Formal Photos

This post is definitely one of the hardest for me to write because of the sour taste that I still have in my mouth because of what happened. So fair warning everyone, there may be a lot of bitching during this post! Can't say I didn't warn ya!

After the ceremony was over and all of our guests had left the church, they whisked us back in to start taking pictures. At first we were still waiting for a few people to get back in the church, so while we were waiting we were speaking with our photographers. We discussed what we were going to do for the pictures and also I made sure that they had the list of must takes that I put together for them. We stood there for about five minutes waiting for everyone and not once in that five minutes did it occur to our photographers that hey, maybe we should put the flash unit on our cameras. Ya know, since the lighting wasn't that great. This would have taken them all of 20 seconds. But no! (Told you there would be some bitching!)

Once everyone was there we began the picture taking marathon. I thought everything was going very well and that we were doing really good on time considering that we had to be out of the church by 4:30. There were a few pictures that we decided that we could get at the reception so we decided not to take them. I shouldn't have been okay with this, but it is what it is. At this point, I really wasn't worried at all. I thought they were doing a great job.

Well, I should have been worried and I should have spoken up, but I had no way of knowing that they had messed up until I actually saw the pictures. So without further ado, I give you the formal pictures that we took at the church. And please feel free to let me know what you think of them because sometimes I feel as though I am being a little biased and a perfectionist, so really I want to know what your thoughts are.

The shadows on the faces are really what bothers me the most. Had they used their flash, I don't think I would be upset. Also, there was no close up of Aran and I just the far away ones. Oh, and notice that there isn't a picture of just me in my dress in this gorgeous church. Just saying!

Should I be as upset as I am about how these turned out? What do you guys think of these pictures?



Need to catch up?

Arrivals
Hunting Down Tuxedos
A Morning of Getting Beautified
Venue Set Up
A Rehearsal & A Dinner
Bridal Party Gifts Part 1
Bridal Party Gifts Part 2
Bridal Party Gifts Part 3
Getting Ready-Hair & Make-Up
Getting Dressed: The Groom & His Fellas
Getting Dressed: The Flower Girls
Getting Dressed: The Bride & Her Ladies
The Ceremony

Being a Grown Up Sucks Sometimes

Okay, I know I haven't done a wedding recap in a while, but things have just been kind of crazy and I haven't had the time or the patience to sit down and write a few. Sorry guys! I have already told myself that I will be back with those next week. I need to take a break to just relax because things have just been kind of stressful lately and I don't know what to do.

So of course I am just going to pour out everything on here. I guess I can start with the good news. I got a promotion at work at the beginning of this month. It's great! I got a nice new office and a title to go with it. And I got a really nice pay raise. We have known that this pay raise was coming for a while now so we had already discussed what we wanted to do with it. We had two things on our list that were(and still are) top priority. The first was getting into a better place to live. We hate our apartment complex. It is awful. We were really hoping that we could find a great rental house, but the more we look, the more we have been thinking that we are going to have to settle for a Townhouse or a Condo. Rental houses in this town are way too expensive and it is just not something that we can afford.

The second thing on our list and maybe the more important one now is that I need a new car. The car I currently have is a '88 Mazda MX-6. I have had this car since High School and it has gotten me around for a very long time. It's a trooper! Well, this little car is kind of on it's last leg. I've known this for a while. The car has known this for a while, but I think it is secretly trying to hold on for dear life until it knows that I can afford a new car.

My trooper!

Well, that was until this morning. While we were on our way to work, it decided it didn't want to run properly. Every time I would push in the clutch to down shift and slow down to turn or for a light, my car would stall. I would have to turn it back on just to start going again. It did this the whole way to work. So of course when I got to work, I do what I always do when something is wrong with my car. I called my Brother and my Dad and also talked to our friend Pelka at work. They are all car people and they all pretty much told me the same thing. And that same thing is that it could be a variety of things. It could be the clutch, or the fuel system, or the exhaust system or a ton of other things that they mentioned.

So of course, I started doing what I do best. I started to stress and worry. You see we have been looking at new cars and talking with my Dad about it and we already know what car we want, we just need to come up with a down payment and we need to make sure that the monthly payments are around $200-$300. Sounds pretty simple right? Yeah, it really isn't. We were planning on waiting till around October when we had a few other things paid off, but now, we may have to make a decision and we may have to choose between either finding a better place to live or getting a new car. I don't think that we can do both at the
same time.

