PART TWO

Wedding Day Continued

Ceremony Preparation

I had asked Niko his preference on vows during some of our initial planning. I was surprised when he told me he thought we should read hand written vows during the ceremony (as opposed to excluding them from the day, or sharing them more intimately — i.e. during the first look, writing them as letters to read while getting ready). I don’t know how many times we went back and forth over various decisions, but throughout the planning process he was unwavering in this. It honestly meant a lot that he knew what he wanted and that he contributed to the product that became our day.

We were lucky to have had one of our friends officiate our wedding for us. I could not imagine having a stranger officially bind our lives together and we are so grateful Ben was so willing to accept this role. I had drafted a speech for the ceremony after pulling pieces together from different blogs, articles, and templates. I added some of my own words as well to make it feel more personal and to ensure it felt like “us.” Ben took it from there — he was given final editing rights and the liberty to add whatever he wanted.

I honestly had no idea that ceremony script writing would be included in our wedding day planning and it was a bit stressful at first — I’ll include the general template at the bottom of this blog in case you are looking for any inspiration!

The Ceremony

After sharing a final toast with my bridesmaids, they all left the bridal suite in preparation for the start of the ceremony. We chose to have a live acoustic guitarist who played hand selected songs. It felt more raw and personal to have my most favorite songs played in strings (if you know Niko you know he isn’t huge on music. In fact, he once drove 26 hours straight from PA to CO and did not listen to a single thing. I on the other hand absolutely love music and had Niko’s blessing to choose whatever I wanted).

Our parents walked the aisle first and were followed by Niko, the dogs as his escort. Our bridesmaids and groomsmen were next, joining Niko at the edge of the deck and splitting off to their respective sides. From around the corner I heard the song switch and knew that was my cue to make my way down the aisle. My pulse was bounding — I was about to read my intimate thoughts and feelings aloud in front of ninety people. But I felt a sense of calm as soon as I rounded the corner and locked eyes with Niko. All of the faces of our friends and family passed in a blur because his dimpled smile was all that mattered in that moment — because I knew I was walking toward home.

While our vows in their entirety are reserved for those in attendance, I wanted to share a short snippet of both of them here.

“…They say a life lived in love will never be dull, and the life and love we have shared is a perfect example of that…Niko, I promise to keep all of life exciting and to make marriage our best adventure yet. I promise to grow by your side, but also to never grow up…And I promise to rescue you with minimal complaining every time your craigslist car breaks down…I love you…to the ends of the earth and back”

-Jess

“Jess,
Who would have thought after the first date when I said ‘I’m bored, let’s get out of here,’ that 10 years later we would be committing to spending the rest of our lives together…I promise to be by your side through our marriage and through however many dogs you want. I love you.”

-Niko

Niko and I then completed our vows lead by Ben, exchanged our rings, and sealed our words with our first kiss as husband and wife. We exited the aisle (I entirely forgot to take Everest and my bouquet with me — oops) and snuck into the reception hall to try our signature cocktails and soak in our first minutes as Mr. and Mrs. Pascual. Our guests filtered over to the bar and covered patio to enjoy cocktail hour.

Check out my playlist I made for cocktail hour and dinner here!

The staff cleared the deck of the chairs which would later serve as our dance floor. We took some formal family photos outside and were about to join cocktail hour when we were pulled aside. The radar was showing possible rain and sure enough there were some ominous clouds on the horizon. Our team thought it best that we end cocktail hour early and jump right into introductions and our first dance so that by the time the rain was predicted to fall, we would already be inside enjoying dinner.

Our First Dance

Our first dance song was to ‘Next to You’ by John Vincent III. I have known this song for years and I have always loved it so much. The lyrics just feel so fitting for our relationship and it is a song I knew I would continue to hear regularly, and never grow tired of.

After 11 dance lessons and a bit of practice at home, we took our spots and waited for our song to begin. And we just about nailed it.

Unfortunately, my bustle broke about 30 seconds in to our routine. It was more than a little distracting which resulted in a few missteps on my part at one point, and a few wary glances down when really the only thing I wanted to do was watch my husband. I was nervous about tripping in general and now I had a whole three more feet of fabric to get caught up in. Our instructor had told us that if anything unexpected happened or if we faltered, to push through; after all we were the only ones to truly know our routine.

All in all, it turned out better than we hoped and almost felt like the dress was meant to break as Niko swept me up for our dramatic, big lift moment, my train glittering through the air. Our guests went wild — it was so encouraging to hear their cheers and whoops throughout, and you can tell how much fun we were having whilst showing off our moves from the look of our oversized, squinty smiles.

