Wedding Recap!

About two weeks ago, Miss Mile High sent me a text with the weather forecast. It showed 60 degrees and partly sunny. That was before Hurricane Sandy decided to develop. So, when we woke up Monday morning, we were greeted with clouds and chilly temps.

No matta – the show must go on!

PRE-CEREMONY

We had laid out our clothes the night before. Thankfully, we both had long sleeved white shirts to wear under our jerseys. HH even had a Redskins jacket, but I don’t have a Cowboys jacket, so it’s not in the pics. LOL!

We headed uptown a little after 8:30am, so we could hit up the register of deeds to get our marriage license. Everyone who knows me knows I hate dealing with parking in uptown Charlotte, but thankfully we had no issues. I had already filled out our application for the marriage license online. We made it to the office and filled out another form indicating that the magistrate would perform our ceremony. The staff noticed our opposing jerseys, so we launched into a football discussion. When we had to take our oath about all the info in the license being true, she told us to raise our right hands. Guess who raised his left? LOL! He said he was just making sure she was paying attention.

We left there and decided to get one breakfast uptown. As we were walking, HH got a call from his job about working in the Hamlet yard. It’s about 2 hours away from here. While we’re not happy about it, the alternative was to be furloughed…which – for all intents and purposes – means being unemployed. Thankfully, he will not be.

With that bit of news, we headed to Panera and had breakfast. At that point there was actually a bit of sun and blue sky going on. By the time I finished my egg white sandwich, the sky had gone completely cloudy and the wind was picking up. I guess you can’t win ’em all, right?

I shot an email to Mike Strauss of Strauss Studios to let him know we were uptown eating breakfast, and all set to meet him at Marshall Park at 11:30. He replied and said he was at Freedom Park and would head out way. I have to say, I was a bit nervous. I got the photo package via a Groupon, and we had only talked via email. I never met him before, but his work looked good.

I had told Mike that we’d be on our jerseys and that we had a house divided theme going. He actually got to the park about 20 minutes early, so when we got there it was 11:20 and we went ahead and started the shoot.

I have no idea what I was laughing at…LOL

This may or may not be us on Thanksgiving…LOL!

It was a pleasure to work with Mike. He did a great job setting up the pics and finding pops of fall color in the background. He told us he’d upload the pics to the website the next day, and mail our CD as well. He was true to his word and I would definitely work with him again.

When we finished the shoot, it was a little before noon, so we zoomed home to change and pick up CH for the ceremony. By this point, the nerves are kicking in. I was wishing my sisters and mom were here, but I knew they were sending me positive vibes.

THE MAGISTRATE
I had planned to have Lori, one of our witnesses, take pics during our ceremony. As we were driving to the courthouse, I perused the paperwork we were given at the register of deeds, regarding the magistrate.

NO CAMERAS/CAMCORDERS ARE ALLOWED INSIDE THE COURTHOUSE.

Say what?!? Well, so much for that. Although it did say you could have a cell phone with a camera, but could only use it inside the courtroom where your ceremony was taking place. I thought that was weird. A camera is a camera, no?

CH and I made our way through security while HH parked the car. Our other witness, Kenya, had beat us there and was sitting outside the courtroom waiting for us. There were two couples ahead of us, and she was sitting there joking and laughing with them when we walked up. That was my first chance to lay eyes on our broom, and it was beautiful!

Lori purchased a boutonnière for HH as well as my bouquet. I hadn’t even thought about having one. Thank goodness she got involved and became the planner/photographer. LOL! I suck at pinning flowers. For the prom, I took a pic pretending to pin on my date’s flower. Then I handed it to my mom and let her do it. I can report that nothing has changed, and I let Lori attempt to pin the flower on HH’s lapel. LOL! Ultimately he ended up pinning it on himself.

The couple before us went in, and then it was our turn. The deputy told us we could not take cell phone pics during the ceremony. Booooooooo. I was gonna tell the,m to get some bootleg cell phone video, but I didn’t think it would be prudent to start our marriage with one of our witnesses getting arrested. The magistrate came in and introduced herself, and then had Lori and Kenya sign the papers as witnesses. We gave her our rings for the ceremony. Once the paperwork was squared away, she had me give my bouquet to Lori and called us up to the front of the courtroom.

We turned and faced each other and held hands. “This is it!” I thought. HH was smiling and I was smiling, and he was rubbing my hands with his thumb. When he started repeating his vows, he was looking at the magistrate…she jerked her head towards me like, look at your soon to be wife! LOL! That was just the first of the laughs. When she told him to place the ring on the third finger of my left hand, he COUNTED MY FINGERS. We all fell out. Seriously, dude? (After the ceremony, this led to a discussion of whether or not a thumb is a finger…)

The next thing I knew, the magistrate was pronouncing us husband and wife, and inviting HH to kiss his bride! We were married! It seemed surreal. Everyone was cheesing, even the teen.

As we walked out of the courthouse and towards our car, a woman walked by us on her phone speaking Spanish. She saw my bouquet and stopped to talk to us in a mixture of Spanish and English, but I know she said that we looked beautiful. Despite the cold temps, I felt great!

We were going to go back to Marshall Park to jump the broom, but we decided to head to Freedom Park instead. Our caravan arrived and we walked over to the big bridge over the water, so we could jump the broom and take our pics.

HH’s boutonnière fell off somewhere between the magistrate and the park, and none of us noticed until we got to the park. Oh well. It was a yellow flower, like the ones in my bouquet.

Pretending we were going to run and jump.

Discussing whether we would do 1-2 and jump on 3, or 1-2-3 jump. LOL!

We cleared it! And there’s no backwards jumping to get a divorce. 🙂

Sandy tried to blow our broom away!

I could bore you to death with pics…I won’t. 🙂

DINNER
Dinner was at Red Rocks Cafe in Huntersville, NC. When we arrived, our baker – Tiffany Steward of Sweet Slices – was there with the cake. I loved it! I hugged her four times. LOL! She took the pics I gave her and made us something that really represented us.

I was happy with the wait staff. Sometimes they can get an attitude with big groups – especially a group where all the checks are split. I never got that vibe from them, and they were very helpful. I definitely give the venue two thumbs up. We had a great time with friends…it was almost like a mini high school reunion for us.

We really felt such an outpouring of love and support, from those who knew before the ceremony took place. A few folks, including my brother, almost busted us out on Facebook, but thankfully the good folks of FB must’ve been hard at work and didn’t notice. LOL! As the plans came together, I realized what giving friends and family we have. My sister paid for my shoes. Her hubby paid for our cake. My aunt sent us a gift card to pay for dinner for the three of us. Lori and Kenya donated their time and talents providing the flowers, photography, the broom, witnessing, and keeping me sane. This really was one of the happiest days of my life. We did it, we had fun, and we didn’t go broke to do it.

Thank you, ladies!

And thank you to everyone for your thoughts and well wishes. We appreciate it!