wedding wednesday

"Holy buckets!  We just got married!"

From Dave Watkins of Narella Studio, www.narella-studio.com

wedding wednesday

I love you just the way you are.  
We had these lofty goals of starting our first dance slow, and then breaking into a salsa dance we'd practiced beforehand.  Well, finding a song that begins slow and then picks up the tempo, and can be danced to salsa, is a very daunting task!  We were three days from the wedding when we realized it just wasn't going to happen. Luckily, we had a favorite song on standby - Just the way you are, by Billy Joel, one of our favorite artists.  

And as I think back to our first dance, and dancing to Billy Joel's classic, I really wouldn't have had it any other way. 


As always, the picture's from Narella Studio, www.narella-studio.com

wedding wednesday

an hour early. :-)

We were only about two minutes from the church - our photographer found this amazing tree literally just down the road.  What you don't realize from this picture was that we had to wade up to almost our waists in thick, meadow-like grass in order to get up the hill to this tree.  By that time, I was thinking, "Heck - sounds good to me!  The ceremony's over, so the dress can get a little mussed up!"  

 Looking back on it, however, I definitely should have worn different shoes for this part of pictures.  :-)  

B and I are gearing up for wedding season 2010 - we had a wedding in Texas about six weeks ago to kick things off, and, if we've calculated right, we have six more to attend between now and September.  Some of our dear friends were actually engaged over the weekend and are planning August nuptials - amazingly beautiful!  We're looking forward to traveling for some of these weddings (we actually need to book some plane tickets to Kansas City for a wedding in July), getting into "wedding attire" shape, and maybe even purchasing some new digs for some of these occasions!  (I'm getting a new dress from my mom for my birthday, so I'm particularly excited about that!) 

It is truly an honor to be present at these occasions - to witness a beautiful couple stand before God and their families and unite themselves to one another for life.  Each time, it reminds me of the beautiful vows we took last August, and almost serves as an examination of conscience for me.  Am I living out the vows I made to B at our wedding Mass?  Am I being faithful to the promises I made to him, and to God, on that day?  And then, I am reminded of my human frailties and the times I've stumbled in these past eight months, and resolve to be a better wife to B, and to live out better my vocation so as to give all the glory to my Father God. 

Picutre taken by Narella Studio, www.narella-studio.com

ten quick things! i am.....

1. listening to "Dancing with Myself" from the cast of "Glee" as I type this.  It is by far my most favorite song of the soundtrack!  Who knew that they could take a Billy Idol song and make it so dang catchy?!

2. trying to catch World Cup Fever as acutely as my husband.  He just spent the last ten minutes on YouTube watching Maradona, Pele, and a host of other futbol legends.  We're already starting to trash talk about the upcoming tournament - he bleeds Spanish yellow and red, and I bleed the blue of the Italian Azzurri, while we also both root for the red, white, and blue of the American motherland.  It will be quite the start to summer - it is right around the corner!
3. going to attempt to be more faithful to this pitiful excuse of a blog!  I really am - it's sad, the infrequency of it.  If anything, I would like to use it as a journal of our lives together - growing up, figuring stuff out, and, God willing, raising children.  
4. filing my taxes with my dad this weekend.  Nothing like waiting until the last minute!  I certainly wanted them to be filed sooner, but a mix-up with payroll at work kept me from getting my final W-2 until just this week!  Ugh....
5. booking airplane tickets to Denver for about a month from now!  We're hoping to get out west to see my brother-in-law graduate from college.  I have never been to Colorado, so I am super excited at the prospect of going!  I can only stay for a couple days - my husband will stay longer and I'm going to need to fly home two days early, as I'm the confirmation sponsor for my cousin in his ceremony that weekend (actually, the day of the graduation ceremony, too).  But I am so very excited to see my in-laws again - haven't seen them since the wedding!  
6. enjoying immensely our high-resolution wedding photos.  They are just as beautiful as the day they were taken.  They transport us right back to that beautiful, sacramental day!  :-)  
7. anticipating the cooking of beef stroganoff for Divine Mercy Sunday.  The dear, wonderful priest who presided at our Nuptial Mass back in August will come to our apartment on Sunday for a long overdue visit.  His assignment is downtown with the UW crowd, so he rarely has a free moment - this will certainly be a treat (not to mention a blessing) for us.  I promised him a stroganoff from Williams-Sonoma's slow cooker cookbook - let's hope it turns out as well as it did the first time I made it! 
8. learning (always!) to trust the plan of my Father God.  We're back in the throes of uncertainty these days, not quite sure where we'll end up for the next academic year.  Law school applications are being thrown around, letters are slowly trickling in, and in the midst of all of that, we're trying to remember that He has our best intentions in mind, and that He really does will the best for us.  It's just painfully hard for us to recall that, when we're living in what seems like a mess of confusion!  Jesus, I trust in You.  :-)  
9. continuing, ever so slowly, to organize our apartment.  It sure does seem that life gets in the way, every time I try to tidy and organize our belongings in this space.  As soon as the bedroom is clean, all of a sudden, life happens! -And I'm caught in the struggle of trying not to fall behind in household chores.  Someday, I will (God willing!) master the ability to keep on top of things!
10. listening, now, to "Africa" by Toto, and needing to wake up my husband from his nap soon!  Then we're off to the tech school campus for his last class of the week, and I'm off to hang out with my cousin while her mom hosts a get-together at her house.  Pair that with our weekly viewing of Project Runway (really, often our only "quality time" of the week), and it plans to be quite the evening!  :-)  


