Our Wedding day

2/22/2018 2 Comments

Our Wedding day

I know everyone says their wedding was the “best ever”, but I truly believe that our day definitely would have won that TLC show: Four Weddings …for every airing …for eternity. I don’t even know where to begin to describe the chain of events, bear with me this is also my first blog post, but I suppose getting ready in the morning would be a good start. For me, the day started at my mom’s house; I invited all of my—ten—amazing bridesmaids over to get ready with me in the morning. We slipped into our robes, hung our dresses, and then our makeup artists & hair stylists came and started getting to work! …and boy were we ready for this pampering. As a gift to the bridesmaids, I had laid out monogrammed stemless glasses for the girls and they went to town on the Mimosa Bar. My Maid Of Honor made an amazing playlist and we were dancing the morning away along with those pre-wed butterflies! Now when I say butterflies, I don’t mean “OMG what am I doing getting married before 25? To this guy?” second-guessing butterflies. I knew very well that Jake was the person I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with, but after being engaged for a year and a half you definitely have that holy sh**, top of the rollercoaster moment when you realize everything you’ve been talking about and planning for is all coming together and happening today.

So I paced back and forth for a hot sec and got a quick pep talk from my M.O.H, until it was time to put on my dress. That’s when everything sank in, for the better. Our photographer wrote a blog about the day, which I’ll attach below, and I don’t think they could have put it any better.

“…you could see Jacqueline turn into a bride. She slipped on her lace, blue bottomed Betsey Johnson heels and stood tall. And you could see the moment when the bride realizes she’s actually marrying her best friend.”

After taking some “Getting Ready” photos with my girls, we got on the party bus and headed to the church. The ceremony was being held at the Greek Orthodox Church I was raised in, St. Demetrios. I walked inside and was rushed in this hidden room to wait so I wouldn’t be seen and I remember hearing all of the people in there. I just kept thinking if I could see his face, everything would be fine (this would have been a good time for one of those corny pre-wedding letters I had seen on Pinterest a million times and didn’t think to suggest). But soon enough it was time and sure enough the second I saw his face those butterflies vanished and a feeling overcame me like no other.
How do you even begin to describe the happiness in facing your partner at the ends of the aisle, walking towards your everlasting future together? If you have a man like mine, that feeling is indescribable.

Like I said before I come from a [BIG FAT] Greek family, so my wedding was essentially the movie minus the Windex (wtf is with that anyways?) and the fact that my family couldn’t help, but love Jake the instant they met him so that wasn’t a whole struggle. I think the biggest obstacle he faced in coming into my overwhelmingly large and old-fashioned family was telling them he was wearing sneakers to the wedding. Yes ladies, my husband rocked Yeezy's to our wedding and he looked damn good doing it. And before you all sit here and call me crazy or tacky, who said the wedding was all about the bride? If as a partner you're already struggling with the happiness of your significant other and compromise ...sneakers will be the least of your wedding worries. BUT back to the wedding day, after the ceremony, we dismissed the pews and greeted our guests before taking family photos outside in the garden. Once those wrapped up, we got on the bus to celebrate with our bridal party and headed downtown for group photos! Our bridal party was SOO excited for us, more than we had anticipated, as 75% of the alcohol was gone by the time we had gotten on the bus, making for an interesting ride and an exciting set of pictures (to our photographers, Austin and Rachel, bless your heart). **Let me just put a note in here and say if for any reason you get a vibe from one of your vendors that they aren’t flexible or might cause stress to any potential situation give them the boot from the start. Any vendor that will bring problems to your attention on your big day is not the wedding vendor for you, mine all did an amazing job of going with the flow and making sure Jake and I were stress-free.

Following our group photographs at the Hyatt and Rock Hall, we headed to our amazing industrial-looking venue, Windows on the River, which if you can believe it's one of the only wedding venues in Cleveland that take's advantage of the lake view. We had our cocktail hour for our guests outside on the patio so they could sit alongside the river and enjoy Cleveland’s waterfront before heading inside for the reception. The reception hall was two floors, showcasing the floor to ceiling two-story windows overlooking the city and the waterfront. We entered at the top staircase and danced our way down before shoving cake in each others faces to start the evening. If there’s one word to describe Jake and I’s relationship it's fun. Note: If you don't have the type of relationship where you can throw cake in each others faces and then lick it off, I highly encourage you find a relationship where that changes ...or loosen up a little! That's your best friend, relationships are supposed to be fun!
That first few minutes of the reception were the kind you wish you could replay over and over. A little background on our wedding planning experience, and I wanted to mention this as little as possible, shortly after our engagement my parents split, which caused lots of strain on the wedding planning process. However, if you know the two of us you’d know we try to make the best and most out of everything, so while things were stressful we ended up getting to invite 75 of our friends (they initially told us 15) unnoticed because they were too succumbed in their own crap to care lol. Consequently, and the reason I even got into that, when we walked out into the reception hall, it felt like we were at our own concert, crowd screaming, Jake getting high fives—it was nuts.
What an amazing feeling to have so many people you care about in one room genuinely excited for and celebrating your love.

The night followed suit, while full of Greek tradition and dancing, our friends definitely brought a youth to the atmosphere keeping the party going and the dance floor full all night long. Our band, Walk of Shame, was having such a good time and kept up the energy even well after it was time to close up. It was a party. Jake and I totally skipped our “Grand Exit” and missed our get away car because the night had moved so quickly, we didn’t want to leave. The night could not end, at least not on our terms, and it didn't--even after the reception ended! Our friends convinced the front desk at the hotel to give us one of the open conference rooms and threw us the most amazing after party ...and if that wasn’t enough we got to have a little Friend-y-moon with them in P.I.B for the days following, as they stayed in town to celebrate with us for the Fourth of July. We couldn't have asked for a better celebration. And for those of you thinking "Come on, nothing went wrong?" Oh of course it did, but that's the funny thing about marrying the love of your life... everything else is background noise.