Give Me a Kiss to Build a Dream on

After we finished our group portraits, we went straight into our First Dance, "Give Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On" as performed by Louis Armstrong. We never took dance lessons. Neither of us are particularly good dancers. Our practicing consisted of swaying and twirling in our office and foyer at home a few times during the weeks leading up to the wedding. I have absolutely zero regrets about this. Sure, maybe it'd be fun to learn to dance together sometime, but on our wedding day, swaying and looking at my shiny new husband was all I was keen to do. I certainly didn't want to be stressing about remembering any coordinated dance moves. It was a lovely three minutes.


Give me a kiss to build a dream on
And my imagination
Will thrive upon that kiss

Sweetheart, I ask no more than this
A Kiss to build a dream on

Give me a kiss before you leave me
and my imagination
will feed my hungry heart

Leave me one thing before we part
A kiss to build a dream on

When I'm alone with my fancies
I'll be with you

Weaving romances
Making believe they're true

Oh, give me your lips for just a moment
and my imagination
will make that moment live

Give me what you alone can give
A kiss to build a dream on


All photos by Jenna Cole, unless otherwise denoted by watermark as Lynn Nguyen's.
I purchased a disc of unedited high resolution photos from Jenna, so all photos by her have been edited by me for the purpose of sharing them with you.

Details, Details!

We interrupt this wandering narrative to show you some stuff of a purely aesthetic nature.

It's scary how many of these projects were tackled at the 11th hour. It's amazing how many of these projects would've fallen completely by the wayside if I hadn't had awesome wedding elves jump in at the last minute to save me from death by crafting.

Let's start with something silly and fun. Our "photobooth".

Ingredients: Fabric bought for about $0.90 a yard at Ikea about 6 months before the wedding. 1 Captain Kirk standup that typically lives in our kitchen because we're classy like that. 1 Yoda backpack that I bought several years ago because I'm awesome. 1 awesome Uncle who threw all the ingredients together and made it work even though I forgot the part of the tripod that holds the camera on, and also yaaaay duct tape.

Moving onto a few very last minute projects.

Photo by Chrishawn Mitchell

We decided about a week before the wedding to use a photo matt for the guestbook. Yay, Kohl's perpetual sales on frames. Yay, quick print-out asking people to sign, in lieu of a photo since we never had engagement portraits shot. Also featured in this photo is a really pretty bit of decor that my mom threw together within the week before the wedding before she even mentioned it to me. Ha. Love my momma. Naturally, I loved 'em and knew they'd find a good home somewhere at the wedding. They looked right at home on our otherwise bare guestbook/present table, and they now look right at home on our fireplace mantle!


I love how the "guestbook" turned out. I can't wait to print one of our portraits and hang it above our mantle!

Photo by Chrishawn Mitchell

The card basket was also so very last minute. My mom and I bought the basket sometime within the last 2 weeks before the wedding. I made the li'l trifold sign the night before the wedding. Ha. Procrastinate? Me?! Never!

Photo by Chrishawn Mitchell

Oh, lavender toss. My brother and sister-in-law bought about 2 pounds of lavender when they visited my sister in Washington roughly a month before the wedding. 2 pounds of lavender. A LOT of lavender. A LOT of amazing smelling beautiful lavender. A LOT of lavender that we discovered my nephew is deathly allergic to while we (we? I wasn't involved at all, actually. Thanks wedding elves!) were packaging the lavender about 2 days before the wedding. Whoops.

Those are tea filter bags by the way. Tea filter bags that wound up looking nothing like they did in the picture. Whatever. It did the job.

Oh, my beloved beautiful bunting!



[drools] Probably my personal favorite bit of decor. This is one that I fought a number of people on. "Why?", they asked. "Like the flags at used car lots?", they said. "Yes, exactly", I said. "You so don't have time to make those", they said. "Yeah huuuuuh", I whined. Ultimately, it totally wouldn't have happened if my mom (one of the original protestors, particularly about how much time I had on my hands) hadn't tracked down the fabric and cut out all the flags. Thanks mom! I glued all of 'em onto the string one afternoon and they wound up looking aaaaawesome.

Photo by Chrishawn Mitchell

Another late-in-the-game project was the streamers on the railing around the trees. We wanted something to soften their appearance, since our ceremony was set to occur between these trees. Beige metal railing didn't have the right.. ambience. Our first good idea was ribbons disguising them like so, but.. I'm a cheapskate. A cheapskate with a tight budget. And ribbon's expensive!



