Wedding Part 1: The Civil Ceremony
Wedding Part 1: The Civil Ceremony
6/4/15
I will admit, I was kinda bummed I only got to call Jaime my fiancé for about a week...but then again I think being able to call him my husband is a definite upgrade.
As many of you know my brother is in Mexico until February 2016 on his mission for the LDS church. My dear little sister Izzy also just received her call and will be serving in Honduras from September 2016 to March 2017. I told Jaime that there's no way I could have a large wedding celebration without my entire family by my side. He knows how important they are to me and said told me that we would have the perfect wedding I have always dreamed of whenever the time was right.
Beautiful bouquet of white roses Jaime got me for the ceremony |
We have been together now for about 10 months and it was so clear to both of us and our families that we were ready to start our married life together, to live together, to travel, and continue strengthening our relationship.When we were at a family dinner the topic of a small civil ceremony surfaced which we quickly realized would be perfect for our plans. So flash forward a couple months later and I am a married woman!!! (WHAT).
We planned to get married the first week in June (this month) and had originally picked June 3rd so that in two years, our wedding day would be on Saturday, June 3rd, 2017. Due to some unfortunate (and very annoying) scheduling issues with the Seattle court we had to settle for June 4th. Everything worked out perfectly and I guess it makes it that much easier for Jaime to remember our wedding anniversary AND my birthday which is 6 months later on December 4th.
The morning of the wedding started off sweet but quickly turned to chaos. I woke Jaime up with a card I had written to him and pulled out some gifts I bought for him: a new dress shirt, cuff links and a hankerchief for his snazzy suit just to remind him that I will always love and take care of him just like he does for me.
We hadn't originally planned on making the civil ceremony that big of a deal but I quickly realized I should probably look put together in a cute white dress. I ended up running around at Bellevue square all morning trying to find a white cocktail dress the day of the ceremony (I went shopping the day before with Cami and for the first time in my life Nordstrom failed me!). Jaime was so patient and kept reassuring me that anything I wore would be beautiful. I just kept freaking and stressing out because it was 4 hours before our ceremony and I was in workout clothes with no dress, messy air, a frazzled face, and still a million more things on my list to do before we made it to the courthouse. Thanks to my little sister Iz I had another wing man to freak out with and eventually help me find the one size 4 of a BCBG dress I liked. I ended up having to cancel my hair and makeup appointments because we were so behind on our errands so I ended up having 45 minutes to shower and do everything else.
We hadn't originally planned on making the civil ceremony that big of a deal but I quickly realized I should probably look put together in a cute white dress. I ended up running around at Bellevue square all morning trying to find a white cocktail dress the day of the ceremony (I went shopping the day before with Cami and for the first time in my life Nordstrom failed me!). Jaime was so patient and kept reassuring me that anything I wore would be beautiful. I just kept freaking and stressing out because it was 4 hours before our ceremony and I was in workout clothes with no dress, messy air, a frazzled face, and still a million more things on my list to do before we made it to the courthouse. Thanks to my little sister Iz I had another wing man to freak out with and eventually help me find the one size 4 of a BCBG dress I liked. I ended up having to cancel my hair and makeup appointments because we were so behind on our errands so I ended up having 45 minutes to shower and do everything else.
Even though I was stressed, Jaime helped calm and reassure me that I was going to make him marry me two more times and everything would be perfect. Today would be small and simple. I love that he helps me focus on the big picture when I feel like everything around me is chaos. I also tell him that there's nothing in the world that can break or destroy our love: no challenge, no individual, finances, losses or gains. We have always put our love for each other first before money, cars, materials, facebook, etc. and I truly believe that's why we wake up happy with a smile every day knowing we are by each other's side.
Traffic was HORRIBLE coming from Shoreline to the courthouse. We had to be there by 5:00pm before the doors were locked. I'm sure we gave our family a heart attack because they were all there waiting while the bride and groom were on the middle of I5.
Luckily G-money (Garret) worked his charm with the building security guard named Andy who snuck us in at 5:02 after the doors were locked. I told him he was going on my blog. Shout out to you Andy (and Garret)....we LITERALLY wouldn't have gotten married without your help!
Also thanks to Saul Jr. for running across rush hour traffic to park our car for us so we could run the opposite way across the street (leaving our car running in a no parking zone...) to make it inside.
