Wedding Wednesday

We're almost there folks....it's almost time for wedding part II. I can't believe it's here and to be honest I'm so ready for it to be over. I'm excited to see everyone and to have all my family, Dave's family and our friends together in one place. That is an amazing and once in a lifetime thing...and Dave has reminded me that I will know every.single.person there (minus maybe two). I may be getting the jitters thinking about walking down the aisle in front of 90 people. It's nerve wracking and even though I will know everyone I hate the fact that people will be looking at me. No wonder so many brides get nervous on the day, it's not because they're marrying someone for life it's because for a moment it's all eyes on them! Ahhh

Looking back on the blog I don't think I actually posted about our wedding so here it is:

We were married on June 16th, 2011. That morning I awoke excited and slightly nervous. My nerves were only because I didn't know how our parents were going to be at the ceremony and sometimes thinking about other people crying and other uncontrolled emotions makes me anxious. Dave and I went to the court house and got our marriage license, which took all of 5 minutes. I know he's so glad that I made us leave an hour early "just in case". Afterwards we had some time to kill before our appointment at the officiant's so we went to Starbucks. After a coffee we moved the car to be closer to the marriage celebrant, which ended up being just around the corner. We got out and walked around and then my parents called and we met up on the street.

  We then took some pictures across the street from the building where the officiant's office.

I was thankful though that the place we got married was not a bail bonds office with bars on the window. When I told my co-worker I was getting married through a civil ceremony she said that she did the same thing and it was in a basement and kind of sketchy so I was pretty nervous. I was ready for a court house wedding but in Virginia they don't have anyone IN the court house that is able to marry you.

 We were let into the building and met with our officiant and gave her all the paperwork and payment. We then went out to this tiny little courtyard and had a cute brick wall as a backdrop for our ceremony.

Don't worry I'm thinking the same thing. You would think I could iron my cardigan before my wedding day right? I didn't plan on wearing one but it was a little chilly so I just grabbed one from my closet. It's not like it was a day that would be photographed and pictures looked at for the rest of my life....whoops.

first married kiss!

 After the most intimate and perfect ceremony we walked down King St (the main street in Old Town Alexandria) and went into CVS to print off pictures for the announcements. After printing off what seemed like a gazillion pictures we went to lunch at Murphy's Irish Pub and I put everyone to work stuffing and licking them so we could mail them out after lunch. Efficient right? Welcome to the Army Lauren...again. Army brat to Army wife, I had no problem stepping into that role straight away. Clearly taking my new role as an Army wife seriously and knowing Dave was deploying within a month we went straight to the Social Security office to get my name officially changed.

 If that's not a test for the first three hours of a marriage I don't know what is. BUT I left officially a Bounds and all was well. On to the Monaco hotel where we had a sweet surprise as we checked in. My wonderful aunt and her family had paid for our room and we had chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us. After a nap and a missed call from my uncle to say his granddaughter was born (I'll never forget your birthday Miss Kelly!) we met up with our parents again for dinner at Landini Brothers.

It was such a special day and even though it's not the way I envisioned getting married growing up, but I can't imagine having it any other way. I'm so lucky and blessed to be able to have a traditional religious ceremony with all our family and friends as well in the next few weeks. Love to you all.