We just got home from our honeymoon, and it was absolutely incredible! We spent two weeks in Tanzania and hiked Mount Kilimanjaro; saw all kinds of amazing animals on safari in the Tarangire, Ngorongoro, and Serengeti; and finally spent two days on the beach in Zanzibar. That last part felt like the quintessential honeymoon experience, and it was cool to see the Indian Ocean, but both of us were a little stir crazy for that part of the trip… so I think we planned it perfectly. After such a long time away from work, and especially after those final two days of doing very little, I’m now really itching to get home and be productive! While it’s unlikely we’ll take two weeks again anytime soon, we agreed that we should probably end all our future trips with a bit of relaxation rather than our usual MO of trying to pack it all in right up to the second we’re back to work.
While in the Zanzibar Airport lounge awaiting our flights home, I pulled up our wedding video for Mike and me to watch together. As I had hoped way back when I first booked our photographer, it made me cry happy tears🙂 It captured so many of the sweetest parts of our wedding, the wonderful friends and family who came to celebrate with us, and a lot of fun on the dance floor too! I thought I’d share it here with all of you.
But as happy as I am with how the wedding video turned out, it didn’t capture all the little details that I worked so hard on to make our wedding feel special. So I want to take a few minutes on this 18-hour plane ride to write up my favorite parts, and the small easter egg details that probably none of our guests realized either 🙂
Since we had a lot of out-of-towners coming to Colorado, we organized several nights of festivities. On Thursday, we invited all our family who had arrived so far over to our house for a casual dinner. I cooked a super simple meal – lemon-roasted chicken breast (breasts get spiced and a simple homemade marinade thrown on, then roasted in baking dishes for about an hour), herb rice (in the Instapot), and Caesar salad – all of which was surprisingly easy to put together even while hosting 25 people. I did get stressed out when we tried to squeeze in an impromptu hike right before it was time for me to make dinner, but recovered quickly and had a really fun night with everyone, showing off our house and also letting everyone get to know each other. I’m so glad we did this!
On Friday, instead of a traditional rehearsal dinner, we hosted a very low-key welcome party for all the guests, about 80 of whom came. We rented a pavilion at Bear Creek Lake Park, stocked coolers with wine and beer from Costco, added some snacks, and hired Smokin’ JJ’s barbecue to cater dinner. We also asked our bridal party to come 30 minutes before the welcome party, so we could do a quick walkthrough and rehearsal with our coordinator of the ceremony processional and recessional. We brought a bunch of paddleboards and encouraged locals to bring their own, but Mike and I ended up mingling with most of the adult guests while the kids played in the lake so we didn’t end up paddleboarding ourselves. It was a blast! Again, I am so glad we hosted this event – while it took some extra planning to organize, I felt like it gave us a chance to see and hug a lot of people before the wedding, which took a lot of pressure off our actual ceremony and reception.
So that brings me to our ceremony itself! While it was pretty traditional (at least for a modern non-religious wedding), I spent a lot of time planning small details that made it special.
Before the ceremony started, our DJ announced that it would be an “unplugged ceremony” and that we especially asked that no one have their phones out for the processional; instead, we had a small “social media moment” once everyone was in place at the altar, so people could take photos then. It made me really happy to walk down the aisle seeing people’s faces instead of a sea of phones held up like paparazzi… though I’ll admit that I was mostly just looking at Mike!
When I first started planning, I thought I wanted both my parents to walk me down the aisle. However, as I got deeper into planning details, I realized that at 39, I haven’t been living with or supported by parents in nearly two decades, so it didn’t really make sense for them to give me away. (Never mind that Mike and I had been “living in sin” for a year by the time of our wedding!) What I decided to do was split the difference. Our ceremony site was set up so most of the bridal party entered from the side, looped to the back, and then came down the aisle. But it was suggested that a car pick me up from my getting ready suite, wait directly at the back of the ceremony for my cue, and then let me out for my grand entrance to walk down the aisle – very dramatic! I asked my brother Lars to be the one to drive me, so that he could not only cover the logistical need but also give me a pep talk if I needed it. I look up to Lars for being practical and wise, with good advice and always cool as a cucumber, and I loved having him be part of this! I got out of the truck and walked down the stairs to the meadow myself, and then my parents were waiting at the bottom of the stairs to walk me the rest of the way. It felt so perfect to feel like I could (obviously) walk down the aisle alone, but I had the support of my family… not because I needed it, but because I wanted it!
