Stinkerpants

Stinkerpants Wedding: the Ceremony Wording

October 9, 2008 in Our Wedding • Ceremony • Recap Photos

Yay!  As promised, here is the wording for our ceremony.  It is a mostly Jewish ceremony–there aren’t really any Chinese traditions I could find to incorporate.  Neither of us is religious, so it’s very light on the mention of God.  Please feel free to ask me any and all questions!

Parts of the Ceremony:
Entrance of 2 Groomsmen with Chuppah
Entrance of remaining 3 groomsmen
Groomsmen set up the Chuppah
Entrance of Officant
Entrance of Groom with Groom’s Parents
Entrance of Bridesmaids
Entrance of Bride with Bride’s Parents.
Welcome
Declaration of Support
Marriage Address
Reading (I Like You)
Blessing over the wine
Reciting of the Seven Blessings (Uncle Bob)
Vows and Exchange of Rings
Final Blessings
Breaking of the Glass
Exit of Bride and Groom
Organization of guests for group photo

(Welcome)
On May 8, 2005, under that tree over there (points)
Y and S began their relationship.
Here we are, three and a half years later,
to witness as they make their commitment official
in front of their loved ones.

Y and S have asked all of you to be with them today
because each of you has given something of yourself
into their lives.
Your friendship and love
will always be appreciated.
They welcome you here
and thank you for sharing this important day with them.

(Declaration of Support and Explanation of the Chuppah)
Y and S,
today we have come together
to celebrate the love you have found with each other.
By being here with you,
each of us is declaring our support
for your decision to join together in marriage.

The chuppah, this canopy which you stand beneath,
is a symbol of the marital home to be built and shared by the couple.
It is open on all sides to welcome friends and family.

Y and S’s parents
hold up the poles of their chuppah,
symbolizing the importance of family and friendship
in supporting and strengthening their
relationship and their home.

(Marriage Address)
Marriage symbolizes
the intimate sharing of two lives.
This sharing must not diminish,
but enhance the individuality of each partner.
You do not shed your individuality;
for it is what brought you together in the first place.
Marriage is the loving declaration
that you should be no one other than yourself.
A marriage that lasts
is one which is continually developing
and in which each person is
growing as an individual
while growing in understanding of the other.

It is not this ceremony
or the state of being married
that will truly join you and hold you together,
but your ongoing commitment to your relationship
and the kind of life you wish to make together.
In this way,
your marriage will not just be a word;
it will be more than that.
it will be an action: something you do every day.
It is not work, nor is it a chore;
it is a commitment which you want to see through
and you take pride in knowing that you are in this together.

(Reading)
Y and S have chosen to share with you a reading from “I Like You” by Sandol Stoddard Warburg.
::::Officiant hands us our orange “I Like You” books::::
We read from our books

(Blessing over the Wine)
:::We asked our officiant to say something about how that reading fits our personalities or something.  I don’t remember what she said, but I’ll update this when we get our video back:::

(Seven Blessings)
I would now like to invite Sara’s uncle, ____, to recite the Seven Blessings in Hebrew.
—-B reads the seven blessings in Hebrew—-
In English, these blessings can be interpreted as:

May you be generous and giving with each other.
May your sense of humor and playful spirit always continue to enliven your relationship.
May you always respect the diversity of humankind.
May you act with compassion to those less fortunate and with responsibility to the communities of which you are a part.
May you appreciate and complement each other’s differences.
May you always share yourselves openly with your friends and family.
May your home be a haven of blessing and peace.

This cup of wine is symbolic of the cup of life. As you share this cup of wine, you promise to share all that the future may bring. As you drink from this cup, so may you draw contentment, comfort, and happiness from your own cup of life. May you find life’s joys heightened, its bitterness sweetened, and all things hallowed by true respect, companionship and love.

(Vows)
Y and S have chosen to write their own vows
which they will now share with one another for the first time

Y reads his vows
S reads her vows

(Exchange of Rings)
:::Short Pause:::
Rings are adornments,
carefully chosen for their beauty and simplicity.
They quietly sit upon our fingers,
reminding us of the power of love
and the pledge of the wearer to his or her partner
to be faithful and true,
and to nurture their love so it will last a lifetime.
Y and S,
may these rings be for you always
your most treasured adornment,
and may the love they symbolize
be your most treasured possession.

