments" were behind the scenes, and I probably didn't appreciate them fully until long after the wedding craziness died down...like the fact that my mom's lifelong friends went at 4 am to the hood in downtown LA to buy fresh flowers for the wedding.  We drove by the flower district during our Spring Break trip this year and I was amazed that my mom's friends were brave enough to go there to make my vision of "fields of wildflowers" come true.
Finished centerpiece, complete with a special touch of ladybugs hidden amongst the flowers.  So special!
--My mom spent hours sewing (a thousand?) pearls on my wedding dress to give it some more bling (except I don't think that was a word back then). Thanks, Mom!
--Another favorite moment was a beach party for our out-of-town guests (mostly our NAU friends and some of Jeremy's cousins) at our friends' house on the beach.  Thanks, Lasters!
--I remember waking up the morning of my wedding and being surprised at how "normal" everything felt. (Especially since I woke up and got ready in the same room I had lived in since I was a baby and that I had wallpapered with 50's juke boxes and dancers in junior high...don't ever let a junior-higher pick out wallpaper--I think I hated it in as little as 30 minutes after it was up)...
Getting ready for my wedding with my Cabbage Patch Kids and Rainbow Brite looking on.
I expected to be floating around on a cloud (and I'm sure I acted like my head was completely in the clouds) but I still had to eat breakfast, be polite, drive to a hair appointment, etc. Jeremy and I still think it's funny that I had so many places to be and things to do that morning while he just hung out in the Home Depot parking lot with his family and some friends installing a tool box in his truck. (He downplays the fact that he was at my parents' house before dawn putting a dozen roses and love notes all over the yard for me to find.)
--I loved having my closest girls with me as bridesmaids..Kendra, Sarah, Tricia, Stacey, and Jeanette...
...and a sunflower at the front of the church in memory of Sarah Warren, my roommate, who would have been a part of the wedding as well.
--We saw each other for pictures before the ceremony, which helped calm my nerves (except for my sister who kept saying, "Aren't you nervous? I would be so nervous! You are about to kiss for the first time in front of all these people! Aren't you going to die of nervousness?" or something like that). I remember it feeling so surreal and slightly embarrassing that all those people were there for me and Jeremy. I also felt like I had joined a secret club now that I knew what the couple getting married is talking about the whole time up there (nothing too exciting, just "hi, how are you? We're getting married (duh), look at Dan Barton's shoes," etc.)
--More fave moments include my friends who sang during the ceremony. I always regret not turning around and giving them my full attention (and, by the way, I also regret making fun of Dan's shoes...that wasn't very nice). Candy sang "How Beautiful"...
...and Danny and Amanda (my old roommate and her new husband) sang "His Love Will Be Our Guide" which they had sung at their own wedding. It was so special. The lyrics of that song are so fitting for Jeremy and I and our life together, I'll include the lyrics at the bottom of this post. I even had the refrain from the song ("And I will go with you") engraved on his wedding ring for our second-year anniversary.
--Then there was The Kiss. Both Jeremy and I had given away kisses carelessly in our youth and so we had each committed (separately, before we ever got together) to not kiss until our wedding day. It was rad and awkward and worth it all at the same time. Totally worth it. (You can see my sister is still embarrassed for me and that I had to have my first kiss in front of all those people)
--We walked out of the church to the finale of Fantasmic! from Disneyland (my former roommates could tell you that that was a dream come true for me. Jeremy went along with it because he is nice like that. And I'm a total nerd.)
--Pictures in between the wedding and reception...I just wanted wanted to get to the party!
--A super special wedding "moment" was looking around and seeing people from so many different parts of my life all together in one room...I don't think that will happen again until my funeral, but I won't be there to enjoy it, so this was so touching! I always regretted not talking more to my grandma and some of our other guests who traveled far to come see me get married.


--Cake cutting, so anticlimatical. I can hardly bring myself to watch the cake cutting at any wedding, for some reason it just seemed so lame and staged.