a presto!

wedding wednesday

As always, from Dave Watkins of Narella Studio, 
www.narella-studio.com

half a year!

It is so hard to believe that half a year has gone by since I married my best friend, the man who teaches me more about myself with each passing day, the man with the heart of Joseph, the man who loves me in spite of my weakness and shows me through his own love for me a glimpse of what the love of the Triune God is for us all.  


I told B tonight, as we reveled in our "half-iversary" by watching the movie "Up" and completing a load of laundry (the simple things), how grateful I am for his heart of Joseph, and the fact that he loves me in spite of my painful weakness and sin.  Brad loves with a heart like that of the foster-father of Jesus - virtually never thinking of his own gain, but that of his family (which, as of this moment, is only me).  To have a husband so committed and so focused to the well-being of his family, so much that he would deny his own pleasure and comfort day in and day out, is more and more humbling as the days go by.  If only I could love "my Joseph" as he loves me!  What love!  Lord, grant me the strength to do so! 

I married one of the most amazing men in the world six months ago.  He is already an incredible husband, and God willing, will be an amazing father, should we be blessed with children.  And I, worthless and sinful as I am, have the blessing, the privilege, the honor, of being his wife for the rest of our lives.  Lord, that I might be fully aware of this blessing every moment of my life!  Thank You!


a presto.

wedding wednesday

Courtesy of Dave Watkins, Narella Studio, 

www.narella-studio.com 

wedding wednesday (a few days late)....there goes the veil

Quite honestly, this is one of my favorite moments captured on that beautiful day.  Our friend caught on his iPhone the exact moment that my veil came off on our way out of the church!  We're walking out of the church following the Nuptial Mass, and all of a sudden, my head jerks back and.....there goes the veil!  My hopes of having a cathedral veil at the ceremony seemed to backfire in that moment - the beautiful veil then lay in a heap of tulle as my husband and I continued out.  It was hilarious, and our photographer caught a bunch of great shots of the laughs my husband and I shared as we left the church. 

After the wedding, many people put forth their own conclusions regarding "veilgate."  

Hypothesis of my father - did someone step on it on the way out of church?  

My hypothesis after feeling my bridesmaids shove it back into my hair during the wedding homily - was it fastened loosely at the salon that morning?  

Hypothesis of my uncle, who claimed to witness this moment - did my dad step on it on his way back to his seat after giving me away, at the beginning of Mass, causing it to fall out during the recessional?  

Eventually, we reached the conclusion that it was probably stepped on by one of the wedding guests sitting near the aisle.  A moment that will live in infamy, I'm sure :)  

How was that beautiful day already three months ago?  We are so blessed!  
Queen of heaven, pray for us....
a presto

one of those moments

You know, we just don't recognize
  the most significant moments of our lives while they're happening.

- Moonlight Graham to Ray Kinsella, Field of Dreams

That day seven weeks and two days ago was one of those moments. It was terribly surreal, incredibly fast, and now, but a memory, that my husband and I will cherish forever.

In the same conversation in Field of Dreams, Moonlight Graham describes to Ray his memories of playing baseball, the feelings and sensations evoked upon the memory of a certain sound, taste, smell on the ballfield. There are times that our wedding day does that to me, too. We've recently taken a liking to listening to the hymns from our Nuptial Mass - even something as simple as the first note of the processional brings me right back to that moment, the moment where the world stood still and I saw my groom - the man who will ultimately fulfill my vocation - waiting for me at the altar.

Wow.  :) 

Photo above courtesy of Dave Watkins of Narella Studio, 
 www.narella-studio.com