Dinner

After our dance we went inside the reception hall for dinner. We got to make our way around to the different tables, mingling with our guests. We were served an appetizer and then it was time for the speeches. My dad gave a quick welcome speech followed by Alex, my sister and Matron of Honor and Niko’s Best Man and friend, Sam. Their speeches had me laughing and crying with their wit and sentiment — I was truly captivated, hanging on to every word.

Matron of Honor: Alex

“…Usually these speeches are an opportunity to give the newly weds advice for a long and successful relationship together. But, truth be told, Jess and Niko have been together longer than Tim and I have…So I thought maybe instead of me giving you advice I’d share some of the things I’ve learned from you about what it takes…I don’t know a single other couple who I’ve heard their first fart story and I was like, ‘that’s so cute!’…I wish you a life of love and happiness together.”

Best Man: Sam

“…it always starts with a phone call. Whether it’s in the morning, the middle of the night, any hour of the day — Sunday…You always know there’s something that’s crazy on the other end of the line that you’ve been chosen for…as soon as you answer the phone theres a 99% chance that you’ve already said yes…so bottom line is he calls you and you’re already signed up and you’re just along for the ride…Niko’s axium goes a little differently, its something like: thinkadoo and we’ll figure it out later…I think we can all be inspired and motivated to accomplish what we want to, overcome fears, and live in the pursuit of happiness just by witnessing and being a part of the two of your lives…”

We snuck away with Ashlyn for a bit to take some more photos as the lighting began to even out. We went to a different overlook and caught a couple of raindrops along the way but we weren’t bothered in the slightest. We made our way back to our seats and enjoyed a yummy dinner.

Cutting the Cake

Apparently Niko didn’t know it was tradition to feed each other the first bite of cake and so he proceeded to put a gigantic Niko sized bite on his fork (he no joke was lifting his arm to his own mouth with it when I interrupted him and told him what needed to happen — you can see us laughing about it in the last photo below). But I was just glad he didn’t go for the face smash if I’m being honest. Our cake was lemon with a raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream, decorated with buttercream florals. It was one of the most delicious and refreshing cakes I have ever tasted and I am pretty sure every last piece went.

The Reception

We kicked off the reception with our father-daughter and mother-son dances. We then proceeded to sing, dance, drink, eat cake and s’mores, and have a damn good time doing it all. It seemed to have gone by in the blink of an eye. Fairly early on, Niko made a surprise entrance with the song “Pony” playing, wearing only his vest — which of course had the whole party captivated as he strutted his way onto the dance floor. There isn’t a whole lot to else to say about our reception because I think you had to be there, but these images sum it up better than my words ever could.

Last Dance

Niko and I had a private last dance — well somewhat private. We danced inside of the reception hall and although our guests were able to peer in from the deck, Niko and I got lost in the intimate, final moments of our day. It was nostalgic as all hell. We knew the best day of our lives was winding down to a close. But it wouldn’t have felt so sad if the day hadn’t been so immaculate. In hindsight, the mix of emotions I felt thrumming through me were so fitting for the song selected: If We Were Vampires by Noah Kahan and Wesley Schultz. It’s the happiest kind of sad song and it has always felt romantic to me. The melody and vocals are hauntingly beautiful and I have most definitely cried in my car while singing this song. While we danced and reminisced on our fleeting day, our guests lined up for our send off.

The Exit

What other way to go out than a bubble machine exit. This was such a fun way to depart from our wedding guests. We danced to 6’s to 9’s by Big Wild. The iridescent bubbles were such a fun addition to these photos and my nieces and nephews still have a blast using those little machines!

The Details

There were so many little details that made our day so perfect in our eyes. Here are some photos that capture some of it and a few explanations below!

Polaroids & Tables: Our tables were named after locations that we have explored. Since we were planning to have a polaroid station in leu of a guest book, we decided to carry the theme to our table decor and print out photos of us on our adventures in a polaroid format.

Mobile Bar: Due to being near capacity and wanting the majority of our wedding to take place outside we went with a mobile bar option. The double wide horse trailer was beautifully designed and such a fun, interesting touch. For signature cocktails we chose the paper plane and french gimlet. Due to their alcohol content, they were only served during cocktail hour, but we had a delicious blackberry mojito as our biggest hit for the remainder of the night. Some of our guests even created and named their own signature cocktails!

Invitations: I got our formal wedding invitations off of Etsy — they were literally perfect and very foretelling of our day. The deep velvet sleeve, the silky envelope, the rich orange tones of varying shades. The invitation itself was acrylic and a mail-in RSVP was included. I truly had never seen anything quite like them and I was intrigued. When they arrived they were just as beautiful in person and I only wish I had an excuse to purchase from this shop again.

Neon Sign: We. Love. Our. Sign. I know, I know this is one of the biggest trends of the past few years, but guess what — I don’t care. I’m here to tell you that it is okay to give in to the trends if you really love them. Our sign now hangs proudly above our TV in our RV and we are just as obsessed with it today as the day we unboxed it.

