

This installment of my ‘Looking Back’ series * focuses on one of the details about my big day that I wish I had done differently.
Basically, every single wedding I have ever attended, has started late. Apparently this is not uncommon, as every time I mentioned to anyone-who-would-listen that our wedding would NOT start late, people just started hysterically laughing at me.
So, I made sure that throughout the planning process, my amazing DOC (Colleen with Classic Weddings) knew that if there was one thing that I wanted to happen, I wanted to start walking down the aisle at 5:00pm sharp. There was no way I was going to be the-girl-who-stood-on-a-soapbox-about-weddings-starting-late, who then started her own wedding late.
And just as I requested, on the actual day of our wedding the string trio started playing and we started processing at 5:00pm on. the. dot.
I’ve been having nightmares. They go something like this: Mr. Donut and I are standing blissfully at the altar, smiling and gazing adoringly at each other surrounded by our family and friends who have traveled from far and wide to be with us on our special day. The sun is shining. The wee birdies are singing. It’s perfect…until we reach a moment in the service where I’ve forgotten to choose a reading and/or a person to read said reading. In the dream there is a terrible moment of silence and I turn very red for forgetting a part of the most important part of the day. I’ve had this dream three times. The third time I figured someone was trying to tell me something. So a couple of weeks ago I set to work on our program.
We wanted our ceremony to have a cohesive theme. We chose peace and unity and our search for readings that reflect that began. Once again I went into research mode and Mr. Donut endured weeks of e-mailed suggestions while I endured weeks of waiting for his responses and notes. (For the record, I do not recommend making a long distance move away from your sweetie a mere weeks before your nuptials. It more than kinda sucks.)

I basically just cried a river while Mr. Cream Puff laughed at me.
Don’t worry, I’m not in an abusive relationship: I just cry at everything (including commercials).
This time, we were writing our ceremony. I read the following final blessing from The Wedding Ceremony Planner by Judith Johnson, and basically ended up a sobbing, snotting mess. I then declared, “that’s GREAT! We must use it.” Apparently I looked pretty funny.
“Yorkey and Sara
on behalf of your loved ones
who are here with you today,
I would like to mention some of the things
we wish for you:
First, we wish for you a love
that is rich, deep and powerful enough
to inspire others and to support you both
in bringing forth the best that is within you.
May you lavishly love one another
and love being loved by one another
today, tomorrow and always.
When we first started planning the wedding, we ran into the question of how we’d get down the aisle. Would each of us be walked down the aisle by someone else? Would one of us be waiting at the end of the aisle as the other walked towards her? Would we each walk towards each other? Would we walk down together?
Of these options, I liked the idea of either walking towards each other or walking down together. We are well past being given away. But our ceremony site presents a bit of a challenge to either vision.
Here is where the ceremony will take place.
Our venue can be a little tricky to navigate, so as soon as guests exit the elevators, they’ll be greeted by this little number:

Mr. Pineapple is out of town for a couple days giving me chance to catch up on all of the wedding shows I have recorded. Most of them are pretty ridiculous. Even the fairly tame “Whose Wedding is it Anyway?” is out there compared to what we are planning. Well, for me, tonight wedding programming went to a whole new level of outrageousness. Ladies I present, “Surprise Wedding 2.” I don’t know what I was expecting from Fox Reality, but it wasn’t this.
And when you’re done and ready, I’ll get married under you!

(Picture courtesy of www.chuppah.com
Although I have a Bubbi, I am not Jewish. I was raised by an Irish Catholic mother in a completely non-religious setting, so I don’t have any religious tradition to really bring to the wedding ceremony table. However, when planning the wedding, I looked at various beautiful ceremony pictures and was drawn to one element specifically - the chuppah.
I put myself out there a little bit in sharing the group blessing I wrote for our ceremony, so thanks so much for everyone’s enthusiastic reception. And, as promised, here’s the chocolate and wine ritual.

The writer in each of us just sometimes goes missing. You want to piece together the most beautiful ceremony, but don’t know where to start. Don’t worry: we weren’t creative cats either. We were only able to do it with the help of Judith Johnson’s book, The Wedding Ceremony Planner, which I believe Miss Penguin too has referenced before.
