Supermommy is doing this big Wedding Meme thing and I finally decided to cave and join in on the fun. Any chance to pull out my low quality wedding pictures, right? The hubby and I got married in the summer of 2006. It was moderately casual in that I became something of an opposite to a Bridezilla. Instead of adding onto the wedding to make it bigger, I frequently found myself chopping things out – like paid photographers, wedding songs, matching bridesmaids dresses. I wanted to pare down our celebration to the heart of it – a wedding. And live to tell the tale. Here are some pictures / memories of our big day.

One unique twist that I made to our celebration was the wedding cake. That would be a baklava cheesecake wedding cake. I love cheesecake and it’s been my experience that most wedding cakes don’t taste very good. We had the baker at our reception hall (local restaurant) create this concoction based off the cheesecake on their restaurant menu that they are famous for (at least in my opinion). The cake was delicious and getting to take some home to eat a year later or whenever we caved and dug into it was extraordinary. I’m really glad I took the time to come up with this idea. Yum.

These are my lovely bridesmaids and myself. Ignore my fat. You’ll notice none of their dresses match. I had a basic color idea in mind but I wanted to give them free reign to buy a dress they could afford that they considered flattering. Figuring that we aren’t all cookie cutter versions of ourselves and we weren’t made of money, I wanted to avoid the Davids Bridal scene. Even my wedding gown was a prom dress from DEB Shops (which I’ll admit, I kind of regret because I didn’t love it – but hey, I didn’t go broke buying it either). I love that the dresses are different, I thought the over all effect was really nice.

This is a shot of my grandmother, father, son and myself. Yes, that’s my son at my wedding. Did I mention the whole completely unexpected pregnancy thing? So there was that which certainly added to the stress of wedding planning. Obviously not everybody approved of the pregnancy or the order that all of these events took place, but at the end of the day, I married the man I loved, the father of my child (soon to be children!) and got said cute kid out of the deal. I love this picture of the four generations of us. By this point I think everyone had come around, my grandmother was filled to the brim with love in general and my father (who looks oh so stoic) was my rock that day. I was nervous especially at the beginning of the ceremony, honestly had no idea what I was doing and when I was supposed to be doing it. I can remember waiting to walk down the aisle and having no idea when the procession should start. I said so to my father and he very calmly said something to the effect of:

“You are the bride. This starts exactly when you want it to – you are in charge.”

And it was just perfect, that moment. I was a nervous wreck about the whole situation, still didn’t really know how he felt about the marriage or any of it, but it was that moment, that I could suddenly exhale and say, “This is happening and it will happen. It doesn’t matter what details go astray.”

This is probably my favorite picture from the wedding. I love how ridiculously tall he is compared to me. And as much as a wedding is about the family around you and creating a celebration that everyone will enjoy, at the heart of it, is this moment. This was the reason I was there – for him, to be with him. We were young, we were in a weird situation, but we had faith in love in each other that all the wedding planning details in the world couldn’t break. We were nervous but together we were calm.