I'd do it all over again. Maybe. Except for the crazy parts.

Here is your fair warning that this post is going to be picture heavy.  And long. 

A few weeks ago, the magnificent bloggy BFF and I were discussing weddings.  Mostly this post is for her, but a little for me too.  I'm not going to lie, I love weddings.  I love peeking in on my friends Facebook pages with their wedding pics, I love reading about strangers' weddings in the blogosphere, & I even love attending them, especially if they don't suck.  Maybe it's the party planning piece, maybe it is all the mushy love junk, but I love them.  I'm just glad that when I was planning, I knew nothing of blogs because I am pretty sure things would have been out of control, there is SO much out there now, so many incredible ideas... just remember this was almost five years ago.  And it was fun, so fun that people still tell us it was the most fun wedding they've ever been to.  I think it's because we viewed the reception as a party and dispensed with all of the traditional stuff. 

We did food stations with a really creative chef that let us do what we wanted.  We had stirfry made in front of you & served out of takeout boxes; and a potato bar that had mashed potatoes & hand cut fries; carved beef with bernaise; and a salad station with vichysoisse... a complete jumble,  but we had all our favorites represented. 

We had a martini luge. 

And a live band.  I am pretty sure that is where the insanity started.  Oh, and it was 9 million degrees out and we got married in a historic church that doesn't have air conditioning.  But I am getting ahead of myself...

Here we are, those little specks there sitting on the alter.

The deacon of my church and the pastor of Dave's both married us.  It was important to us that we were both represented in the ceremony.  Dave chose all of the music, every last piece except the Hawaiian Wedding Song which is my Meme's favorite. 

The girls all chose a black tea length dress in whatever style they wanted and most of them have worn their dresses again, which was our goal.  We had our friends stand up for us no matter what their sex... we still tease my cousin that he was a "bridesman" in our wedding & Dave's sister was his "best woman". 

This is my favorite photo, taken right after the ceremony.  It was published in the Knot Ohio magazine shortly after we were married.  

Oh, and the ridiculously giant bouquet? I had the most important women in my life {there were 24 of them} choose a flower for me to carry.  Something that represented them or me or us and they wrote why they chose their flower on a beautiful card that I was able to keep. 

I didn't care that a bird of paradise was nestled in next to a white rose that was bumping up against a calla lilly, or that it was huge, or that my florist thought I was nuts.  I absolutely loved having them 'with me' as I married Dave.

We gave our photographer approximately 20 minutes for posed photos before we were on to the reception in a giant bus that we rented one week before {a GENIUS idea Mom!} the wedding.  Thankfully, Kristen only thought we were slightly nuts and got us on our way.  We didn't want to miss the reception.  She really captured everything we wanted in such an unobtrusive fantastic way without needing posed pics. 

Now we're on to the reception.  

We really wanted to do our own thing.  We went traditional with the ceremony, so the party was about us.

Our parents about had a heart attack that we weren't having a cake.  Or doing the cake cutting.  Or the bouquet toss.  Or the garter thing.  Or making our guests sit around for an hour while we danced a million dances.  We skipped all of it.  

We heard, "you're doing what??!?" a lot during planning.  It still makes me laugh just thinking about it.  

Here is what we DID do... 

A Polaroid guest book. These pictures are hilarious. And when we ran out of film because everyone took a ton of crazy fun photos, people started drawing in pictures of themselves. I love that book, even years later we pull it out.  Who can say that about a guest book?

A candy buffet.  Now, everyone and their mother does them, but it was pretty out there back then. 

My mother thought this was the dumbest thing ever.  She told Dave the morning of the wedding  that she thought we would be carting home 57 pounds of candy at the end of the night. Then, she walked into the reception and saw giddy 21 year olds and 57 year olds both filling bags and squeeling like the little kids that were in line behind them.  There were a few giant buttermint peppermints left at the end of the night that I happily took home because they are my favorites.  Janet eating her words was even sweeter.

We had frozen novelties in lieu of cake.  And don't forget a martini from the luge.  We also had a full bar complete with a keg of Guiness to celebrate our honeymoon to Ireland a little early.  My mom and my aunt went on a wine scouting trip to Napa a few months before the wedding and had wines paired for each food station.

I loved the tables.  We had a small vase with a rose at each place setting.  The favors were homemade {by my BFF's mom as a wedding gift to us} unbelievable caramel turtles.  She makes all of the caramel herself.  We put them in boxes that had all kinds of random facts about us & our bridal party, some were funny, some sweet.  We had so many compliments on this, especially from guests that might not have known a lot of people, it was a great ice breaker to ask everyone else at the table what fact they had.  The escort cards had the table number written in on the back.

Well, there you have it.  Our wedding, or most of it at least.  I'll leave out the crazy parts, maybe another post?  The food was great.  The drinks were strong.  And all night the dance floor was full, so were our hearts knowing how many people flew in, drove in, and made time to be there for us.  That by far surpassed all of the rest.   Thanks for peeking in.
Oh, one more little thing... 

Friends don't let friends stick their heads in martini luges.
{unless you're at our wedding... then, it's pretty normal.}

{All photos in this post were taken by the fabulous Decisive Moment Photojournalism except the last one, taken by my ridiculously talented uncle who was mistaken for a drunk photographer.}