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!"

 

Postcards From Our Honeymoon

Wait - don't say anything. I know what you think: "why is she posting pictures of her Honeymoon when she hasn't even showed us some pictures of her wedding yet??" The answer is simple and frustrating: it's been seven weeks now since we've said "I do", and we haven't seen a single professional picture yet! :( The good news: a few hours ago, our photographer has told me, that he's done with editing the pictures now, and we've agreed on picking them up on Sunday. We can't wait!! :)

I'll tell you more about the Wedding when I post the pictures, but I can already tell you one thing: the whole day was simply perfect, more amazing then I had ever imagined it in my dreams. It's been raining cats and dogs all morning until the afternoon, but even that couldn't bother us - if I could relive this day (and I really wish I could) I wouldn't change a thing! ♥  Stay tuned for more... :)

So, but now to our Honeymoon...

We've spent one week on the Greek island Crete, here are some pictures of our hotel in Panormo and the surrounding:

One day we took the public bus to Rethymnon, the next bigger city:

 And the highlight of our vacation: a day trip to the romantic island of Santorini...

Aaaah... such wonderful memories of a perfect summer vacation!  ♥ 

Love from k-town to wherever you live in this beautiful world,

Wedding News: Almost There!!

Hello my friends - I'm still alive and kickin' :)

First of all: thanks to all of you who have visited my blog although I haven't posted anything new in what seems like ages!! Some of you have left comments here asking how I'm doing and how the wedding plans are getting along - it made me happy that you thought of me and I'm sorry I haven't given a proof of life sooner! My conscience is bothering me a little, but sometimes real life intervenes with blog life, I hope you understand! :)

This is the cover of our invitation cards. The first line means "after seven years"

So... it's been a very busy time recently, and now it's only three more days until we say "I do"!! :) The endless to-do-list is down to three little points, that I'll hopefully accomplish tomorrow: getting my nails done, applying for my new passport, and buying shoes (don't worry - I've already got the perfect wedding shoes, but I still need something more comfortable for the late night party, preferably in the color of my bouquet - yellow).

This is the cover of the church program. "Unsere Segensfeier" means "Our blessing ceremony".

Other than that, everything's organized: I've got my man, the documents, the dress, the flowers, the music and the favors. We've met with the mayor who'll do our civil wedding ceremony, and with the priest who'll do the blessing ceremony afterwards in the church. The weather forecast for Saturday is terrible: it's gonna be cold, cloudy and the chance of rain is at 92% - but honestly: who cares when you're marrying the love of your life? By the way: here are some pictures from our engagement shooting, which we did only two weeks ago (we had to postpone it five times due to bad weather. Of course.)

I think the pictures have turned out nice, and I'm looking forward to the official wedding pictures! I also hope we'll get some nice shots of the decoration - boy, we've really gone wild with this, you're gonna LOVE it!! Around the time when we started planning the details, my sister-in-law discovered Stampin' Up and dragged me in, too - so we've stamped and punched our way through the decoration, favors, name tags, guestbook cards, and what not. What we didn't do with stamps and scissors, I've made with the computer (like the invitations and the church program you see above).

Yes, it's been some busy months indeed - and I can say that it's been such an exciting, amazing and wonderful time, I'm almost sad it's over soon :) On Monday we'll go on our one-week honeymoon to the Greek island Crete, and afterwards I hope I can show you some wonderful pictures of the wedding and share with you the highlights of our special day.

Thanks for stopping by today, hope you're all having a great time :)