Rehearsing's the Key

Some of my favorite photos from the rehearsal:

I wanted simple decorations, to go with a fairly simple church. Silk hydrangeas on every other pew and four simple arrangements at the front? Worked for me!

My father & I putting our oars in while my mum practiced her Bible readings. Not surprising, really, to anyone who knows the two of us.

My darling, lovely, sweet nephews. They most definitely did not do this during the ceremony, but man, it was cute during the rehearsal.

Can't remember what was so funny, but I love this pic of most of the women in my life cracking up. From left to right, my sister, best friend, sister-in-law, other best friend, me (front row); mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law (back row)

Auntie (me) explaining the Last Supper carving/trying to keep the little boys from manhandling the altar

I love contrasting the picture above with the one below. Same set-up, but the rehearsal one is casual & kind of offhand, the ceremony one is formal, yet full of joy.

Inter-Generational Fun

As my father said in his toast, one of the most important things to us was that our wedding be about family, friends, and fun. While I completely understand why some people don't invite children to their weddings, that option was never on the table for us. My nephews (who served as our ring bearers) are 2 and 4 and we have many young cousins who we wanted there with us on our special day.

One of the benefits of seeing the wedding photographer's photos is that it helps me to see what people were doing when I was off doing something else. I keep saying, "Oh, I'm glad so-and-so danced! I must have missed that." or "Yay - those two are talking without fighting!" And one of the things that made me happy was to see how different generations enjoyed themselves.

From the very small,

to young cousins and nephews,

to medium-sized cousins,

to college friends,

And the older generation . . .

everyone, in every generation, seemed to find something that was fun for them. And as I've said before, isn't that the point? Sure, your wedding day is about you and your spouse and the vows that you're saying to each other. But it's also (perhaps even more so) about the love that your family members and friends have for you and for each other. What a wonderful thing to celebrate!

Home Again (& Wedding Pics!)

Well, we're home from our week on Prince Edward Island and we've got the photographer's photos! You can access them here: http://aaronrohdephotography.zenfolio.com/p958984016. The password is "jswed".

I'm so pleased with the photos! The one above is one of my many favorites. I'm planning recaps of each part of the wedding weekend (rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, pub crawl, getting ready, ceremony, reception, harbor cruise . . . ), but for now, go check out the photos and enjoy! Be forewarned, though - there are 950!

(cross-posted at Hodoeporicon)