Wedding Recap: Ceremony

Our ceremony started at 2:30 and lasted around 45 minutes. We did not have a full church ceremony but we did have readings and hubs' Aunt sang. 

Back story on this church: We had no church. The church I am a member of is in my home town. Most Catholic churches you have to be a member of for at least 6 months prior to getting married there. I had always seen this church when going to baseball games but we never realized that it was a Catholic church. I looked online and fell in love with it - it was gorgeous, and could not have been located any better? I mean hotel, church, and reception all right next to each other - perfect! I called them and they told me that they did not book weddings until 6 months prior to the year. So we got married January 10, 2009 so we could not book until July 1 of 2008. OK, we will wait. 

{throw wrench}

They only have 1 wedding a day there, only on Saturday, not past 2:00. OK I guess we will work with that.

{throw wrench again} 

Oh and just to let you know, brides line up outside to book this church..WHAT! So we got there are 6AM on July 30th to wait outside for 8AM and there were SIX people there already. A bride and her mom SLEPT OUTSIDE. Thankfully no one before me wanted my date so we got the church!

Seeeeeee...I told you!

 

Once that stressful event was over we knew everything would work out.

Ok back to the ceremony - everything was perfect.

People showed up!

Apparently my dad was not nervous - say hi to my BFF Ang!

My Aunt, Godmother, Dad, and sis - having fun while I am locked in that room nervous as hell

Do I look nervous? Don't worry I had a breakdown and would not let my sister leave me. I asked her if I looked pretty, and almost had the ugly cry.

I told them not to leave me...but they had to get down the aisle!

I am biting the inside of my lip making my cousin tell me jokes.

I would also like to mention that my dad shook someone hand as we were walking down the aisle! That's my dad though - has to greet everyone! lol

This is also 2 of my favorite photos - after the ceremony

We took some formals...

This is my priest from my families church and he is a great family friend, so happy he was able to marry us. 

After formals we headed across the street

This is on the cover of our album - I love you can see the church behind us

Time to party!

Rcception recap to follow!

Hope everyone is having a fab weekend - I am in NOLA!

Wedding Recap: Pre-Ceremony Photos

You saw all of my "getting ready" photos yesterday, so here are more of the "pre-ceremony" photos. The guys met in the lobby of Inn at the Ballpark for their photos, get their boutonnieres,  pre-wedding drinks, and cigars. Yes, cigars. My dad did this at my sisters wedding - gave all the guys cigars - even though hubs does not even smoke them. The guys were happy though.

 I love this photo of my mother-in-law and my dad. I am pretty lucky to have such awesome in-laws.

I also love candid moments like this

Brad's family cleans up nice too huh??

Brother-in-law, dad, and hubs

I also love that you can see what time it was....just under 40 minutes to go!

Poor Brad had to sit in this stairwell before the ceremony - it is a really old church so there are no extra rooms

And the girls...after the boys left...

Next up...ceremony!

Wedding Recap: Getting Ready

Since I posted the other day about our engagement and the rings, I decided that I would do a wedding day recap. Our 3 year wedding anniversary is January 10th and I cannot believe how much time has flown!

We got married on January 10, 2009 at Annunciation Catholic Church in Downtown Houston and had our reception at Union Station inside Minute Maid Park. This post will be all about getting ready.

Since our ceremony was at 2:30 we did not really have the day to relax and my girls and I went to my make-up artists studio down the street to get beautiful so there are no photos of that. The guys we also ordered told to be at Inn at the Ballpark ready to go for photos.

Ok funny story about this photo: Do you notice the pill bottle in my moms purse? I am a pretty high strung person, and with all the nerves flying around the days previous my mom had a prescription filled from our doctor friend for a muscle relaxer. She did this for my sisters wedding too.  It was actually mainly for my dad but my mom took one the day before and then she cut one in half for me that morning.

I wore my moms pearl necklace and pearl/diamond earrings

I also wore purple heels with a six pence taped in. It is for good luck - it is supposed to be from the year you were born I think but we did not have that so we used it from the year of my parents wedding. Good enough right?

I also wore an Astros Garter

I wore my moms mantilla veil - it was hand made in Spain as a gift from my dads family for their wedding 46 years ago. My mom wore it when she married my dad, my aunt wore it, my sister, and me. It is gorgeous - it actually bustles up so I wore it all night.

Here we all are about to head downstairs - we clean up nice right?

Check back tomorrow for more pre-ceremony photos that include the guys!

Ring Bling: A Ring, and a Proposal

I saw this linky flying around the blog world so since me and hubs' three year anniversary is next week I decided I would link up with Happiness Is...!

In addition to showing the ring, I will give our proposal story too since our anniversary is fast approaching! 

Hubs and I started dating in September of 2006, we had known each other for about 4 or 5 years prior - we met through his best friend that I went to college with. He was more seriously about the relationship then I was but I came around after a couple of months. He lived in Austin and I lived here in Houston and I was not keen on getting into another long distance relationship but he wooed me anyway!

He moved here about 8 months after we started dating and him and my roommate became instant buddies (for the record my roommate was my male cousin!) ...and our third roommate. We had talked about marriage, the future, etc.. and even got schooled in rings over the summer of 2007. Around September of 2007 hubs came up with the idea of going on a nice date night every month that he would plan - so of course I would get my hopes up EVERY date night. 

On our December 14, 2007 date night everyone kept saying he was going to pop the question and of course I doubted. I came home from work and he was rushing me to get ready, I kept asking where we were going and I finally figured out we were going to Grotto - where we had our first date, and celebrated his birthday so it was kind of "our place."

We got there and we were quickly seated, which is rare because it was a Friday night and they did not take reservations. After he proposed I saw all the signs that something was going on - quick seating, the hostess kept staring at me like I knew her, Brad getting up to go to the bathroom, not ordering a drink, etc...

We ate dinner and ordered our dessert. Brad kept asking me if I wanted another drink so I ordered one with our dessert. I remember I was asking why it was taking so long to bring a slice of cake out! Right after we ordered our dessert Brad got up to "go to the bathroom" (He was really giving the ring to the manager Paul whom he planned the whole evening with). Shortly after our "dessert" came out. Paul had a covered plated and sat it in front of me and said something like "We thought you might like this better" he took the lid off and the ring box was there. Brad then got on one knee and proposed in front of the whole place, of course I said yes! Everyone at the restaurant applauded, and congratulated us! I kept saying are you serious and asking him if my parents knew! Paul came over and told me what Brad had done, and I was completely surprised by his sneakiness!

My parents and his parents knew - he took my parents out to dinner earlier that week to ask permission and to show them the ring. He went to Grotto earlier that day and gave the ring box to Paul, and he made sure he had a table set up for us. The whole staff knew what was going on and they were gathered around the bar right after he proposed to congratulate us - it was a perfect evening!

The ring was exactly what I wanted. Come to find out he put a down payment on the ring the day I fell in love with it and the jeweler had it for safe keeping up until the week he proposed. Sneaky sneaky man.

Ring Details:

I think it is a 1.1 center stone

Princess Cut

Platinum

With I think 48 pave diamonds around it

Wedding band is also a platinum band with pave diamonds all the way around

I am also in love with the setting - I love that the diamond is set a little different than most

I cannot believe in just a few short days we will be at our three year mark - time really has flown!