Our Wedding Photos 6 Years Later

The Guest List

I never wanted a big wedding and it turns out we had a very small wedding.

In fact, if you didn’t share direct genetic material with one of us (parents, grandparent, sibling or spouse of sibling) you weren’t on the guest list.

Truth be told, one of my grandparents wasn’t even invited.

Right or wrong I didn’t want my grandfather there. I did not have a significant relationship with him and did not see a need to introduce unneeded friction into the wedding.

This decision cascaded into other considerations around what additional rings of family and friends should and ultimately I decided that the easiest way to address the non-invitation of my grandfather was the ability to say “we didn’t do anything big”.

Looking back, I may have approached my decision making process in a different way - but I would not have changed anything about the day itself - it was perfect!

I’ve never shared photos from the wedding.

Today is our 6th wedding anniversary!

When we woke up this morning we looked at our wedding photos together.

It felt like a natural time to reflect on the past and share these precious memories.

9.9.2017

The Venue

I spent a lot of time near the water growing up - a 15 minute drive away from Clear Lake. I know the area well and it holds a certain amount of nostalgia from childhood.

It must have been some time around 2012/13 when I moved back to Houston from Austin after graduation and lived with my parents that we went to drive around the lake and ended up stopping at an Italian Restaurant on the north side of the lake called Villa Capri.

We sat outside in the patio area of the garden and witnessed a wedding ceremony happening in the lower garden. The patio is removed from the area of the ceremony, but I could still hear some of the vows that the bride shared - they were funny and light hearted and I remember thinking - this would be a pretty place to get married.

The Hurricane

Hurricanes are part of life on the gulf.

Hurricane Harvey started brewing in the gulf in the middle of August and by early September catastrophic rainfall poured over Houston and Southeast Texas. You can watch the radar of the storm here.

There was a significant impact on both lives and infrastructure from the storm, but somehow Villa Capri suffered no significant damage.

They were able to clear the residue from the flooding in the garden and the fallen limbs ahead of our ceremony but the pier remained damaged. For the most part we avoided this area for photos, but it also seemed like a relevant message to take in - not everything will be perfect in life or in marriage, sometimes you must proceed with caution, but ultimately that we should be grateful for what we do have - what nature had allowed us to keep.

The Dress(es)

I went wedding dress shopping once in Austin with my parents, tried on maybe 5 or 6 dresses, and ordered one of those.

Thinking back this seems wild considering earlier this year it took me probably 6 weeks to decide which phone case I wanted - here it is if you were wondering.

My Grandma, Gram, had made my mom’s dress for her when my parents married in 1987. Both of my grandmothers were talented seamstresses - making many of my parents and their siblings’ garments when they were young.

During my next trip to Houston only a few weeks later, I asked my mom if I could try on her wedding dress. It had beautiful but puffy sleeves as you might have expected from that year, but overall the dress fit relatively well.

We asked Gram to come over and take a look. She said it would not be hard to remove the sleeves or perform the alterations needed for it to fit me well and that she could do them herself.

I decided that I would wear the purchased dress for our first look photos and then change into my mom’s altered dress for the ceremony and the remainder of the night. Ale did not know I had two dresses, so this was a fun little surprise.

Something New

Something Borrowed (and altered)

The Ceremony

We had a string quartet play the first hour which covered the ceremony, photos, and into the start of dinner. It was really beautiful.

Ale’s sister acted as our (unofficial) officiant in a very short ceremony where she said a few words and exchanged the vows we had written. We had done a civil ceremony before in Austin so that we could keep the event itself to the family.

If I ever feel tears coming on it helps if I roll my eyes back. lol.

The Dinner

Since the party was so small we have all selected food ahead of the event from their menu.

Lasagne for life!

No idea what anyone else ate.

Every attendee made a toast because there were only 9 guests.

Spencer’s was the only one I remember:

“May your neighbors respect you
Trouble neglect you, angels protect you
And Heaven accept you”

My mom thought this was very sweet until she learned these were lyrics from a Drake song.

I appreciated them even more because of it.

Keith’s first sip of Champagne was also caught on camera. lol again.

The Party

We asked everyone to share a selection of songs they would like to hear, so we had a good mix. After the string quartet left we just plugged my phone into speakers. The Spotify playlist is here and it is a vibe.

We danced to John Legend’s Stay With You

Other Notables:

Smokey Robinson’s Cruisin

Johnny Clegg’s Dela

Stevie Wonder’s Don’t You Worry Bout a Thing

More appearances from Steve Miller Band, Celia Cruz, Sam Cooke, Van Morrison, James Taylor