Vacation from the Wedding - part 1

Our good friends Dani and Jer got married over the weekend in at the beautiful Darlington House in La Jolla San Diego. It was the best wedding I've been to. I had a great time and Mr. Joey even danced!!

The funny thing about attending someone's wedding while you planning your own, is that your mind races with every new and interesting detail you see. First, the ceremony. They were married by a friend and had a non-religious ceremony. They also broke the ceremony up into sections:

Welcome and Meaning of Marriage

Reading 1

Vows and Exchange of Rings

Reading 2

Sand Ceremony

Reading 3

Closing Words and Intrduction of New Couple

I really like the flow of the wedding. It looked like it would be long, but it wasn't, or it didn't feel that way. They did something interesting called the Sand Ceremony. Each person had a container of sand representing their individual life and together they poured them into a new container symbolizing the grains of ther lives coming together. I thought it was a great personal touch.

image: Leslie Spero

The readings were also great too. The first was from the movie, When Harry Met Sally, and the second was the poem Hug-O-War by Shel Silverstien and the third was an excerpt from the The Velveteen Rabbit.

I SO want to do something similar but it isn't really permitted in the ceremony. Oh, well…

The silver lining in all this is that watching Dani and Jer share their vows made Mr. Joey think about what it's going to be like for us. Mr. Joey was hesitant about having a Catholic blessing but agreed to it. After our last meeting with the officiant, he officially checked out of the ceremony planning. All the rules and regulations and limited flexibility in the ceremony was too much for him. I set about collecting readings and gospels for him to look at but he ultimately said whatever I wanted was fine. I wasn't happy with the answer but I was OK with it. Then something happened to Mr. Joey during the ceremony and suddenly he had all sorts of ideas.

For Example:

Doing the first and second readings in Sinhalese (Sri-Lankan Language) and Tagalog (the Filipino language my family speaks) with English translations in the program. He said he thought it would be something nice for my parents, particularly my Dad. Seriously? I almost started to cry. Mr. Joey isn't really the sentimental type so this was a big gesture.

Adding a third reading. Something we both love. I really love Mrs. Kitten's idea about using, Oh, the Places You Will Go by Dr. Seuss. It could work. The readings we're thinking about from the bible are super short. Maybe if we did an excerpt, we could fit something else in.

The bride's processional. He said that if I didn't mind, he wanted to come up with something special that would be a surprise. Again, Seriously? Are you sure you're Mr. Joey?

Did you FI suddenly get interested in an aspect of the planning that he previously ignored? What made him do so?