Y, do you take S
to be your lawfully wedded wife and equal,
to love and to cherish,
from this day forward?

Y: “I Do.” (Y places the ring on S’s finger)
“I give you this ring as a symbol of my promise.”

S, do you take Y
to be your lawfully wedded husband and equal,
to love and to cherish,
from this day forward?

S: “I Do.” (S places the ring on Y’s finger)
“I give you this ring as a symbol of my promise.”

:::Put the glass down by Y’s foot, in preparation for the end of the ceremony.:::

(Final Blessing)
Y and S
on behalf of your loved ones
who are here with you today,
I would like to mention some of the things
we wish for you:

First, we wish for you a love
that is rich, deep and powerful enough
to inspire others and to support you both
in bringing forth the best that is within you.
May you lavishly love one another
and love being loved by one another,
today, tomorrow and always.

Second, we wish for you the kind of home
that will be a sanctuary for you both,
A place of peace, freedom, vitality, growth, and humor.
And within this home,
we hope that you are blessed
with a healthy and happy family
two and four-legged alike.

Finally, we wish that at the end of your lives
you will be able to look back
and smile upon the life that you have shared together,
pleased, satisfied, and fulfilled beyond your wildest dreams.

And now, by the power vested in me by the State of California
and the Universal Life Church,
it is my great pleasure to pronounce you husband and wife.

Mr. and Mrs. HerLastName-HisLastName,
you may now kiss for the first time as husband and wife.

(Y breaks the glass)
Mazel Tov!

—-Bride and Groom exit—–

Please don’t forget that we will be having a group photo right here.  If everyone could please organize yourselves over here (points to where the seating comes together at the corner), the bridal party will help show you where to go.

Stinkerpants Wedding: The Ceremony

October 8, 2008 in Our Wedding • Ceremony • Recap Photos

Originally, we’d planned to have some photos taken after everyone was dressed.  Unfortunately, that didn’t really work out.  We were missing a bridesmaid, and everyone seemed disorganized.  Note to self: don’t assume anyone has actually read the timeline you spent hours slaving over.  Anyway, I guess the bridesmaid went with the groomsmen the reception site; they didn’t want to be late for the trolleys, which they’d be riding to the ceremony site.  As it turned out, this was a good idea.  The DOC who was responsible for loading people on the trolley thought it would be better if she joined the other DOC at the ceremony site, so Y and the groomsmen had to direct guests onto the trolleys.  Meanwhile, my parents and I took a limo (I’ve never been in one!  That was exciting!) to the ceremony.

At the ceremony…one of my lovely signs!

My cousins Carol, Brian and Teddy surprised us with a basket of customized yarmulkes, which was so awesome.  They accidentally ordered too many for Teddy’s bar mitzvah a few years ago, so I asked if I could have the leftovers.  Instead of yarmulkes that read “Teddy’s bar mitzvah,” Carol ordered us our own, so we had some with our names and our wedding date in them!  So awesome.  I have a great family.

Here are a couple of our guests, showing the yarmulkes and the little parasols we provided:

The bridal party, lining up for the ceremony…

Y, being walked down the aisle by both of his parents (this is traditional in a Jewish wedding):

And then it was time for my parents and I!  My dad’s glasses are Transitions lenses, so they turned into sunglasses when we got out of the limo!  I noticed and he ended up taking them off for the ceremony, but I really love this picture with them on:

This is one of my favorite photos from the wedding.  I love my parents so much!

The guests, waiting for the ceremony to start (and reading the programs!  Yay!)

Time for me to walk down the aisle!  Can you believe the weather?!  It was amazing!

I think it’s funny that I’m looking directly at the camera.  I have zero memory of our photographer being there at all…I just remember looking at Y and having to fight back tears.

AAAAAH!  I love our chuppah!!!

We had two readings in our ceremony.  The first one was done by Y and I, from the children’s book “I Like You,” by Sandol Stoddard Warburg.  He read some lines, and I read some lines.  Although it’s silly, it made a few people cry during our rehearsal!

I seriously cannot believe this scenery.  I feel so incredibly blessed to live in such an amazing place on Earth, and to get to have our wedding in such a beautiful park!

Mazel Tov!

