I keep adding them to my Facebook wedding album as best I can. I don’t know how to put them on our StuffIsCool gallery. But, fortunately, even non-members of Facebook can view the public album here:
http://rice.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040031&l=d3ea5&id=3000514
Photos courtesy of Maggie, Bill, Jill, Shelly, Niki, and I cannot remember who else. It is quite a hodge podge. Keep ‘em comin’. Everyone looked so good that night.
Our photographer went back in time and made me smile 
Those of you who know about my JRA, former profile and jawline, and the surgery and recovery in the sumer of 2000, will realize how incredible this image truly is. It is a true triumph.
(Can someone, perhaps a clever Grasshopper, pwwweze photoshop my mouth into just a very slight smile? That would make this pic perfect. Right now it’s bothering me that I need just a hint more joy and a tad less gloom on my face. I wanna look almost as pleased as Danny does. He looks so lovely and I almost look SAD!? I love this pic, but I could love it more, thank to the magic of living in 2008. )
As my brother joked, the wedding went off without a hitch, aside from the most important one!
Pics will be coming soon, not just from the official photographer, Niki, but from anyone and everyone who had a camera that night. Please, if you have pictures from the weekend, any at all, please either send them to me or throw them up on the web somewhere so I can collect them all into one massive gallery that we can all enjoy.
My mom and Maggie have put a few up, so let me share with you just a few select choices:
EDIT: Where’d the pics go?? If they don’t show up, it’s my fault, I just don;t know how to ut them in my own gallery and then link from there. I’ll learn.
1) Waiting for the limo in the hotel lobby
2) In the Bride’s Room at the Chapel
MARRIED!
CALLING ALL PICS AND ANECDOTES!
Okay, now it’s time for all you folks to help me stitch together a beautiful “quilt” of memories of the weekend. Any pics you have are important of course, but I also want to hear the cute little memories, stories, favorite moments, observations, whatever.
Here’s an example:
Matt H tells me that Aaron was drinking Shirley Temples all night until Matt convinced the bartender to start adding vodka to them , turning the drinks into “Lindsay Lohans.”
Kimere (in her own words here) wrote me that: “as we were leaving the reception, I went up to the bartender and was like, “How about you make me a vodka tonic to go!” and the bartender was like, “I don’t have any To Go cups.” And I pointed to a mostly empty bottle of tonic and was like, “Looks to me like that would make a good To Go cup!” and the bartender was like, “I’m going to get fired. But here you go!” And I had a To Go cup to walk over to Valhalla with!”
I LOVE hearing these stories. It helps me enjoy the weekend all over again, and 20 years from now, we will have memories more than just the big ones like saying “I will” but other, special moments that make a wedding weekend truly special.
So, readers, I ask of you now (and I will send out a mass email, too because not everyone reads this here blog) to please share with me.
Email your fond memories or random thoughts/comments about the weekend to megdipaolo@gmail.com (spambots be damned, my filters will attack).
Then, once I’ve collected it all, I will post everything so we can all find out what zany untold tales occurred Feb 15 and 16 of 2008!
(I will keep it PG, but if you have a story you want to tell me and only me, I am all ears and the soul of discretion, just tell me what not to share with others.)
I love you all! Thanks for all your support. WE MADE IT!
In about an hour and a half I am going over to Melissa’s for my, well, bachelorette party, you could say. First we are going to watch the slide show I made for my Baker friends to watch the night of our graduation. Then we are going out to dinner. I am not a fan of those wild nights with brides in veils decorated with condoms. But those sure are fun to watch on reality TV shows like Bridezillas. That one where that drunk chick kicked a stranger in the butt for “following her” when the stranger was actually IN FRONT of her on the street was awesome.
Ha, I just had this obscure memory pop into my head: Baker Pub Crawl senior year, when we had to hold Emilie back from fighting with some random friend of Mani’s. Literally, holding her arms so she wouldn’t dive over the seat and attack the dude. HI-LARIOUS!
