Today is mine and Cool Daddy’s 8th wedding anniversary.
(We were married June 21, 2003 for those of you who can’t do the math ;))
You can read more about us here:
*How I Met Cool Daddy: Part 1
*How I Met Cool Daddy: Part 2
*15 Reasons Why My Hubby is Awesome
*Colonel Mustard on a Rollercoaster with a Plastic Fork

I went all out for our wedding. Cool Daddy was perfectly happy to let me do (and spend ;)) whatever I wanted and tell him a date, time, and place to show up. While there were definitely some stressful moments, some venue mishaps, weather concerns, hair woes, and flower drama…for the most part my mom and I really enjoyed planning my wedding. I didn’t end up with absolutely everything exactly the way that I wanted it, but all-in-all I think our wedding was fabulous and I have no regrets about “going big”. I didn’t have a fairytale wedding…I had a royal wedding. Or as close to one as you can get in Beaver County, PA 😉

You’re going to see quite a few pictures of me before we even get to the one photo of my hubby…but isn’t the wedding all about the pretty girl anyway? 😉

(Click on photos to enlarge)

My sister primps my hair and then puts a sixpence penny in my shoe.
Yes, I actually wore it inside of my shoe the whole time!

I love this picture of me and my mama 🙂

Putting on my veil and showing off my pearl necklace.

On my mama’s front porch.

My hunky hubby-to-be 🙂

Me and my sister and hubby with his brother.

My cousins were the flower girl and ring bearer.
I chose the pomanders rather than a basket. The flower girl hid a bag of petals behind the pomander and this is where she drew the red rose petals from to drop.

For the ring box I chose one shaped like a carriage that was made out of two quail eggs. I didn’t realize that this was the only photo of the ring box that I had. Here it is cropped for a closer look:

I actually found a photo of the ring box online here.


I was very into the details of the wedding. The funny thing was that I was so afraid that the guys that would be handling the ring box to get the rings in and out would break the egg shells, that we actually had the best man keep the rings in a box in his pocket the whole time. So the ring box ended up just being a front anyway.

A string quartet for the ceremony.
Pachelbel’s Canon in D for the bridal party.
The traditional “Here Comes the Bride” for me.

I walked down a very long aisle.
I wasn’t even halfway down when this picture was taken.

Hubby watching me walk down the aisle realizing how very spoiled I am lucky he is.

We had an outdoor ceremony in the gardens of an extinct Utopian community, Old Economy Village.

The guests had bubbles and the wedding party threw red rose petals while our carriage with white horses awaits.


Hubby looks like he’s carting me off to prison rather than escorting me. He also sounded like he was reading me my rights during our vows…I sounded like I was reciting an eloquent graduation speech. Not a lot of heart-felt teary-eyed stuff during our vows…we are robots.

The carriage ride was awesome. We rode down the streets and everyone stopped to look at us and we waved our best royal wave. A mother was walking with her two daughters and I heard one of them yell, “Mommy, she looks like Cinderella!”
I’d love to do that about once a week 😉

This was actually the aisle that I was supposed to walk down, but I knew that my gown wouldn’t fit, so we had them set up the chairs on the other side of the garden where my gown would have more room to breath 🙂

The bridal party.


For a photo like this the photographer would usually have the bridal party jump off of a step which would put everyone at about the same height, but we didn’t have any stairs available. I couldn’t jump at all without losing my dress so hubby and I stayed put.
I love how weird this photo is.
(You’re definitely going to want to click (twice) to enlarge this and check out all the great facials expressions!)

The reception venue: The Timberhouse at Rolling Acres Golf Course

This is a view from where hubby and I sat at the head table.
Our fancy champagne glasses that form a heart when they’re pushed together 🙂
The bells were the wedding favor…more on that later.
To the right of the glasses you can see my handkerchief. My grandmother crocheted old lace onto a new handkerchief and then tied it together with my mom’s wedding handkerchief. Something old, something new, something borrowed. My something blue was a blue ribbon on the garter that my mom made for me with my great-grandmother’s lace (more old). I had plenty of new: my necklace, my earrings, my tiara, my handkerchief, my shoes, and of course my gown.

The topiaries above were the centerpieces on every other table, the remaining table had wreaths and hurricane lamps shown below. Believe it or not we’ve gotten a lot of use out of all of the topiaries and wreaths. There are a few in Adaline’s nursery, we’ve used them as centerpieces for tea parties and I sometimes use them to decorate at Christmas.

Our wedding favors were silver bells. We attached everyone’s table number to their bell along with a little poem that I wrote about how to use the bells:
We all remember traditions past, to see them kiss you clink the glass.
But new traditions work as well, to see them kiss just ring the bell!

The cookie table…’cause that’s just how we roll 😉
(Yeah, I have a big Italian family. Mangia!)

Cutting the cake. We used our wedding cake knife to cut Adaline’s 1st birthday cake and have used it for each of our birthdays since then, it’s one of my favorite new traditions.


The cake was white with raspberry filling. It was covered in fondant with gumpaste flowers.

The detail on the cake mimicked the detailed beadwork on my gown.
(Click the photo twice to enlarge it and see the detail.)

Our first dance to Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable”.

Ironically, my husband always asks me, “What was our wedding song again?” and I always answer, “Seriously? You couldn’t be more ironic right now. Did you seriously forget? How could you forget our wedding song?!” Oh well. The song didn’t hold any special meaning for us, I’ve just always liked it.

In case you were wondering…I can still rock a mean Electric Slide in a ball gown.

My throw-away bouquet was a break-away bouquet. We’ve all seen the “America’s Funniest Home Video” clips of single ladies fighting each other for a bouquet. Mine was a bunch of single flowers tied together with one special rose in the middle with a ribbon tied around it. While my back was turned to the girls, I untied the flowers so that when I tossed the bouquet individual flowers went everywhere and several girls picked up a flower. The lucky girl to get the rose with the ribbon is the one who will get the garter.

The garter was actually caught by my then-10-year-old cousin Ben, who snatched it up using a slick slide-on-the-knee move 😉
He placed the garter on the lady’s arm rather than her leg for a more pg version!

And here are some more photos of me, just because I’m pretty 🙂