My Dad here in VA was gracious and patient enough to help me and my Matron of honor (and sister) Colleen design and then print out our own original invitations for our wedding! I think they turned out gorgeous. We were going for a sort-of Celtic feel with the invitations. We also wanted the invitations to reflect the color scheme of the wedding. Colleen took over the responsibility of finding just the right border design and font for the print. I think she did an amazing job! She is considering going into business as a wedding card designer, partially through her experience with my invitations. I was very lucky, as well, because my Dad owns his own printing company, so he charged us nothing for all the work he did on the invitations! They are truly one of a kind. Here is a picture of the invitation on the table at the reception with our cake:
Here's a picture of (from left) my sister and Matron of Honor, Colleen, my brother Patrick from CO, my Dad, who lives in Arvada CO, me - of course - and my soon-to-be hubby, Thomas at Masters Tuxedo getting the boys' tuxes!
We had our rehearsal dinner at Primo, an Italian/Greek family-style restaurant near my parents' which is one of our family favorites. Tom's Mom generously offered to pay for the dinner! There were at least three other big parties in the back room of the restaurant with us, so it was pretty loud, but we had a great time! I, of course, had pizza - my favorite, but found I couldn't eat all that much, I guess it was my nerves finally showing in my stomach. Thomas and I wore our "bride" and "groom" hats (given to us by my good friend Carole for my shower) with our date on them and we kept getting congrats from people we didn't know. It was a blast. One of the best parts of the dinner was that a lot of my Mom's family came for the wedding from Florida and Vermont. We hadn't seen them in a few years so it turned into a family reunion, as well.
Our wedding went beautifully! Everyone looked gorgeous, the flowers were perfect and the candleabra made the setting all the more romantic.
Click below for more pictures from our wedding!
Here's a picture of our rings...and hands! You can see my nails looked gorgeous that day thanks to Harlean at Elizabeth Arden. They don't look like that anymore! ha ha We love our rings. They're Celtic.
I'm sure every bride loves her dress, but I can't even begin to explain how much I loved my dress! The story behind the discovery of my dress is kinda funny, too. My Mom came with me with an old family friend of ours, Mrs. Willner, when I went to my first try-on. I was assuming that I'd get a rather simple, elegant style, but it had to be ballgown since I knew I'd never have a chance to wear one again...however, I gave every style a chance, thinking I would never know what might look good on me unless I gave everything a try... Well, my Mom picked out the dress that I ended up wearing because she thought I'd hate it! It looked so "over done" on the hanger. It was the third dress I tried on and after I had it on, everyone sort of held their breath! We couldn't believe how good it looked on me! LOL The dress that my Mom picked as a "joke" turned out to be "THE DRESS." Here's a picture of the back of the dress, I just loved the back!
You can see the back here, as well. This is one of us lighting the unity candle.
This was one of the more "posed" photos, I mean, since when does your sister really help you adjust your garter? Yeah, whatever. I think the picture's cute, though. Colleen looks gorgeous and you get to see my funky $15 platform shoes I wore from Payless!
This is probably my favorite picture of Thomas and me taken at our wedding. We're thinking of ordering these as wallets for our Christmas cards and maybe even for our thank-yous for wedding gifts!
Now, we had to leave in style, right? Thomas and I both happen to be old-car fanatics (me of the 50s cars especially and him of the 70s muscle cars especially) so I found the perfect limo to take us to the reception! We went to a bridal show at George Mason University and saw the company "Limousine Service Center" displaying this gorgeous creation, which had us written all over it!:
The food and service at the Fort Belvoir Golf Club, where we had our reception, was amazing. Everyone said that it was the best wedding they'd ever been to and that the food was unsurpassed! I thought the golf club did an amazing job with the decorations and flowers, as well. Here's Thomas and I at our bridal table, you can see the bridal flowers in front of us:
One of the fun things that we definitely wanted to include in the reception festivities was the garter toss and the bouquet toss. I mean, I'm not exactly shy, so I thought I could have great fun with the whole garter thing! We had the dj play "The Stripper" and Thomas ended up taking the garter off with his TEETH! Now that was funny....and it even surprised the unshockable bride!
Preparing to Remove the Garter
My Mom buttoning my sleeve - I just love this picture!
Oh, and if you'd like to read how we met and fell in love, read this letter that Thomas wrote to a couple of motorcycling e-mail lists that brought us together:
NOW, FOR THE FUN, CANDIDS:
The Three Stooges?? No, it's Thomas, Gary (up top) and Rob
Thomas and I Preparing for Later....
For our honeymoon, we went to Couples resort in Ocho Rios, Jamaica!! To say the least, we had a blast! Jamaica is a very beautiful place and the people were so nice...not to mention the sexy Jamaican accents!
Enjoying the sun and the water at Couples
They had so many activities at Couples that it was hard to get bored. Thomas and I especially enjoyed the sunset cruise with optional "cannonball" contest! I was the only woman who competed and I even did pretty well, a nice splash, I was told. Just in case we hadn't embarrassed ourselves enough for a day, the boat crew made us all get up and dance on the way back to the beach. Well, I didn't mind, I love dancing...Horseback riding...honeymoon style
We also went "kayaking," in a manner of speaking. Tom and I realized we're not good partners in a boat because both of us want to run the show. Thomas almost ran us out to the reef! His quote, "I'm the captain of this boat, listen to me." Yeah, right....but he did look awfully cute in his rowing gear!
This is me standing on the patio with a plate full of food - a regular occurence at Couples - the food was amazing!! The patio was one of the many places to dine, it was just steps off the beach. The food at Couples was great. It was the one thing I was afraid that I might not be satisfied with on our honeymoon, but there were so many choices of so many different things to eat that even my picky appetite was satisfied! They even had a french restaurant where I had filet mignon - my favorite - one night!The view from our room was simply amazing. There were many times we'd just sit on the balcony watching the trees in the wind. Here are 2 more pictures of us on our balcony at Couples:
Here are some more pictures that give you an idea of how beautiful Jamaica is:
