Yesterday, after 6 years of dating (he asked her out a few months before Jesse and I got engaged!), one of my dearest and oldest friends got married! I consider it such a blessing that we have maintained our friendship, despite living across the country from one another.
Along with 3 other Biolans, her sister, her cousin, and her childhood bestie (nicknamed, “the Womb-Friend”), I was asked to be a bride’s-matron. Actually, come to think of it, I was one of 3 married bridesmaids! Since one had been married for 2 years and the other for only 2 months, I was definitely the “marriage veteran” of the bunch, and the only one with kids 🙂 So weird…
Anyways, the wedding was gorgeous. The ceremony took place at the church where she was baptized as a baby, and the reception was held at a neat bay-side aquarium/children’s museum called CuriOdyssey. Everything about the wedding was perfect: right from the delicacies to the stepping out from the limo (which they’d hired from a limo service jersey city NJ). I love it when a bride and groom are able to plan a wedding that is memorable because of their relationship, not because of location or events. Ignoring convention and instead striving to celebrate the relationship is great indication of wisdom, in my opinion!
Some of the unique aspects to this wedding that I LOVED….the bride had all of us wear dresses and shoes of our own choosing, the only stipulation being that they fell into the “green” color family. She bought us handmade pendants from an Etsy seller in England. We took our bridesmaids’ pictures on a hill that she used to play on as a child. She wrote a letter to her fiance’, including within it a letter she had written back when they started dating, and handed it to him (from behind a wall so that they didn’t see one another!) just minutes prior to the ceremony (seriously, how sweet is that?) They had a folk-band play for their reception. They walked back down the aisle as newlyweds to a David Lanz song that she and I both used to play at Biola (I’ve since taught it to a number of my students, I love it that much!).
My favorite thing? They memorized all of their vows (they used the uber-long traditional ones), so that they could say them thinking only of each other, no prompting from a pastor, only looking into each others’ eyes. LOVE LOVE LOVE.
Also, I love that she used our family’s photographer. Melissa Jean’s done such a great job with both of Gregory’s photo shoots, AND her prices are hard to beat!
The bride also made sure that our little family had proper accommodations for the 2 days we were up in the Bay area. A family from her parents’ church went out of town for the holidays, so they let us stay at their house! Since the family has 2 kids of their own, we had more than enough toys, cribs, etc.
We shared the house with another Biola/Torrey/Orthodox couple who also have a little boy half a year older than G. They were such fun to be with! The wife is a doula and is also pregnant (4 weeks behind me), so we had fun sharing birth stories, talking baby stuff, etc.
All in all, I am so grateful to have been a part of this couple’s life! At the bachelorette party (held at a fondue restaurant! YUM!), I got to share memories that I had of her fiance’ (“Z”) back in our old Torrey Theatre days. We actually had to act as husband and wife in one play! During one late-night theatre practice, Z threw up all over my shoes, having just come from an intense intramural soccer game. Good times, right? 😉
Obviously, I have no shortage of memories with her. We travelled around Europe together, shared a Torrey group and numerous English classes, lived next door to one another, visited and stayed with each other’s families, consoled each other after tough break-ups…the list goes on and on!
And…another match-making claim to fame…she said that she remembers me saying that all of the boys we knew, Z was the ONLY one who could ever captivate her! How true that ended up being!
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