Toronto Wedding Recap

Let me begin by saying it was actually very hard for me to capture this wedding on camera! First, I had never thought of taking pictures at other people's weddings until people did it for ours and I really appreciated it - so I decided from now on I am taking pictures at other people's weddings so that they can have pictures right away, without having to wait for the professional photographer to see how everything went (it goes so fast you barely remember anything!).

Second, my camera isn't the best and there were over 400 guests, meaning my vantage points were not always great. I had to zoom in quite a bit and tried not to use the flash (so not to be disruptive) so the quality is somewhat grainy.

Yes! You heard me - over 400 guests! It was pretty amazing.

Anyway, on to the pictures...

JewishGuy was asked to be one of the witnesses on the ketubah, so here he is about to sign it next to the bride and groom.


This is the chuppah from where I was sitting - I did get pretty close! But no aisle, so no good shots for me. It is a simple chuppah that only looks more complicated because of the decorative twigs on the poles.

The bride circles the groom 3 times in this wedding. I hadn't heard of the tradition of circling 3 times (as opposed to 7, which is what I did). In a way it was kind of good she only had to go around 3 times because her long beautiful train was actually wrapping around the groom's legs!

A better shot of the chuppah with the bride and groom's heads.

The hall was so beautiful! The centerpieces looked like trees growing up from the tables with lanterns and flowers. The lanterns were little tea lights that flickered in the trees and looked like fireflies or stars floating above people's heads during the reception.

Close-up of the centerpieces.

First dance :) (although this happened much later in the evening, like around 10pm!).

It is a tradition in Canadian weddings to have lots of speeches, so I've heard. At our wedding, JewishGuy's family gave speeches and my parents gave short toasts. So at this wedding, there were speeches, and the bride and groom each have 3 siblings, so it was quite a speech procession! The best man (also one of JewishGuy's friends) gave a speech that was also a song, backed up by another groomsman on the guitar. Hilarious! Also at this wedding, taking a cue from ours, was a scotch bar, which JewishGuy happily enjoyed - as did many of their friends (I drove a full car of people home that night!).

It was a great time! I am excited that I have two more weddings this summer to document, one more friend's wedding in September and my cousin in August!

Wedding in Toronto

We just got back from a wedding in Toronto! Okay, so I haven't really even blogged about my own wedding now that it's over (waiting on some pictures which should be here soon!), but I thought I would post a photo from this wedding:


More later! I'll keep promising that and one day I will actually write more!

Post-Wedding Blues

Someone commented on one of my pictures or posts somewhere on the internet in the past couple of days "plan something fun to avoid post-wedding blues."

Post-Wedding Blues?

OH...

I really don't want to go back to school yet. I don't want to be back in real life yet. Last weekend was so fun and amazing and fantastic and now I have to write a paper? Study for an exam? Be at work?

Our friends are throwing us sheva brachot, which are great! But somehow during the day I feel a little down. Like, oh, it's over now. I was near a neat little trendy second-hand shop wanted to go shopping for outfits for the wedding weekend but there's no need! It's weird not to be in prep mode. In "post" mode. It's weird! And no real time for that shift because all of my major deadlines are coming up now! Two papers effectively due this Tuesday because Passover starts Wednesday and we are traveling.

Also, our cat, who missed us terribly, is keeping us up all night to snuggle (she is loud and persuasive when she wants to snuggle) so I'm not sleeping.

Who knew there was such a thing as post-wedding blues?

I just keep refreshing the photographer's blog waiting for the pictures to show up! And we are going to help the videographer with editing the video, then there will be that. And of course there are the amazing gifts we are receiving, and the thank-you notes. And I keep looking down at my hand and it's so fun to see the two rings instead of one and how "blinged out" my finger looks (thanks CankeyB). Also I have been looking through all the pictures my friends have been posting on facebook - looking through them over and over and over again!

I tried to make some art about it yesterday and I might continue this evening after I make some headway on this major paper I have been putting off (like everyone else, I know I'm not alone, at least I kind of have the excuse of the wedding haha).

I kind of wish we were going on a honeymoon but I know that's not really possible right now. Maybe in August we will go somewhere for a little while, since that is when I have my break, but who knows.

And now, a couple of pictures, maybe I will just post them piecemeal hehehe

The picture above was taken by one of my friends during the bedeken, when the groom traditionally puts the veil over the bride. At our bedeken, I also put the kittel on JewishGuy. The veil tradition comes from either a) making sure he has the right bride (ala Jacob marrying Leah by mistake); and/or b) Rebecca veiling herself when she saw Isaac she was blushing, she was so in love with him at first sight.


