we did it!

This photo was taken just after the ceremony. From this same period in the day there are some "crazy lady" looking photos, so I'm glad that there's a good photo of us. We were so overwhelmed!

About 2/3 of the way down the aisle, I noticed that people were ringing bells along with waving their ribbon wands but I didn't see any bells! It turns out that my mom put some jingle bells on string (75 sets) and her friend Lauri handed them out for people to ring as we recessed. It was great. Right in front of the video camera we stopped and said "wow, where did the bells come from?!" It was great; I guess we did have people with bells on!

Sadie, Sadie, married lady!

I love this photograph, apparently so did the blog--sphere! It was featured on one my my favorite wedding blogs, weddingbee.com, as a Gallery of the Day feature!

almost married!

Just another beautiful ceremony shot, by the lovely ladies of Kokoro Photography. LOL, there are balloons down! Oh well. I like balloons, even if they sink. Oooh, and you can see my mom's cousin Nancy holding a ribbon wand in the foreground. Yey! I thought they were so cute when people waved them as we recessed into the (warm) hotel.

reading the ketubah out loud

I wonder what's going on here, Rabbi Marc looks happy/pleased and Ben and I look so serious! Daniel, in the background, looks quite serious too. Oh well, in keeping with my recaps, I'm posting ALL of the stamped photos I have of the wedding. Whether they add to the "story" or not.

kiddush, blessing the wine

Rabbi Marc blessed the wine and then we gave each other a sip before passing the wine to each other's parents. Then I guess we were all a family? I think the photo of Ben giving me a sip of wine (the one in the middle) is so cute. He was terribly afraid of spilling on me!

kiddie parade

My dear friend Miri often lets me borrow her daughter and play mommy to her. Well, technically I'm babysitting while she's at work and her husband (a stay at home dad ISO a real job) is otherwise occupied. Ronya, in my crazyneighborlady's red wagon (which took way more emotional abuse to borrow than this photo is probably worth) was the star of the parade. Sadly, my little cousin Benjamin was quite disappointed to pull Ronya down the aisle instead of being a ring barer. Whoops. When I asked his dad (my cousin) if Benjamin would be a part of our ceremony he told Benjamin that he'd be the ring barer. Ben carried the rings in his pocket. Poor little Benjamin. :(

confessions of a haphazard bride

I know I'm a good planner/organizer but I even blew myself away with how well everything came together visually. Plus, the balloons make me smile. The blue accents on the grab-bag of "white" kippot, the balloons, the white fence and the chuppah ties it all together.

I know that I didn't really get a chance to notice how wonderful everything looked until we were walking down the aisle, towards our yihud (seclusion). FYI, everyone should take at least 10 minutes to themselves after the wedding. Time to squeeze their new spouses hand, squeal and jump up and down saying "we're married!", have some water and a snack, and finally to go to the toilet before rejoining their own wedding party/charade.

ceremonial observers

Our parents walked us down the aisle and our siblings stood by us in the corners of the chuppah. Both of us had a single grandparent in attendance and they participated in the ceremony as well.

I know that I TOTALLY strong-armed Daniel into getting his hair cut (it was about 6" longer 48 hours before this photo was taken), but I have to admit that he cleans up nicely. Coming off of a 6 month job as a park ranger at a Civil War memorial site, he looked a bit too "rustic" for most of the family to appreciate. Mark, my pseudo foster brother, cleaned up nicely as well. I think my dad bought him a new suit for the wedding because 2 weeks previously he'd been fretting that my younger brothers were wearing matching suits and he wasn't. On the wedding day, he matched too.

I love how proud Ben's mom looks in this photo, Becca and Ben's uncle Park look proud too. I wonder at what point in the ceremony these were taken. Something with words I'm guessing, since both Ben's Grandpa Bob and Aunt Terry are reeding their programs

what's a bedekin? and why we don't have to sign our own ketubah

Bedekin, um I'm not sure what the official translation is except perhaps maybe "veiling." As in when the bride's veil is pulled down over her face by the groom. The historical reasoning for this is so that the groom knows who is behind the veil and isn't tricked into marrying the wrong girl.

