I'll save the "How We Met" story for the next Show and Tell Tuesday. For now, I'll just share the pictures and story of my favorite day.
My mom and dad both walked me down the aisle at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church (OLPH - where I now teach and our boys attend school). I was soooooo nervous, and my dad kept tugging on my arm and telling me to slow down! (You might notice that my dad is bent over. He had severe arthritis that fused his neck and spine causing his back to bend and curve. He passed away 6 years ago and I miss him terribly.)
So many thoughts come to mind for this picture. I love seeing family and friends in the pews. I love my dress. The statue of the risen Jesus hanging on the wall at the front of the church has been replaced by a crucifix. That statue is now hanging outside the church. The carpet has also changed color.
One funny story about the dress. My mom bought it for me BEFORE Eric proposed! We were shopping and the department store we were in was closing out their bridal section. My mom looked at me and said, "Let's look at wedding dresses. If you find one, I'll buy it!" What????? I kept asking her if she knew something...like maybe Eric had asked her and my dad permission to marry me. She said no. Oh, and at this point, we had only been dating for 2 1/2 months. My mom just said she knew he's the one for me!
I was still reluctant, but I tried on two dresses and we picked the second one! The dress was on sale for $125 and we also got my sister's matron of honor dress for like $7! My mom spent less than $200 on my dress, my big puffy slip and my sister's dress! That takes bargain shopping to extreme!
I was afraid to tell Eric I got a wedding dress because seriously! But I also can't keep secrets from him, so I blabbed it to him two days later while sitting in a Wienerschnitzel eating hot dogs! He was surprised, but totally cool about it. I think we were officially engaged a week later.
I love that we attended this church while dating, got married here, baptized our babies here, watched Evan receive his First Reconciliation and Communion here, and will be here in two Saturdays for Hudson's First Reconciliation. Monsignor Dreiling has been moved to other parishes, but the church, for us, has remained the constant in our lives.
We kept the wedding very simple and only had one attendant each: my sister and Eric's boss. We also got married on the first Saturday after Easter, so there were tons of flowers in the church and we didn't need to add to the beauty!
We also chose to have a full Catholic Mass wedding as opposed to a shorter wedding ceremony without the Mass. We wanted the full ceremony, especially since our first date was at church!
I only notice how much taller Eric is than me in photos like this one! He has to bend over to kiss me!
Mr. and Mrs. Eric and Heather Forcey!
Photos after the wedding. We chose not to see each other prior to the ceremony. This picture is probably one of my top three favorites of the day. Oh, how we look so young. Eric was 34 and I was 28. We'll be married for 12 years this April. We look a bit older now! I'll be 40 in 9 days.
I wore my tiara to school the other day to dress as a princess. I felt like a princess on my wedding day!
I felt like I was pretty easy going about most things wedding related. However, one thing I KNEW I wanted was to have comfortable shoes! There was no way in the world I was going to wear uncomfortable heels all day, especially when they wouldn't be seen! My aunt and uncle created these adorable tennis shoes for me to wear. My cousin bought me the ruffled socks. BEST DECISION EVER! Guess whose feet were hurting by the end of the night? Not mine!
My first time ever in a limo. Yep, I'm pretty sheltered. I almost didn't get to take this ride because the limo got lost looking for us. We were literally getting into the best man's car to head to the reception when it finally drove up.
The cake was Eric's favorite thing! He loves cake. We held the reception in downtown Fresno at a private club called The Downtown Club. It used to be an old printing press office and still had the giant press in the corner. It was all wood paneling and brick. I loved it!
Even though long, drapey bouquets weren't really the style when we got married, I didn't care. I didn't want a little bundle of flowers that were all the rage in 2003! Having the longer arrangement meant that my florist was able to wire this little prayer book into my flowers. It has my mom and dad's names on it and it was the prayer book that my mom held during her wedding to my dad!
No cake smashing for us! We wanted to show nurture and respect.
First dance to It Had To Be You. We should have listened to the song ahead of time because there was a weird start to the music that made it hard to dance to!
One other thing we did at our wedding that I love to this day was a special dance to give away the garter and bouquet. I always hated being single at weddings and having to line up to catch a bouquet. I hated the craziness of it. What we did was invite all married couples onto the dance floor. Everyone started dancing and then the DJ would ask those married for less than five years to sit down, and then less than 10 years to sit down. We continued doing that until the longest married couple remained, and we presented them with the garter and bouquet!
I sometimes think back to my sheer happiness of that day. My love and excitement for my new marriage was so big that I thought my heart would burst! I felt gorgeous, I thought my new husband was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen, I had an amazing time with friends and family, and I'd do it again in the blink of an eye!
Today I'm linking up with Tuesday Talk.
I'm also linking up with Andrea for Show and Tell Tuesday!
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