Perfect Wedding Moment 2009

Today is our 4th wedding anniversary! We will spend the better part of the day driving to the Cape, which is fairly typical for us in the summer, but this trip is to celebrate Kevin's grandmother Ruth's 90th birthday! How wonderful! We'll celebrate our anniversary tonight with lobster rolls and drinks by the water. I can't think of anything better really.

In the meantime, let me share one of my favorite wedding memories. We planned to take all our posed wedding photos before the ceremony so that we could attend our cocktail hour, but before the ceremony it was a little cloudy. The sun came out as I came down the aisle, so afterwards, our photographer suggested some more pictures on the beach with the wedding party. Eventually, the wedding party went back to the cocktail hour, and Kevin and I took a few more pictures. The whole world looked perfect around me. Kevin was beaming, the sun was shining, and the ocean and the beach were sublimely beautiful. It was a rare perfect moment where you really wouldn't change a thing even if you had years to think about it. And there are pictures of that moment.

You can see it here.

Kevin is an amazing husband. No one has ever loved me as well or as deeply as he has. I can be a real pain sometimes, and he is always patient but he also always pushes me to be my best self. I respect him more than anyone I've ever known because he is smart, hardworking, selfless, and generous. I would be hard-pressed to find a better person to ask for advice or to trust personally. It is really hard to express how much I love him, and even more than the day we got married because I know him that much better now, and I am that much more impressed with the person he is. I want to make him as happy as he makes me. Very. 

Wedding Vows 2009

Today is our third wedding anniversary! Kevin and I wrote our own vows for our wedding and they're still as true today as they were three years ago.  What I said that day is not only true, but to a greater extent than I ever believed possible. There is no one I respect more than Kevin.  He always tries to do the right thing, and because he's so smart and hard-working, he basically always does. Calling him "generous"- with his time, his love, his patience, and our money- it's an understatement.  I don't know of a word that covers it. If there were a word for a hero that serves mainly his family and friends, that would be it.

My vows to Kevin:
You are the most generous, intelligent, hard-working, handsome man I have ever known.
I have such deep respect for you.
The way you care for your family and make your friends laugh-- we are all so lucky to have you in our lives.
I promise to always love you and try to make you as happy as you make me.

I liked it, so I put a ring on it. (Paraphrasing Beyoncé)

Kevin's vows to me:
I promise you the first cup of coffee and last piece of sushi;
from this day it will only be your name I call for at night
and your warmth I wake to in the morning,
my living and dying, each equally in your hands.

You can never be old,
for as you are now—alone in my hands,
tan bella que mi vida se siente nuevo—
you will always be to me.

Married!

For the record, he really does give me the first cup of coffee in the morning and the last piece of sushi when we splurge on sushi.

Wedding Readings 2009

In honor of our anniversary and for posterity, I wanted to post the readings from our wedding.

During the ceremony Janice read part of a poem I selected in 2007 while Kevin and I were in Florida for Megan and Ed's wedding. We were staying with Kevin's brother Andrew and I was killing some time online when I found the poem. Kevin hadn't actually proposed yet, so I put the poem in my back pocket. The poem turned out to be prophetic. Janice agreed it was almost spooky how the poem fit by the time it was read in 2009, but since then, the poem fits even better. Except this: I went to East Hampton, not Kevin; I have yet to wear sunglasses in Balboa Park; and Kevin has yet to rake leaves in Ithaca. But we'll see what the future brings.

From "When a Woman Loves a Man"
by David Lehman

When she says margarita she means daiquiri.
When she says quixotic she means mercurial.
And when she says, "I'll never speak to you again,"
she means, "Put your arms around me from behind
as I stand disconsolate at the window."

He's supposed to know that.

When a man loves a woman he is in New York and she is in Virginia
or he is in Boston, writing, and she is in New York, reading,
or she is wearing a sweater and sunglasses in Balboa Park and he is raking leaves in Ithaca
or he is driving to East Hampton and she is standing disconsolate
at the window overlooking the bay
where a regatta of many-colored sails is going on
while he is stuck in traffic on the Long Island Expressway.

When a woman loves a man it is one ten in the morning
she is asleep he is watching the ball scores and eating pretzels
drinking lemonade
and two hours later he wakes up and staggers into bed
where she remains asleep and very warm.

My mother read a poem in Spanish, that I loved, but she said sounded a bit "stalkerish" to her. It's romantic! Not stalkerish.