First Dance: If you are like us (we have never been good at dancing and we didn’t know a single dance step before walking into the studio), then I cannot recommend finding dance lessons highly enough. We looked forward to each and every lesson and talk about maybe going back for more. It was the perfect date night and so much fun to see our highly anticipated routine come together. Niko and I knew we would likely feel awkward if we did our typical slow dance sway (this is NOT a jab to those who choose to do this! It was all we knew how to do but we wanted something that felt more special and memorable, for us and for our guests). Not to mention the photos of our first dance turned out to be some of our favorites from the day. Be sure to send your photographer a video so they can plan on where to stand and be ready for all your big moves!

Videos: If you choose not to have a videographer as we did, ask someone you can trust but who you know it would not burden to record some special moments for you. We knew we wanted the speeches and first dance to be captured by video and we are so glad we had family do this for us!

Cell Phone Free Ceremony: I know many people use signs for this at the head of the aisle, but we had our officiant, Ben make an announcement prior to the start of the ceremony. We didn’t want cell phones in our photos or for people to be distracted with taking photos when we had all of the trust in the world that our photographer and her second shooter would capture each important moment beautifully.

THANK YOU!
If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for taking the time to read about our special day. We will forever hold it close to our hearts and minds. We are so thankful that we were surrounded by so many of our loved ones. Our vendors truly pulled out all of the stops and the thousands of images we now have tell our story so captivatingly.

P.S. feel free to send any questions my way — I would love if my experiences could be of any help to you while you navigate planning a wedding of your own!

Credits

Photography: Ashlyn Cathey Photo — all photos within this blog are credited to Ashlyn Cathey Photo!

Venue: The Magnolia Venue || Dress: Philly Bride | Naama and Anat Bridal || Suit: In Italia Mensware || Hair & Make-up: The Effortless Beauty || DJ: Stephen Goff Entertainment || Florals: Echelon Florist || Rentals: All Occasions Party Rentals || First Dance: Fred Astaire Doylestown || Catering: Rosa’s Catering || Cake: All Mixed Up Cakes || Planning: Everly by MGE with Alex || Signage: Hartsy Designs || Bar: Single Barrel Events || Invitations: Margo&Bees || Rings: Brilliant Earth || Bridesmaid Dresses: Revelry

Ceremony Script

First, I’d like to begin by welcoming everyone and thanking all of you for being here on this happiest of days. It’s no coincidence that each of you is here today, and you were all invited to take part in this moment because you represent someone important in the individual and collective lives of Jess and Niko.
I’ve had the good fortune to meet some of you at some point or another, but for those of you whom I haven’t met, (Ben introduces himself)

Though you have come here from near and very, very far – I truly can’t think of a better venue than this beautiful mountain range, for an occasion that I know is not only monumental for the wedded couple to be, but for all of us who are lucky to know and love them as individuals; and even more so as a perfect pairing.

The most remarkable moment in life is when you meet the person who makes you feel complete. The person who makes the world a beautiful place with endless possibilities. The person with whom you share a bond so special that it transcends normal relationships and becomes something so pure and so wonderful, that you can’t imagine spending another day of your life without them.

Jess and Niko have a strong foundation to their relationship through their love, their friendship, and their commitment to one another. They’ll be there for each other, they’ll be loyal, and they’ll spend the rest of their lives growing and learning from one another. I feel privileged to be here today among all of you as a witness of their commitment to a lifetime of love for one another.

In marriage, the “little” things are the big things. It is never being too old to hold hands. It is remembering to say, “I love you” at least once a day. It is standing together and facing the world. It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways. It is having the capacity to forgive and forget. It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow. It is a common search for the good and the beautiful. It is not only marrying the right person — it is being the right partner

I would like to invite Jess and Niko to share their personal vows at this time.

Do you, Jess, welcome Niko as your husband, offering him your love and encouragement, your trust and respect, as together you create your future? [I DO]

Do you, Niko, welcome Jess as your wife, offering her your love and encouragement, your trust and respect, as together you create your

future? [I DO]

These rings are a symbol of infinity, and of your infinite love. When you look at these rings on your hands, be reminded of this moment, your commitment, and the love you now feel for each other.

Jess, place the ring on Niko's finger and repeat after me:

Niko, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love with the pledge: to love you today, tomorrow, always, and forever.

And now, Niko, place the ring on Jess's finger and repeat after me:

Jess, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love with the pledge: to love you today, tomorrow, always, and forever.

Before these witnesses, you have pledged to be joined in marriage. You have now sealed this pledge with your wedding rings. By the authority vested in me by the great State of Tennessee, I now pronounce you husband and wife! Niko, you may kiss your bride!

THE PASCUALS | OUR WEDDING | PART II