BEDEKIN, from our wedding program:

This tradition of veiling the bride is derived from the biblical story of Jacob’s wedding. Jacob did not see his bride before the wedding ceremony, and was tricked into marrying Leah instead of Rachel.

The bedeken is a private ceremony at which the groom is escorted to the bride before her veiling. As the groom lowers the veil over the bride’s face, he is formally acknowledging his choice of bride.

As you can see, our bedekin wasn't private, but that's OK. It meant that our families were able to witness it, stay warm and dry, and add their blessings as well.

Hehe, my mom hugs just like my youngest brother, like a big lump. I'm not sure I'd noticed that before.

I'm not sure if my grandmother reads this blog, but I'll say here: I'm disappointed that she was late because she missed the reason I have a wad of kleenex in my hand: my uncle Charles (my late grandfather's youngest brother) gave us a blessing and said that he wished my grampa was able to be there. Thankfully, that's the only time I cried all day. Maybe it's better that my gramma wasn't there, she's not a very public person with her emotions.

Neither of my aunts were their either, that was kinda disappointing too, but none of them are into public emotions or really Jewish stuff either. Oh well. They can look at these pictures and wonder "why was I outside, freezing my tush off for a good seat and missing this whole thing?"

Honestly, I'm not sure what's going on here. I was too high on adrenaline. There was something about taking Rabbi Marc's tallit with intention and that meaning that I want to take Ben as a husband. Or something like that. I'm not sure.

Then, it was time for our male witnesses to sign our ketubah! Ari, Ben's friend on the left, Ben peering over their shoulders, Rabbi Marc in the middle, and my oldest friend, Michael on the right. I've know Michael since we were THREE at Temple Rodef Shalom preschool in McLean, VA. He didn't have a beard then :) Oh, and I'm obviosuly the marshmallow in the background. I wanted to see too!

I think that photo was taken when Rabbi Marc was explaining that the last letter of the ketubah was intentionally left 1/2 written so that the contract would be written, right there in front of us all, on the wedding day. I thought that was pretty neat.

The reason we wanted male, Jewish witnesses is that we wanted to make sure that our ketubah would be kosher and accepted in Israel. It's a traditional text with a flowery English translation that we're both fond of. [We even got it framed over the weekend and should be able to pick it up in 2 weeks!]

KETUBAH: from our wedding program:

Before the ceremony, two witnesses under the supervision of the Rabbi will sign the ketubah, the Jewish wedding contract. The ketubah is a legal document, written in Aramaic that specifies the bride’s rights and the groom's obligations to the bride. Traditionally, there is no need for the bride to sign the ketubah because according to Jewish law the ketubah is her property.

Ben and I signed our names on the bottom, in English (mine looks like a 12 year old, I was kinda spacey), but there's no religious obligation to do so. It was my contract and Ben let two witnesses sign it as a way of saying that he accepted it. That's how a Jewish court (Bet Din) would see it anyway. If Ben had objected, the rabbi wouldn't have let 2 guys sign it as his representatives.

We had 2 girlfriends (Becca, who introduced us at Hillel, and Andrea, who was my first friend at Interlochen) sign our Colorado license. The third document we had, which was actually signed first, was an pre-nuptial agreement of sorts; it said that if I should ever ask for a divorce from Ben (in a religious court) that he would be required to give it to me. Otherwise, a Jewish divorce can only be initiated by the husband. We had two family friends who are both young and divorced, although one is remarried and the other just recently engaged, sign it for us (Mark the Russian, and Ethan).

That was it, we were 1/3 married (rings and yihud were to come shortly). Then, there was lots of singing and I think someone tried dancing but no one else went along with it. Once all the guests had gone out to the ceremony site my mom and Ben's dad helped Ben into his kittle (the one my mom spent Wednesday->Friday making).

To be continued.....

our first look in our wedding outfits!