Quiero decirte algo
by Nestor Oscar Morris

Yo creo que lo sabes pero igual te lo digo,
quisiera ser tu sombra, por eso te persigo,
quisiera ser la almohada que acompañe tus sueños,
ser el acto oportuno y apoyar tus empeños.
Quisiera estar contigo cuando mas lo requieras,
cuando te sientas sola, cuando sufras esperas.
Quisiera ser el balsamo que calme tus dolores
y detener tus lagrimas en cada vez que llores.

Yo creo que lo sabes pero igual te lo digo,
te quiero como a nadie y Dios es mi testigo.

Translation: 
I think you know, but I'll tell you just the same,
I'd like to be your shadow, that's why I follow you,
I'd like to be the pillow that accompanies your dreams,
be the opportune act and support your desires.
I'd like to be with you when you most need it,
when you feel alone, when you suffer hopes.
I'd like to be the balm that soothes your pain
and stop your tears every time you cry.

I think you know, but I'll tell you just the same,
I love you like no one else and my witness is God.

Finally, Briggs read a poem that Kevin selected. This one turned out to be my favorite.

somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
by e. e. cummings

somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Wedding Guestbook Time Capsule 2010

Kevin and I celebrated our 1st anniversary a week early in Niagara Falls.  But then on the actual day of our anniversary we ate some (badly preserved, really gross) wedding cake and then went to the new Brooklyn Bridge Park to take 1-year anniversary pictures and break open our "Message in a Bottle" guest book.

The idea was that instead of just writing in a wedding guest book, guest would write us a message, put it in the wine bottle, and we would read the messages on our first anniversary.  It fit nicely with our Cape Cod beachy theme, complete with Nantucket Mojitos (Kevin's from Cape Cod + I'm Cuban), beach accents in our centerpieces, and our starfish wine stopper wedding favor.  We actually used the wedding wine stopper in the wine bottle guest book.

"Message in a Bottle" guest book


Wedding favor starfish wine stopper


One-year anniversary photo in our then-borough of Brooklyn

Some people asked how we planned to get the messages out. Fair.  I figured we could smash the wine bottle and fish out the messages.  This turned out to be a little trickier than I thought it would because we didn't want to break glass inside our apartment, and breaking it outside could cause us to lose all the messages. So we decided to break it outside, and in a plastic bag.  Brilliant except it's still hard and weird to break a glass bottle outside. Luckily we live in New York, so we found a relatively unpopulated spot, and no one paid too much attention while Kevin smashed his plastic bag with a hammer.

Kevin showing the bottle who's boss

There were a lot of messages so I decided to be completely biased about it and post those of people who regularly comment on our blog.  Luckily these were also some of the cooler ones.

Mom and Dad


Kevin's mom


Chrissy and Jason


Lukas and Sarah


Robin (and Cory)

Beautiful Music 2006 - 2009

Another thing we still frequently do is go to concerts of Kevin's choice because I don't usually suggest any. (I did go to Dr. Dog with my friend Michele, but he didn't get invited.) So anyway, we only go to concerts he picks, but we both enjoy them. And we definitely go to more and better concerts than if I were in charge.

Islands Concert, Charlottesville, VA, 2006

Our first concert together, and probably still my favorite, was the intimate Jose Gonzalez show where I sadly took no pictures, and where I my spilled drink and almost killed Jose in a slip-and-fall accident. Sorry, Jose. We had been dating less than two months and sat on the floor together, Kevin with his arm around me, and we listened to romantic guitar music. For a long time, I wanted "Remain" to be our wedding song, but it was too fast to be workable.

After that there was Islands, Camera Obscura, Deerhoof, The New York Philharmonic, The National, Magnetic Fields, Decemberists, Cat Power, and about a week ago, M. Ward.

M. Ward Concert at Summer Stage, NYC, 2009

Ultimately, our wedding song was Cat Power's cover of Sea of Love, a well-known song from 1959. We liked her cover of I Found A Reason even more, but both her version and Lou Reed's original version were impossible to dance to. We tried and tried and tried! But picking songs and practicing to all of them was half the fun. Teaching Kevin to spin me was a little more painful.

Dancing to Sea of Love at our wedding, June 2009

Honeymoon in Greece Review 2009

Our honeymoon in June was basically the best trip ever. It was a good trip on its own with wonderful beach weather, beautiful sites, nice hotel rooms, and great places to relax and do nothing. Add to that the fact that it was our honeymoon, so we're permanently biased in favor of it, and I wonder if anywhere will ever live up to it. But it's a good problem to have.

