Volumes of Love: Tell Me Twice

There is nothing better in life than hearing your husband vow his love for you for the rest of your life twice.  I’m one lucky girl.  I got to hear, experience, giggle through, and marvel at that exact experience.

On Sunday, August 22, I woke up in my parents’ house at 6:00 AM.  We were due to leave with my in-laws around 6:30, so it was time to get up and get dressed in my second wedding dress.

Yep, that is the same dress as Sister Library’s MOH dress from our first (and real) wedding ceremony.  I found it online for less than it was originally, so I ordered one for myself.  I love this dress!

I also made sure I had my something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.  Sure, I had them the first time around, but a girl can never be too sentimental or careful, right?  I ended up finding an opal necklace my grandfather had made me and using it as my something old, wearing the earrings Mr. Library gifted me on our wedding day as something new, borrowing makeup from Sister Library, and relishing the fact that my dress had blue on it.  Well, so did my undies… but many didn’t know that…

While my makeup and hair certainly weren’t as glamorous as our first wedding, I did my best and wore the white hair flower I made to match the ones I made my bridesmaids.  I put on my wedding day perfume, put on my makeup, and waited for FIL and MIL Library to pick us up.

It took about 2.5 hours to get there (we may have discovered where Mr. Library’s driving speed comes from), but it felt longer as I was stuck in the middle of the backseat in the truck.  Ahhh the life of a bride.

It might sound crazy to have driven that far for a simple ceremony, but I feel that it was worth it.  After all, the recognition of the Catholic church was important to Mr. Library and it was taking place at one of the most important places in our relationship:  Brandeis University.  Brandeis was where Mr. Library attended undergrad.  He grew up into his own person here; we grew as a couple through my almost monthly visits to him on campus.  We met Best Man K, reader R, and Groomsman D here.  Father Walter’s congregation is located on campus, and Mr. Library feels strongly about his spiritual time on campus.  It was the perfect location to celebrate our second ceremony.

When we finally got into the Waltham vicinity, it began to rain.  Thankfully, I packed the white shrug sweater from our honeymoon in case the church wasn’t fine with my strapless dress.  It came in handy to shield against the rain.  And shield against the rain we did.  We had to park around half a mile away due to the fact that all of the freshmen were moving in that day.  I didn’t mind the walk since I had been smart enough to pack flip flops, but the rain had made the walkways muddy, meaning the back of my dress suffered just a little.  Oh well.  I practically ran to the chapel, my family trying to keep up.

A few dorm entrances before the chapel, I was greeted by a couple of Community Advisors (what many colleges call RAs) and asked what dorm I was moving into.  HA!  Nice try guys!  I already have two more degrees than you AND I’m getting married today!  Besides… who moves into college in a strapless dress and heels?  Maybe I don’t want to know.

As soon as I saw the chapel, I saw a car with a hand waving quickly out the window.  Mrs. Sox had made it!  After being told that she wasn’t allowed to park anywhere near the chapel, she quickly found an acceptable lot and booked it back to the ceremony while I stalled.

Mr. Library was waiting for us outside of the Bethlehem Chapel.  My goodness, does he ever look handsome in a suit and tie.  We kissed and took each other in before I explained the situation with Mrs. Sox.  It turned out that we weren’t in a huge rush, so we could have waited for her as much as we wanted.  I love it when that happens!

Once she returned, we went into the chapel to begin the ceremony.  This time, Mr. Library and I walked down the aisle together from the start.  I have to admit, I found the whole situation of a second ceremony a little awkward and had the giggles as a result.  Mr. Library, on the other hand, cried more than he did on our first wedding day!  

But let’s not let me typing ruin the ceremony.  Why don’t you watch it instead?  K was kind enough to use our Flip camera to film our ceremony.  You can’t ever have too many wedding videos, right? 😉

http://player.vimeo.com/video/16483249

The Libraries are Wed… Again! from Mrs. Library on Vimeo.

With another kiss, we were blessed in the eyes of Mr. Library’s formal church and our marriage was on the books.  Mrs. Sox and FIL Library signed our certificate (they had to be Catholic), and we were off for some (not so fabulous and totally not like the real thing) Irish brunch.

But don’t think I am done yet.  I have a few final thoughts and reflections before our wedding recaps are done!

Walk me through this:

Our bridal party began to come together!

We did as UPS does!

We’re cat-walking baby!

We practiced eating!

Our wedding gets Jewish!

The girls and I have a slumber party!

I fell in love with a poet.

Mr. Library runs around.

Wake up call!

Christmas in July

Hairscapades abound

Making us up as we go

The Groom Squad strikes back

Magical flowers

We get the deets.

What should I wear today?

Click click click flash

Ding ding ding goes the trolley

The Groom Squad activates

We hear the music.

The guests are coming!  The guests are coming!

Let’s have a parade!

A walk to remember

We do?  Yes!  We do!

Let’s have a hug

Documenting the love

Our friends get in on the act

We find a snack in a pretty field.

We keep it in the family.

We dance into the reception.

Ch-ch-ch-chow down!

You have a little something on your face…

Dancing in tune

Catch!

There’s so much to love about the reception.

The photo booth genius

We could have danced all night!

We can sleep when we’re older!

One last summer fling

The married bachelor and his party

Doubly Blessed (and Stressed)

Today, Mr. Library and I enter into the double digits in our wedding countdown!  Mr. Library thought we should come up with a song a la “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall”, but I left that one to him.  I’ve got some other things to worry about.