We decided to see each other in the rotunda, before the bedekin (veiling) and ketubah signing so that we could have a little private snuggle time (in front of the camera). Just having a few minutes together, where we could talk without all of our guests listening in as if we were saying anything worth hearing, was SO grounding. I think we said things like "wow, you look good" and "does my hairspray smell like bubblegum? I feel like I'm candy scented." Like I said, nothing worth listening to.

After a few minutes of photo time, we walked over to the conference room where we had the bedekin and ketubah signing. To be continued....

before our first look

After I was all zipped up, my mom, girlfriends and I took the elevator from the 4th to 2nd floor. In the elevator, I looked in the mirror, twirled, and said "I'm a bride!" My girlfriends primped me one more time before they disappeared, leaving my mom and I to hang out on the landing while the photographers made sure Ben was in the rotunda for our first look photos.

I'm 99% sure that in the above photo, I'm talking to my mom about her jewelry. My mom's engagement ring is 1/2 of my paternal grandmother's eternity band (his brother proposed to his wife with the other half), and too big on my mom's finger, so she wears it stacked behind her wedding band (when she wears it at all).

I love how both of us have the same look on our faces and the same stance. I guess we're related :-D

frustrated [rant]

I'm bored and frustrated with looking for a "real job" and therefor avoiding the internet and blitz cleaning our apartment some more. Also practicing viola again without having to worry about a "viola hickey" AKA practice mark, or having short stubby fingernails in photographs again! Oh, and skiing too; I plan to do a lot of that over the next few days. Thank goodness for Loveland.

When I've recovered from my internet aversion, I'll post more wedding recaps. In the mean time, I leave you with a photo of Ronya, the beloved daughter of our good friends, Miri and Dan. They were taken while I was getting my hair done. Miri (Dan had to work) dropped a VERY fussy Ronya in my lap, where she instantly calmed down, while she went to set up the video camera to record the ceremony for us. [We were afraid we would be too adrenaline high to be present and want to be able to go back and re-listen what Rabbi Marc said. In retrospect, I wish more that we'd been able to video tape the bideken! Oh well.]

do-do-do… puttin’ on the dress

I did my own makeup, wearing just my underwear in the bathroom, so there won't be any of those photos here to share with the interwebs.

The photos of Andrea/my mom zipping up my dress are funny. I'd asked my mom to zip me up, but while I was standing there and holding up my dress Andrea swooped in and did it for me. Whoops! So there are two sets of photos of zipping up my dress!

Remember all those password protected posts about my dress? (The password is DRESS, if you want it). I think that my dress is perfectly twirly! It was perfect.

I really look forward to wearing my dress again in March to Andrea's wedding in the Berkshires. Don't worry, I'm not tacky, I'm going to have it dyed Williamsburg blue. Only the dress and strap will take the dye, the exposed tulle and inner-lining are polyester and won't take silk dye. It will be my formal dress for anything I can get away with wearing it for! Ben's got a suit and a tux and now we can go to the Nobel award banquet or an inaugural ball, or something!

Up next: going to meet Ben

personal portraits - the dude

While I was getting prettied-up, Ben had some portraits taken (and some with his family too). I think he's the most handsome man ever, but then again I'm the one that married him!

I'm not sure why all of his photos were posted in sepia tones, but he does look good in black & white! Thanks, Kokoro Photography ladies!

Getting my hair did

Rachel, from ZING, did my hair. She was great. My hair stayed put all day, and she was very calm and quiet while doing my hair. I don't remember her once asking me to do anything other than look up/down/to the side. Plus, my head didn't ache at the end of the day like it did after my trial!





There were a LOT of bobbie pins in my hair, but look at that shiny pile of curls!



At that point, I had to get up and stretch. I think this was also when Miri came in and dropped off her baby for me to snuggle.



And the crowning touch, my tiara!

Also, did you notice a difference in photo quality there? The first photo is with my old point-and-shoot and the later ones were with the new camera we received as a wedding present. Andrea used both to take some photos of me getting ready and of the bedekin/ketubah as well.

While Rachel was fussing with my hair, Amanda, from Kokoro Photography, took photos of many of my accessories and details. Her mom and partner, Debi, took lots of photos of Ben (I'll post those tomorrow).

