a small town wedding: husband and wife.

After the processional, mass began.  We had a full Catholic mass on our wedding day.  I know some people feel like a full mass is too long for their guests to sit, and I understand that.  But to us, the ceremony was the most important part of the wedding, and we didn't think an hour was too long to sit when we were vowing to spend the rest of our lives together. 

I was SO nervous during our ceremony.  I had butterflies all morning, but it really got out of control when I got to the front of the church.  It had nothing to do with being nervous to get married, I knew with all of my heart that I wanted to marry the man standing next to me.  It had more to do with my fear of standing up in front of a huge group of people, which I realize is ridiculous, but I couldn't help it!  Thankfully we had to kneel for a while at the beginning of the ceremony, so I don't think our guests noticed the fact that I was visibly shaking.  I just held on really tight to my groom's hand until the nerves calmed down a bit through all of the readings.

My friend Melissa read a passage from the Old Testament, Ruth 1:16 for the first reading.
"And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, and to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God."

Adam's sister Megan read the New Testament reading, John 7:12.
"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

I love this picture that was taken from the balcony.  You can see almost all of our guests that were at the ceremony.  The priest told us later that he had never performed a wedding ceremony with so many friends and family present!  I'm not sure if it's a small town thing, but for some reason a lot of people don't go to the actual wedding ceremony around here, instead they skip it and just come to the reception instead.  I was very grateful that so many of our guests didn't skip out on the ceremony and were actually there to support  us as we tied the knot.

Our priest read the gospel reading, John 15: 9-12.
"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."

Soon it was time to say our vows.
"I, Adam, take you, Holly, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part."

"I, Holly, take you, Adam, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part."

The we exchanged rings.
"Holly, I give you this ring, as a sign of my love and fidelity. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.".

"Adam, I give you this ring, as a sign of my love and fidelity.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.".

Our sisters, Angela and Lindsay, sang "The Prayer" by Celine Dion during the ceremony.

The priest gave the nuptial blessing.

We had Communion.

Received one last blessing from the priest...

and we were married!  My groom was given permission to kiss his bride.

We were husband and wife!

After the recessional, it was time to make it official.

My husband made me give him "knuckles" when we were finished.  Of course it was caught on camera, so I had to share it here.

We posed for one last picture with the priest before getting ready for portraits.

All images by Deborah Cull Photography

Previously in our wedding recaps:

Mascaras Get Married: The Beginning

Mascaras Get Married: Giving Gifts

Mascaras Get Married: Girls Get Ready

Mascaras Get Married: Guys Get Ready, and a Gift for the Groom
Mascaras Get Married: Becoming a Bride

Mascaras Get Married: Processionals and Pep Talks

a small town wedding: processionals and pep talks.

At 1:00 pm on Saturday, September 5th, 2009, our wedding had begun.  My grandma and grandpa started off the processional while an arrangement of "Canon in D" was playing on the piano.

Source: arrangement of Pachelbel's Canon in D Major by David Lanz

My soon-to-be husband then walked down the aisle alongside his parents.  

My mom and dad were up next

and then came our wedding party.  First down the aisle were Ryan and Angelie,

then Mike and Kiera,

Mike and Dana,

Matt and Anna,

Ryan and my matron of honor, Dona,

the best man, Mike, and my maid of honor (and sister) Dani,

and last but not least, my sister Gaby with our ringbearers Parker and Derek, and our flowergirl Aliyah.

While everyone was inside, I was outside seeing my dad for the first time.  It was a very emotional time for us both, and I will never forget that moment.

You see, my dad and I are very close.  He is my rock, and I am his.  One thing (of many) that my dad has always said to me, is to never depend on a man.  He's always wanted his daughters (all four of us) to be able to support ourselves.  To get a good education, be confident, strong, and independent so we would never need a man to get where we wanted in life.  So it was no surprise to me that as I was standing there in my wedding dress, waiting to walk down the aisle, he would whisper in my ear "I'll take you out of here right now if you don't want to go through with this".  Of course, I just laughed.  

Don't get me wrong, my dad LOVES Mr. Mascara.  He had considered him his only "son" for quite some time before the wedding.  But my dad wanted me to know that if I didn't want to go through with the wedding, for any reason at all, he'd be there to support me.  He'd come to my rescue if I needed to be saved at that moment.

Another thing about my dad is, he gets very emotional when it comes to his girls.  So when he started tearing up as we were standing there, I told him he needed to get it together.  I told him that I loved him, and that I'd always be his daughter.  Then I told him that we were going inside and walking down that aisle, and that I was going to marry my husband today.

