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Monday, March 28, 2011

Our wedding ceremony

Before I relive our wedding ceremony, be sure to check out my previous wedding recap posts:

Bridesmaids

As a guest to many weddings over the past few years, I agree with the statement that guests only remember a few things: the food, alcohol and music. As a bride, that is the last thing you want to hear after spending months (sometimes years) of planning every detail down to the fonts on the place cards to the placement of the floating candles on the table arrangements. Wedding planning is exciting, fun and for me, not one bit stressful. Call us crazy but we had a 6.5 month long engagement and by Christmastime, we were wishing it was shorter! When we got engaged, we were so ready and anxious to become man and wife that a year sounded like a century! Our engagement was perfect. We got lots done at the beginning so we could relax and enjoy the holidays. Between our engagement (7/15/2010) and wedding (2/5/2011), we had every single holiday/big event imagineable which made the time fly by (my birthday, trip to Denver, Halloween, Thanksgiving, trip to Missouri, skiing in Tahoe, Christmas, New Years).

Like I posted above, when people think about a wedding they've attended, the actual ceremony usually does not come to mind but for the bride and groom, that is the most important thing! The reception (as much as we enjoyed it!) was for the guests, and the ceremony was for us. Below are some recaps of our ceremony and how we made it unique, special and totally "Jon and Ruthie"....

The Music: Since we chose not to get married in a church (our home church, Gateway Community Church has stadium seating which does not make for the most intimate affair!), we didn't feel like the traditional wedding march would fit with the ceremony. We have so many "us songs" that it was hard to chose what music we wanted during the ceremony! Here is a list of songs we used:
  • Pre wedding music: as guests arrived, the DJ played a random assortment of Michael Buble, Frank Sinatra, Harry Connick Jr. etc
  • Mothers/grandmothers processional: Crazy Love- Michael Buble
  • Groom/groomsmen processional: God Gave Me You- Dave Barnes
  • Bridesmaids processional: Bittersweet Symphony (instrumental)- The Verve
  • Me and my dad: In My Place (instrumental)- Coldplay 









My eyes were LOCKED on Jon's while I was walking down the aisle (my dad even told me to slow down I was so excited!). 



My dad's awesome sisters, Tracey and Jamie, graciously read 3 passages from the bible during the ceremony. Jon and I selected Genesis 2:18-24, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, and Romans 12:9-12, each having to do with the power of God's love in marriage. My dear friend, Jamie, sang "Heavenly Day" (originally by Patty Griffin) and there was not a dry eye in the house. The lyrics were perfect for our wedding day....

Tomorrow may rain with sorrow
Here's a little time we can borrow
Forget all our troubles in these moments so few
Oh we can right now the only thing that all that we really have to do
Is have ourselves a heavenly day 


The decor: we wanted to jazz up the ballroom and had our reception centerpieces double as ceremony decor. Our centerpieces were manzita trees with flowers, jewels and hanging candles, small vases of flowers, and floating candles. The altar was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. I plan on doing a post on all of my wedding vendors but we used LisaLyn Designs for my flowers, centerpieces and decor.

The ceremony was filled with so much love, some laughter and definitely lots of emotion. Standing there in front of all of our family and friends and becoming man and wife in the eyes of God was the most amazing feeling. We did 5 months of Christian-based pre-marital counseling (the good kind of counseling!) with our Pastor Kirby Holmes at Gateway Church who gave us so much wonderful insight on nurturing a Christ centered marriage. It was the best decision we made, why not prepare for what's inevitably to come in a marriage then get stuck down the road. Kirby talked about 3 types of love during out ceremony- eros, philia and agape. You can check out the meanings of those types of love on this website. 


We chose to write our own vows but repeat them after Kirby so we didn't have to memorize! We also wrote letters to each other that we exchanged and read before the wedding. We memorized a short phrase as we placed the ring on each others hand. "With this ring I give you my heart. I promise that from this day forward you will not walk alone. May my heart be your shelter and my arms be your home"


We used the same unity candle that my mom and dad used at their wedding 25 years ago (and my sister used at her wedding in 2009). My mom and Jon's stepmom lit the candles during the processional and Jon and I lit the unity candle during the ceremony....


I noticed while watching our wedding video last week that I was giggling so hard by the end of the ceremony. After Kirby said a prayer over our marriage, it seemed like forever before he pronounced us man and wife! I was so anxious and smiley. Those words meant so much to me, "now I pronounce you man and wife, you may now kiss the bride!"


I will always remember that feeling. Our wedding ceremony was perfect. Perfect. And I would not have changed anything. I think we kissed about 18 more times before finally turning to the crowd. Kirby announced us as Mr. & Mrs. Jon Hart and we walked down the aisle to Everything by Michael Buble. The picture below says it all...happiness!


Jon, you made all of my dreams come true on February 5th, 2011...I love you! 

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Loved this play-by-play... you were a beautiful bride! It sounds like it was the perfect day! :)
Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Unknown said...

This is such a beautiful wedding! The ring bearers look so adorable.

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Unknown said...

To be honest, I wish I was at a wedding fayre today but for me, a day of admin and musical rehearsals ensues as I embark on a very busy week of music-making! souldesire.co.uk

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