Woman in the Middle

The young couple we know who got married on Valentine’s Day decided to do the civil ceremony now at our County Registrar’s office and will be having a church wedding at a later date. It has been a very long time since I was at a civil wedding ceremony and, since I have known the bride since middle school and because both the bride and the groom have been to my house many times, I begged an invitation to the wedding. I also really really love weddings. Just tell me where and I will be there!

According to our local paper, a total of 41 weddings were planned for Valentine’s Day at the Registrar’s office. I expected a madhouse but when we got there things were actually very calm. They apparently planned for plenty of time for each wedding. The bride didn’t wear the wedding dress she already purchased as she wants to save it for the “real” wedding. Instead she bought a very pretty white dress with a short train. She is very tiny and she looked adorable in it.

When the girls were in middle school and high school, for some reason every one in their little friendship circle was taller than average except Martha, who is quite petite. We used to joke that it was Martha and her body guards. Below is the bride with two of her “body guards.” That is Youngest Daughter on the right.

Please note the flowers. I have to brag here a minute because I made them, all by my little lonesome, with help from Fresh and Easy and the internet. Youngest Daughter and I checked several places on Friday for a bouquet of flowers we could turn into a wedding bouquet. The one we liked the best was at Fresh and Easy. I pulled it apart, put it back together, reserving a flower for the groom’s boutonniere. I wrapped the stems in green florist tape and put it in water until the next day. A couple of hours before the wedding I cut the stems off to a good length, wrapped the stems in ribbon and pinned it down the front with pearl headed pins. Easy peasy!

Planning an outdoor wedding in January in Inland So Cal can be a bit risky. January starts our rainy season, drought or no drought. It can also get cold and windy, or it can be beautiful, like a spring day. Happily, when a young couple we know married in January, it was the last one. January 18th was warm and sunny and perfect for a wedding.   The bride is the daughter of one of Hubby’s oldest friends, from back in Boy Scout days. Happily, we are now wonderful friends with him and his wife, and we were very excited to share in April and Evan’s big day!

The wedding was held at a ceremony venue called Tennessee Gardens, which is located in Redlands, California. The area where the ceremony was held was right next to the reception area, which made it one stop  for the wedding guests, so convenient! The ceremony was held under a white tent which had a gazebo at one end where the bride and groom stood with the minister.  You can see from this photo what a lovely day it was.

The happy couple, now husband and wife, walked back down the aisle to the theme from “Empire Strikes Back,” which was a fun surprise for all the guests. That also helps explain the huge grins on the faces of the bride and groom. That and relief that the hard part was over!

The bride and groom both work at Disneyland and each table at the reception was given the theme of a different Disney movie couple. We sat at the Lady and the Tramp table. Each flower center piece was different, too, which was a nice touch. We were seated out under the trees enjoying the wonderful weather.

Continuing the Disney theme, the cake looked like something out of Alice in Wonderland. The cake topper was two pairs of wedding themed Mickey Mouse ears. The bride couldn’t find a Disney themed cake topper that she liked so the bakery offered to make the Mickey ears. Aren’t they cute?

The groom wanted to turn the garter ceremony into something memorable. so he did a take off on Indiana Jones (there is an Indiana Jones themed ride at Disneyland). That explains why the groom is wearing an Indiana Jones style hat while he is taking off the garter. It was pretty funny and imaginative.

Now that you have seen the three weddings we went to this year, did you notice the ONE thing that was the same at each wedding? Here are my posts for the other two (Hint, look at the brides.)

http://womaninthemid.com/2014/09/29/another-beautiful-wedding/

http://womaninthemid.com/2014/07/24/a-beautiful-wedding/

Answer below…..

All three of the brides wore their hair off to the side, the right side!

This past weekend we went to our third wedding this year (although I just realized I never told you about the wedding in January…I will have to fix that…). All of the weddings we have gone to have been lovely, different from each other and wonderful! But lets get on to all the delightful details of the most recent celebration!.

This wedding was for Allie and Tony. I have been friends with the bride’s mother since high school and have known the bride since she was born. We were seated at a table with some relatives from my friend’s side of the family. My friend’s maiden name and my married name are the same so it took a bit of explaining to the others at the table that we were not related in any way. Family in heart, but not in blood!

