Happy Anniversary!

On this day four years ago Bryan and I became husband and wife. I thought I would share with all of you the story behind our wedding. Although Bryan and I had gotten engaged in October of 2004 we had not set a wedding date. We weren’t sure where we would live or even where Bryan would work. At the time Bryan was a recent college grad, living at home and working in a temporary position at a mortgage company. I was still a student at Cal Poly Pomona and living at home as well. Bryan had been interviewing for jobs. A couple of weeks before we got married he finally got a job that he interviewed for, his start date was January 31st, the Monday after we got married. The weekend before we got married we still had not set a wedding date. That Sunday we arrived at the conclusion that we should get married soon. How soon? Well the following Friday of course. We came up with a plan; we would get married and live with my parents until we could find a place of our own. We would use Bryan’s new income to help them pay rent. In order for my parents to go along with this without telling them we were planning on getting married I said that

Bryan wanted to move in with us because his new job was very close by and he didn’t want to commute from Orange County where his parents lived. This was a completely true statement. My parents happened to live about 10 minutes away from Bryan’s new job. They agreed. So during that week we secretly planned our wedding. We didn’t want to invite anybody, no friends, no family. The reason for this was two-fold. For one it is much easier to plan a wedding in less than 5 days when family is not involved and two, I am extremely shy about being in the spotlight. The thought of all my family and his family watching me cry my eyes out and say my vows terrified me. I’m not a public speaker and my wedding was no exception. While other girls dreamed about a big wedding, I dreamed about a private ceremony, just me and my husband. I know it sounds weird but it’s what I always wanted.

Planning a wedding in less than 5 days proved to be very easy. Bryan decided to wear a suit instead of a tux to our wedding so his work was done. I found a place close by my parents house that sold wedding dresses. I found the perfect one and it was only $125, it had to be tailored slightly though and they manged to get that done by the day before the wedding. I also had the same luck when ordering my bouquet and the boutonniere. They had it done the day we left to get married. Now it was time to figure out where we would get married. Hmm where could we get married at the last minute? You guessed it…Las Vegas baby! We found a great rate at the Fitzgerald in downtown Vegas, conveniently located next to the court house in fact. I looked on the Internet and found a chapel to get married in; The Little White Wedding Chapel. I know what your thinking: didn’t Britney Spears and her first husband get married there? Why yes they did. To get married in their chapel cost only $55, we could have chosen to be married in their drive-thru chapel but that just seemed a little too tacky for our taste.

On that Friday the 28th we left early in the morning, having told our parents we were just going to spend the weekend in Vegas. We picked up my dress and the flowers and headed over. When we got there, we walked across the street from our hotel to the court house and applied for our marriage license. The last thing I had to do was my hair and that turned out to be more troublesome than expected. After driving for miles and stopping at three different hair places I finally found one that would do my hair. By the time I was done it was getting late and we were scheduled to get married at 6pm. We rushed back to the hotel to get ready. When we left for the chapel it was pouring rain outside but my hairstylist said that rain on your wedding day is good luck. I don’t really believe in luck but maybe she was right. When we got there we were asked what kind of ceremony we would like. We chose a Christian one even though we were offered to be married by Elvis…umm no thanks. We had no  witnesses with us so the lady at the front desk signed off as our witness. We were offered a picture package, a single roll

of 12 pictures for $75, I know that seems like a lot but I was willing to do it. After all you only get married once. When we went into the chapel we were greeted by a little old lady who played the organ. She asked what kind of music we wanted her to play as we walked down the aisle. I was tempted to say Metallica “Nothing Else Matters” but I resisted and told her the traditional stuff would be fine. I was so nervous when I got to the end of the aisle where Bryan was waiting for me. When it was time to exchange the vows that we had written for each other I cried, I knew I would, and just as soon as the ceremony started it was over. Then the photographer came in and had us do a few pictures in the chapel. then he took us to his studio and we did a few more shots. After, he gave us the roll of film so we could go develop it ourselves. When got back to the hotel I was starving so I asked Bryan to pick me up a 20 piece chicken McNugget meal from the McDonald’s downstairs. Yep you heard that right, my wedding dinner was at McDonald’s. I surprise myself with how high class I am sometimes.

The next day we called our immediate family to tell them the news, as you probably guessed they were shocked although my family wasn’t surprised I would do something like that, I had hinted at it for years. We also took our roll of film to the one hour processing at Walgreen’s. As you can see by the photos I posted they were pretty good. I didn’t have high expectations but I was pleasantly surprised. I did want more professional wedding photos however, and about three months after our wedding I got the bright idea to go to the LA Arboretum in Arcadia in our wedding attire and take photos. Let’s just say the folks at the Arboretum didn’t like that too much as they charge a hefty fee for wedding parties coming in to take photographs. I asked my best friend Tara to take the photos since at the time she was taking photo classes at Mt. Sac including a wedding photography class. So after telling the staff that it was for Tara’s wedding class (which was absolutely true) they agreed to let us in. As you can see Tara took some amazing shots of us. You wouldn’t believe she had never shot a wedding. She used her Canon Digital Rebel for the color shots and her Canon Rebel film camera to take the black & white shots. Well there you have it! Our crazy wedding and all for the low price of $450 for everything!