And we’re back! If you haven’t already, you should go read about the adventures leading up to our wedding.
And while I’m at it, you should read this post that Thomas wrote years ago, before he even knew I existed. Then you should compare and contrast his dream wedding with our actual wedding. Like you’re in eighth grade. I always hated those questions on tests. “Compare and contrast The Three Little Pigs and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Compare and contrast A Tale of Two Cities and Season One of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.” So pointless. But I’d totally read that essay. The one about vampires, not pigs.
Sorry. I’m on a lot of cold medicine.
So. When last we met, we were just about to head into Union Station to get married. First, I must rhapsodize about Union Station in downtown Utica, NY.
Utica is not an awesome place to live.
I live here because my family is here and Thomas and I both have great jobs that we love can tolerate without crying too much. It’s cold in the winter and hot in the summer and despite being home to several colleges and universities, the art scene here is a bit lacking. But we do have some decent architecture (and rather fantastic Italian food). Union Station was built in 1914 and it’s gorgeous. The whole interior is white marble and sparkly lights. It’s totally out of place among the burned-out former factories that surround it. Virtually every couple that gets married in or around Utica has photos taken there (there were three weddings there when we had our first meeting with our photographers), but I’d never heard of an actual wedding inside the train station. We decided to hold it there because neither of us really wanted it to be in a church, it was free, it’s roaring-twenties awesome, and our reception hall was actually inside the train station to begin with. So yay.
Before the wedding started we were all hanging out in this random lobby sort of area on the 2nd floor of the station. I was spying on our guests as they filtered in.
Spyin'
That was a huge waste of time. It was way too early in the evening for people to be picking fights. We should have started handing out alcohol much earlier than we did.
We were done with the formal photo shoot and upstairs before most of the guests started arriving, so we had some time to kill.
Me, Beth and a little Kate-on-Kate action. Also, boobs.
Molly and her Sailor Boy
After a lot of mother-corralling, bouquet-finding, vow-reviewing and line-assembling, it was time to march down the really long aisle. I was freaking out about my Merry Maids walking too slowly and the short processional piece running out before my dad and I made it to the end. This is me encouraging them to step smartly.
My dad was going, "I'm so proud of her..." to random passers-by.
Speaking of random passers-by, we didn’t reserve the train station in any way, shape or form, so trains were still coming in and going out the whole time we were weddinging. People were still milling about with luggage and harried expressions on their faces. It was fine with us, really. Part of the charm of the place is that it’s not just a showpiece, it actually is a working train station. We even had to wait until after the DMV closed to set up the chairs and stuff for the ceremony.
I think, in this picture, my dad is trying to hold my fingers down so that I’d stop flipping off my wedding party. I reminded him that I had a whole other hand. Jeez Dad, basic anatomy.
Dad should know better than to try to control my behavior by now.
And then we were off!
Struttin'
If you did what I told you and read Thomas’ account of his dream wedding, you’ll expect there to be some sort of power ballad involved. There was not, but our incredible, adolescent cellists (they were all literally fourteen years old) learned Enter Sandman by Metallica for the Groom and Groomspeople’s processional.
I’m so jealous, when I was fourteen the most ambitious thing I was doing was experimenting with sparkly blue eyeshadow.
But I rocked the sparkly blue eyeshadow.
Very dramatic right now.
After all that prodding, my Merry Maids veritably sprinted down the aisle, so my dad and I got there a little bit too early.
So we started dancing around to the rest of Cello Suite 1.
Weepy already.
Thomas' ring is ridiculously heavy.I'm glad I didn't drop it, it might have dented the floor.
Thomas and I both have Irish blood in our veins, so we chose to have a Highland handfasting ceremony. We didn’t observe many traditions (I had nothing blue or old, we didn’t read 1st Corinthians, we didn’t have a bouquet or garter toss, we didn’t even have a wedding cake), but this tradition is one that I’d always wanted to incorporate into my wedding, so incorporate it we did.
Fastin' our hands. Very amusing.
