Wow! It’s hard to believe that today is the one year anniversary of our wedding!
I didn’t blog as much about my wedding as I wanted to, for some personal reasons, but now that some time has elapsed, I feel comfortable sharing some details from my own wedding day!
Let’s start off with a sweet and easy tradition that many couples incorporate into their wedding day: something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.
My Something Old.
(DK Designs Hawaii)
My wedding bouquet was wrapped in fabric that was cut from the dress worn by my grandma, aunt, and mom for their weddings. My grandma’s original dress had a long train, and, when it was hemmed to be worn again, extra fabric and lace was stashed away with the dress itself. It was this fabric that I use to create a wrap for my wedding bouquet, along with some of the beautiful, antique lace, that came from my great-grandmother.
My Something New
(Sarah Schulte Photography)
Though I had purchased my dress in 2008, nearly two years before my wedding, I think I could still consider it my ‘something new,’ as this was the one and only time that I got the chance to wear it. It’s a now discontinued Oleg Cassini dress, from David’s Bridal, and I loved it so, so much. I made the green sash, and had the bolero custom made to match.
My Something Borrowed
(Sarah Schulte Photography)
My best friend Lindsey was kind enough to lend me her wedding veil. Because her dress was white and mine was champagne, I dyed the veil with coffee grounds to get a beautiful, ivory shade.
My Something Blue
(Sarah Schulte Photography)
I gave Dan TARDIS cufflinks as a wedding gift, and carried one in my purse (pictured above with my veil), as my something blue.
Happy anniversary, Dan. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.
(Sarah Schulte Photography)
It was announced just moments ago that the New York State Senate has voted YES on the gay marriage bill, soon allowing ALL couples to legally tie the knot! I am proud to have performed civil unions in New Jersey, and look forward to performing same sex weddings in New York State and New York City. More information to come as the bill is signed into law! Hurray for New York State, taking a huge step towards our civil rights and marriage equality for everyone.
My husband and I watched the New York State Senate live feed all evening, waiting for the vote to come through with baited breath. I clapped and cheered as Senator Saland discussed his vote for the bill’s amendment, and declared that he would be voting YES on the bill. And, later, when Senator Grisanti took a stand, talking about the research he had done and how he had come to the conclusion to vote YES – it is a moment that I will never forget. Knowing that these two men were standing up for what should be a civil right, despite their backgrounds, and that they were the tipping votes – it was so brave. As one of the senators said, it was a room full of heroes.
If you are looking for an officiant to marry you in New York State or New York City, feel free to contact me! The bill has been signed into law, and Same Sex Marriages will be LEGAL in New York on July 24. I look forward to officiating at many gay marriages in New York!
This past weekend was the Collective Wisdom Conference and Graduation Celebration for the Celebrant Foundation and Institute, where I was trained as a Life-Cycle Celebrant®, and where I serve on the faculty, teaching the Fundamentals of Celebrancy and Weddings and Other Ceremonies for Couple classes. Our yearly conference and graduation is always a wonderful event, where we converge at the Hyatt in Jersey City to celebrate the art of ritual, rites of passage, and, of course, our new Celebrants! This year was also their TENTH anniversary, a true cause for celebration!
This year, I was a part of four classes – I taught two sections of Fundamentals, and one weddings, and took the course that concentrates on creating ceremonies for Family and Children (baby welcomings and namings, house warmings and blessings, coming of age ceremonies, and so much more!). I wanted to be able to gift something to those I would meet, in honor and celebration of their new journey!
I chose a pinwheel – an especially good symbol for our celebration since the ballroom had an outdoor balcony overlooking New York City which let the pinwheels twirl beautifully! Pinwheels are symbols of luck and good fortune, unseen energy, wish fulfillment, and transformation, and were just a small token of my appreciation for all those present.
Congratulations to all new Celebrants out there! Hurray!
I wrote a blog post about how Dan and I honored and included the fight for marriage equality in our wedding ceremony for one of my favorite wedding planning blogs, So You’re EnGAYged. Here’s an excerpt – head over the the blog to check out the full post!
“Marriage is a promise that you make to that other person, a promise to stay in love with them forever, to be related forever, and that you’ll always be together.” – Dan Savage
Honoring marriage equality was really important to me while my husband, Dan, and I were working with our celebrant to put together our wedding ceremony.
