In celebration of our One Year Anniversary, I wanted to share a recap of our wedding day.
I can’t believe that the past year flew by so fast! It has been amazing being married to by best friend, and making more memories as a married couple.
As I shared earlier we had two wedding ceremonies in one day, and I shared our Vietnamese Ceremony a few months ago. Today, I want to share the second ceremony of our wedding, our Marriage Ceremony.
After a whirl-win of a morning, we headed to our second location of the day for our wedding ceremony and reception with family and friends. Everyone needed to change into their second outfit, and do a freshen up. I had my stylist on site to remove my hat from the morning, and re-style my hair for my veil. I am so lucky to have a friend that is a stylist. She followed me around all day fixing my hair and making sure that I always looked fresh as we moved through each part of the day.
I was incredibly excited to put on my big, white wedding dress. I had always wanted to have a big dress for my wedding, and this dress completely fulfill my dreams. Layers upon layers of tulle and lace. 
I loved having my mom and all my favorite girls around me to help me get ready. The process of putting on a wedding dress is no joke, it takes an army to make sure one of those is on right!
Oh, and my mom also looked so beautiful!
The Hubby didn’t really need as much time to change, so he and his boys had more time to hang out and have some “adult beverages”. Good thing the guys were gentleman, and provided my girls some beverages too.
As part of The Hubby’s wedding gift from me, I gave him socks and cufflinks that I thought would make him smile. His cufflinks played on his love for HIMYM and the socks, were to remind him it wasn’t scary to come down the aisle. The other part was a nice bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label for him to drink with his boys before he became a married man.
Having bow ties was a big point of contention leading up to the wedding. The Hubby wanted ties, and I wanted bow ties. I won that one. Although, we made sure each of the guys had self tie bow ties, after many youtube videos and failed attempts, they all wore the pre-tied ones that came with their suits. Still so glad we went with bow ties!
Mid-afternoon we were ready for our 2nd first look of the day. This one was more rehearsed than the one from the morning, but just as fabulous. I was super excited to see my groom, and after being made to wait for 10 minutes in this door way before going to meet him, I speed walked to him. The cameraman and the video cameraman asked me to slow down so they could do their jobs. I just responded with “keep up.”
We loved our wedding venue so much, and this location in the “shed” was no different. It made for a perfect “first look” location. After our first look, The Hubby also gave me his gift for me, Swarovski crystal pendant earrings to wear on our wedding day. I ugly cried when he gave them to me, so I am not going to share photos of that moment. The ugly cry was because he remembered that I had fallen in love with this pair of earrings while at a dress fitting, but could not justify spending the money on them for one day. And he remembered and gave them to me as a wedding gift. Sure do love him!
Our wedding party joined us for photos after the first look. We had the most amazing wedding party filled with our most important family and friends. Our wedding day would not have been nearly as fabulous with out them. They are a pretty good looking bunch I would have to say. More about them {and photos} in a later post.
Having such an action packed day, we flew through our photos. It also was an incredibly hot day for September in Minnesota, so getting back to the air conditioning was much needed.
The big moment was finally here and it was just as magical as I had ever imagined it. {Even through all my tears} My groom looked so handsome waiting for me at the end of the aisle.
To start the ceremony, after all of our guests and family were seated, our mothers lit our individual candles for our unity candle. Although people have moved away form using unity candles and you really don’t know what to do with the candle after the ceremony, this moment and the moment of lighting the unity candle together is something really special to me. A very symbolic way of joining two lives. Yes, that was pretty mushy of me! We also had one of my favorite songs that reminds me of my hubby play during our unity candle. Perfect moment.
Then followed our wedding party, and these two cuties. My 4 year old siblings were our flower girl and ring bearer, and they became best friends that weekend. The plan was not for our usher, Bryant, to make it down the aisle with these two, but a small melt down moments before {true 4 year old fashion} was mitigated by him grabbing both their hands and starting to walk. Couldn’t have turned out more adorable!
Then there was my walk down the aisle. We had searched for a church for our wedding, but never found one that we loved, or a priest that we really connected with. I could not imagine things turning out better than they did. We rented the other ballroom at our reception venue, which has spectacular charm. And, with a bit of fate, found a pastor that we created a great connection, and he seemed to be the perfect person to marry us when we found a very special family connection with him.
I think this is the only photo of me smiling while walking down the aisle, because I cried like a baby almost the whole walk. I thought I was going to hold it together, I normally am not the first one to tear up, but the moment the doors opened and I saw my groom and all of our friends and family, the flood gates opened. Everyone teased me after, but I didn’t care. It was an amazing moment in my life.
Our marriage ceremony was the perfect blend of comedy, religion and simplicity. I don’t think 30 minutes have flown by so quickly in my life. And you can tell it is the 21st century, our pastor used an iPad to recite our ceremony.
And then there was the big kiss– first one as husband and wife.
The Hubby isn’t normally a PDA person, so you can see the shock on the faces of our sisters when he dipped me. I think their reactions are just as fun in this photo as the dip.
And we are were officially named Mr. & Mrs. Luong.
If you want to see our day in motion, not just in still photos, you can check out the wedding photo our amazingly talented videographers created for our day. {This is only half of the video, of the second half of our day}
Wedding Video Awards 2015 | Tom and Rachel from Zandolee Media on Vimeo.
The day was completely perfect, and wouldn’t have asked for it to be any other way. Stay tuned for more posts about our reception, wedding party, vendors, and honeymoon!
Check out other post from “Our Wedding” series