How they met Brian and I are still working on some kind of a viable story of how we met- the kind of romantic fairy tale you gladly tell people you hardly know. However, the real story is a touch more unconventional. Let’s just say we met through a mutual friend…okay, I dated his younger brother in high school. And while it took a while for everyone to adjust to the idea of “right church, wrong pew,” it soon became clear that we were a well- matched pair.
How they got engaged
Over the next three years we made time to see each other quite frequently, despite the fact that I was attending college in a town two hours away. We whiled away our courtship spending many hours with our families and friends, and on hobbies like geocaching, a sort of outdoor scavenger hunt for adults. Things were going so well we decided to buy a small “fixer upper” home. Let me tell you there was a lot of ugly wallpaper in our house, which led to countless hours of ripping and chatting. The talk started to turn from how much we despised the previous owners’ decorative choices to the idea of marriage, and in October of that year Brian made his move, or tried to. Brian had planned to hide the ring in a cache, which we would both find together on one of our geocaching adventures. However, when the big day came we had a smidgen of trouble locating the spot, and, as I was late for a class, I dashed off. Unbeknownst to me I had missed my proposal! Luckily, when I returned home that evening Brian had left a trail of sticky notes each containing a clue that would lead me to the next note. I rushed fervently from one clue to the next to find a proposing Brian at trail’s end. Needless to say I said yes. I had finally found what I was looking for in more ways than one.
Length of Engagement: October 2004 – August 2005
How They Decided Upon Their Wedding Date:
We knew we wanted a summer wedding and chose August to give us a few more months to plan. The actual date was chosen by process of elimination. We wanted a mid-August date to give us still more planning time but wanted it to be before the start of the school year for all of the educators in our families, and that’s how we decided on lucky number 13.
Ground Work:
A few details surrounding the planning process: Much of our wedding planning happened very last minute. I had just taken a new job in February and spent the next four months training for it in Providence, RI. Meanwhile Brian was busy running a new startup business, Champlain Valley Windows & Doors, which gave him some flexibility with his schedule, but was yet another demanding activity that ate up our planning time. Choosing the details of our day became challenging to say the least. However we were finally inspired by two of the driving forces behind a wedding: family and tradition. We agreed that the theme of the wedding should be a celebration of both these things, and mercifully everything started to fall into place.
Most Memorable Details There were so many memorable details and moments I would be hard pressed to choose just one. There was the moment early in the day when my Memere fastened her wedding pearls around my neck, the moment we became Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy, the moment my bridesmaids sashayed into the reception hall with their Ghostbusters tees on and the Ghostbusters theme song blaring (I had read that the purpose of bridesmaids in olden days was to act as bride doubles to distract any evil spirits that were on the prowl for the bride and so jokingly dubbed my bridesmaids my Ghostbusters). The reception itself had a number of special details. Each table featured black and white photo confetti of our parents and grandparents on their wedding days. We also had a slideshow featuring pictures from our childhoods that was created by Ed and Sharon Balentine of Balentine Photography. Guests laughed, misted up, and just plain loved this personal touch. Brian’s mom and aunt put black and white themed favors together, and a gorgeous and delicious black and white wedding cake was made by Brian’s stepmother. But the specialties and contributions of our families are too numerous to name, speaking of specialties, though, reminds me of how my mother burned up the dance floor like she was auditioning for “Flash dance.” To see my mother dance with my new husband and my zany friends was both sidesplitting and touching. And finally, it is hard to forget the look on the hotel receptionist’s face as a changed Brian, now clad in shorts and a tee-shirt, escorted his fully dressed bride (veil included) through the lobby.
Update:
Since the wedding Brian and I have relearned how to spend our free time, and are busy building a library in our basement and remodeling other areas of our home. We still spend as much time as possible visiting with our families (usually parrying against a volley of inquiries as to when we want to have children), and have been enjoying the numerous occasions when we are asked “how’s the married life?”
Some Planning Advice to Future Brides and Grooms You will, at some point, turn to your fiancée and say, “We should have eloped!” It’s also highly likely that you will ask your future husband/wife “Why does (opinionated friend or relative) keep insisting we (something you didn’t really have in mind for your day)”. It’s NOT his/her wedding! Breathe deeply. Do not strangle anyone. Repeat after me: “This decision-fraught hell I now inhabit will lead to a fantastically beautiful, meaningful wedding day in which everything works like a well-oiled machine, and I marry my dearest friend.” Good luck!
