Now that I’ve exhausted probably every design element we poured our blood, sweat and tears into, I’d like to celebrate my absolute favorite part of the entire day: Our ceremony.
We had ZERO decorations for the ceremony. No flowers, aisle runners, shepherd’s hooks at the end of rows, etc. But we also didn’t need them, we got married on stage at one of our favorite rock clubs, the Club Congress! It was one of our motivations to get married at the Hotel Congress, and it also meant our “waiting area” wasn’t something as ordinary as a church lobby or side room, it was a bar!
Although we did but effort into piecing together our readings and elements of the ceremony, the time we spent was completely dwarfed by amount of time spent on the reception. But it had so many lovely moments that left people laughing, crying, laughing again, cheering and then crying again.
It all started with our friend Trent working the crowd with a stand-up routine.
Which transitioned into innocent walking down the aisle-ness for our officiant (Bobby’s Kung Fu teacher), my sister and brother-in-law and Bobby’s parents. And then, the crowd erupted in laughter when they spotted…
our ring bear. That’s my mom and my nephew Trinidad, the biggest sport ever. I doubt you could find another 11-year-old who volunteers to wear a hot and stuffy bear costume for a half hour and STILL poses for pictures like a celebrity after the ceremony. Fun fact: my mom found out probably one minute before walking down the aisle about our surprise. She wasn’t exactly thrilled, but luckily the processional music started!
Next up was Bobby in his dashing custom-made suit from Duchess and the moment I’ll never forget, a standing room of all my loved ones and relatives as I walked with my amazing father. Did I mention the song we all walked to was “Start of Something New” from High School Musical? Oh yes, it was wonnndderrfullll.
Our families are both avid Catholics, so we knew it would be strange for them that we weren’t getting married in the church. We passed around our rings so they could pray on them, make a silent wish for our future or just inject some good karma onto them. It was a way they could express their faith in the middle of a rock club.
Bobby also read a Veteran’s day prayer (the holiday was the following week) which made even the manliest of men in the audience choke up. Our fathers were both in Vietnam and deal with their war experiences in completely different ways. This tie between them also united the two families in a profound way.
Our only reading was a passage from “The Velveteen Rabbit.” It spoke to us because of the very last part “Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” After the year we’d had of scrimping to save enough for the wedding, layoffs at our workplaces, mountains of DIY projects, etc., we were in a constant state of feeling “very shabby.” At this point, we hadn’t slept for a few days, after shuttling a giant van full of wedding stuff to Tucson, setting up for the reception, writing my vows at midnight the night before, we only hoped we didn’t LOOK as shabby as we felt!
After the reading and our candy ceremony, it was time for a coin toss to determine who would say their vows first. Bobby won and he made me cry and cry and cry. It was the sweetest speech I have ever heard and at that moment it was just me, him and a bear out of the corner of my eye.
All that was left was some ring exchanging action, a kiss and the proclamation that we were now… Mr. and Mrs. Julia & Bobby!
Our last surprise was the Star Wars Throne Room song (a favorite of offbeat brides everywhere), but we also planted light sabers in the audience. Everyone cracked up and we even had an official archway to walk under.
If you had told me the part of the day I would most cherish would be the part we didn’t spend much money or time with a hot glue gun, I would have laughed at your naivete. We could have walked right out the door onto the streets of Tucson, and the day would have been perfect beyond my wildest dreams.