We got out of the elevator and all of our dear family was waiting to hug us! I think my face clearly displays how panicked I was (no need to say more).
Jaime had to inform everyone that I just needed a few minutes to breathe.
We talked to the judge and he asked us how we wanted the ceremony to go. We told him that we had rings but wanted to save our vows until we were in front of our family and friends. We talked a bit more and then we asked Jaime if he was ready to get married and he said "Yes." He then looked at me and I said "Uhhhhh yeahhhhhh I guess we should do this!" Jaime laughed and reassured him that I was indeed ready to spend the rest of my life with him. I'll admit the whole day was so surreal.
We got to spend a few minutes together and we just kept looking at each other, smiling, and blushing like kindergartners that were talking to their crush for the first time. All the stress of the day was behind us. We made it and we were about to get married. He kept smiling and saying "I knew it, I just knew it." "I knew I was going to marry you the second you walked through the gym doors. I can't believe it's finally happening." I just kept smiling and told him how grateful I was with him being so patient and loving towards me. There's no doubt he will take care of me and all I could say was "I love you and I'm so proud to become your wife, I'm so glad I get to marry my best friend."
We got all of our family together and the sun was once again beaming outside. The judge said a few words and we exchanged rings. Then we got to smooch and BOOM, we are legally married!
It was so special to have our family there. Garret and Cami were so even enough to fly from DC to surprise us for the small celebration and thanks to Cami we have all these AMAZING photos.
It was so special to have our family there. Garret and Cami were so even enough to fly from DC to surprise us for the small celebration and thanks to Cami we have all these AMAZING photos.
After the ceremony our parents had a little get together planned with us at Saul and Rosario's house. It was the most perfect and beautiful evening filled with dancing, good food, live music, and lots of love and tears. The thing I love about our Latino culture is that we love to dance to music, listen to live music, we can sit around a table and talk for hours, there is always singing, lots of good food, we can laugh for hours, and it's parents, children, babies and all ages together.
I had been so nervous all day I hadn't been able to eat except for a piece of chicken Jaime made me eat. That all changed once the stress was over.....Thanks to all our parents we had such delicious food. We even had some family friends share the special night with us.
We got to cut our first wedding cake and NO there was no smashing of the cake in each other face. Do you think we would really waste an ounce of that stuff? Not these two, we can EAT.
After dessert our families insisted that we dance to a beautiful song played for by Jose Vielma on his guitar. Honestly, I have no clue what was happening around us. All I could do was look in Jaime's eyes and everything else in the world stopped. We keep looking at each other and saying "You're my husband" or "You're my wife" followed by lots smiles, tears, hugs. Their are some feelings and emotions that can't be explained in words, only in the moment when you can feel some one's energy and love.
After the celebrating and lots of photos, we thanks everyone for all of their and support. Unfortunately, I had to go to a training the next morning for work so we had to set out early. I went home to take a quick pre-test and then Garret said my family was treating us to a hotel downtown Seattle for the night. It ended up working out perfectly because it saved me commuting time to work in the morning and I was able to sleep an hour more!
Can you guess the first thing we did when we made it to the hotel!? Yup.....WE ORDERED A LARGE PIZZA AND ATE THE WHOLE THING in less than 10 minutes, hahahahha. I swear.
I joked with Jaime that he got me a diamond for every wedding that we will have. We are 1/3 down now with the civil ceremony behind us. Within the next two years we will have a religious temple ceremony and also a wedding celebration with family and friends. I'll admit we still have quite a bit to look forward to. I will gladly marry Jaime every year until the day I die and I think each time could be special, but for now I think three weddings will do.
The Men:
Saul Silva, Jaime Silva, Fernando Bernal, Dallas Jolley, Garret Bernal (Connor here in heart) |
"Dad what are you doing...." |
"Dad show us you're muscles..." |
The ladies:
Camille Bernal, Kristen Black, Rosy Bernal, Nilda Herman, Adrianna Bernal-Silva, Izzy Bernal, Rosario Silva, Gloria Lopez |
Family and Friends:
Oh my goodness, this Civil Ceremony looks amazing. Thanks a lot for sharing the photos here. In fact we also attended a grand family wedding party and danced a lot in the reception which was held at one of the domestic roof top New York venues for weddings. Would love to share the photos on my new blog.
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