Explanations and Weddings Part 5

Previously: Explanations and Weddings Part 4
Explanations and Weddings Part 3
Explanations and Weddings Part 2
Explanations and Weddings Part 1

We headed to the theater and split up to wait for the ceremony to begin. They had a great waiting space there for the bride (and one for the guys, too, I am assuming!) and so I waited and tried very hard not to throw up.

I was very nervous!

The kids got their last minute briefing:


We decided not to have one flower girl, or one ring bearer, as to not hurt anyone's feelings (left to right: Rosie, Mya, George, and Sage). Instead, we played a song and had them all dance up the aisle before the ceremony. They were a little nervous, so they mostly marched up stone-faced, but it was still cute.

Oh, and the FLOWERS. Erica, who is Mya and Sage's mom, is a florist and offered to put the flowers together. I told her a vague idea of what I wanted ("Color! Awesome! Things!") and she took my terrible instructions and delivered fantastic results.

Monkey tails! Totally beautiful flowers! Love them.

TJ, my Lady of Awesome, keeping our rings safe on her thumb and pinky.

Then, before I knew it, it was TIME.

Durwin coming down the red carpet, with me getting ready in the back!

The ceremony was a little bit of a blur to me. I was so focused on not totally crying that it went by so quickly. And I didn't even notice that the mic we had paid extra for was never hooked up! So probably no one heard us. It didn't matter, though. We heard everything and that's what counts!

Things we did:

• Unity Candle Ceremony: You know, like you do. We just did a quick one with two white candles. We found an awesome candle holder that we still use at home.
• Filipino Wedding Traditions: We wanted to include these as a nod to Durwin's heritage. We did the exchange of arras, which are 13 gold coins passed from Durwin to me. We used this to symbolize the commitment of both of us to contribute to our new family and a promise to provide for one another. We also did a veiling ceremony, where a veil was placed over both of us to symbolize us being "clothed as one."


• Ring Blessing: Instead of having just two of our bridal party members be in charge of the rings, we had them start at the end and be passed down the line, as each person touched them and gave them their blessing. It was a great way to have everyone put a little energy into them.

We each chose a reading and surprised the other. I had my good friend and Mayor of Dance Beth Post read "I Like You" by Sandol Stoddard Warburg. It's a very sweet little book, with great illustrations. I suggest you buy it for someone you like. The part that really got me was:

On the 4th of July I like you because it's the 4th of July
On the fifth of July, I like you too
If you and I had some drums and some horns and some horses
If we had some hats and some flags and some fire engines
We could be a HOLIDAY
We could be a CELEBRATION
We could be a WHOLE PARADE
See what I mean?
Even if it was the 999th of July
Even if it was August
Even if it was way down at the bottom of November
Even if it was no place particular in January
I would go on choosing you
And you would go on choosing me...

Durwin had our friend James come up and read what was probably the best reading ever. I was literally in tears over what he had chosen. If you know me, you know that I have memorized nearly the entirety of the Simpsons (at least seasons 1-10) and have a deep abiding love for it. So, he chose the best lines from the show about love and marriage. It was AMAZING. As follows:

Excerpts from the Book of Homer on Matrimony and Love:

Now what is a wedding? Well, Webster's dictionary describes a wedding as: the process of removing weeds from one's garden.

You know something, folks, as ridiculous as this sounds, I would rather feel the sweet breath of my beautiful wife on the back of my neck as I sleep, than stuff dollar bills into some stranger's G-string.

Love isn't hopeless. Look, maybe I'm no expert on the subject, but there was one time I got it right.

For you see, marriage is a lot like an orange. First, you have the skin... then the sweet, sweet innards...mmmm...innards...

From now on I'll never leave the room without saying how much I love you and... this takes a long time. Maybe a pat on your butt will do...that's it.

I've got a problem. Once you stop this car, I'm going to hug you, and kiss you, and then I'll never be able to let you go... And I never have.

And a bonus reading from the Book of Ralph:
I choo choo choose you.

And that is why we got married. Pretty much.

We exchanged our vows, which we wrote ourselves. Then, our officiant called it, we kissed, and that was it! We were MARRIED!


And how did we feel about that?


Woot indeed!

Next, we PARTY!

Expanations and Weddings (Part 2)

Previously: Explanations and Wedding (Part 1)

Once we decided on the date, we had to choose a venue, and FAST. We knew that our date would fill up very quickly, and so we had to select one over the winter holidays. We chose Indianapolis as our location, because most of my family and a lot of our friends are there. It seemed relatively central to most people we knew. And there are some great places in this city to throw a shindig!

