Tuesday, November 11, 2008

wedding recap #1: pre-ceremony

After 2 weeks of the flu (+ ear infection, + sinus infection) and generally loving life ;-), I'm back and ready to show you pictures! Sorry that some of them have the watermark of our fabulous photographer, and also that many are unedited - Laura gave me a bunch of them without the watermark and with more vibrant colors, but then I couldn't help adding more. :-)

One more time: I love Laura and Peter. Love them.

Here we go!

The banquet room, pre-ceremony: you can see the tent through the doorway, where the chuppah is set up and waiting for us.

Honestly, I have no idea how this all got done so beautifully. Well, no, that's not fair at all - Tim, my mom, the Fontainebleau staff, the caterers, and the wedding party were working incredibly hard for hours making everything look beautiful. But I saw very little of that! I was feeling so sick the couple days before the wedding and the day of the wedding that all my list-making aspirations went out the window, and that morning I just haphazardly assigned tasks to the wedding party and was totally spaced out. But they outdid themselves. The guys were given the task of hanging the paper lanterns (in addition to setting up all the throwies Tim and I had made), and I'm fairly certain they spent an hour just figuring out an algorithm that would make them look best. Yes, our friends are nerds.

Here I am with Ariel, who's wearing the crown I made to match our ribbon ties... I did the ribbon part, and Audrey (flower lady extraordinaire) made a gorgeous wreath-type thing that fit perfectly onto the ribbon crown.

My fam - grandpa, mom, (me,) dad, aunt Merle (affectionately known as Auntie M)

Pop quiz: guess how old my grandpa is. No fair if you already know. Answer will be in my next post.

My husband, looking so happy - yay! The guys had forgotten to put on their boutonnieres. They did it a few minutes later.


Our "first look," very representative of us: silly.


Look at those trees in the background! I was so sad for a month before the wedding when I saw fallen leaves, because I was worried everything would be dead for the wedding. Such an optimist. :-)

I love that Peter caught this shot. Are dragonflies good luck, like bird crap? I'd rather have a dragonfly, thankyouverymuch.



Chrissy, Melissa, me, Gabby, Hillary - they're wearing their gorgeous shawls by Jes. I opted not to wear the beautiful jacket she made for me, because I was apparently sweating out a fever. Our bouquets are decorated with the ribbon ties I made!
The guys ran down the hill to the lake and dock, and somewhere in the process Tim lost his boutonniere. But it sure is a great picture.

At this point, I've handed my bouquet to Tim so I can go find straight pins to fashion a makeshift bout. But Hillary's dad, Terry, managed to find the original!

On the table is our ketubah by our friend Paul. It is SO awesome. The painting was done on a reclaimed wood tabletop, and the wood things on the side (when hanging, they're on the right) are sliders for the English and Hebrew texts of the ketubah to fit into. Our rabbi (the wonderful David Regenspan) is holding one of the texts.

It was a little weird to be in that room because it was right by the front door, and guests kept walking in as we were trying to do something very serious - signing the ketubah and marriage license. I just felt a little bad that people kept ducking their heads in to say hi, and we had specifically asked my grandpa and aunt to be our witnesses... I envisioned it being a private event. It was still really nice, but it felt really chaotic with lots of people trying to talk to us. Then after we finished (with 5 minutes to spare before the ceremony), Tim noticed some friends come in with their uninvited teenage son. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to hit me right before the ceremony, but oh well.

Our friends Molly and Michael are serving themselves some hopefully-hotter-now-than-when-I-tried-it cider before the ceremony. Luckily, when Tim and I went upstairs for Yichud, it was plenty hot and we sat soothing our throats with hot cider. :-) Awww, how romantic!

I'm so excited to share more with you! What next - details or ceremony?



All pictures by Laura Kozlowski and Peter Ozolins, c. 2008 Laura B. Kozlowski.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

New family member!!!

This is my beautiful new niece, No-Name. Her name has its roots in ancient Jewish traditions. Har har. Actually, she'll be officially named and blessed at my brother and SIL's synagogue tomorrow morning. ***Update: Her name is Sara Tikvah - Sara pronounced "Sahhhra" (the Hebrew way), and Tikvah meaning "hope." They plan to call her by her full name. I love it!


Pretty good reason for Josh & Hillary not being able to come to the wedding, eh?

There is very little doubt as to whose family she's part of:
  • hair
  • cheeks
  • size! (21 inches; 8 lbs, 15.5 oz)