In a Jewish wedding, the bride and groom have some time to themselves after the ceremony.  We had a few moments to ourselves while the guests were organizing for their group photo.  We were then joined by our photographer for a few formal photos.

Heading back to the ceremony for the group photo…I loved that there were strangers at our wedding.  Everyone was super nice to us!

All in all, the ceremony lasted about 15-20 minutes.  We wanted to make sure that it was personal and fun, but we didn’t want to torture our guests by making them sit outside for a long period of time.  We were also worried that people might not be able to hear us that well–we couldn’t have any amplification because of some nesting owls near the ceremony site–and we didn’t want to bore or frustrate anyone. All in all, I think it was the perfect length.

The ceremony planning was a lot of work–we wrote the ceremony ourselves, and then we wrote our own vows.  I didn’t even know where to start when writing the ceremony, but some Weddingbee readers recommended “the Wedding Ceremony Planner” by Judith Johnson, which proved invaluable.  I also used the internet to learn about how to incorporate Jewish traditions.   It would have been helpful for me to have the entire transcript of a wedding ceremony to look at–what do you guys think?  Should I post the whole thing?

Stinkerpants Wedding: Gift Exchange

October 7, 2008 in Our Wedding • Recap Photos

Midway through hair and makeup, my girlfriends (bridesmaids + officiant) oddly started lining up in front of me.  They each held a little box, which they presented to me one at a time.

Here I am asking someone to explain what was going on: each box had a ribbon the same color as their dress.  Y emailed all of the girls to tell them what was in each box, and what order they’d need to stand in.

Inside each box was a rosewood ring box.  The first one had a little note that read, “five reasons I love you.”

One at a time, I opened the other five boxes:

Reason #1: “you’re hot” (this one had a matchbook with Elvis on it, which is an inside joke for us).

Reason #2: “you make me laugh” (with a little rubber chicken)

Reason #3: “you’re just the right amount of granola” (with a little baggie of granola–this refers to what a hippy I am)

Reason #4: “you’re a strong woman” (with a Rosie the Riveter pin)

Reason #5: “you have a heart of gold” (with a citrine heart)

Obviously I thought this was the world’s most romantic gift.  We aren’t into spending boatloads of money on one another–we think the best gifts are the most thoughtful, not necessarily the most expensive.  This project didn’t cost him a ton of money, but it was so thoughtful.  I love these boxes.  They now live on a bookshelf in our living room.  :)

For Y, I spent hours and hours slaving over a DVD.  The first part of it is a short history of our relationship.  You know, a slideshow of how we met, photos from our vacations together, our move to Ohio, etcetera…all leading up to the proposal.  After that, I created something of a video time capsule: all the things that were happening in our lives, our city, our country and our world in August 2008.  That way, we can look back on them in 40 years and be excited and amazed by how much things have changed (hopefully). The whole thing was about 10 minutes long–5 minutes without the proposal videos, which I also included (and instructed him to fast forward through, if he didn’t feel like reliving it).

I then put the DVD in our portable DVD player, wrapped it up real pretty and gave it to Amanda to give him.

I’m not sure why, but I absolutely love these pictures.  Those are the videographers and one of our groomsmen:

And a few more groomsmen, plus Amanda:

I am so glad we went the thoughtful route!  I think we’ll be cherishing these gifts for the rest of our lives.

Next up?  The ceremony!  Yay!!

Stinkerpants Wedding: Girls Getting Ready

October 6, 2008 in Our Wedding • Bridal Party • Recap Photos

Thanks to everyone who has found me via Weddingbee.  I am really happy to be done with what’s going on over there.  It’s taking a lot of self-control not to respond to the posts this morning or make a public post about my experience with this, though.  I think it’s better to take the high road at this point.  If you have any questions, though, feel free to email me.Anyway, let’s be done with this, shall we?  Moving on…

Last we left off, the guys were all ready!  Shocking: it took them 10 minutes and it took us hours (haha).

I was really happy with my makeup.  My first trial was a little too peachy–thanks to everyone’s advice over on Weddingbee, I went back for my second trial with some ideas.  She used more purples this time, which made my eyes look really green.

My mom and I, getting our hair and makeup done!  Check out that beautiful arrangement on the table next to me.  My MIL made it–she’s a florist!

