Our Wedding Day!!!

Oh the memories of our wedding day! Leading up to our big day I had always heard that every wedding ends up having some kind of outrageous story behind it. Subconsciously I probably wondered what on earth our story would end up being but honestly, I went into our big day thinking 'how on earth could something go wrong?!' I mean I spent months devoting my life to this one day. Really, my wedding monopolized my free time for the 6 months I spent planning! But of course we did have stories and who would have guessed I was the leading lady of it all - lol!

Our day ended up being perfect in it's own way. Would I change some things if I could...it would be tempting...but would I really change it? Never! All of the imperfections made it OUR day. We look back on things now and laugh. My MOH-tastic sister told me several times throughout the planning process, "If you don't laugh, you'll cry!" So we choose to laugh! And I choose to share all the laughs and imperfections with you :-)

I'd like to preface with something I found quite funny. Do I have any "Sex In The City" fans out there?! If so, then you may have seen the episode "The Catch" It's the episode where Charlotte and Harry tie the knot in a traditional Jewish wedding and everything goes terribly wrong! First, Harry sees Charlotte in her dress a few days prior to their wedding, then in their newspaper announcement, Charlotte has an ink moustache! At the actual wedding, Harry spills wine down the front of Charlotte's dress, Samantha breaks her bracelet on the altar (there is a big scene with everyone trying to clean up all the pearls!) Harry can't break the glass and Charlotte ultimately slips and almost falls on one of the forgotten pearls! After, the main character, Carrie, finds a crying Charlotte in the bathroom who says "I just wanted everything to be perfect" and Carrie comforts her by saying "The worse the wedding the better the marriage!" I had to laugh because I so related to Charlotte!!! I just wanted everything to be perfect too! I'm hoping Carrie's words ring true, because if that's the case, Patrick and I will have one heck of a happy marriage ;-) BTW - Charlotte and Harry's wedding ended with the Best Man giving an inappropriate speech and the Maid of Honor's speech catching fire from a close by candlestick! ***Note***Our wedding was not this drastically bad! But it was by no means perfect!!

So, last entry I told you about my attempts to get to bed with Baby Teddy and Katie at the Inn On Negley. By the way, the Inn is a little bed and breakfast in Shadyside, and it's AMAZING! I highly suggest it for a little vacation! It is absolutely beautiful, the beds are a dream and the service was superb! Not the mention, the breakfast was to die for!

At 3:30 am Baby Teddy lost his pacifier and this Bride-To-Be was up for the rest of the day! Katie retrieved the pacifier off the hardwood floor and Baby Teddy was down for the count. Aunt Maggie on the other hand, not so much! Butterflies had already taken over my tummy and I couldn't stop thinking about my wedding day! I tried to fall back asleep but it was hopeless. So after an hour of battling the butterflies to go back to sleep, I was up and at it. I decided to enjoy a nice bath. We stayed the the Courtland Suite at the Inn which has a whirl-pool tub so I decided to have at it. The Inn provides L'Occitane toiletries, which was marvelous...I love L'Occitane! So I took a relaxing bath at 4:30 am - lol! After my bath I finally got to read the card that Patrick gave me the night before with my pearl ring...he made it himself...look how cute!!

My hairdresser, Val, arrived at the Inn around 5:30 am to start her work for the day - so it was bound to be an early morning from the start. She did both my mother and mother-in-laws hair, 5 of my bridesmaids hair and my hair. Future brides-to-be...I don't suggest this! When it came down to it, we were kinda rushing to get my hair finished, and I'm sure Val was tired from doing hair for 8 hours! It was fun to have my loved ones there though. All morning long we watched "Father of the Bride" which was really, really fun! I've always loved that movie!

I spent most of the day as a huge bum though! I was showered but for hours I sat there in PJ's waiting for it to finally be my turn to get ready! At noon my makeup artist, Loretta, got there and my day finally began :-) Loretta did a great job! So did Val! I was very happy with how my look panned out  :-)

All of my bridesmaids and flower girls were there as I finished up getting ready and they all turned around as I put on my dress to assure it was a surprise. Only 3 of the 8 had seen it prior to the big day!

We took some group pictures then it was on to the trolley for the ceremony...but not before our photographer, Milla, could snap this picture (one of my faves!)

The butterflies got rowdier on the trolly! I was so excited! The girls pulled a quick on on me and had me "ring the bell" but in reality it made a terrible farting noise...we all got a good laugh. THEN I got to really ring the bell...yay!

When we pulled up to Saint Paul's Cathedral, I was kinda freaking out, not because of nerves but because of my under-garments! I had on this fabulous corset which had garter straps that connected to my thigh-highs...very classic and sexy! Well, we never moved the straps to fit me so they kept snapping off and hitting me in the rear!! I just wanted everything to be perfect during the ceremony so it kinda set me off that it wasn't. Then my shoes set in and I realized my beautiful Bagley Mischka's were doing me so wrong! I remember standing in the line-up ready to walk down the aisle and I wanted to take my shoes off - even just for a minute!! LOL! My MOH told me she didn't think it was a good idea, which was probably right - lol!! Brides-to-be...buy comfy shoes!!! I was so focused on what they looked like and the designer label on the inside. Oh if I could do it again! But, in my (and my shoes) defense, they were beautiful and matched perfectly...at least they had that going for them!

It was surreal walking down the aisle on my dad's arm and seeing Patrick there beaming at the other side! I remember just focusing on him. My eyes never left his! He looked so handsome...what a dream come true!

When we got to the altar, Father commented on how cold both mine and Patrick's hands were. I blamed mine on holding my flowers. Patrick responded "at least it isn't my feet!" - we both laughed so hard...that was pretty clever!!!

Patrick and I did a great job with our vows and the exchanging of rings. No stumbled words...yay!

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But things got interesting when it was time to give a sign of peace to our parents and we realized that the roses we ordered for each of them were nowhere in sight!!! We instead met them with hugs...

We played it off smoothly but this brought up the question as to where our bouquet for the Blessed Mother was. In the Catholic church there is a tradition for the Bride to present, the Blessed Mother with a small bouquet of flowers if she has a close relationship with her. I pray to Mary daily and always knew I wanted to honor her on our special day. So I whispered to my sister and she also saw no flowers in sight. During Communion my sly MOH went up to our floral arrangement and plucked out a single pink rose...problem solved!

It ended up that our peace roses and the bouquet for Mary were in the church, but were left in the last row of pews. Then Patrick and I made a little mistake when lighting out unity candle. We lit them perfectly but forgot to blow out the ones our parents had lit!

Patrick's Aunt Karen said it best when admitting our blunder, "All in God's plan - that's because their "lights" will always shine bright in you both!" Well said Aunt Karen!! BTW - We've been to two ceremonies since and they both forgot to blow theirs out as well - it's now Patrick and I's little inside joke :-) 

Our priest went a half-hour over and we were almost unable to get pictures on the gorgeous altar of Saint Paul's Cathedral. Fortunately we had an on-the-ball bridal party who came right up after so we were able to get a few shots...this bridal party brought their A-Game!

Literally 5 minutes later we were in the trolley and on our way to our bridal photoshoot. My feet hurt so bad! Fortunately, the pictures turned out GREAT! Here are a few of our favorites!! Thanks Milla C. Photography!

Somewhere in the mix of the photo shoot, a shoe went through the bottom of my dress. It may have been my shoe? I just remember hearing a rip and seeing the hole. Lovely, right?! Nobody noticed, nope, not with what was to come...! Trust me, it gets even better then this! Stay tuned for the next blog capturing our oh-so-interesting wedding reception :-)