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Well, my lovelies, you’re going to have to forgive me for a picture-heavy post. I couldn’t help myself, because these are pretty much my favorite pictures of us from the reception!
When I left you last, we were cabbing it from Grand Central Station to our reception venue, only a few blocks away, but waaay too far for my tired feet and parched self to walk.
So we got to the downstairs lobby of the loft (please note the glam red carpet they rolled out for us!), and my gorgeous bridesmaids, Fairy Bridesmaid and Sassy Bridesmaid, who had accompanied me to my dress fittings, did a quick bustle number on my butt. I still can’t describe the magic that went on back there, but suffice it to say, I loved my dress bustled even more than I did with the long train.
Now that I was bustled, Mr. Star and I took a quick moment to run through our first dance steps, since we had never gotten the chance to have a dress rehearsal of sorts with my dress on, and that dress sure had a life of its own! It went really well, and I changed up one quick step because the poofiness of my underskirt was preventing my feet from moving quickly enough to keep up with the song.
I had originally wanted to do our couple portraits on the steps of the main branch of the New York Public Library — you know, the one with the lions out front (Ghostbusters, baby!):
I mean, it’s iconic. It’s gorgeous. It’s classy. Buuuuut then my smarter-than-me photographer pointed out that by the time we finished up the ceremony, it would be dark outside already. Duh, Star.
So we decided to do portraits inside of Grand Central Station — also iconic, gorgeous, and classy.
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When we last left you, we were busy making a spectacle of ourselves by parading through the streets of New York.
We made it to the station and we were very careful to keep my dress from dragging down the dirty station steps:
While we were inside finishing up our quick posed portraits, most of our guests were outside getting their wedding wands and awaiting our exit!
And I had to make a quick costume change, of course!
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Our fabulous friends sang this song for us; please play it as you read this post if you can:
Now Kate and Dan would like to invite two very important people in their lives to sing a song together that elucidates the feelings Kate and Dan have for each other, “Come What May”.
And two of our favorite people in the world, my Maid of Honor and Opera Groomsman, took the stage:
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Well, folks, we’ve now come to my favorite part of our wedding ceremony: the promises and the bling. Since we both decided to write our own vows independently and not share them until the big day, the thing I was most looking forward to (even more than drinking wine and eating chocolate!) was hearing what Mr. Star had written as his marital promises. And let me tell you, the man did not disappoint.
Now, I am not a crier. I did not expect to cry. I did not expect to chuckle. But he made me and everyone else who was there do both.
I made cute little booklets in about five minutes just so we wouldn’t be reading from ugly scraps of paper. You have no idea how hard it is to make vows you’re not allowed to read into a pretty booklet!
After the very moving Circle of Love, we made our way back up onstage and continued on to what would be considered the “marriage address”, in traditional ceremony terms.
What it really was for us was a short section written mostly by Momma Star and my Stepdad about what marriage meant to them, and it included a reading from Madeleine L’Engle that I really wanted to incorporate.
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Something that I wanted to incorporate which has become quite popular in wedding ceremonies these days is what’s called the “declaration of support”, or the section of the ceremony where the officiant asks the wedding guests to promise to support the couple in their marriage.
I loved the idea of getting our wedding guests involved like that, but wanted to make it a little more powerful than just getting them to say, “we do,” so we decided to have a moment where we created a literal circle of love.
Way back when, I told you all about how I was writing the entire ceremony from scratch. I promised to share the end result with you, in the hopes that it might help some of you who are as overwhelmed as I was by the whole process, and also as a way of thanking you for your input and influence on our wedding ceremony.
I’ve decided that the best way to do this is by working the text of our ceremony into my recaps, interspersed with pictures and commentary from the major moments — and I will do my best not to bore you!
For anyone who is currently undertaking their own similar adventure in ceremony writing, I highly recommend The Wedding Ceremony Planner by Judith Johnson as a good place to start. I mostly just used it to outline the basic structure of our ceremony, and then chose meaningful readings and wrote my own words on what each section of the ceremony meant to us.
If you do get the chance to write your own ceremony, I can’t stress enough what an incredible experience it is.
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Dear hive — please play the following song as you read this post, if you are able. I promise it’s a worthwhile listen!
Thank you, Lifehouse.
Now that all of our besties had their moment and were standing onstage waiting patiently, there was only one person missing (well, two, if you count my Dad!): the bride!
I went back and forth on what music I wanted to walk down the aisle to for most of our engagement. Much like Miss Nachos, I have always love love LOVED Pachebel’s Canon in D, and Momma Star and I used to play it as a piano duet when I was little, so it has a lot of sentimental value to me. The problem was, it really didn’t fit in with any of the rest of our music or with the overall feel of our wedding, so it just wasn’t right for the big showstopper moment in the ceremony.
Hive, do me a favor and play this song while you read this post. It’s the song that played during our bridal party processional and I think it really helped set the mood we were going for:
Thank you, Amy Seeley…
And so we had an “audience” full of our nearest and dearest friends and family, who were all gathered there in this edgy little Lower East Side theater, waiting to see us get hitched.
Like I’ve mentioned before, there were many times in my wedding planning when I caught some flack for forgoing the traditional wedding day limo ride, in favor of a more affordable and more authentic New York taxi, which is where the inspiration for this set of photos came from:
I just really wanted that iconic yellow in the background of some of our photos.
Or “An Inspiration Board based on a Star Wars Christmas Tree Ornament”
I hope you don’t mind me taking a brief break from my recaps to share with you my take on the Christmas ornament inspiration board!
I searched through Etsy, my go-to spot for unique items, for the perfect ornament to use as a springing off point for this series. Inspiration did not strike. However, I did start to chuckle when I came across this gem from Etsy Seller blackrose1151:
I adore things like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter, and the more I thought about it, the more the inner nerd in me wanted very badly to base an inspiration board based on this ornament.
At first, I started gathering pictures that were fun, but definitely a little campy. But I quickly decided that I wanted this to be a serious inspiration board based on Star Wars, not a joke. And I really believe that you can take subtle inspiration from just about anything and turn it into a gorgeous affair.
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While the ladies were mugging it for the camera and playing around in the streets, the boys were hard at work downtown, setting up the minimal ceremony decor that I had painstakingly boxed and labeled and sent with them the night before.
Because we had two venues and not a whole lot of time in either one (in New York, time is money!), our wonderful DOC was busy setting up the bulk of the DIY stuff over at the loft and us girls were busy getting prettified, so the boys were left to set up everything at the theater. Because of this, I left the theater relatively “as-is”, which was okay, since we wanted that theater feel anyways. I’ll show you pictures so you can see what I’m talking about, but you have to wait through just a couple more posts for that. 
We loved how edgy and hip the outside of the theater felt, and we didn’t mind one bit that it wasn’t very “wedding-y”.
I didn’t notice until I was writing this post how phallic that show poster was… ah, theatre people!
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Mrs. Star, New York City Age and Occupation: 22, Actress Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Casting Assistant Wedding Date: October 2009 Venue: Ceremony: The Kraine Theatre, Reception: Midtown Loft & Terrace About Me: I’m a professional actress who’s always had New York City in her blood and I'm finally getting the chance to make a home in Manhattan with my fiancé, my dog, and my big dreams! I love polka dots, craft projects, Dunkin’ Donuts’ iced coffee, and anything sparkly. I’m having a blast planning our elegant/dramatic/New York City/acting-themed/largely-DIY wedding and am thrilled to be the youngest current Miss Blogger!
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