(Source)

First, I have an outfit to think about.  Yeah, yeah, yeah… I know.  I seem to need a lot of outfits.  But I have a reason for this one!  Remember the blessing ceremony Mr. Library and I are having as our “second wedding” in the Catholic church?  Well, after a little help from the lovely people on Weddingbee, I found out that the ceremony is actually called a convalidation ceremony.  The website that explained it talked about it after getting pregnant or having more than one marriage (neither of which we fit into, thank you very much!), but it did help explain what will happen during the ceremony.  I still have a question, though:  Does my dad give me away twice?

But back to the outfit.  I need a white dress.  Now, it’s going to be on August 22, we’ll be going out for a meal after, and I want to look cute.  After all, Mr. Library does have to marry me again.  I can’t just let myself go after one month!  The Catholic church, however, has rules.  No strapless dresses, no spaghetti straps, not too short.  That kind of limits summer dresses, but I can make it work.  I have already figured out my backup plan:

(Source)

Recognize the dress?  Yep, it’s the same as MOH/Sister Library’s dress for the wedding!  What we thought was a done deal on this pattern was actually just a move an online exclusive design.  It’s cheaper than the dresses my girls got for their bridesmaids dresses, so that’s a plus.  No, it’s not completely white, but it’s a design I love and it’s super cute.  Plus, I have the matching shoes!

Maybe you have noticed the problem with this dress… it’s strapless.  It does come with straps to add on, but that won’t cut it.  Enter the bolero shrug:

(Source)

It will cover my shoulders and add a punch of white.  If it’s warm out that day, I can always take the bolero off for lunch.  That should do the trick.

As for the hair, I don’t think a veil will be in the cards.  This is more my speed for this ceremony:

(Source)

Isn’t it gorgeous?!  Having a second ceremony has opened a lot of dressing options that I didn’t feel would fit into our large ceremony, a headband being one of them.  If you like this headband as much as I do, pop over to The Thirty-Something Bride’s blog and enter into the drawing for it.  All you have to do is comment!

The shoes are already taken care of, so it would just have to be the dress and the bolero (and a possible headband!).  I’m just hoping finding an inexpensive white dress won’t be hard…

The second thing is figuring out the videography problem.  There are two options:  (1) hire a new person and hope their skills are what we want or (2) buy a camera and ask a knowledgeable relative to film the ceremony for us.  We’re weighing the options back and forth.  If we got another video camera, we could bring it on the honeymoon, I could use it while getting ready (and so could Mr. Library), and I could have some fun editing the video after.  Paying someone else means not having to worry about Uncle D’s steady hand or the sound working properly.  Sigh.  We need to make a decision…

What do you think?  Pay someone or buy a camera ourselves?  And what do you think of the outfit options?  Happy 99 days!

The Third Wedding

If you have been following along for a while, you will remember that I am in two weddings this summer:  my own and Miss Sox’s.  They are twenty days apart, and thanks to Miss Sox’s consideration, Mr. Library and I have plenty of time to enjoy our honeymoon before coming back to party it up with the Sox clan.  But guess what?  There’s going to be a third wedding.  Oh yes, dear readers, you read that correctly.  A third wedding.  And this one belongs to Mr. Library and me.  And it’s in August.

I can hear the question marks popping up in people’s heads as I type.  Why on earth are Mr. Library and I having another wedding in August?  Wasn’t one enough?  For me, absolutely.  I am completely content with our wedding in July, and the thought of planning another full-blown wedding sounds fun but totally nuts.  But this isn’t a complete wedding.  There isn’t any planning required.  This is simply an exchanging of vows in the Catholic church because for them, our first wedding isn’t enough.

According to Catholic rules, a wedding between two baptized Christians must happen within a church.  It didn’t matter if it was Catholic (for Mr. Library) or Protestant (for me), but it had to be in a church.  So we picked a bridge.  Yeah, not really one of the options, right?  Our priest didn’t think so either.  We had run this by him every time we got together, but this time he put his foot down and told Mr. Library that if he wanted the Catholic church to honor our marriage, we would have to exchange vows in a church.  Okay, but when are we going to fit that in?  There would be zero time to do it on the actual wedding day.  This bride is going to require some pampering, and this groom is going to require some Wii time with the guys.  Father Walter explained that it wouldn’t take very long, but if we were worried about timing, we could put it off until after the honeymoon.  Perfect!

The plan is to meet at Mr. Library’s alma mater (Brandeis University) sometime in August when our schedules settle down and attend a mass with Father Walter on campus.  Our parents will be there too since we need witnesses.  After the mass (or at least I hope it’s after the mass… being in the middle would make me super self-conscious!), Father Walter would have us come up, repeat some vows, and bless our marriage in the Catholic church. I love that we’re doing this at Brandeis because I feel like Mr. Library and I grew up a lot there.  It’s where Mr. Library and I grew into young adults when I visited him, where he met two of his groom squad members, and where we met one of our ceremony readers.  We love this place, so it’s a great reminder of who we are as a couple.

I was a little worried about having two anniversary dates, but Mr. Library replied, “Do we care what the Catholic church thinks is our anniversary?”  Touche, Mr. Library.  In the eyes of God, my church, and the general public, our wedding anniversary is the day we say “I do” on the bridge.  In the eyes of the Catholic church, we are recognized (gee, how romantic) in August.  Majority rules!

Of course this means I will have to pick out a cute outfit and all that jazz (probably from my own closet since my budget is very very small), but it will be nice to have a quiet little ceremony that’s just us and our families.  It will make FMIL and FFIL happy that we’re recognized by the church, and it will finalize our mission to have a somewhat religious wedding.  Somewhat.

Have there been any surprises in your wedding planning?