And then, it was time.  The bridal processional started playing

Source: Vangelis' Hymne by The O'Neill Brothers

so we opened the door, headed inside, and walked down the aisle together to meet my groom.

My dad hugged his future son-in-law,

we stood there with our friends and family,

and joined hands to start the ceremony that we would leave as husband and wife.

All images by Deborah Cull Photography

Previously in our wedding recaps:

Mascaras Get Married: The Beginning

Mascaras Get Married: Giving Gifts

Mascaras Get Married: Girls Get Ready

Mascaras Get Married: Guys Get Ready, and a Gift for the Groom
Mascaras Get Married: Becoming a Bride

pre-cana...no longer a mystery.

A while back I posted about our experience taking the FOCCUS survey. This past weekend, we completed the last step in order to get married in the Catholic church by attending Pre-Cana class.

Some of you might be wondering what Pre-Cana is. Before attending, Pre-Cana was always a mystery to us and a lot of other couples we know who have gone through it. According to wikipedia: "Pre-Cana is a course or consultation Catholic couples must undergo before they can be married in a Catholic church. The name is derived from John 2:1-12, the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee, where Jesus performed the miracle of turning water into wine.
Approaches to Pre-Cana vary among Catholic dioceses and parishes. Often six weekly sessions will be led by a priest or deacon with support from a married Catholic couple. Common topic include: compatibility of the couple, basic principles of Catholic marriage and family life (namely theological meaning of marriage), conflict resolution within marriage, rules the couple is accepting to follow (including, but not limited to, natural family planning)."

Now that you have the official definition, I'll tell you a little about our experience.

We arrived at the church at 9:00 am and the first order of business was to fill out our information cards and name tags(and pay if you hadn't already paid online). There was a booklet for each couple at the table when we sat down. After everyone was settled, the facilitators, a couple that was married for over 20 years, explained how we would spend the day.

Our first exercise was finding our nametags, since after writing our names down they had collected these from us. They passed them out to other attendees and everyone was supposed to find their nametag. Not sure how this related to getting married, but I think they were just trying to break the ice.

Next, we started going through the booklet. There were doubles of most pages within the book, one for him and one for her. We were instructed to fill out the first pages and discuss. These pages consisted of writing down the top three events and people in your life, as well as a few other questions. We filled out the pages and discussed them with each other. No big surprises here, we had pretty much the same answers.

Then we had to list the top three things that we thought were important in a successful marriage. We prioritized them within our own list, then with each other, and then with other couples at our table. Then the whole group compiled a list of the things they thought were important, and of course the group's list ended up being very large. The facilitators explained how though all of these things are important in a marriage (things like trust, communication, excitement, etc) would come together in different quantities throughout different times in the marriage.

The rest of the morning was layed out very similar, filling out a page in the booklet on topics like traits of yourself and your future spouse, methods of good and bad communication, etc., then sharing between each other, then with the table, then with the whole group.

Before we broke for lunch we were asked to write a letter to each other about anything we wanted. It was nice to read what the other person said with such an open-ended letter. The fiance wrote a very sweet letter to me that I think I'll save to look back on when we're older!

After lunch, it was more of the same routine, discussing topics like budgets, intimacy (there was no sharing with the group on this topic), and children. They touched on natural family planning, but since the facilitators were not medical professionals, they did not feel comfortable going into detail. They provided more information for those interested in the form of a booklet and details on a natural family planning class.

One of last topics that we discussed was how we had experienced God's presence within our lives. It was nice to hear the stories that other people told, but no one was forced to share a story. They simply asked for volunteers.

Before we wrapped up for the day, they ended by having each couple stand up and explain how they met. Though it was nice that they wanted to make each couple feel special by sharing their story, it took forever (there were 42 couples there) and it was awkward sharing with a bunch of people we didn't know (although I realize I do this via blogging on a daily basis!).

Overall, I must admit that I was a little disappointed with my Pre-Cana experience. I went into it with the feeling that I was only going to get out of it what I put into it. I went with a positive attitude, and even convinced my very unenthusiastic fiance to try to make the best of it. When we got there, I found the topics we discussed to be very predictable, and the discussion associated with each subject was nothing I hadn't already heard. There was also a TON of time wasted. The class lasted from 9:00 am - 4:30 pm. Everyone was finished with each exercise within about 10 minutes, and we talked amongst our table for at least 15 minutes between each exercise. We probably could've finished before noon if there wasn't such a lag between exercises.

In hindsight, I wish we would have taken the class in our hometown, where it was $30 rather than $180, and then even if we didn't get anymore out of it than we did here, it wouldn't have been such a waste of money.

If you attended Pre-Cana, what was your experience like? Did you get more out of it than we did?