Meanwhile, my mom is having her own Mother-of-the-Bride “girls night out” with her friends. I was invited but chose not to go, and it turns out well that I didn’t, because I wouldn’t have had my own night out with my friends!
I wish all my ladies could be here tonight, but I’ll see everyone next weekend!
Last night after dinner Danny and I were just laying on our bed with Gigi. We call it Snuggle Buggle, which was a tradition with my mom and dad when I was little. It’d be a lazy Sunday morning and my dad would yell “SNUGGLE BUGGLE!” and Ben and I would come running and we’d all be cozy and snuggly in mom and dad’s bed. Anyways, we were having out own Snuggle Buggle with Gigi and I told Danny that as long as I could snuggle with him everything would be OK and he said “Good, because you can, forever.” and it was awesome.
PS- Mary, I remember when you walked down the aisle, you were indeed grinning from ear to ear, but I would bet money that your eyes were wet
The days are flying by! We’re on a roll. We got our marriage license on Monday. It took longer to find a parking space than it did to get the thing!
Brides and grooms, when you got married when did it really hit you? I don’t want to burst into tears, even if they are tears if joy. Watery eyes are one thing, choking sobs (of joy) are another.
I could mourn the people who have passed away and cannot be there to see me and Danny get married: Grandma, Grandmom, Granddad, Uncle John, Uncle Rudy, Aunt Mary. . . the family list goes on and on. And I will also miss my genergous, loving friend, Hans Metcalf.
No, I will revel in the beloved company that I cherish so well.
Especially exciting are the attendees who where sadly not expected and have surprised me with wonderful “will attends:”
Family
Aunt Carol and Uncle Carol from PA (Haven’t seen them in YEARS)
Cousins Tim and Corrinne Conlon (Tim’s dry humor cracks me up to no end, and the time he said I was funny was possibly the greatest compliment ever.)
And the best: Cousins Patti, Mike, Gracie, and Kathy. I am honored that they can make that trip down from Greenbelt with a small child and a Down Syndrome woman. Kathy, by the way, the Down lady, is getting a special treat at the reception.) I can’t wait to see you, Kathy! We must dance!
Friends
Bradley Wagner( Jesus will be at my wedding!)(the Catholics will love it)
Maybe Sushi Suzuki (All the way from JAPAN!)
I love seeing the reply cards. It makes me feel so excited, like, THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING!
In the 21st century, there are a handful of really monumental moments in the rites of a modern marriage, and I have just experienced one of them.
I have set up my post-wedding email account: MegDiPaolo@gmail.com
This is almost as big as getting our marriage license and a joint checking account. To see my new name like that is wild!
Of course, I have to change my name officially, but I get giggles seeing my new email address.
Some questions, and I really need opinions:
1) I am trying to get the Party Bus (Gabe’s red refurbished school bus) to transport people, at least the wedding party, from the chapel to Cohen House. What do you guys think of this? Would a limo be preferable? But what about having it as a shuttle for guests to get them from the chapel to Cohen House?
2) I am debating on whether or not I want to pay $150 for the florist to set up 2 candleabras at the chapel on the altar. They would hold 13 candles each and be gold and decorated with greenery. Is it worth it, or will just a couple of Brookwood ferns suffice for decoration at the chapel?
3) What should we do instead of throwing rice or birdseed, and considering sparkles are illegal in the city limits?
4) Would it be lame to put up balloons to help guide guests from the chapel to Cohen House? If they are walking, that is, rather than taking the Party Bus.
5) I am pretty much planning on having one of those Bridal Dances where you pay to dance with the bride (is it an Eastern European thing or do other people do it?) Is that super offensive? My side of the family will expect it an be used to it, but how will others take it? Nobody’s required to take part.
6) Where should we tell everyone the “hang out” spot will be? My out-of-town family will want a place to gather. I am thinking the bar at ZaaZaa since that’s where Danny and I will be staying Friday and Sat night, but it’s pretty edgy and not cheap. Should I make up some sort of “Places to Go” suggestions, including places in the Village?