Photo courtesy of Sarah Schulte Photography
We began by tying White Knots on our personal flowers – mine on my bouquet, and his on his boutonniere. The White Knot is a symbol of support for marriage equality – a statement that everyone should be able to legally “tie the knot.”
How did we work with our celebrant, April Beer, to include a reading and re-interpret a Jewish tradition to further incorporate marriage equality? Head over to So You’re EnGAYged to find out!
After a two years, it was finally my turn! My husband and I were married on Sunday, October 10, in Tarrytown, New York. We chose our wedding date (along with thousands of other couples!) because we liked 10/10/10. Dan because of the binary action – and I loved it because it was a Sunday in October!
I thought it might be nice to share some of our planning progress for the ceremony, and where better to start than the music!
Music for the ceremony was always really important to me and Dan. We both didn’t feel strongly about where the music was coming from (i.e., live music versus a recording), so we had our awesome DJ, Carol of A Starry Night, set up and play recordings of our songs.
The Prelude.
When my friend Marisa got married, I remember she chose four or five special songs as a “prelude” – the songs that played immediately before the ceremony began. I loved this idea – I think it sets a tone for the ceremony, and also let me slip in some of our favorite songs that are a little more nontraditional. Carol was nice enough to mix them together for us, and I remember standing on the porch before the ceremony began, hearing my favorite songs smoothly segueway into each other, as I waited to make my entrance. It also worked well because it gave us a definite starting time – once those songs started, we were getting married in twelve minutes, no matter what!
So about that Muppet song – one of Dan’s requests, right from the beginning, was to include two songs from “The Muppets Take Manhattan” in our wedding. I thought including “Somebody’s Getting Married” just before our processional began was a fun way to lighten the mood, and Dan was SO happy we got it in there!
The Processional.
Our processional was a tough decision. But one thing remained the same – I knew I wanted to walk into some version of The Beatles “Blackbird.” The lyrics in it just felt perfect to me – All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise. But what Dan and our bridal party would be walking into was still up for discussion.
Our original plan was to have Kermit the Frog’s “Rainbow Connection,” but we couldn’t find a version we liked, of Kermit or any cover. We spent many nights searching through the iTunes store, naming a song we liked and listening to cover after cover.
I’ve always been a fan of the Vitamin String Quartet, and I love how it almost “classes” up songs – guests who are familiar with the song get it, but those who aren’t just hear lovely instrumental. I did two weddings in September that used Vitamin String Quartet songs for the entrance, and I just loved it so much – I knew that was the way to go. I found their version of Blackbird, and I loved it, so that was set (previous to that, we were using Sarah McLachlan’s version).
Because I’m a little crazy, I decided that if my processional was instrumental, I wanted the bridal party’s entrance to be instrumental, too. So Dan and I stayed up late once again, listening to Vitamin String Quartet versions of our favorite songs, and finally decided on “Imagine” – also appropriate because our wedding was the day after John Lennon’s birthday.
So it was decided – Dan and our bridal party entered to Vitamin String Quartet’s version of Imagine, and I entered to Vitamin String Quartet’s version of Blackbird.
Ceremony Music.
Another request from Dan was to include a 40 second snippet of music from (you guessed it) The Muppets Take Manhattan – Right Where I Belong. We decided to include it during our unity ritual, and it was short enough that we felt comfortable standing there when we finished a little early, to just stand there as the music played out
Right Where I Belong (beginning at 1:30 and going to 2:05 was the sound clip we used)
Recessional.
As a wedding celebrant, I know a good recessional needs to have a great beginning and be a fun, upbeat song. Dan and I found a lot of great songs that we loved, but we couldn’t find one that had a strong beginning. Our top contender for a long time was Harry Connick Jr’s “It Had To Be You,” which has this awesome, big band start – but it was just too long, and the lyrics wouldn’t have started until we were all the way out there.
A few days before the wedding, we decided to use “Till There Was You,” covered by the Beatles, as our processional, making the majority of our wedding music either from the Beatles or from Jim Henson. Dan LOVES this version of the song, and it’s upbeat, sweet, and fun, with a very nice beginning – a few musical notes that go right into the lyrics. To me, it ended up being the perfect recessional, and I can’t believe we didn’t think about it sooner.
Hey, want to see more of our wedding? Check out this blog post I wrote for So You’re EnGAYged about honoring marriage equality in your wedding ceremony!
