Spring and New Beginnings Part 1: We Wed!

It's hard to believe it's been over a month already, I guess time flies in paradise? Eh... yeah, sure that's it. I think we just jumped right back into the day to day (not to mention an IEP month) hustle and bustle and then BAM... suddenly it's been a month!

Though our blog is about our lives living as parents in an Asperger's world and eating gluten-free, we would be remiss to not share something so momentous as our wedding, especially because it was something that we planned as a family. The kiddos were as much a part of all the silly plans as MacLeod and I were, so we want to share it with you. Believe me, it's something of a fun read... it certainly was something interesting to live through.  We are breaking it into two posts, because, well... the reception was TOO much fun to not tell about it too! Plus, I, Mom worked on a rocking wedding gift for MacLeod and he worked on well...something big too!
 

DISCLAIMER

I apologize in advance if I offend you by making fun of things that you have in fact had in your wedding... these are simply things that we do not like because we are odd people and fancy an unusual type of humor, ya see?

 

 

I always thought it was somewhat silly when people had those darn cocktail napkins that said "Today I Marry My Best Friend" or jam jars that were labeled "Spread the Love".... eh, gag. Oh I think the worst was probably a box of mints labeled "Mint to Be." Wow.

MacLeod and I definitely were out of the box thinkers when we started talking about our wedding plans and honestly it really had little to do with wedding and more to do with a big party. Sure we knew we had to do the ceremony stuff and some of the traditional things like favors, but we had some big ideas that we wanted to have come to fruition. For the most part I think we really pulled it all together even though close to the end we both were pretty sure it was all going to fall apart.

Mom's 6th grade yearbook signature to MacLeod

MacLeod and I first met when we were in middle school and lived in the same neighborhood throughout our childhoods. We were in the same First Communion class at our Catholic Church (now both converted Baptists) and attended the same high school. He met his wife in high school, I met my husband during my service in the United States Marine Corps and that's where things went awry. Everything happens for a reason they say, right? We talk a lot about what things would have been like had we actually started our relationship in high school and not fifteen years later. Would we have been the same people? Of course not. Who knows what it would have been or not been. But at the end of the day we both know that we definitely are supposed to and were always meant to be together. It just took a little longer for us to find each other... the scenic route, if you will.

The things that made us realize that it was always one another were the things we talked about in our all night conversations and even things we still discover about each other. My first car a classic 1969 Ford Fairlane 500, he owned a 1953 Ford F100. We loved the same music and ridiculous humor and best of all got each other's terrible references to obscure movies and shows.

We were dating for about six months when we started to plan our wedding. It took us (MacLeod!) a year to get engaged (ahem) and then the actually wedding planning began. The first thing that we knew that we wanted to have was a photo booth and we knew that we wanted our photo booth to be none other than the TARDIS of the famed Doctor Who. We felt this was extremely befitting because 1. we love Doctor Who, not just MacLeod and I, but the kiddos too (see Power of Three Crepes) 2. It is the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who. How can that not be a good omen, am I right? Our marriage is bound to last the test of time (And Relative Dimensions in Space....eh?) For a while we just reveled in how awesome that would be.

One day we went to a bbq festival and came across a distillery in our area, they directed us to tours they were just starting. A few days later we toured the facility and met the kindest master distiller known to man, Truman Cox. He said "someday" they were planning on having weddings in the distillery and quoted us a price. I don't think he planned on entertaining us so soon, but that is when everything came together.

Everything came together, yes...well, it was chaos, and insanity. But that was the start. We had out venue for sure. Two months later, we called the distillery back and talked to Truman and he agreed to rent the space to us, ever so skeptically given the crazy theme of our wedding. See my friends we decided that our wedding was indeed a theme wedding after all. Because MacLeod and I had been through hell and back with our previous marriages, custody issues and continued problems. Before we did the fancy party, the standard walk down the aisle, the cute little "mint for each other" crap. So our theme was "It's All Been Done Before", and we would walk down the aisle to THAT track by The Barenaked Ladies.