So uh.. because we're crazy, we decided to buy really cheap fabric in our wedding colors and cut it into strips. Except on top of being crazy, we're also really busy, so had no time to actually accomplish this project. Luckily wedding elf Carla, one of my mom's close friends, volunteered to help out. She cut all of these strips of fabric in perfect straight-as-a-board lines of uniform thickness, and then stored them beautifully folded and organized by color. So, essentially, the opposite of what my haphazard disorganized make-it-work self would've done. Carla, you rock.

I find it really cute that Opie and his groomsmen are the ones that ultimately wound up tying the fabric onto the railing. I wasn't able to attend the set-up, but I can totally picture them doing it. Awww.



As previously discussed, I could hardly care less about cake. Yeah, sure, for a brief while I oohed and ahhed over the pretty ways you can decorate wedding cakes. And then I remembered, Oh yeah. I don't like cake. And wedding cakes are ridonkulously expensive. So, I present our beautiful wedding pie.

Originally, my grandmother was supposed to make our wedding pie. Unfortunately, unforeseen complications made that rather inconvenient for her, but my lovely sister-in-law Melissa stepped in instead. Our wedding pie was pecan pie, made with the recipe that Opie uses. In other words, deeeelicious. Opie and I have "pie time" on a regular basis, with pies that he/we make at home. It's a pretty pivotal part of our relationship.

Photo by Chrishawn Mitchell

Om nom nom nom pie. Oh, right. Carrot cake too, yeah, yeah. Admittedly I like carrot cake pretty well. It's Opie's favorite cake and thus made a perfect groom's cake. :] It wound up being one detail I would change a little bit if given the chance, but ultimately, it so incredibly doesn't matter. I just don't like the little technicolor orange and green carrots on top. Yup. That's it. The cake was admittedly delicious, for the one bite of it that I got.

That's my bouquet chillin' with the coffee beans up there. Also, the cloth spread on the table is a wrap that my sister gave me for my birthday (and also for prom) back in high school. The cake and pie servers both belong to my mother. Hooray for using preowned items!



Jenna wound up using our cake/pie table as a backdrop for some cute ring shots. I'm not sure if it was Jenna & Lynn or some wedding guest that wrote LOVE with the coffee beans, but it was an adorable unplanned touch.



Looking at this photo is always such a struggle in my mind between "Oooo, pretty jewelry!" and "Mmmm.. delicious piiiie." [drools]



I'll close the entry with some photos of our tablescapes. This is one of the few projects that actually came to fruition via lots of long-term planning and work.



The green polyester shantung fabric was stalked and purchased on sale with coupons months in advance. My mom cut and hemmed all of them a good while before the wedding. The little lunch sack favor bags were purchased from Target everytime they restocked 'em for about a month. My sister and I decorated them over the summer when she came to visit. It was also at that time that we taste-tested the favors themselves. We decided on deeeelicious cranberry and coffee chocolate truffles that my sister handmade.



I saved up coffee beans for a full year before the wedding. I get a free pound every week at work, and while I forgot a few weeks here and there, I had a TON stockpiled by the time the wedding rolled around. I bargain hunted for ages to find cool inexpensive vases. I bought the white tablecloths on ebay as soon as I knew how many we needed, after going on a similarly epic quest for the cheapest best-looking ones. I bought the votive holders off of Craigslist somewhere midway through planning the wedding. The cups doubling as candleholders were all my maternal grandparents', and I've saved them ever since the estate sale after my grandfather passed away when I was 13.



Everything looked so pretty in the candlelight, just like I imagined.


All photos by Jenna Cole, unless otherwise denoted by watermark as Lynn Nguyen's, or if credited to my day of coordinator, Chrishawn Mitchell.
I purchased a disc of unedited high resolution photos from Jenna, so all photos by her have been edited by me for the purpose of sharing them with you.

Obligatory Group Photos for the Moms in the House

And now we move onto photos that family members can pretend to be excited about, and friends/acquaintances/strangers could care less about. Ah, the classic wedding family photos. You know the ones. I'm very happy to have them nonetheless. :P

While we waited for all of our immediate relatives to be wrangled (no small task) we snagged a photo with our officiant, Virgil Walker.

