the proof

It's hard to believe, but we really did get married a few weeks ago.  Now that we have the photos from our ridiculously talented photographer, Andrew, I can prove to you that the wedding actually happened. Today, here are a few photos of the ceremony itself.

I can't decide how much or how little to say about it all.  The truth is I'm still kind of processing.  So maybe for now, I'll just set the scene and then share the pictures:

In spite of weeks and weeks of rain, the wedding day was inexplicably lovely.  We had the ceremony in the shade of the giant osage orange tree that's standing in my parents' backyard.  My brother, Phil, was our officiant, and aside from the vows, the wedding mostly consisted of readings by my youngest brother, my man's nieces and nephew, and my dear Aunt Kathy.  I wrote most of the ceremony and was still putting the finishing touches at the last minute.  Fortunately, I managed to get things wrapped up before the first guests arrived...

Coming up in Part 2: photos of our pig-roast-and-pinata reception.  See you on Wednesday!

what to say

While most of our wedding planning has been humming along happily, there is one department that's really come to what I'd have to call a screeching halt.  I'm embarrassed to say that I still don't have a very concrete idea of what our ceremony is going to look like--or sound like.

I thought the "words" part of this whole thing was going to be so easy.  And in a way, it is.  I say one thing, he says another thing, the officiant says a final thing, and them--bam!--we're hitched.  The thing is, it's hard to know what everyone should actually say.  Should we say Lutheran things, for my family?  Or Baptist things, for his?  Or should we just use civil ceremony language, as though a Justice of the Peace were calling the shots?

Of course, there's a world of ideas out there.  Just Google "wedding ceremony script," if you'd like to have your mind blown by the possibilities.

And then there are the readings.  We thought it would be nice to have a few.  Partially in the spirit of  celebration.  Also because we thought it might be a little rude to have a wedding ceremony that was three minutes long.  Especially for the people who are traveling two thousand miles to join us.

I just can't figure out what to use.  It's starting to seem pretty likely that we'll have a reading from the Bible.  After that, though, I'm kind of at a loss.  Dr. Seuss?  Shakespeare?  Is there a text that really defines us as a couple?  Maybe, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's the script from an episode of The Office.  Or maybe, I don't know, The Simpsons.

Of course, just like everything else, this is something that we'll eventually figure out.  In the meantime, though, I'm totally open to ideas.  Unless it's Shakespeare.  Because I love Will, but at a wedding, his words always sound less like brilliance, and more like cliche.  And honestly, I think I'm still scarred from dissecting Sonnet 116 in Mr. Watts' AP English class...

{Okay, and honestly, what I really want to find--and don't you dare laugh--is the perfect reading from The Little House on the Prairie books.  I accidentally started reading These Happy Golden Years the other day, and now I'm just incredibly fascinated by the love stories in Laura Ingalls Wilders' books.  I haven't read them since I was eight or nine, and--who knew?--it turns out that Ma and Pa Ingalls were, like, totally in love.  And Almanzo Wilder?  Absolutely dreamy.  Enough of all this Twilight nonsense, those folks out on the prairie totally had it going on.

A birthday or two ago, my partner-in-crime got me all the LHotP books.  They're all different editions, spanning four or five decades.  My favorite cover is from These Happy Golden Years.  It's the 1956 edition, I think, and it's just beautiful.  Garth Williams was a genius...}