But that is jumping ahead a bit. Let me back up.

So the theme was "It's All Been Done Before." Our guests had lots of warning that this was not a "normal" wedding. We sent out the Save the Date which told them first what to expect a bit and directed them to our Facebook page for additional details if they were Facebook savy. Then the invitation came. The invitation included the actual invitation which on its own was the invite to the event and reception. Then there was a second explanation of our unusual wedding plan which went like this;

Dear friends and loved ones,
 

As you also probably know, both of us have been through this all before so we decided that we were not going to ever do it all the same again. In doing so, our invitation to be a guest at our wedding requires a little explanation.

Our ceremony will be something of a game, when you arrive you will receive a sheet and a pencil with spaces to fill in your answers. During the ceremony there will be some obvious, some not so obvious reference to movies that we love. You may see a guest or member of the wedding party dressed like a person from a movie or you may hear lines spoken
directly from some amazing flicks. You have to keep your eyes peeled and ears perked as you try to find all the answers to fill your sheet. To help you do this we are including a list of movies you should really consider familiarizing yourself with before the wedding- and don’t be a schmuck, join in!

When you arrive to the reception, your sheets will be collected from your tables and scored up and winners will be chosen! Yes, there will be a 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize basket for our insane wedding game.
Is this a strange way to have a wedding? Yes! Will all of you agree with it or participate? Of course not! But “it’s all been done before…” so we are making this exactly the way we want it to be and we hope that you can have as much fun as we will.

  Then it included the movie list that they were to "study" to be familiar with for the insane wedding game. It definitely was an unconventional way to have a wedding, but we wanted to have a good time, and we did the stuffy church bells already.

So the idea was that our wedding ceremony was to be completely scripted sort of like a movie, MacLeod, myself, our pastor and some members of the audience or wedding guests had parts to play in this script to make the wedding work. The guests however did not actually know their parts until they arrived because otherwise they would not have been able to participate in the game. We wanted everyone to be able to play the game if they could. So the only people that could not play the game were those who attended the rehearsal.

I created the script, and our pastor was amazing and great to work with. He was hilarious and we talked a lot before the wedding and a lot of it was pretty fluid and easy to sort of ad lib. There were some parts that we talked about before that we wanted to include after the shenanigans. Of course, we wanted to have our ceremony in our church because we wanted to honor our faith and our God, therefore we wanted our pastor to talk about our Holy union and the seriousness about it as well.

The ceremony begun with the guests seating. While the parents were seating a video to the theme music of Star Wars played with a tale of woe of Princess Mom and MacLeod Skywalker and their battles to escape their evil captors to find one another and ultimately eternal happiness. It played in a Star Wars crawl... this set the nerd theme of the entire wedding.

When the Star Wars crawl played out the Barenaked Ladies "It's All Been Done Before" started up, the bridal party started their way to the altar. The final pair in Monty Python style, one with coconuts, ala Patsy and the other galloping "on horseback." Finally the little ladies with the flowers headed down and then it was time for me and the kiddo, timing was everything so we had to wait for the music to do it and then ...."As you run down the aisle... wooo hooo hooo!!!" And we ran down the aisle, me and my little man, and he gave me away, my dad took my hand and then the ceremony proceeded into the script.

The first prize part, which was my dad's part that he proudly took was from The Godfather, MacLeod had to bend down and kiss his big ringed finger, it was hilarious. Then my father handed me over to MacLeod and took his seat.

This is already a marathon of a blog post so I won't write the entire ceremony out, but it was a great deal of fun, even the few parts we forgot from the original script, weren't missed. I think all said and done my favorite part, aside of the best ever last line of a wedding ever and yes, I have to actually write for you my dear friends:

Pastor:  "Well.... I'm not great at farewells, so, uh, that'll do, pig" (Zombieland)

 

 Mom:"That's the worst goodbye [we've] ever heard and you stole it from a movie." (Zombieland)

MacLeod Kisses Mom

Mom and MacLeod Exit to: Nine Inch Nails, We're In This Together