A few others took the opportunity to have some photos taken as well.

There are all three of my attendants, Sister of Honor Jessie, Bridesman Michael, and Brideslady Kelsey.

That's my dad, my nephew Connor, and my Uncle Tom all looking quite sporting in their caps. Connor's super-adorable vest makes up for his lack of a bowtie.

There's my cousin TJ who played guitar for our ceremony, and his daughter, Flowergirl Elise. :)

With the relative-gathering taking approximately forever, we snagged a few more portraits of just the two of us.

We're glowing!

These 2 shots are so gosh. darn. cool.

MAGIC. Magic, I tell you.

Anyhow, we finally gathered everyone and snagged a few photos of the whole group with someone making a funny face in each one, and then Elise showed up and made the photos of the whole group approximately 999x more awesome. Just sayin'.

I love this kid. So much.

I just giggle everytime I see these photos. I think I might frame one of them.

Anyhow, moving on. With smaller groups, we were much more successful with the whole everyone-not-looking-weird thing. This is my side of the family! From the left, my grandmother, my dad, my mom, me!, Opie, my brother Tom, my sister-in-law Melissa, my sister Jessie, and my nephew Connor.

My grandfather and my brother-in-law were unable to attend, but otherwise that's my immediate clan. We opted not to include my bazillion aunts/uncles/cousins in our group photos because um.. Jenna would need a new lens to accomodate them all in the photo.


Here are Opie's people. :] From the left, Aunt Katherine, Uncle Dub, his dad John, his stepmother Jesica, me!, Opie, his mom Andrea, his stepfather Terry, and Grandma.

I really lucked out with my in-laws!

Including aunts and uncles and cousins isn't such an issue on Opie's side, given that he has no first cousins, and precisely 1 aunt and 1 uncle.


Here we are with our parents. I think it's interesting picking out what features we got from which parents in photos like these.


My momma, me, and my daddio. :)


Both of us with my parents. Have I ever mentioned on here that we live about 4 blocks from my parents? It's really nice.


Here we are with Opie's dad and mom. His mom and stepdad are actually buying a house about 3 minutes away from us. It's good that we both get along well with our in-laws, eh? :P


Here's Opie with his parents.


My siblings 'n' me.


And here we are recreating a photo from my brother's wedding in February!

Seeeee?

Phew. Done with the obligatory group photos. Onto more of the good stuff, next.

All photos by Jenna Cole, unless otherwise denoted by watermark as Lynn Nguyen's. Also, the very last photo from my brother's wedding belongs to Melissa Bradbury.
I purchased a disc of unedited high resolution photos from Jenna, so all photos by her have been edited by me for the purpose of sharing them with you.

A Moment of Calm

After the ceremony, we sneaked off for a few minutes to ourselves. Well, to ourselves with the exception of a few people wandering in to grab lighters for the centerpiece candles, a few people who got confused on their way out of the bathroom, and Jenna who grabbed a few photos of our zen moment. We hardly noticed their presence with the flood of emotions and a fair few tears as we celebrated our brand new marriage. The alone-time became an impromptu practice of our First Dance. So really, I guess these are photos of our real first dance as husband and wife.




Photos by Jenna Cole.
I purchased a disc of unedited high resolution photos from Jenna, so all photos by her have been edited by me for the purpose of sharing them with you.

The Ceremony

I would like to share our ceremony with you, so shall do so interspersed with photos from the occasion.

Welcome! Good evening, family and friends
We have come here today to celebrate the wedding
of Mary Lorraine [..] and Nathan Daniel [..]

On behalf of Mary and Nathan, or Opie as many of you may know him,
Thank you for joining us.
They are delighted that you have come to share in their joy
During this special day.
By your presence, you celebrate with them
The love they have discovered in each other
And you support their decision to commit themselves to a lifelong relationship

Marriage is a bond to be entered into only after considerable thought and reflection.
Today, Mary and Opie demonstrate their devotion to each other
By dedicating themselves to a life together
And they show their respect for each other
By setting forth to honor the vows they have created
Today, their lives, which began on separate paths, will be joined as one



My hope for you is this;
that you have many long years to delight in each others company,
to feel gratitude for your great good fortune
in having found and loved each other,
to make a home together that is at once sheltering and welcoming,
to each do meaningful, productive work at home and in the world
and to love and be loved by the friends and family
who have come here today to support you…



Now, I ask that these friends and family stand,
And that you turn and acknowledge them, as they acknowledge you



As family and friends,
You form a community of support
That surrounds Mary and Opie
Each of you, by your presence here today
Is being called upon
To uphold them in loving each other

Always stand beside them, never between them
Offer them your love and your support
Not your judgment
Encourage them when encouragement is needed
And listen to them when they ask for advice

In these ways, you can honor this marriage
Into which they will be joined today

Do you offer your love and support
To strengthen their marriage
And bless this family created by their union?

