I’d like to thank everyone for following along with me this week as I guest blogged here on Elizabeth Anne Designs. Before I return to writing about newlywed life, life in the lab as a graduate student, the full picture recap of my own wedding for those interested (to begin shortly) and soon the trials and tribulations of a long-distance marriage over at Disgruntled Julie: A Ph.D. in Progress, I thought I would step away from my own projects, and share my favorite memories from our wedding.
Please don’t tell my our parents (who helped to contribute financially), but looking back on the wedding, my favorite memories weren’t our amazing 10-piece band, or our beautiful flowers. I was recently involved in a discussion whether it was worth upgrading to nicer linens, and I couldn’t even remember if we had – I had to look at my pictures to see that we ordered the black linens through our florist. No, for me, the most memorable and meaningful events were the things that went wrong.
The afternoon before the wedding, my phone just decided to shut off… and refused to turn back on (ever). Naturally, since I was the one responsible for all the planning, all the vendors had my number as the contact point. As it turns out, the following day, family members, vendors, and apparently the entire world attempted to call me with questions and concerns (I had no less than 32 voicemails left for me on the day of my wedding)… but none of them got through. Many of these calls were redirected to my husband instead, while I had a blissfully peaceful, uninterrupted morning. I call this Wedding Karma – payback for all the times my husband refused to help with the planning process.
{Jennifer Childress Photography}
Our wedding, as a Jewish wedding, occurred on a Sunday. Naturally, there was also a wedding in the same hotel on a Saturday night. The hotel accidentally reversed which bridal suite was associated with which wedding for which night, however, and my bridesmaids and I returned to our suite following the rehearsal dinner and were welcomed by candles, scattered rose petals, a bottle of champagne, two luxurious bathrobes, and embroidered “Mr. & Mrs. LastName” pillowcases. Seizing the opportunity, my Maid of Honor immediately draped herself in the bathrobe, dove into the bed full of rose petals, and poured herself a big glass of champage. The simple error on behalf of the hotel provided us with a night full of giggles and a liftime of memories – I am quite sure that my best friend enjoyed herself much more than my exhausted husband would have after a long, exhausting day!
{author’s personal collection}
During the course of our engagement, my husband and I had several “heated discussions” regarding what to do with my last name. As a woman in science, I never intended to change my last name – after all, I already have publications out under my maiden name. To add fuel to the fire, my husband’s last name is consistently mispronounced, a fact which he likes to deny. And yet, at our wedding, in front of 175 witnesses, his family Rabbi (who married his parents and did the unveiling following his father’s death)… mispronounced his last name! The situation turned humorous as my husband stopped the ceremony to correct the Rabbi, and one of my very favorite pictures from the wedding (currently residing on his uncle’s camera) is me pointing at my husband, as if to say “I told you so!” and my husband, throwing his hands in the air, finally giving up on his last name. Hands down (or hands up, in the case of my husband), my favorite moment from our entire wedding.
We were indeed quite fortunate to have no problems at our wedding, and I truly have the wonderful staff of the Loews Philadelphia to thank for coordinating everything so wonderfully, but these little ‘unplanned’ adventures truly made our wedding unique. While planning, we so often get wrapped up in trying to plan the perfect wedding, but these imperfect moments are what make a wedding truly wonderful.