I’ll spare you the entire backstory of
our wedding and try to give you the cliff notes version….my husband proposed on
Christmas day, 2009. We were thrilled
when my mom informed me she had a bunch of $ set aside to help give us the wedding
of our dreams, and quickly fell in love with our dream venue , a penthouse
ballroom in downtown Hartford, ready willing and able to put down the deposit
for an October 16th, 2010 wedding.
Flash forward a month, and shit hits the fan. My parents are getting a divorce. My sisters and I have to have an intervention
with our mother, who I’m pretty sure experienced a mental breakdown and am
still convinced to this day would have ended things if we didn’t get the police
involved that awful, awful night in her hotel room. My mother was subsequently diagnosed with
Borderline Personality Disorder…which pretty much means she’s a master of
manipulation and lying. Come to find
out, that money she promised us didn’t exist.
We couldn’t afford that wedding we thought we were going to have…not
even half of it! All while this is going on, my health is deteriorating
rapidly. I dropped about 20 pounds over
the course of 2 months (but not from diet and exercise)….I was ultimately diagnosed
with Crohn’s disease, after months of testing, ER trips, and doctors
visits. This was not our year.
So, on a whim, I entered a deserving
couple wedding contest that a local florist was hosting…come to find out, we
WON! It was amazing….incredible…words can’t even describe how grateful I am
that these people gave us the wedding of our dreams! So far above and beyond
what we could have imagined for our special day. I spent lots of time putting in personal
touches, designing the graphics that were carried seamlessly throughout our
ceremony and reception. It was everything
we wanted and more, and I will be forever grateful for these people that showed
us such generosity on our special day.
So now, without further ado…the details!
April 30, 2011 (a Saturday)
Location—Ceremony at a beautiful Chapel at Wesleyan University (we wrote our own
vows, used a JP, kept the ceremony to about 25 minutes with 2 readings from
friends). I walked down the aisle to “Just
Breathe” by Pearl Jam, hubby’s favorite band J
Reception followed at the beautiful
Sarah Porter Memorial, a stand-alone gorgeous piece of architecture in
Farmington, CT, near the historic Ms. Porter’s School. Cocktail hour was outdoors.
Bridal Party—My 2 sisters and my best friend (all my MOH, I wasn’t going to
pick!). He had his cousin as his best
man, and 3 closest friends as groomsman.
Colors-- My bridesmaids wore purple dresses that they each chose their own
style (I just told them I wanted them to be knee length and purple, they got to
pick the rest). The groomsman wore suits
with charcoal grey vests and fun argyle purple socks. My flowers were purple, the girls’ flowers
were white.
First Dance—“You are the Best Thing” by Ray LaMontagne. I LOVE this song, and I still get a little
teary if I catch it by chance on a random radio station (not a popular song, so
I don’t hear it very often). No one ever
tells you how awkward it is to dance for 3 straight minutes with everyone
watching though!
(The image above is by far my favorite from the whole wedding...I have it framed on my desk at work :)
Honeymoon—Aruba! By far, my favorite vacation, EVER. We spend the day Sunday relaxing with family
and left for the honeymoon Monday morning (I was happy to have a day to relax
before traveling!). We loved Aruba so
much we got suckered into a timeshare at our resort J
What Would I Change?—This is a tough one…I honestly have no regrets about my wedding
day. I think it went off without a hitch…except
for maybe the fact that our amazing wedding planner had 2 dinners packed up for
us (knowing we probably wouldn’t eat much that night!), and grabbed all of our
late-night favors that were leftover (munchkins with chocolate milk) and
brought them back to our hotel for us….but we had no idea they were even
there!! We had a full size fridge in our room too….and all that amazing food
went to waste because we didn’t know to stick it in the fridge over night! Oh well I guess, of all the things to be disappointed
with, that’s so minor its almost not worth mentioning!
There you have it, hope you enjoyed!
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