7) I kind of “jettisoned” the idea of a house party. Should I have one? Is it important? I just don’t know what I would have you do (there are some of you who I have asked if you wanted to be in it). Thoughts?
Am I over complicating by asking so many questions?
PLEASE leave comments about anything! Any advice is welcome!
Yikes, been a long time since I posted any updates. Gracious. Let’s see.
1) Cousin Maddie, Aunt Michelle, and I picked up my gown today, after having to have the bustle completely redone. However, thanks to that time we had to kill while Sonia, the awesome new seamstress, fixed the mess, we went shopping at the Galleria. Michelle bought me an entire new outfit for the shower my family is having for us tomorrow night. Thank you Shelly!!!
The gown is currently hanging in “the kids room” at my grandfathers house. I think it is the absolute no doubt hands down perfect gown for Mary Meghan Whitmore. As it will be equally suitable for Mary Meghan Whitmore DiPaolo.
2) My mom, aunts, father, groom, and even Uncle Paul and the kids spent a grand total of 12 hours (I kid you not) getting the invitations ready. Everyone pitched in putting the packets together and stuffing the envelopes with maps and reply cards and all that good stuff. Many of those hours, truth be told, were spent by my mom working so hard to make a special map of the campus and painstakingly addressing every envelope on the computer, since none of us know calligraphy and some of us have arthritis. I think she had to feed them in one at a time, and there was a good three hours when not a single one came out right. But bless her, she and Paul got it done.
3) Then we all sat around the dining room table at my grandfather’s house, which is a poor meeting place for anything that might grow tense, because it is always at least 90 degrees in that room for some reason, no matter what time of year, no matter what we do to try to cool it. So tensions run high. And we went over every single thing that is still left to be done to get this wedding to happen, and you know what? I am terrified. There is so much to do. I am not a hands-on bride. I have vague ideas of what I want and I admit I kind of just expect things to “fall into place.”
But that’s not gonna happen. It’s time to step up. As Ben would say, I need to bring my A game. That meeting made me feel like I was in a police interrogation room with the spotlight on me. Not because anyone treated me that way, nor did anyone play good cop/bad cop or anything goofy, but I certainly had my rights read to me, in a way. In a gentle, loving, no-bullshit, family sort of way.
But the questions came rapid-fire, and I didn’t have very many answers, from obscure (to me) questions like “does Cohen House provide a cake cutter?” to the painfully simple “do you want an organist or a pianist?” (to which I stuttered and hemmed and hawed and finally settled on the organ.)(I honestly had not given it any thought until tonight.)
I guess I don’t like having to make so many decisions, especially when one part of me thinks “20 years from now, will I really care whether the centerpieces had greenery or rose petals?” and the other part thinks “I get one chance to do this right, and I don’t want to regret a thing.”
I know I am not the only bride to have any of the feelings I am feeling, but gosh, I am hearing so much conflicting advice from every married person I know, and I don’t know what to feel anymore except a big ball of ambivalence, fantasy, stubbornness, and guilt. Just thinking “It’s MY DAY” doesn’t cut it, because it’s not. It’s Danny’s. It’s my parents’. It’s even my aunts’ and my cousins’ and Danny’s parents’. This day means a whole heck of a lot to so many people more than just me, and with so many cooks in the kitchen, I may not get the exact combination of pizza toppings I want (or some other analogy.) But I want everyone to at least like what we cook up.
Ick, I am getting rusty as a writer.
“Stressed” is not the right word for how I feel, but neither is “overwhelmed”. “Whelmed to near snapping” perhaps. No more goofing off (if you can call the last few months goofing off, really, though in terms of wedding planning, I guess you can.) My mind now has to be filled with florists, organists, readings, even how to get me and Danny from the Chapel to Cohen House. Stuff I thought would be easy. Not seeming so easy now. But I have my family to help with this, as they have been from the start, and of course I have Danny, and if it comes to it, I’ll hire old Mustard 5 The Party Bus to deliver us around the inner loop in my kind of style.