Let's Talk Wedding: At First Sight

After a lot of thought, Ken and I decided to see each other before the wedding. I always thought this wouldn't be an issue b/c I wanted the traditional and "romantic" first sight to be as I was walking down the aisle. A few things made me change my mind. First of all, I REALLY wanted pictures of Ken and I together in our wedding attire in downtown Tulsa. They usually call these sessions, "Trashing the Dress". I wasn't really wanting to jump into a pool with him or anything like that, but I did want some pictures of just us. My original thought was to get up early on Sunday morning, the day after the wedding, and head downtown for pictures before we left for our honeymoon. I really didn't want to worry about that the next day, but I didn't want to schedule it for when we got back from the honeymoon b/c we'd have to rent a tux for Ken again. My 2nd thought was to have the wedding on Saturday morning, and then do pictures after the reception later in the day....but, I really wanted an evening wedding b/c I wanted it to be more formal. My mom mentioned something to me about us seeing each other before the wedding, but still just didn't see how it was going to work....UNTIL, I read a blog post on my photographer's blog (www.storybookweddings.org) that explained how they had staged the "first meeting" of the bride and groom in downtown Tulsa before their wedding!!!!! I was SUPER excited!!!!!

The next thing I had to work through was the whole "tradition" thing. I realized that there were a lot of things I wasn't doing that fell under "tradition" (like no bouquet tossing or garter tossing or unity candle). The more I thought about our first seeing each other being as I walked down the aisle, I realized what we would miss out on. We wouldn't get to talk and kiss and just be us. We'd have to stand through a ceremony and not get any alone time. All our guests would be watching this very intimate moment, instead of it being just us. I made my decision and was very thankful for the time we had together. I LOVE that we got to spend the whole day together, instead of being kept from each other. He's my best friend and once that BIG moment was over, we returned to being just us! It was nice to be with him up until the moments right before the ceremony started. He very much calmed my nerves! I'm so thankful I didn't spend the day building intense emotion.....but got our moment together early on and enjoyed each other the rest of the day.

Here we are seeing each other for the first time on our wedding day. The photographers staged it where I was waiting for him to meet me. It was so weird knowing that he was coming, but I couldn't hear him...but I could see the photographers taking pictures and my best friend smiling. :) It was so nice to just talk and be silly and kiss!!!! And not worry about time or other people!