Show Us Your Life: Weddings

One thing I was set on while planning my wedding was making it unique. I am not an entirely traditional person and neither is my husband, so I wanted our wedding to really reflect us. My wedding colors were red, white, and black, and lots of unexpected things were polka-dotted (more on that in a minute). For the seating of the mothers, we went traditional, with my soloist singing "A Mother's Prayer" by Celine Dion. My wedding party entered to "100 Years" by Five for Fighting, an instrumental version by my pianist, and I walked down the aisle to "Falling in Love," a beautiful instrumental song by The O'Neill Brothers. It deserves a listen if you've never heard it. On the YouTube clip, I walked through the doors at about 20 seconds.

This picture is the first one taken immediately after our ceremony.

Like Kelly's sweet daddy, my father is my minister, so he performed my ceremony. However, my mother is my dearest friend, and she walked me down the aisle and gave me away. This is the only picture we have of that, and it's not a very flattering one, but it was one of my favorite parts of my ceremony, and it was very special to us.

Instead of flowers for my bridesmaids, we used candles. I had a night wedding, and the candles put off a romantic glow...and they were cheap! The bouquet was mine, and it was way big!

My wedding party grew as the wedding was planned, but I knew I wanted polka-dotted dresses and tuxedos without tails. Also, my best friend is a guy, so I had a man of honor. He wasn't my husband's best friend, so I didn't feel right about chunking him over with the groomsmen, and I didn't feel right about making a random friend my "maid of honor" just because it's traditionally a girl role. So, Patrick was my "man of honor," and he proudly wore his polka-dotted tie to match my girls. Here he is...

Here is our entire wedding party...excluding us:

This is my favorite picture of some of my bridesmaids, shaking their behinds at the reception. After spending roughly over $1000 on bridesmaid garb for weddings I had been in that year, I decided to pick a cheap dress ($49) that my girls could hopefully wear again. I know everyone always says that, but I loved the way they looked.

This is my flower girl (my wonderful niece) and my ring bearer (my cousin).

As far as the rest of the music went, after we lit the unity candle, we played a slide show of photos of us from children to now while we played "My Best Friend" by Queen. Because I have always been very involved in directing/facilitating Children's Church through the years, after my father prayed the final prayer, my Children's Church kids, past and present, came to the front of the church (decked out in red, white, and black) and sang "Shine On Us" by Phillips, Craig, and Dean. They had practiced for weeks, and it was really beautiful. After we were pronouced husband and wife, we walked back down the aisle to "I Got You, Babe" by Sonny and Cher, to the surprise of my husband.

To date, my wedding has been one of the greatest nights of my life.