This one came from the camera of one of my parents' friends - he has over 400 images, my mom is sending them to me on a CD later. My dad uploaded some of them to his facebook so I am stealing them!

You can see our simple chuppah! I know a lot of people find this blog by googling "Simple Chuppah." It seems there are a lot of other Jewish brides out there who don't want anything too fancy. This chuppah was JewishGuy's Savta's tablecloth on four bamboo poles with some daisies. Four of JewishGuy's friends carried the chuppah down the aisle and stood with us the whole time. Very neat.

I loved that we were completely surrounded by friends and family standing up there. Not just friends standing to either side of us, but as you can see we are really surrounded.

Also, funny story, that window looks out onto a golf course and we could see people putting in front of us as JewishGuy's dad read the ketubah out loud...

The Wedding!!!

One of my favorite pictures so far, taken by one of JewishGuy's friends :)

The whole weekend was amazing, I can't even begin to describe it! I keep wanting to sit down and write a whole post, but I'm not sure how to do that. Should I break it down, day-by-day? Or should I just write one big EEEEEEE post?

So here goes, one big EEEEE post, to be followed up by other, smaller posts. A compromise, I guess!

Everything went perfectly, as far as I could tell! The bachelorette party was superfun, Shabbat was great and full of enthusiasm, and Sunday was just a blur of awesomeness. I remember looking around while people were eating on Sunday and saying to JewishGuy - I can't believe how perfect this is, everyone is so happy, the weather is beautiful, this place is beautiful, and it's so fun.

I kind of want to talk about Sunday first, so I will, and hopefully eventually I will come back to the rest of the weekend at some point.

All week we anxiously looked at weather.com and talked to our friend The Meteorologist for updates on the weather. Being March and DC, the weather could do whatever it wanted at a moment's notice. At the last minute we decided to hold the ceremony inside because thunderstorms were predicted for the afternoon. No thunderstorms ever materialized, but it was beautiful inside and out. As you can see, the room was full of glass, so it was almost like being outside but without the bugs and wind.

Then we left and ate in a room by ourselves as friends banged on the door. When we came back, we were sent into the main room under a bridge of streamers!

During the dancing, someone came up to me and said "when you're in the chair, lean back!"

"What?"

Suddenly I was shoved back into a chair and up above everyone's heads! It was really hilarious. JewishGuy and I did the thing where you hold the handkerchief between you. Awesome.

Then after more dancing, we were pushed back into two chairs and given water, streamers, glow sticks and leis. Our friends and family did some funny dances and schtik for us. It was awesome and so funny!

The rest of the night kept going just as fast, I don't think it slowed for a second. The speeches were great, JewishGuy and I played "The shoe game," which we kind of were hoping to play (thanks SportyJew :P). We took pictures with the various contingencies at the wedding - friends from other cities - and ate delicious food.

When it was over we went back to the hotel and hung out for a couple more hours ... then it was all over! How bizarre! It's over?

I'll write more about it later, shorter stories about specific things that happened. Now I'm kind of back in the real world and have massive papers and exams I have to recognize as being real and coming up.

PHEW

It was an amazing weekend!

I'll post pictures when I get them!

Getting close!

We finished the programs today except for the table assignment stickers. We've made a 7 page book for the programs, printed them at kinkos and then bound them ourselves with embroidery floss. Then we glued on tags that were made by the invitations lady, to tie everything together (like a good rug).

I can't believe it's so close! In two and a half days we will get in the car and begin the road trip across the country.

It's weird that it's been a whole year since I started this blog. Time just passes and things come together, I guess!

I am still deciding if I want to get new outfits for the weekend but I probably won't. More likely, I will try to make new outfits out of things I already have. I don't really think I feel like really shopping. I have made a few attempts in these final weeks to go shopping for Shabbat outfits but have gotten distracted or the store I wanted to go to was no longer in business, and I don't really feel like trying too hard when I have a closet full of dresses I've only worn a couple of times (usually to previous weddings).

Yesterday we had an aufruf here because like so many people we are having the wedding somewhere else. It seems to be a tradition to have one aufruf in this congregation 2 weeks before the wedding and another at the congregation where the wedding will take place the week before. It was fun! People threw hershey kisses at us (painful, but JewishGuy blocked it haha), and then the drama with the kiddush lunch. Good times. :)

So here's this week's schedule!

Sunday: finish work for class
Monday: class
Tuesday: class and pack
Wednesday: 12 hour drive home
Thursday: courthouse for marriage license stuff and then bachelorette party!
Friday: move into the hotel, Shabbat services / dinner
Saturday: aufruf, lunch, and dinner, maybe going out?
Sunday: wedding!