15 Years Ago Today

K and I got married at an unusual (at the time for Brazil)* late morning ceremony -- scheduled for 11 am, but actually started past noon. It was a wonderful day and I wouldn't change anything about it -- OK, maybe perhaps the photographer :-).

It was a BIG wedding for American standards (most of the weddings I've been to in the U.S. have been very intimate affairs), we sent out over 400 invitations and we calculate there must have been upwards of 500 people at the ceremony and luncheon reception that followed in the cafeteria of the college where we worked.

I wanted to write so many things about that day, starting with a detailed account of the hundreds of flowers that I picked and bought myself (they all cost around 600 dollars, half of which another bride paid and the lady who arranged them did it for free because she was a friend of the second couple), but I don't have the time nor the frame of mind to do it (I'm in the middle of a busy and frustrating as usual cyber schooling day). And you already know that K is at home and I'm here, so no celebration for us today, just this post. I hope you enjoy the photos that follow with some commentary.

Note: I didn't ask K's permission to post photos of him, but I guess he's going to have to let this one pass since I've been waiting so many years to write this post and share photos of our wedding day.

Here's the invitation
(Very unusual too, to this day.
K and I helped a friend of ours design it. We love green and bamboo).
The wedding bands are the photographer's.
My bouquet is on the right bottom, on the upper left are the dried flowers from the reception table decorations and on the top center are some of the flowers from the church.
The small wreaths at the bottom were the (handmade) party favors. I have over ten of them that I still hang on our Christmas trees!

This is my favorite photo of the two of us at the church, my dad has just "given me away" and we're getting ready to climb the steps to reach the pulpit at the podium. Can't you feel our happiness?
Both our dads are pastors, so K's dad spoke first, then my dad, who read a very moving letter that she wrote to me after I was born (he met me only when I was almost 3 months old) -- actually I think we lost the letter after the wedding :-(. At least we have the video.

A close up of us and a panoramic view:

I've always loved children, so I had sixteen (!) kids as part of the wedding party.
The photos below feature the kids that had matching outfits (I bought the fabric too), there were two more, brother and sister -- photo below)

These are the girls (minus the youngest one, only two at the time). Three were my students, two my cousins' daughters and one the daughter of a second cousin of K's mom.

Here are the boys.

Four are my cousins' children, the oldest is K's cousing and one is my student. The littlest cousin is missing from the shot, he was only 12 months old.

This is my favorite photo of all.

And it's so cool that I just had to include a "watermark" on it. Hopefully nobody will steal it.

Here is a photo of us with my handsome brother. He had long hair at the time, which my mom hated! :-) Coincidentally, K's second brother, who was also in the wedding party with his girlfriend (now my SIL, the one famous for party decoration), was wearing the exact same cream colored suit as my brother!
The cake was just for photographs because we had two or three huge sheet cakes that were shared with everyone. It was a simple white, moist cake with a marshmallow and coconut frosting. It had two fillings, both based on sweetened condensed milk, one with dried apricots and the other with nuts. We didn't get to taste it and the piece we froze for our one year anniversary didn't have much filling. :-(

Look at us with all those children! (there's one girl missing)
And here are the cute brother and sister, children of a friend.

Me and my flowers. Those were natural flowers in my hair and dress.

Here are two of the photos we took in the hallway of the school where I worked. I like the first one, so I "watermarked" it too.
Before taking off my dress so we could drive to the airport for the honeymoon I took this photo with my grandmother: We weren't able to take this photo in the reception because the photographer had to leave by 3 p.m. No photos of my family (my parents, my brother and us) were taken either and no good photos of my mom's extended family. My mom regrets this very deeply, but she couldn't do much because she was the hostess for the reception (in Brasil it's usually the bride's family who gives the wedding reception).

OK, it's almost 12:30 in the U.S. around the same time I entered the church (here in Brazil it's almost 3:30 pm), so let me post this. Enjoy!

* A lot of people prefer night time weddings in Brazil, but since 1994 apparently daytime weddings have become a bit more common.