But I did like our wedding cake topper--a Mongolian bride and groom.
--Dancing with my dad to "What a Wonderful World", good moment...but not as good as his welcome to the guests and blessing for us. He is so reserved and doesn't talk a lot. My friends in high school used to ask me if he ever spoke. But for some reason, he found his inner stand-up comedian and teased Jeremy about all the roses he had left around the house for me and where his present was...and then he started in on me. He said, "So, many of you know that Jeremy and Kaci shared their first kiss today. Jeremy, I was wondering if you could put in to words what that was like? (Jeremy, after I poked him and said, "I put sugar on my lips!" answers "Sweeter than honey."  Crowd sighs at the romantical-ness.  My dad continues)  Because last night, Kaci was acting really strange, getting ready for that kiss, I presume. She got out some lip balm and applied that to her lips. Then she got a container out of the cupboard in the kitchen and rubbed the contents of that container all over her lips. Kaci, what was in that container? (me, sheepish, "Sugar?!") And Kaci, what was the technical term for what you were doing?" (me, blushing, "I was exfoliating my lips." Everyone laughs at me and my silly-school-girl-like preparations for my first kiss with Jeremy).

 
--First dance with Jeremy to "I Could Write a Book" by Harry Connick, Jr...lyrics also so fitting for us (about friends falling in love). For those who know how much Jeremy loves to dance in front of people, you will be happy to know that he even twirled me and participated in a little choreography (Thanks Chad and Heidi). Never again, I'm sure he was saying to himself.

 
--So many fun moments dancing with the college friends from home and NAU...I wished we didn't have to leave!
Our friend, Psalm, caught the garter (with a little help from friends, as you can see here).  Our bouquet-catcher, Jen, is still yet to be married...but that's okay because we're not superstitious!  (And she's like an amazing doctor now, so she's been busy doing other things besides getting married)



--There were other good moments like the toasts and the quilt that the guests signed and the part when my dress came unbuttoned, but my favorite moment of all was when I changed into my going-away outfit and our friends blew bubbles and I surprised Jeremy by having the DJ say I had requested a dance with Jeremy and he played "Cowboy Take Me Away" by the Dixie Chicks.

Then literally, Jeremy picked me up to take me away. The crowd rushed outside to say goodbye and my mom caught my arm and gave me a hug and kiss--which was so bittersweet, like saying goodbye to my childhood--and then we were gone! It happened so fast!
But I was so pleased to find out later that many people stayed to help clean up and some of our friends (two from AZ and two from CA) shut down the dance floor with their interpretive dancing and other shenanigans.

We honeymooned in exotic Idaho and spent a day driving in Canada, picked up hitchhikers, rode a ferry, saw a Jackie Chan movie, and then hurried home for the wedding of one of my bridesmaids, Tricia, who graciously is still my friend even though I scheduled my wedding for the weekend right before hers (blushing slightly).  On a side-note, I think that all of my bridesmaids wore their dresses again, Tricia and Sarah (who both got married that summer) took them on their honeymoons...so I am a little proud of being the only bride in the history of the universe who chose dresses that their bridesmaids actually could wear again.  And just the other day, at a garage sale at a church in Flagstaff, I saw a cute light blue dress with ladybugs and wildflowers in it hanging in the breeze (Sarah!)...I bought it, for a dollar, and now I have one of my own!



If you read all the way to the end (probably only my mom), then thanks for going on this journey down memory lane with me.  And if you are interested, here's the lyrics to "His Love Will Be Our Guide".

His Love Will Be Our Guide
by Randy Thompson

As we stand here in the hands of the Lord face to face
Trusting in this miracle of God's matchless grace
I can only promise
What the Lord has promised me
My love is true
And I will go with you


Following separate pathways that have led us to this place
And from here we take the same road
We have no way of knowing
What this winding path will lead us through
But I will go with you


chorus
And His love will be our guide
When life is torn asunder
His hope will be our anchor in the storm
His peace will guard our hearts
As darkness settles over us
He will be the light to see us through
And I will go with you


As I hold your hand in my hand and promise you my love
It's so much more than words can ever say
The love you see in my eyes
And reflected now in yours
We know is true
And I will go with you




4 comments:

  1. you are welcome for the dance lessons! :) I'm so glad I took the time to read this. It wasn't the normal, sort-of sappy, story that is trying to be a romance novel- it was just like reading a page from your scrapbook. It was great! :)

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  2. Thanks for sharing your story of your wedding day with us all! I loved it, and yes I read all the way to the end. :)

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  3. I love this ...so sweet to read about your memories of that day (and dude, totally forgot that mom helped with the flowers, ha!).
    Great pictures too!

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  4. Thank you for not mentioning that the person who accosted you in Walmart cried while discussing your story! It was beautiful from start to finish.

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