Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Thursday, April 2, 2009

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...

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

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.