Please answer by saying : We do

[Guests: We do]

Thank you, you may be seated.



Opie's Aunt Katherine will now share a reading chosen by Mary and Opie. I invite you to think of these mighty oak trees under which we stand and of the two people before you as Katherine reads.



"Love is a temporary madness; it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion. That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two."

Cue tears!


Mary and Opie, the symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things we’ve promised and hoped and dreamed-
well, I meant it all, every word.”
Look at one another and remember this moment in time.
Before this moment you have been many things to one another-
acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, accomplice, and even teacher,
for you have learned much from one another in these last few years.
Now you shall say a few words that take you across a threshold of life,
and things will never quite be the same between you.
For after these vows, you shall say to the world,
this - is my husband,
this - is my wife.



Opie, do you take Mary to be your lawful wedded wife?
(Opie responds, "I do.")
Do you promise to love and cherish her,
in sickness and in health,
for richer for poorer,
for better for worse,
and forsaking all others,
keep yourself only unto her,
for so long as you both shall live?
(Opie responds, "I do.")



Mary, do you take Opie to be your lawful wedded husband?
(Mary responds, "I do.")
Do you promise to love and cherish him,
in sickness and in health,
for richer for poorer,
for better for worse,
and forsaking all others,
keep yourself only unto him,
for so long as you both shall live?
(Mary responds, "I do.")

Now, please turn and declare your wedding vows to each other.



(Opie:)
Mary, I promise to be your faithful and loving husband,
to cherish your intellect and uniqueness,
to delight in your happiness and comfort you in sorrow,
to communicate openly and honestly and to listen carefully,
to support and encourage you,
and to be your eager partner in exploring the things we have yet to learn and places we have yet to go.
My love is yours now, and for all the days before us.



(Mary:)
Opie, I promise to be your faithful and loving wife,
to cherish your intellect and uniqueness,
to delight in your happiness and comfort you in sorrow,
to communicate openly and honestly and to listen carefully,
to support and encourage you,
and to be your eager partner in exploring the things we have yet to learn and places we have yet to go.
My love is yours now, and for all the days before us.



May I have the rings please? Opie and Mary, may your wedding rings be forever a reminder of the vows you have made to each other here today. May they be for you always your most treasured adornment, and may the love they symbolize be your most treasured possession.

Opie, please place this ring on Mary's finger and repeat after me:
“Mary, I give you this ring as a symbol and reminder of my love for you and my commitment to our marriage. I am honored to call you my wife.”



Mary, please place this ring on Opie’s finger and repeat after me:
“Opie, I give you this ring as a symbol and reminder of my love for you and my commitment to our marriage. I am honored to call you my husband.”


Mary's brother Tom will now offer one last bit of advice as you go forward, as written by Ogden Nash.



"To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you're wrong admit it;
Whenever you're right shut up."



And on that note,
Opie and Mary, we have heard your promise to share your lives in marriage.
We recognize and respect the vows you have made here this day
Before each one of us as a witness.



In the honesty and sincerity of what you have said and done here today,
And by the authority vested in me by the state of Texas,
I now pronounce you husband and wife!
Opie, you may now kiss your bride!



I am honored and privileged to present
Mr. and Mrs. Nathan [..]!



I love that you can see my dad and Opie's mom reaching out to touch us, as TJ rocks out on "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". Such a perfect recessional.




Kelsey, straight pimpin'.


Virgil the biker officiant did a great job bringing our ceremony to life.



All photos by Jenna Cole, unless otherwise denoted by watermark as Lynn Nguyen's.
I purchased a disc of unedited high resolution photos from Jenna, so all photos by her have been edited by me for the purpose of sharing them with you.
The ceremony was pulled together predominately from these 3 sources: Peonies & Polaroids, Mrs. Cherry Pie, and IndieBride.