I know that my mom thinks that these photos of what I wore are excessive, but I appreciate them! I spend all that time and effort gathering them, it's nice to have that documented. Plus, now you all can see them! Would anyone like to borrow the veil, tiara, shoes (size 6.5), or earrings? I suppose I could just pass on those accessories, and they can make their way through the world. Especially the veil, when can I ever wear that again?! I suppose it'll just stick around as a future dress-up item if no one else wants it.

I'm sure I'll find other reasons to wear the earrings and shoes again, the brooch is my great-great grandmother's (or her sister's) and is in my mother's keeping, the pearl bracelet is from my grandma via my uncle Richard. Everything else is new.

happy veterans day!

Thanks to all the vets in my life: my grandpa (who passed away in 2009), and Ben's grandpa (who was at the wedding. Thank you for defending freedom for us. What you did, and what your compatriots and current counterparts are doing is so very important to keeping America and other places around the world safe.

hair, hair, long, beautiful hair

Sunday morning..... After fielding the phone call about where to have the ceremony, it wasn't too bad. Andrea and I got up, ate roomservice breakfast, picked things up from my parents' hotel room, and started getting my hair done. It was amazing how everyone came together to help me prep for my big day. I hope Ben felt as much love and support as I did!

Mrs. Jones and WAJR came by to visit help by darning my sweater, Andrea and Becca were my personal helpers, and Miri let me snuggle her baby to keep us both calm while she went to set up the video camera.

Plus, all the people we hired were awesome too, when I was running behind no one made me stress over it, they just wanted me to know and then helped me get ready a bit faster. I never felt rushed, a bit behind, but not rushed. I suppose you could call me a zen bride, it's not like anything could have happened without me!

Things that  helped me feel pretty all day (as opposed to people):

it’s like raaaaaaain [beat] on your wedding day

Yeah, it rained. I was in denial too. It wasn't supposed to! It was supposed to be sunny and cool, like at our walk-though (because you can't rehearse getting married, you only get to do it once).

I got a voice mail from the hotel's coordinator at 7:30 in the morning, it had too many words for me to listen to so I sleepily called her back and asked her to sum up what her voicemail said. Basically, she reminded me that it rained over night (which I hadn't know, I was bottled up in the hotel's hot tub and then a king size bed with my good friend, Andrea) the predictions for the weather were that it would drizzle off and on until 1 PM, and that we could risk setting up the outdoor ceremony, or I could choose to have everything setup indoors. If it was just going to drizzle and that the sky wouldn't open up on us, I wanted to be outside! A big part of the reason we chose the St. Julien was the view of the Flatirons from the lawn; I wasn't about to give that up if I didn't have to!

4 hours later, when I was walking down the isle I kinda regretted my decision, but everything looked so beautiful! It was 50 F outside (according to my frozen feet and Weather Underground), and I was COLD. Like goosebumps and trying not to shiver or chatter my teeth cold. I'm glad that I didn't let my cousin talk me out of wearing my cute little sweater. BTW, said sweater was purchased with the idea that it would be 55-60 and sunny, not 50 and damp.

how I felt about wedding planning

This article is much more eloquently written than my normal blog-voice, http://apracticalwedding.com/2010/10/wedding-graduate-robin-ronnen

My basic idea was that I wanted to have a spiritually meaningful wedding, and an awesome reception that I would be very happy to be a guest at. Basically, we tried to throw what we thought of as the perfect party. No one can say that I didn't have fun at my own wedding, I laughed coming down the aisle!

Now, I can't recall if I've blogged about this yet, but let me tell you WHY I was laughing down the aisle:

As soon as I walked out of the hotel with my parents, to walk through the gazebo and down the aisle, I said something like "Wow is it cold out here!" and my mom replied with "Well, be glad it's not snowing, like it was at your graduation!" and every time I tried to put on a more serious face, she would say "Yey, it's not snowing!" or "Be glad you're not wearing a polyester graduation gown!" At some point, near the end of the aisle, I realized I had been giggling and not looking at Ben and I told her to shush (Michael got a picture of that, not my most attractive moment at the wedding).

