nom nom nam!: 3 Months and Counting…

We’ve been married three months today! I’ve been meaning to post a recap of our wedding for a while, and now seemed like a good time. :)

We had a hard time deciding what we wanted to do for our wedding, and for a while it felt like we were continually changing our minds. Both Joey and I have large extended families, and we could hardly imagine getting married without everyone present. At the same time, Lebanon and St. Albans are over 6 hours away from each other, and choosing one location over the other would most certainly cut some people out. We really liked the idea of getting married in Charlotte, but that would have been an 8 hour drive for family in PA, and 4 hours for those in WV.

As we solidified our plans to move to Vietnam, the need to see (and spend time with) everyone became even more important—we really wanted a chance to celebrate with all of the people we’ve been so loved and supported by. And so we began thinking about a relatively small wedding in Charlotte, with larger, informal celebrations in Charlotte (for college friends), West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

This felt right, but narrowing down our friends and family to a short list of 50 or even 75 for the wedding itself was incredibly difficult and stressful. The moment we began talking about a teeny-tiny ceremony limited to immediate family and a very few close friends, I felt a huge sigh of relief. It just felt exactly right, and very us—to keep it very small and simple for the wedding itself, but to later allow ourselves a chance to celebrate informally with our families.

I think in some ways I probably expected our wedding day to be immune to the little quirks that shape our everyday lives. It wasn’t. Lots of things that I intended to spend time on were left to the last minute, and our families and friends were always asking questions we probably should have had answers to (like, what time do we need to be there?). Lucie hemmed her dress after the rehearsal dinner, less than 12 hours before the wedding. I was trimming our table runners (bought three days prior) that morning, in my wedding dress. Just like any other day, it was a big event to get everyone in the right place at the right time.

But it was perfect.

Everyone walked in to “Down to the River to Pray” from the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. My dad walked me down the aisle to the Iron & Wine version of “Such Great Heights.”

We had chairs, but at the rehearsal the night before it felt exactly right to have everyone standing around us. So we left the chairs.

Our moms read for us. First was an excerpt from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres, read by my mom:

“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your root was so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.”

Joey’s mom read Ruth 1:16-17:

“But Ruth said, ‘Entreat me not to leave you or return from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God; where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if even death parts me from you.’”

I was more or less holding it together until Adam (Joey’s best man) sang. It was perfect. He sang “Offering” by the Avett Brothers, and it broke everyone up.

I’ve thought a lot about how to describe the experience of saying those vows—a lot. And there’s really no way to convey the hugeness of it. I think there were times in the process that I tried to downplay the hugeness—honestly, I was very self-conscious about being one of those girls who gets married straight out of college. But it was big. And wonderful. The stillness and serenity of those moments—it’s something I’m trying hard to imprint onto my memory. The pictures of our ceremony are wonderful, but they don’t even come close to expressing the joy and certainty I felt.

And then we were married.

Dr. Mowrey tried to send us down the aisle without kissing—we were having none of that! After the ceremony, we had brunch in the garden.

Adam made us all cry again with his best man speech! I feel so lucky to be spending my life with someone who is loved by such good, genuine, wonderful friends.

One of my favorite moments was after Adam’s speech. Dad looked down to the end of the table and said, “Okay, Isaiah—your turn.” Everyone played along, and Isaiah was pretty flustered, but he stood up, raised his glass (cup), and said, “Strength to your marriage.” I think Sammy fed him the line.

It reminded me a lot of the first time our families met—my family came to Charlotte for Joey’s graduation in 2006, and we all went to a favorite restaurant for lunch. Our server, who’s also one of the restaurant’s owners, convinced Isaiah that she would milk the goat for the goat cheese fritters in the back. She even took him back into the kitchen to prove it to him! Isaiah came back in and said, “I thought she was just kidding! We actually went to milk the goat, but she forgot that it’s Saturday, and the goat goes out to the farm on weekends.”