The wedding was held in a beautiful Catholic church in San Diego called “St. Gregory the Great.” The church is fantastic inside , but I was not taking photos of the church, I was just admiring. The photo below came from the bride and groom’s website.

The groom was handsome, the bride was stunning, and I love this photo I took of the two of them during the ceremony. Don’t they look sweet?

The reception was held at the Maderas Golf Club in Poway. It was a lovely venue. Cocktail hour was outside on the patio, which allowed us to admire the views of the course, lake, and surrounding hills.

After the cocktail hour we moved inside for dinner and dancing. The main color of the wedding was a pretty dusty pink and the flowers on the tables were that lovely soft pink. Some tables had high flower arrangements and some had low ones. My table had a high arrangement, which I took a photo of, with my crazy family in the background making silly faces. I didn’t find out about the silly faces until I looked at the photo. Sigh!

On one wall of the reception ballroom they projected the bride and groom’s names, which we all thought was a nice touch.

Dinner was delicious. We had three choices: chicken, salmon, or vegetarian. Between the four of us we had selected all three and I can tell you they were all yummy! I didn’t think to take a photo of dinner, I just dug in and enjoyed!

The cake was seriously delicious. We would have taken another piece (or five) in a heartbeat, not that we needed it! It was surrounded by flowers and highlighted by simple gray ribbons on each layer.

I caught the bride with her proud parents during the reception.

The bride and groom are now off on their honeymoon to Greece. We know they will have many wonderful years together!

We survived our fast run to San Luis Obispo last Saturday for the wedding of one of my Wedding Babies. I don’t think I mentioned my wedding babies before. We had eight people in our wedding – four bridesmaids and four groomsmen. Four of those folks had either just had or were going to have babies. I always know how old my wedding babies are, as long as I can remember how long I have been married!

This time the wedding was for Rose, who I threw the shower for back in May. She married her long time love, Steve. The wedding was held in San Luis Obispo becasue his family is from Northern California and hers is from Southern California, so the Central coast was kind of a half way in the middle spot for all of us.

The wedding was held at Tiber Canyon Ranch. It was an outdoor, somewhat rustic place, but there was nothing rustic about the wedding. It was fabulous!

This first photo shows the ceremony site. It was on a deck overlooking a beautiful canyon. The bride was escorted down the aisle by her grandfather.

After the wedding, the bridal party went off to take photos. The guests got to partake in a beer tasting with five kinds of craft beers, soft pretzels with lots of dipping sauces, hor dourves that were being passed around by the wait staff, and gormet popcycles! The groom had made special wood racks that held five small glasses each (and which I neglected to get a photo of…sorry!). You could pick up a rack and get a nice serviing of each of the beers. That was fun and popular with the crowd. It was really nice to have something farily substantial to eat as well as the wedding was at 4:30 and when it was over I was getting hungry. The pretzels and the popcycles made it fun in a way that just hor dourves wouldn’t have.

Then it was time for dinner. The seating arrangements were based on the various national parks the bride and groom have visited.

Here is the board where we found our name and our park.

The tables for dinner looked beautiful.

Here is an up close photo of how the tables looked.

The primary color for the wedding was pink but the bride picked out blue patterened material for the table runners which kept the pink from being too sweet. The bride’s grandmother actually made all the runners for the wedding! Each long table had a variety of diffrent kinds of small clear vases which were bought at places like Ikea and the 99 Cent Store. They were filled with pink flowers and small olive and eucalyptus banches. In between the vases were clear glass votive candle holders.

In keeping with the national parks theme, the place cards were small tags tied to a small gold animal, like a moose or a deer or a mountian lion, the kind you would find in the U.S. We found out that the animals were plastic, spray painted gold by the bride!

The bride wore a beautiful lace dress that she had altered, removing the sleeves and changing the back a bit, which made it truely her own. She choose not to wear a veil, but had a white rose in her hair instead. Somehow, when I was taking photos, the rose in her hair kept hiding. Here is the best photo I have showing the rose.

But here is a better photo of the handsome groom and the beautiful bride (see what I mean about the rose hiding?).

I wish them many years of happiness!