to rehearse

Of all the various things we did in planning this wedding of ours, my most very favorite was the writing of the ceremony.  I knew from the get-go that we wanted it to be 100% ours - every single word written and crafted by us.  

preparing for our rehearsal to begin

I bought book after book of wedding ceremony how-tos, readings, and services, but all of them struck me as lackluster.  I'd heard it before, or it had too much cheese (yes, possible in this context), or it just wasn't us.  

Hooray for breaking molds!

As we hit the 40-days-to-go mark  (sometime in late June) without any inkling of a ceremony or any officiant hired (per usual, I refused to let someone else take the reins), I decided to toss all my books out the window and start from scratch.  One Friday night when Stefan was out of town, I went around the corner to my favorite neighborhood spot (Jackson Fillmore), ordered myself a juicy glass of Pinot and a truffle burrata mini plate and cranked out 7 pages of content.  

After going through it with Stefan and my parents, however, we knew we couldn't have just anyone read it - if we were going to go this route, we needed it to done by people we knew, people we loved, people who had a special place in both our lives.  And thus we decided not to have an officiant at all - instead, having different family members do each of the various parts.

An entrance with lots of kids,

followed by a kick off by the moms,

then a reading found by, made for, 

edited, and read by my grandpa dickie boy,

the body by the dads, 

and then some vows, i dos, rings, 

and a kiss 

by my grandpa poppy.

See - it's going to be easy as pie.

The rehearsal went off without a hitch except for the fact that we had forgotten to tell Stefan's European groomsmen (3 out of 4) that their duties included having to STAND UP in front for the entire duration of the event.  

Stefan: "So guys - you'll actually need to stand here the whole time."

Frank in red shirt: "You're not serious."

Stefan: "Yes, yes - I am afraid I am."

Whoopsies.

More details to come soon.

xoxo

KK