The car we want. A 2012 Kia Sportage

Sometimes I hate being an adult. I just wish that things could be a little bit more simple sometimes. I may be getting a head of myself too. I don't know what is wrong with my car right now, but if it is a simple and somewhat inexpensive fix then hopefully that will take care of this for a little while until we are in a better position to buy a car. Fingers crossed that we can get this figured out soon.

It's funny ya know, when you are growing up and especially in High School, you can't wait to be an adult and be on your own and make your own decisions. But when you are an adult and have to make all these tough decisions, you wish you were a kid again. Tis life I guess.

Drum Roll Please...

Last week I asked all of you for some help in deciding what I should do with my hair. First, I want to say thank you to all of you for your input. Most of you liked the Carrie cut and thought that the brownish red color would work. So, this past Saturday, I went for it.

I went to see my Aunt who is in beauty school and showed her what I wanted. Her and I picked out a color that we thought would look good and went from there. After dying my hair she went ahead and cut it. She did a great job and I love it. So, this is what my hair now looks like...

Best pic I could get that night

What do you guys think?

The Ceremony

Everybody was dressed. Our guests were all in their seats. We were all lined up and ready to go. It was finally time for the Ceremony to begin. My nerves and excitement definitely started getting the best of me at this point. While my Dad and I were standing in the church hallway waiting to go in, I started tearing up and getting very emotional. Luckily my Mom was still out in the hallway and ran and got me some tissues so that I wouldn't mess up my make up.

Everyone started processing in. This was it. It was finally time to walk down that aisle. All those months of planning were behind us and it was time for all of it to finally happen. The last people in our bridal parties entered the church and the doors closed behind them. It was my turn to walk in. The doors opened again and my Dad and I started walking in. All I can remember is seeing how beautiful the church was when I first walked in. It was insane. And then I could see all of our guests looking my way. And then all I could see was my soon to be Hubby's handsome face. All I could do was smile at this point.

My Brother & my Nieces

My brother and my Mom! She looked so pretty!

Once my Dad and I made it down the aisle everything seemed to kind of drag on from there. I had only ever been to one Catholic wedding prior to ours and I didn't realize how long they really were. I mean a normal mass is long and then you add in the sacrament of marriage? Whoa!! I'm not going to lie, it was extremely hard to concentrate on what was going on. I really was trying to be good and pay attention, but I just kept thinking to myself, "Can we get to the marriage stuff yet?" I'm horrible, I know!

Our ceremony was soooo long, that our Ring Bearer and our youngest Flower Girl both fell asleep.

We eventually got through the mass part and got on to the good stuff. Again, I'm horrible, I promise, I am well aware. We exchanged vows. I didn't cry at all! I was so proud of myself. The cool thing about this is that everyone that was there told us that as soon as we started exchanging our vows, it started snowing outside! Good luck? I think yes!

We exchanged rings which was pretty funny considering that the Father marrying us tried to give Aran his ring to give to me, haha!

And finally we shared our first kiss as husband and wife! 

We lit the unity candle together. And I managed to not catch myself, my dress or anything else around us on fire. That was a huge success!

 And we signed our marriage license. Another funny story here. The best man almost signed on the wrong line. He almost signed on the Groom's line. That could have been interesting. In his defense, the lines were a little out of order, but what are you gonna do.

Me pointing out that he was getting ready to sign on the wrong line. 

That was it! We were married! I could not have been more excited! It was now time to exit the church as a newly married couple! 

 

Overall, as most of our guests will tell you, it was a very long ceremony, but I am so happy with how it went. Nobody tripped, or said the wrong name during the vows. No one came running and screaming into the church to stop us from getting married, nothing! It was perfect! Well, unless you count me having a coughing attack in the middle of everything not perfect, but whatevs! It was a great moment that I will remember and cherish for the rest of my life!

Me in the middle of my coughing fit!

Did anything out of the ordinary happen during your ceremony? What do you remember most about your ceremony?

Need to catch up?

Arrivals
Hunting Down Tuxedos
A Morning of Getting Beautified
Venue Set Up
A Rehearsal & A Dinner
Bridal Party Gifts Part 1
Bridal Party Gifts Part 2
Bridal Party Gifts Part 3
Getting Ready-Hair & Make-Up
Getting Dressed: The Groom & His Fellas
Getting Dressed: The Flower Girls
Getting Dressed: The Bride & Her Ladies