For the earlier part of the processional, while I originally thought I would have the bridesmaids pair up with the groomsmen and walk in together, I took a cue from my own entrance. All three of my bridesmaids were badass single women who didn’t need anyone to walk them down the aisle (even in long dresses and heels). So they each walked solo, one after the other, and the groomsmen followed in their own line. Rather than having Mike at the front of the ceremony from the beginning, we had him come in escorted by his two parents, so all three could have their moment in the spotlight. My parents then followed, walking from the side of the barn to the bottom of the stairs for my entrance.
And the music! This was one of my favorite parts. We used Sara Bareilles’ “I Choose You” for the wedding party – a little light and upbeat to kick things off. When Mike walked in with his parents, we switched to Train’s “Marry Me”. And finally, for my entrance, the beautiful piano of Ben Folds’ “The Luckiest”. I listened to this over and over in the weeks before the wedding, trying to practice not crying during my aisle walk, but of course I teared up anyway! I think of “The Luckiest” as one of Mike’s and my special songs, as we are constantly telling each other that we are the absolute luckiest to have found each other.
We had a relatively short ceremony – which was good, because the day was hotter than usual and I was getting a little dizzy up there! I remember at one point trying to figure out how I could sit down without being dramatic if I thought I was going to faint 😂 But it all went without a hitch.
Our officiant, Mike’s best friend Jackie, delivered a gorgeous opening speech, and then it was up to us to read our vows. Here’s one of my favorite parts of my vows, which I feel like longtime blog readers will appreciate:
“I love that you can be silly and playful one moment, and then be the person I trust most for advice the next. I love that we have so much in common, but also that we’re both strong “power couple” personalities who speak up and challenge each other. And I love that we both have a growth mindset, and keep striving to learn how to challenge each other well. As overachievers, we’re both committed to an 80/80 marriage, and I love how we keep working on turning toward each other when something gets hard. Mike, you’ve seen the most vulnerable parts of me. A lot of people think I’m this intense go-getter who’s always achieving, and I know you thought I was kind of a gunner when you first read my profile. But you see the parts of me that are messy, imperfect, and sometimes embarrassing – and you love me through all of it. With you, it feels like the happiest kind of settling to get to just let my hair down, to relax and be myself with no regrets. You love me not for what I’ve achieved, but for who I am, and I feel the same way about you.”
And one of the actual “vow” parts that I have kept religiously: “I promise to say “I love you” every night before I go to bed, and every morning as the first words out of my mouth.” If you are in a relationship, I can’t recommend this practice enough! It makes my days so wonderful to know that Mike and I start and end every day with that. We have an inside joke about only saying “I love you” when we really feel it, not out of habit, and it delights me that we both do really mean it every night and every morning… and a thousand other times a day too. (Fun fact: we once tried to count how many times we said “I love you” in a day, and gave up when we hit 50 times by 9am. Yup, my mother-in-law Peggy is right: we are ridiculously sappy!)
Although Mike and I agreed ahead of time that we wanted our ceremony to be more serious and moving rather than jokey, we did allow room for one prank, which ended up being one of my favorite moments. We didn’t have a ring bearer (or a flower girl for that matter); Mike just carried the rings in his pocket. But at the rehearsal, we never discussed ring logistics with our bridal party, and no one asked. So on wedding day, we asked Jackie to introduce the ring exchange by announcing, “And now the best man, Jim, will present the rings to the couple.” Everyone turned to Mike’s best friend, Jim, as his face turned beet red and his eyes got really big while he went into panic mode. Luckily, I couldn’t hold my laughter in for more than a few seconds, and Jim visibly relaxed and then gave us chagrined dirty looks as Mike pulled the rings out of his pocket and the ceremony proceeded.
Jim and Mike are forever pranking each other, and this was just perfect!
We exchanged rings and had our first kiss…
And finally, recessed back down the aisle to Natalie Cole’s “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)”. I felt like I was starring in my very own 90s rom com happy ending!
Stay tuned for part 2, our cocktail hour, reception, after party, and beyond…
