Weddingbee Blog

All photos by the ultramagnificent Jane Heller.

One of the signs around the house indicating locations of the ceremony/reception/house/etc. With the help of one of my cousins and my maid of honor, I just sketched the rough letter outlines in pencil and we filled them in in black sharpie! Very simple and easy, and no one could ever tell it wasn’t handpainted without getting up really close and staring.

Three of my six lovely bridesmaids.

…and me!

The basic set-up. We stood up front with my aunt, who was ordained so she could officiate our wedding, the maid of honor, and best man. The bridesmaids stood along either side of the aisle, and you can see the seats for the parents/elderly on the left. There were about 10 more chairs than we “needed” there so everyone who really wanted to sit got to, but since the ceremony was only about 10 minutes long, we didn’t feel bad having the others stand. After all - we had to!

During the reading.

There was one really magical moment during the reading (a love letter written in 1907 by a Palestinian scholar to the woman he would later marry). Just as the reading goes “and when springtime comes with its fair flowers and you feel a breeze, that is my greeting to you” - this perfect gust of breeze gushed around us, and everyone laughed a little, and then we just all started crying, including the reader herself! It just sent chills down our spines.

A nice overview shot - you can see a bit of the view, and the bottles in the tree here!

Maid of honor!

This was one of our favorite parts of the wedding. Mr. Bluebell’s dad plays the gaohu semi-professionally, so he agreed to play a piece during the ceremony!

Then, as a relatively last minute surprise, it turned out that Mr. Bluebell’s great-aunt, a professional opera singer in Hong Kong, was able to come to the wedding! She sang a piece accompanied by Mr. Bluebell’s dad, which made our 45-year-old never-saw-any-reason-to-get-married caterer cry!

Here come the rings!

…and The Kiss!

We’re married!!!!

Immediately following the ceremony, we took some family photos, then mingled for a while at cocktail hour, then slipped away for our portraits by the lake. More pictures of food and fun to follow!