Our Wedding Day in Pictures

Today I can finally share the pictures of our Wedding Day. Warning - I couldn't decide which ones to take, so I picked a few more than I had planned! :) So you better make yourself comfortable and get a cup of tea or coffee, I'll be waiting here for you...

(All pictures - if not otherwise declared - are taken by our professional photographer Daniel Kotzsch. The black and white pictures with colored highlights are edited by myself.)

And now back to the 29th of June, 2013...

As I mentioned before, it was raining the morning of our wedding day, so my Dad accompanied me with an umbrella and brought me to John, who was already waiting in the little square in front of the town hall, where we got married. My Dad's words to John were something like "John, may I give you my youngest daughter? Take good care of her!" - I swear that John had tears in his eyes when we met, but he insists it must have been the rain... ;)

In the registry office we said "I do" and sealed our vows with a kiss. It was only the two of us and the close family: my parents, my brother with his wife and sons, and my sister with her boyfriend and her daughter.

Afterwards we walked (still in the rain) to the church, where the rest of the family and all our friends were already waiting, and had our blessing ceremony.

My brother did the reading, we exchanged our rings, a good friend of ours sang two beautiful songs, and we all had a good laugh, when the priest said his wish for me is, that John can dance the Polka as good as himself (referring to a field trip in the 7th grade when he was my teacher in religious education and we danced Polka together). Everyone agreed, that it's been a beautiful ceremony and it didn't matter to anyone, that it wasn't a traditional catholic wedding.

Before we leave the church, let's start with the DIY-part of the wedding, shall we? Here you can see the church programs that we've made ourselves. We even included a little pocket with a tissue on the last page :)

 Here's the candle that my sister-in-law designed and made for us, isn't it gorgeous??

She also painted and decorated the "just married"-sign that embellished the black Cadillac, that John had organized for the wedding. Actually I wasn't supposed to know, but unfortunately John let it slip a few days before the wedding.

(private picture)

Now let's go inside the mill where we had the reception and party, and look at the table decoration. The vases for the simple flowers were jars that we've embellished with yellow ribbons and daisy-shaped buttons.

For the name tags, we've made paper rosettes and glued them to clothespins. Although we hadn't planned it this way, many of the guests were wearing their signs on their dresses and jackets that day. As favors for the guests we had little bags of jelly-beans in different white and yellow flavors, and the closure of the bags were little scalloped circles, stamped with "oh happy day" and embellished with little gems. The menu was printed on wax-paper and wrapped around a glass cylinder with a tea light inside.

We've made some more paper rosettes to tag all the delicious cakes we had, all of which were made by family and friends. My sister-in-law's mother made our wedding cake, isn't it cute? Since John loves to fish, we've picked this original cake topper, with the bride grabbing for the wedding ring on the hook.

Other than the jelly-beans, we also made a CD for our guests, "Mr. & Mrs. Smith - The Soundtrack". Unfortunately you can't see the inside, because the CD is vinyl-style and looks like a record!

A few days before the wedding I've also made some last-minute signs that we put next to the CDs, the guestbook-box (a box with papers, cards, markers, stickers and more) and the bar (for the Cocktail Specials).

We've even placed signs in the bathroom, next to the mirror. The one in the ladies' bathroom, which you see below, says "YOU are the Fairest of them all! And now go back upstairs and have fun!"

(private picture)

Now back to the afternoon coffee. In our region, we don't cut the wedding cake at midnight, but in the afternoon to serve the cake with the coffee.

 

After coffee, the rain had stopped, so we could finally take down the hood of the Caddy and go for a ride to take some amazing pictures:

 Back at the mill we took some more pictures in front of a barn:

 Before dinner was served, John held a touching speech that brought tears to many eyes in the room...

After dinner we danced... we started with a slow waltz to Anne Murray's "Could I have this dance" which cross-faded after the first chorus to Barry Whites "The first, the last, my everything".

Before our photographer called it a day, he took us out to take some more pictures in front of the cloudy evening-sky:

After that, the party went on until four o'clock in the morning. I threw my bouquet, we burned "flying wishpapers", danced some more, had more drinks, played some fun games, and had a great night.

It's been a very special day for us, and we know that it wouldn't have been possible this way without the help of our family, who did everything for us and with us: organizing, shopping, crafting, decorating, printing, baking, shaping the blessing ceremony, and many more favors that I can't think of right now. Although the weather really sucked, the saying is true: "When, at the end of the day, you're married to the love of your life, it's been the perfect wedding!"