We started our trip in Athens where we took in all the big sites including the Parthenon, the Erechtheum, the Ancient Agora and the Roman Agora, Theater of Dionysus, Hadrian Library, and even the ruins in the subway. Basically classical sights heaven.

 

Acropolis- Parthenon 2009

From Athens we went to Folegandros, a small fishing island a ferry ride from Athens. Kevin loved this place. It's definitely my favorite place, maybe ever, but I don't know how much of this was from soaking in how happy Kevin was. There was nothing to do there ("and it was everything I thought it could be." - Peter Gibbons). The people at our hotel were super nice-- I mean, the 80 people on the entire island were super nice. The weather was perfect with the breeze off the water. The seafood was so incredibly fresh. The Greek food was the most delicious I have ever had. We spent the mornings on the different little beaches near the harbor and hotel in the village of Karavostassis. In the evenings, we had dinner just uphill in the village of Chora.

Folegandros from our hotel balcony

From there we took another ferry to Santorini, which was much more touristy. We hiked around the volcano that the island of Santorini hugs, soaked in Mediterranean Sea hot springs, and watched the amazing sunsets every night. Our hotel room looked like it was built into a cave and had the most amazing view of Santorini and the village of Ea. I had a sniffly cold the entire time we were on the honeymoon, but the trip was still perfect.

Santorini from our hotel balcony

• View our wedding ceremony, 
• Go to our 1-year anniversary, or 
• Open our "Message in Bottle" wedding guest book

Our Wedding Reception 2009

Our reception began at 7 p.m. in the Nantucket Room of the Wychmere Harbor Club. Our first married was dance to Sea of Love, a 1950s love song.  It was originally by John Phillip Baptiste (a.k.a. Phil Phillips) and George Khoury, but we danced to the Cat Power cover from her 2000 Covers album. We liked some other songs as well but found them impossible to dance to, and Sea of Love was on theme with our Cape Cod seashore wedding.

First dance dip!

Our table cards were recent photos of our wedding guests (I made them myself), and around the outside of the table we had our five sets of grandparents' wedding pictures.

Photo table cards

Our beautiful and simple Cape-Cod-beach-theme cake was one of the easiest wedding decisions. We both instantly agreed to get the cake the moment we saw it. We used my parents' cake knife set to cut the cake.

Feeding Kevin cake

The bouquet toss got the party really started:

Jen and Brooke go for the bouquet, and Brooke catches it

Dancing to Beyoncé's Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) right after the bouquet toss

Dancing with my grandmother to Celia Cruz; it's tough to beat these moments in life:

Dancing with Mima

My parents dancing to their own wedding song, Lionel Richie's Hello.

My parents are cute.

Jon won the worm-off with Paduch (it's like a dance-off, but you do the "worm":

Jon doing the worm

Our real song together was the last song at the wedding, Of Montreal's Wraith Pinned To The Mist, with the "bizarre celebrations" lyrics and a quick tempo. Kevin introduced me to the indie tune early in our relationship, and right away I knew I wanted it played at our wedding. The song captures what our relationship felt like when we started dating- a big wild happy party. One of the best moments in the reception was when the DJ played the song at the end and absolutely everyone at the wedding came out onto the dance floor and made the song come true. Thank you guys. I love you more than you could know.

Last dance of the wedding.

Off to our honeymoon in Greece!

Wedding Cocktail Hour and Half 2009

Our ceremony was a little short so our cocktail hour was extended. And who doesn't like a longer cocktail hour?

Our signature cocktail, the Cape Cod Mojito

Aubree and Patrick enjoying some wine outside

Posing with my high school friends

Jinsoo playing classical piano inside

We used a clean wine bottle as a guest book and encouraged guests to write us messages that we would wait to read until our one year wedding anniversary. We will smash the bottle if we must.  It's the sentiments inside that matter.

Message in a bottle

Writing messages for our guest book bottle

Group photo and Wedding Thank You card

Then we went inside for the Reception

Our Wedding Ceremony 2009!

The best decision in my life was also the easiest one.  When our officiant Brady asked if I would take Kevin as my husband, I said, "definitely."

My beautiful mother did my makeup

The groom and groomsmen heading to the ceremony

The ceremony musicians

My dad walking me down the aisle

The outdoor ceremony officiated by our friend Brady

Married!

Our parents

The wedding party

Forever isn't long enough

On to the Cocktail Hour