We got married at St. Jude. It is the church I grew up going to. I went to school there and Jon and I met there! Yup, we met at my sister and brother-in-law's wedding rehearsal 5 years ago. If you must know, I was the maid of honor and Jon was the best man in that wedding. So this was actually not our first time walking down the aisle together :) It really was a no brainer that we would get married there.

When we arrived at the church, I think it was about 1:40 and I was shocked at how many people were there already! It was so exciting though! As I saw people walking into the church, I just couldn't believe this day was actually here and all these people came for us! (This was a recurring feeling all day)

photo by gina

We did not use the church's cantor for our music. My mom used to sing with a folk group in her younger years, so we had four of her friends sing, two of which play the guitar. We also had the church's liturgical director play the piano since we had to pay him if we used him or not. They sounded so great.

All the girls made their way to the church vesitbule to meet the boys and the parents, while I waited until I got the go ahead from my mom that I was in the clear to come out of hiding. Barney, always the photographer, got a couple last minute shots before walking down the aisle. He even took some video during the ceremony (more on that in a minute).

photo by barney

We began to make our way toward the door and at first I felt very overwhelmed (again). There were so many people and they all stood up when I approached the door. I mean, I know that is standard and I have done it a million times myself, but now everyone was doing it for moi? It was crazy. I thought I was going to be very self-conscious walking down the aisle actually, but it went by so fast and I had my eyes on Jon the whole time which made me feel comfortable.

I got up to the front, gave my 'rents some love and Jon and I made our way to the alter. We faced out toward the congregation for almost the entire ceremony (I think) and in hindsight, I'm so glad we did. Not only have I had people tell me how nice it was that they were able to see our faces the whole time, I loved looking out and picking out people in the pews and really, who wants to look at the back of our heads? I'm also glad we never had to kneel and instead sat in chairs.

We sat by ourselves on one side of the church and Steve and Gina sat on the other. Jon and I had a little small talk during the ceremony (shame on us!) He told me about how our limo driver was kind of crazy and that they all went to Five Guys for lunch. I told him about how surprisingly well I slept and what a great morning we had.


Our ceremony was beautiful. Dizzy read the first reading. (Tobit 8:4b-8)


Then came the longest responsorial psalm in the history of the world. We chose Taste and See to be sung and figured they would sing the first verse of it and be done with it. Apparently this song has about 6 verses though and the liturgical director made them sing every one of them. (!!!!) I think the song literally lasted 4 minutes. Barney took the opportunity to entertain us and himself and took a video. I spotted him doing it and told Jon to smile for the camera...

j&k's wedding 2

Fr. Charlie did a nice homily that recapped our relationship and engagement, Todd read the prayers of the faithful wonderfully and before we knew it was time to do the I do's.

We did standard, traditional vows and we both kept it together quite well. I thought one of us might lose it, but we didn't! (not yet anyway) Instead of feeling overly emotional during our vows, I just felt really confident. Barney's second video came during our vows. Apparently his battery fell out of the camera right before we were introduced as husband and wife and made a clanging noise that he thinks Fr. Charlie heard and noticed. Oops! Oh well.

j&k's wedding 3

You know the drill: exchange rings
kiss each other
smile uncontrollably at one another

(I love this picture the most I think)

all photos by CaseyBower Photography unless otherwise noted

more pictures here