So, your Emily got married. Again. Are we sick of this yet? How many times can we keep doing this? Turns out the answer is twice, and hey maybe we’ll do it 20 or 30 more times. We’ll see how we’re feeling.
I told you guys the last time “When we have a wedding, you will know.” so I guess that takes us back to September 30th, 2016. We picked the glorious day because the number 30 is our lucky number. Jonathan, born August 30th, and I, born July 30th, decided to keep the party going by getting married all over again on September 30th. Surrounded by our friends and family, we wed again in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I would write a whole thing but so much happened and there it was such a blast that I’m going to put it into notes. Buckle up, because here we go:
- My parents gave us the wedding of our dreams. I'm so grateful for them for truly giving us the most amazing day of our lives. I would be nothing without them
It rained on our wedding day. After obsessively checking the weather for weeks (reliable, I know) we finally realized that it was going to rain all day for the wedding. While rain is not the most desirable weather for most, it felt like it suited us a bit. We both love rainy days when we can decompress and relax. The morning of we woke up in our suite at The Standard Hotel and ate a quiet breakfast in bed before the madness of the day. We watched our city become saturated with the rain and talked about how excited we were for the day. The rain moved our ceremony from the garden to the atrium but it didn’t matter when everyone we loved was there celebrating us. I will say this to no end. It was the best day of my life
Jonathan’s groomsmen were amazing. Some I got to meet for the first time and others I was seeing again but they were just fantastic. Jonathan’s best man, our roommate James, led the pack along with one of Jonathan’s best friend’s from college, Dez, his childhood best friend, Cory, and his best girlfriend who joined us all the way from London, Sarah. It was incredible seeing Jonathan surrounded with people who meant so much to him. He has some truly incredible friends.
My bridal crew were just as incredible. I had my friends from all parts of my life. Childhood heros like Krystal and Alyson as well as two amazing friends from the newer era, Lauren and Chris. While I always have Krystal and Alyson in New York with me (and I bother them way too much) Chris and Lauren traveled all the way from Texas and Pennsylvania to come and stand by my side when I said I do again. I was very #blessed to be surrounded by such a special group of weirdos.
My hair and make up team consisted of two goddesses. Rachel Soroa and Tina Le Noble made my bridesmaid and I feel like princesses. I'm so happy and thrilled to have had them helped me get ready and in a great plot twist, both ladies were getting married the Sunday after my wedding. It was a weekend of love.
My something old was a bracelet that my mother in law gave me. I’m not exactly sure how old it is but she gave it to me as a gift and I treasure it immensely. My something new was the crown I wore on my head. My mother bought it for me just for the wedding. My something borrowed were the incredible earrings I wore the whole night that Lauren, one of my bridesmaids, was gracious and kind enough to let me wear. They were her grandmother’s and her grandmother is one of the most important women in her life. I was honored to wear them. We didn’t have a something blue so Lauren drew a blue heart on my ankle with eyeliner. It promptly smudged while we were outside taking photos so I just had a thick blue smudge on my ankle as my something blue.
We took some photos in the rain but not a lot. My dress became really heavy and soaked and I was afraid it was just going to fall off of me. When we got back inside the entire party wiped my dress down with small cocktail napkins. It was so silly but pretty amazing.
I walked down the aisle to Light of the Seven from the season 6 finale of Game of Thrones because the song is beautiful and while it’s pretty menacing when set along to The Sept being blown to pieces with wildfire, I found the song to be romantic and beautiful. The only person who really agreed with me on that stance was my husband which is why I guess we’re together. It was so thought out and felt great until we all lined up to walk down the aisle and it hit me that I was a fucking nerd and that Game of Thrones would now be a part of my narrative for the rest of my life. I scream laughed in my head the entire time and felt like a goddamn queen walking down to Jonathan. Later, the composer of the song congratulated me on getting married and that was pretty amazing.
Our officiant was our dear friend Spencer, who I have affectionately called Bambi since I once had a dream he was legally trying to change to match the Disney deer. Bambi actually introduced us as you can read about here and has been one of the people who supported us since the beginning. What better way to do the whole thing again then by having the man who brought us together in the first place. He had a book called “The Secrets to Marriage” that had a hole cut out for a nip of Jameson and a pack of cigarettes.
Part of my vows were “I promise to take photos of you even when it’s not appropriate” because Jonathan gets mad at me for wanting to take pictures of everything all the time. When I finished the sentence, Bambi pulled a camera out of his pocket and handed it to me. I snapped a photo of my husband and the camera was passed to Emily, our photographer, who took a group shot mid ceremony.
It came out beautifully
Our whole ceremony was very us. Jonathan read his vows which were written on the back of a polaroid of me, I memorized mine but forgot them all. We both tripped over the words Bambi asked us to repeat and we laughed hysterically through the whole thing. It was silly. It was weird. It was perfect.
My 5 year old Godson requested that the cha cha slide be plaid. It was all he wanted. So we did.
I frantically emailed our DJ the night before because I realized I desperately needed The Golden Girl’s theme song to be played at the reception. It was and I LOVED IT.
Our wedding had a big appetizer station of cured meats and cheeses which is my favorite thing on Earth. My dear friend Danny was kind enough to make sure that I got one piece of prosciutto but I was too busy talking to people and running around to actually eat any of it (you’ll see the picture below) and it’s my biggest regret of my wedding.
- Finally, I want to thank Emily Tebbetts for these photos below. Emily and I found each other in the good old angsty teen Flickr days filled with self portraits and bokeh. We added each other on facebook and I got to see the fellow flickr teen queen grow into the incredibly intelligent, courageous and strong woman she is today. Being two photographers ourselves, finding the perfect photographer for our wedding was the only bitter fight we got into. I threw suggestions at Jonathan, all of which he hated, and vice versa. At one point Jonathan even suggested a pulitzer prize winning war photographer who did weddings in his spare time and I said no which led to weeks of ridicule from Jonathan (“I mean, his photos seemed good enough for a pulitzer prize”) Eventually a friend suggested Emily and I wish I could have facepalmed myself. OF COURSE EMILY. She was right under my nose the entire time! When I spoke to her it was like talking to an old friend. When I showed Jonathan her photos he immediately said “let’s book her.” so we did. She made everything so smooth and stress free. We even got to answer these cute couple’s questionnaire before the wedding that I’m going to put before the real photos because Jonathan’s answers are gold. My family and friends loved her, Jonathan and I loved having her capturing our special moments and I am overjoyed with the result. HERE ME WHEN I SAY THIS: If you’re looking for an extremely professional, extremely talented, joyful photographer for you wedding, hire. Emily. Tebbetts. I cannot recommend her enough to everyone. She’s wonderful. Emily, really and truly, thank you.
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My hair and make up team consisted of two goddesses. Rachel Soroa and Tina Le Noble made my bridesmaid and I feel like princesses. I'm so happy and thrilled to have had them helped me get ready and in a great plot twist, both ladies were getting married the Sunday after my wedding. It was a weekend of love.