Sophie, our awesome hair girl.  She is seriously fantastic.  I loved how my hair turned out; after my first trial, I ended up taking it down (it was half up) and LOVING what it looked like.  It had so much volume!  During my second trial, I asked Sophie to try it all down, and when she was done, we were both thrilled.  I am also happy to say that it stayed looking perfect all night!  I don’t know what she did to it, but it was pretty magical.

My earrings were my “something borrowed.”  Last year, Y and I had my engagement ring made by Geoffrey’s Diamonds and Goldsmith over in San Carlos.  Our experience was SO amazing that I wrote a very long Yelp review, professing my undying love for this store, its owner and the employees. The people that work there are super friendly and know every customer, so when I went back in there, they were really grateful for the review.  A few months later, we went back for our wedding rings and I saw the most beautiful earrings EVAR.  They were yellow something-or-another (maybe citrine?) with diamonds around them.  They were $900, though, which I could never hope to afford.  Imagine my excitement when Geoffrey and Sonny offered to let me borrow them!

I didn’t even know that our photographer was there when this pictures was taken!  I really wanted to memorize my vows, but I hadn’t had time.  Here I am trying to memorize them.  Sadly, I wasn’t able to, and my cards weren’t that pretty.  Oh well, right?  They still came from the heart!

If you will recall, the day I had the break down in the shoe shop was the day I found out that one of my bridesmaids would not be attending our wedding.  My friend Amanda (left), really wanted to be in our wedding, though, so thankfully my friend Liz sent her dress express mail and it fit Amanda perfectly.  The day of the wedding, though, Krista (right) and Amanda got to talking about the fit of their dresses–and they ended up TRADING!  Amanda wore cherry and Krista wore kiwi.  Here I am, telling them both how flattering their new colors were!

Gawd I love my ring:

And my $54 shoes:

I really wanted my mom to help me get dressed.  She and I are very close, so I’d been imagining her helping me into my dress.

With the veil on, I really started to get excited!

Then I went out to meet my dad.  I LOVE this picture (actually, this series of pictures).  He looks so surprised!

Cry!  I love my dad.  Even though I’m no longer Mrs. Cream Puff, I still feel the need to call him “Puff Daddy,” haha.  “Pants Daddy” doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?

We had a bit of time left before we had to leave for the ceremony, so our photographer snapped some portraits:

I can’t get over how much I loved my earrings.  And check out the flower in my hair!  It’s so beautiful that I want to wear it every day.  I had it made by etsy seller myrakim, aka Twigs and Honey.  I was very lucky to get it in time, because she is in seriously high demand!

Next up, Y and I exchange gifts!

Stinkerpants Wedding: Guys Getting Ready

October 2, 2008 in Our Wedding • Bridal Party • Recap Photos

The day of our wedding, we had kind of a funny thing happen.  Well, sort of funny.  The guys were on one floor of the Grand Hyatt, and the girls were on another.  The floor for the girls was accessed with a special key card, and we only had about six keys.  At various points throughout the day, people were stranded on the guys’ floor or in the lobby.  One of my bridesmaids, Krista (being the champ she is), was running back and forth between the floors to retrieve our parents, various members of the bridal party, our florist and our videographers.I’m not really sure why I told you that.  I guess because it seems like one of those stories that I could eventually forget, but I think is sort of funny and don’t want to. It’s also a reminder of how great it is to have such wonderful friends.  My bridesmaids were kick-ass.  Thanks, Krista.  :)

Anyway, back to our photo recap!  I never actually set foot in the guys’ getting-ready room, so it was pretty cool to see what they were up to.  Here’s Mr. Stinkerpants, getting dressed.  He kind of looks like he has a floating head in this picture, but I assure you: he does have a very lovely neck.

This series of photos totally cracks me up.  Two of our groomsmen couldn’t figure out how to tie their ties, but no one knew how to tie a tie on another person, so they had to put it on themselves to attempt it.

One guy managed to get it done, but it was the wrong length and had to be done again:

Here he is, getting a little help from his cousin:

A bow tie is easier, apparently:

It’s kind of funny: because the ties are different colors, we know who couldn’t tie his own tie! The men, looking rather snazzy (ties tied!):

Next up?  The girls getting ready!