Once upon a time, on a wet and rainy day, two lovers joined together in marriage… There was laughing, tears, beauty, and love. I never wrote about our wedding ceremony on my blog. There seemed like just too much emotion afterward to get it all out in words, but it was wonderful.

The special part to me was the wedding ceremony. We were supposed to have the ceremony outside, overlooking the Chattahoochee River. Due to rain, it was moved up to a loft over our reception area. It was cramped but it still worked out great. My Mother-in-law and a family friend did a beautiful job decorating the area to look just like I imagined. There was a ton of flowers, an arbor, and giant ferns. And my family worked on the reception area.

The wedding began with my Dad walking me down the aisle — actually up some very steep stairs. It was a traditional Unitarian Universalist wedding - asking our parents to guide us in love, and our friends and family to stand beside and support us. Our minister, Greg, wrote a touching and funny ceremony that told the story of us - including meeting online, geocaching dates, and traveling cross country. It focused on how our relationship is a journey, not a destination. I’ve posted it on my website - it’s really sweet if you want to read it.

One of the unique things about Greg’s weddings is that he has the couple each write a love letter describing why we’re getting married and how we want it to last. He then works those into the ceremony. Mine was read in full, but I only got to hear two lines from Thomas’ letter - “I’ll be your system administrator for life” and “I need to register this shareware before it expires.” Unfortunately, his letter was lost soon afterward, so I’ve never been able to hear the rest. The ceremony ended with two kisses - Thomas stole an extra to make sure there was a good shot for the photographer.

The rest of the night was wonderful, but it all went by just too fast. We ate dinner, danced, ate cake, and left through a tunnel of sparklers to our VW bus. We followed a Swedish tradition of having a toastmaster (we had two - my brother and Thomas’ family friend), who introduced guests who want to give a toast, and presented toasts from guests who were unable to attend. We actually had quite a few toasts throughout dinner.

The best part from it all - besides marrying Thomas - was seeing how much love was there from our friends and family. They really did so much to make sure it was a special event for us. We had friends come from all over, including Sweden. Family worked hard to help setup and decorate, divert issues and drama, and make sure it was a special day we could sit back and relax. My parents threw a wonderful brunch for the out of town guests the next morning at our house. It was really nice to have that extra time to visit with everyone.

We’re still working on our wedding album, and hopefully will have it done soon. I’ll post more photos then. In the meantime, there are a lot more photos on Flickr: Our Wedding Photos