After looking at a few places, we decided on the Fountain Square Theater, a beautiful renovated 1920's theater that is now rented out for special events. I actually used to go there in high school and college to their Swing Dance Nights. I have many fond memories of that theater and eating sour cream fries at Peppy's afterward (not as much recommended). It was funky and fun, just what we wanted. And, being a renovated theater, we got to do this:


This was the theater marquee on the day of our wedding. It was so awesome to drive up and see it!

Our invitations were the next big hurdle to accomplish (of course, I bought a dress, chose bridesmaids, flowers, and all that other wedding stuff, but you came here to see the art!). I have to say it was the only thing we butted heads over throughout the wedding planning. We're both pretty particular, and we both had a set idea of our ideal. We eventually reached a compromise, and the set ended up looking fantastic.

The colors we decided on were red, deep purple, gold, and orange. Fall is our favorite time of year, and so we wanted lovely autumn colors on everything. (One bridal store I went into asked my colors as I tried on dresses, and then when I listed them, the woman turned to my mom and said "Well, looks like somebody hasn't decided yet!" Looks more like somebody didn't make a sale that day!) Everything, from the invitations to the flowers to the dresses, was an explosion of color.

For the invites, we wanted a long format, and so we designed them to fit in #10 envelopes, which we bought in our colors, and addressed with silver or gold pens. Paper Source was my best friend during this time, and later, Arvey Paper in Indianapolis. We used Overnight Prints for the printing and they were great.

We did a vellum overlay on top of the postcard with the design, and this is what we came up with:

(Click to embiggen)

I love how Durwin made a monkey look so graceful! Because in real life, I am not.

So, this is what you would see when you opened up your envelope:

(Click to embiggen)

We had orange bands on the real invites, with the leaf punch, but I think we ran out by the end.

The set:

(Click to embiggen)

There's a reply card (purple), a map to the theater and hotel information (red) and the invite itself. The most fun was the song request line we included on the reply card. Not everyone did it, but we got some really fun (and hilarious) song requests, which we tried to include in the playlist (which the DJ pretty much ignored, but that's for another day). We printed the invitation wording on laser-jet vellum and put it together with a silver grommet (if you do not have a crop-a-dile, or whatever those things are called, please go buy yourself one if you plan on doing anything of this quantity. 150 invites later and my hands would have been dead without it!). The leaf punch was an accident at first, but we liked how it looked, so we kept it.

And the invite itself up close:

(Click to embiggen)

I love how they turned out.

Expanations and Weddings (Part 1)

So, I said I would explain why we've been neglecting our poor corner of the internet for so long, and I shall! This year has been a crazy one. In fact, just this summer alone, we have traveled to 8 different cities in just over 2 months! I don't think we've stopped moving, prepping, or making huge life-changing steps once since this time last year.

The thing that was the most wonderful and probably the most time-sucking (yes, that includes my last year of grad school!) was our wedding. We got married in October, shortly after our huge move and starting new jobs. The experts (experts of...what?) say that you should only do one huge life-changing thing in a year, but we thought we'd take care of oh, FOUR of them in a few short months. No biggie.

So, I'm going to go through our huge, out-of-state, extremely fun and art-filled wedding in a series of blog posts. If you are exhausted by all things wedding, I promise we will get back to our regularly scheduled (well, sort of regular) programming afterward.

Our first large hurdle was to set a date. We picked 10.10.10 because, well, obviously it is the best possible date. Ever. We had no idea what life had in store for us when we picked it the winter before, but hey, who ever does? The second was to, of course, start drawing.

We're both illustrators, so there is no way we could pass up an opportunity to illustrate and design our own wedding invitations, save the dates, and anything else we could stick a drawing to. We're very much alike, we work together on most projects anyway, and we love the same things, so it should have been the easiest part, right? Well, we did butt heads over many elements, but considering what kind of pressure we were under (to pack up our whole lives and start them somewhere else!) I am shocked we didn't rip each others faces off. And I take it as an excellent sign that we didn't!

The first project we undertook was the save the dates. We mailed them out about 6 months before the wedding. Our nicknames for each other are monkey and panda (yup, this series is going to be full of gag-inducing cuteness, but it's a WEDDING SERIES so it's to be expected) and so we went with that as a loose theme. Here's the front:


Durwin had a much-beloved scooter in Savannah, and it was far too dinky for both of us to really ride it at once, so we got to do it on here instead! Like we usually do, it was a collaborative effort. The printed postcards had rounded corners and lots of info on the back. I definitely loved going to people's houses and seeing it up on their refrigerators. It set up the whole wedding as a fun party because really, it was not going to be a stodgy affair with us!