Private wedding redo!

[daffodil]

If you read my first whiny long post in the vent section, you'd learn that my husband and I had a pretty horrid wedding. Everything that could go wrong did with a vengance, the MIL went crazy :icon_barbar:style, and my mom got sick getting left out of most of the events other than the ceremony and a brief part of the reception.

I reapproached my hubby about redoing the wedding for just us, and surprise surprise he agreed. I asked him what he wanted out of our wedding that he didn't get, and after sifting through the fluff of specifics, we nailed it down to certain elements we felt we missed out on. We're not from any organized religion and don't believe in OMG ONE DAY making any difference in our lives, but really wanted a day to celebrate. We've gotten through so much that it seems appropriate to honor that as well.

So, we're planning to have a little party/celebration/recommitment by ourselves. We're going to take our own pictures with the remote release or of each other. We're going to have wonderful food. I'm even going to make myself the dress of my dreams instead of the one I got because my mom liked it last time.

I envision it as being a magical golden hour to evening time, maybe under a live oak with hundreds of little lantern candles all around and in the trees. We want to share our love of the Art Nouvuea period, and so I want a fanciful reimagining of that period in my dress, etc. I'm going to take at least one picture of me in my mom's old veil to tie in that history for us.

I'm hoping that we can get me a new wedding ring, too. (He has absolutely NO interest in wearing jewelry of any kind ;) ) I don't want anything fancy, in fact, what I have now is too fancy for me and was really what my MIL/bridesmaid wanted me to get. I would have liked to wear my grandma's ring, but they buried her in it against her and my wishes. So I'm looking for an actual vintage engraved wedding band if we can afford it.

Many of you may think this is silly, but to me, what we are doing is finally getting the core of what we wanted in the first place. We did the other for family, now is our time to do this for us.

Any advice, ideas?

[WebLady]

You should do whatever makes you and your husband happy :)

So are you going to invite close friends and do a party/reception or are you going to do a vow renewal ceremony too?

[daffodil]

This is going to be just for us. Someday we'll have a fun shindig of an anniversary party, but one of my main complaints before our wedding was that to me it's such as solemn private moment that it seemed weird to do it in front of others. I love going to weddings and don't see anything wrong with them, nor do I feel like I'm prying. But for me personally, it's kind of like making out in front of your parents. It would just feel wrong.

[WebLady]

OIC; well like I said, do what makes you guys happy :grinhappy:

[RosieAngel]

I think it's an awesome, romantic idea! You already have a lot of great ideas! I love the image of votive candles lit around a tree!

As for advice... since you're traveling, have you thought of packing a large bag of freeze-dried rose petals for scattering? That could add to the romance, I think!

What kind of new ring were you thinking of? I LOVE jewelry, including plain gold bands... When he asked what I liked most, I told DH that I liked 18K gold bands and eternity bands (bands with diamonds all around)... one of each would be great for the wedding! But DH wanted to get me a ring with a large central gemstone. I wear them both sometimes, but I usually just wear the wedding band.

[ikkin510]

I'm so glad your Dh agreed to have a ceremony for the two of you. Your ideas sound perfect and very beautiful!

[daffodil]

Teehee Rosie, we live in the live oak area... well not at our house, but any public park in the area. I love having moved here! :D

I really agree on rose petals. :D That's one thing I missed at our wedding, everyone left before we did, so we didn't get the rose petal toss. Poopie. So here's a good way to still be happy with it lol.

Hrm, I like simple white or rose gold engraved bands, I like vintage rings from the 1900's, but DH's promised to get me one when we go to Europe someday. I just want something super simple and non-expensive, yet permanent. :D We didn't have the money when we got engaged, so he promised that for the future when he gave me a different ring lol.

Dh's all cute and excited about this. For someone who was resisiting it tooth and nail, he's being adorable about it!

[Gertie]

Absolutely, fantastically, unequivocally MARVELOUS!

I can really relate as there was stuff around the time of our wedding that caused dh and I to miss out on a few things. I guess no one ever has the "perfect" wedding, certainly....but I see nothing at all wrong with finding a meaningful way for the two of you to just enjoy those things you would like to have had. DH and I did that ourselves, and it was wonderful beyond my wildest dreams.

It's a long story but dh and I had to cancel our honeymoon at the last moment and had none because of a lot of family bruhaha. Adding to the mix, I always dreamed of the love of my life planning a wonderful anniversary trip for just the two of us, but dh isn't really the classic romantic sort, and he doesn't like travel much so has never done it. Not that he is not romantic in the sense that he often does wonderful, sweet little things to make me smile or bring me joy. He just would never think to bring flowers and chocolates, and he thinks bringing home subway constitutes romantically providing dinner. :)

Well, he outdid himself. He searched his logs and found where I had mentioned the website of an elegant, romantic, victorian bed and breakfast and saw that reservations were booked for a weekend. He made all the arrangements for our two daughters, he arranged reservations for us at the most elegant restaurant with the most fantastic food nearby, which I had mentioned to him along with the B&B. He even arranged breakfast in bed at the b&b for us! I was so impressed with all that even though I knew my lovely mil must have helped him and sure enough, although he searched out the places, she made the calls as he was just too scared he'd embarass himself trying to figure out what to say to make the actual reservations! LOL

But the thing that absolutely made me cry tears of joy and disbelief was when he pulled up in front of the Morten Myerson symphony hall the second night. He'd had me dress up for dinner. I didn't even know they had any sort of restaurant there. He'd booked us in for an elegant dinner, complete with champagne and strawberries before a wonderful performance! I cried again when, recounting the tale of our wonderful, fairytale weekend to my MIL she informed me DH had in fact thought of my long-ago mention of the symphony hall I had longed to see since it's openning and booked those himself. Of course it helped he didn't have to speak to anyone, it was all booked online. :)

[savepaws]

I think re-doing your wedding privately is a great idea, considering that your wedding turned totally into someone else's wedding & wasn't what you wanted. I think your idea of the candles under a tree is sooo romantic & sweet.

We are having a fairly big wedding which isn't going to leave us much time for sweet & intimate moments when we are surrounded by friends and family ALL WEEKEND LONG. lol I'm already pooped just thinking about everything I have to do that weekend. I really love your idea!