I'm not sure what was distracting Thomas and Josh here.
Smoochin'
Friends of ours in the audience later told us that we kissed for an unbelievable amount of time. I believe them.
...
...
Coming up for air...
Thomas tried to dip me. It didn't go so well.
And then we were married!
We marched back down the aisle to the train-boarding region where we had started. There was much loud rejoicing while my dad was trying to say grace before dinner and tell everyone that they weren’t supposed to wait for us to finish taking family photos before they started eating, drinking and generally making fools of themselves.
Lucky Kate got paired up with sexy groomsmaid, Amber.
Hugs!
More hugs!
A gratuitous flowers-and-tattoos picture.
There are a TON of photos of me grabbing my own boobs. I'm only showing you one. Sorry. Not really.
As part of my family’s Welcome-Thomas-Into-The-Madness efforts, they officially invited him to our very own made-up holiday that was invented just so that we have an excuse to spend more time together than we already do, Be Nice To Cousins Day. Seriously, they made him an invitation on notebook paper and everything.
We're exactly as crazy as we look.
Thomas’ family was just as welcoming to me, though. I must say.
It's nice to be close to one's inlaws.
Also, Thomas’ dad proves untrue the statement, “No man is an island.”
This is my mama. Isn't she pretty?
And then we were on to the eating, the drinking and the merrymaking. It was all way too much fun. I need to throw another wedding just for the party afterward. Anyone want to donate to the cause? You can come dance with us!
I believe this was Old Time Rock and Roll.
This is a Wiswell thing.
It started about ten years ago.
The story involves candy canes, Christmas, getting locked out and a complete lack of access to cable TV.
And old Shania Twain CDs.
I have no idea what's happening here. I'm sure it involves the open bar.
This too.
I know this one was taken during Cotten Eye Joe. It's one of my very favorite photos from the whole day.
Or maybe this one's my favorite. Do I have to choose just one?
This is another possibility. I'm pretty sure they snuck off to do this during Cotton Eye Joe.
As much as I wanted to keep going all night long, I started to lose focus after a while. At one point, our photographers absconded with our rings.
I forgive them.
We had two competing cake toppers, but no cake. One was an heirloom piece given to me by my grandmother.
Awww...
And the other is a modified Christmas ornament that Thomas bought as a memento of how he proposed to me. His exact words were, “I spend a lot of time pretending to be a beast, but you make me feel like a prince.”
AWWWWWW!
You can even see the part of Beast’s head where we ripped out the little ornament hooky thing and forgot to buy paint to touch up his injury.
Anyway, we didn’t have a cake, just a dessert display, so we put out both toppers and they didn’t even have to fight. Which would have been awesome. Belle totally would have taken that dude in the bowtie. I just took some more cold medicine.
This is me contemplating how to get Thomas back to our hotel room. Winkwink, nudgenudge.
I didn’t change my name after our wedding, and I don’t intend to. All of my friends LOVE this, for some reason. We now get cards (and cars, apparently) addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Wiswell.
Dollar store lipstick takes FOREVER to get off car windows. Just so you know.
Tin cans and inflated condoms are so 2010.
Before the wedding, I was obsessing over the artsy-fartsy, pre-ceremony, posed photography. I wanted it to be edgy, but not too snide and self-righteously offbeat just for the sake of being offbeat. You know (You probably don’t know. Nobody else things like this. Or at least I hope not.)? I cared DEEPLY about all of those photos, and I still really do. I absolutely LOVE the way that Chris and Lauren took my initial vision and ran with it. They were absolutely amazing.
But I’m IN love with the pictures from the reception. Really really in love. Every time I look at them I remember the joy and love given to me by the friends and family that are such an integral part of who I am. I just stare at the pictures with this big, stupid grin on my face. I’m insanely happy with the way that our wedding came out and so incredibly grateful to everyone who came together to support us, not just on our wedding day, but through our whole lives as individuals and as a couple.
Thanks, everybody. I love you all 😀
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