Yes, it SNOWED at my high school graduation. On May 5th, in Interlochen, Michigan. The good news is the class of 2001 was the first class to graduate without anyone trying to go naked under their gown!

It also snowed on October 9th, 2009.

practice makes better

[caption id="attachment_1104" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="how the weather was supposed to be, taken by R. Green (on my camera)"][/caption]

Rabbi Marc said that we were the first couple who insisted that we have a rehearsal/walk-though of the actual wedding day. Our parents really wanted it and we like to be prepared. I'm glad we did because it cemented the details we wanted to customize in the ceremony and let all of our vendors (the lead trumpet player for the brass quintet, photographers, and wedding coordinator) know what's going on and in what order in a more physical way than just reading the program.

Speaking of programs, I have about 30 copies left over if anyone would like one. OR: download program

The only time really I went "bridezilla" all weekend was at the rehearsal, Friday morning, when I snapped and told everyone to shut-up; that they could chit-chat later and that this was our time and that they were wasting it on each other. Later that night, at dinner, Rabbi Marc thanked me. He, Ben and I had been standing there, waiting for everyone to quiet down and they just kept taking! He was being too nice, but in the end he was right to let me boil over because he would have come off as mean where as I just came off as stressed out. I snapped at my mom after the rehearsal too, but that was because I needed to not focus on the wedding for a bit and eat lunch. She needed her own time too! She'd been at my house until 11:30 the night before, making Ben's kittle.

Thankfully, my mom understood and when we returned to my house, after lunch, she helped me clean for an hour before getting back to work on Ben's kittle (which, btw, turned out beautifully). I was useless most of the day, helping Sheila (my new mother in law) put together the programs and stuffing more welcome bags. So useless, that everyone was able to get their tasks done without me. I ran away from craft-central (AKA our apartment) to drop off the florists check, and get my legs waxed in the afternoon and hang out with my gramma, aunt Judi, and good friend Becca at the hotel before picking up Ben again and going to kabbalat shabbat services and then dinner at the synagogue with all guests in town already and some select local friends.

I am kinda sad that there are no photos from Friday night and Saturday, but that's the only downfall from taking a true Shabbat (at least until our pizza party at Hillel, which we also have no good photos of). It was amazing to be able to say that if it wasn't done by 6 PM on Friday night, it wasn't going to happen. My mom even finished Ben's kittle by then! She just had to then go back to the hotel and change into non-crafting clothes. Dinner was super yummy, kosher Moroccan food, and it was so nice to unwind and catch up with everyone who came!

The auf-ruf Saturday was amazing, I didn't cry! I totally expected to cry when I looked around and saw everyone smiling, clapping, and singing for us, but all I could do was grin and snuggle Ben!

side note: we only caught 2 pieces of candy on our make-shift chuppah, does that mean we can only have 2 kids? I want 3 if the first 2 are the same gender.....

The kiddish luncheon was tasty too, and everyone hung out so long, it was wonderful! Then, most of the "young people" went to Hillel where Katie and Peter, AKA The Bears, had heated up the oven and set up a mini keg of home-brewed 90 Shilling proxy for us. Huzzah! We sat around chatting, getting on a good buzz and eating pizza (while playing with our new camera, there are a few pictures of just my nose, and of buttons on the couch, and other fun "zoomed in" features of the Hillel house).

Shall I keep going?

Saturday evening, I don't have any photos, but once Andrea and I packed up everything I needed from my apartment, we checked into the bridal suite at the hotel (we had a sleep-over so I wouldn't be alone and/or need to move in the morning), changed, and went to join my family at Sherpa's (our favorite restaurant) for dinner. Yum! Then it was hot tub time with some of my favorite ladies (definitely not photos of this).

Ben had dinner with his family in the evening at Antica Roma (where he proposed to me), and then they all met up for gelato at Two Spoons (the same place we took a bunch of our engagement photos).

After we each had a shower, followed by me texting Ben a whole lot, Andrea and I finally got to sleep in the giant, squishy bed until Sunday morning!