So, I'm Married!

It's true! Julia and I celebrated out wedding on Sunday, July 26th on the Skansonia at the top of Lake Union. The ceremony started about 12:40 and was over by 1:00 -- just in time for us to get ready for guests who started arriving about 1:30.

Before I get too far, I should say the week before the wedding was very busy with last-minute appointments, cleaning, errands, and picking up friends and family from the airport. Wednesday afternoon my good friend Kerry and his fiance Amy arrived from Madison and Thursday just after noon I picked up my mom and my two sisters. Despite some nervousness on my sisters' parts about the flight and the ability of their children to survive without them for four days they generally seemed in good spirits.

Julia was an invited artist at the Renton Annual Art Show again this year, so we took my sisters to the opening night event on Thursday evening, but the rest of the weekend was a bit more freeform. We'd set aside Friday and Saturday to show them around town since they hadn't been before.

Friday we had breakfast with Mom, Jean and Julia, as well as Kerry and Amy at Lola, one of my and Julia's favorite breakfast places, then took them up in the Space Needle and I learned that my little sister Julie really doesn't like heights, but she was very brace and even walked 3/4ths of the way around the outside with some coaxing -- until our older sister Jean pointed out that the plexiglass only extended part of the way up and stuck her hand over the top. That was it for Julie.

I'll say this for the Space Needle: It may be a touristy and typical thing to do, but damn does it offer some spectacular views of the city. I think I enjoyed it more this second time than I had the first time.

After the Space Needle we all went to Pike Place Market, had some lunch at the Athenian and then spent a couple of hours shopping for fresh fruit and veggies for the rehersal dinner and the post-wedding reception gift opening. We also did a fair amount of shopping just for fun. That evening we had the wedding rehersal at Julia's parents' house, which went off without any problems.

Saturday we had plans to go to the aquarium, but that morphed into a plan to take a ferry out to one of the islands in the sound, but the ferry we wanted was sold out and the only other option would have taken far too long, so we decided to bag that and instead slowly wended our way through traffic over to Bellevue where we window shopped at Bellevue Square Mall which was actually quite fun.

The plan for that evening was to relax together and enjoy a night off before the wedding, so that's exactly what we did with a tasty pizza and some fans blowing to keep us cool.

Sunday was the day of the wedding. Kerry showed up to spend some time with me, taking pictures while I put on my tux and primped (as much as I'm capable of primping), then we hopped in the car and headed to the Skansonia. We left very early because we feared traffic was going to be as bad as the day before, but we made it there about a half hour early.

Once we were let on board at 11:30 we ran around, set up the music, guestbook, favors for the guests (a CD Julia and I made for the occasion and she created the covers for), Julia went upstairs to get changed into her dress (which I still hadn't seen and really didn't know much about), and we generally made things ready for the ceremony. At 12:40 everyone was seated, the music started, and Julia walked down the steps. She was lovely and I can't imagine a more perfect dress for her. (Check out the Flickr badge on the right for a couple of images from the wedding, including some good shots of her and the dress.)

The ceremony itself was short and sweet and afterward we had a quick bite to eat before the guests arrived -- which happened pretty quickly. The reception was short, only 1:30 until 4:30, but in that time we had a very nice luncheon served, toasts from friends and family (gaming friends will be happy to hear that Seth brought props and quoted both from comics and roleplaying games about love and marriage and what I may have learned from them), our first dance which was to "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys, Julia's dance with her father to the song "My Girl", the cake cutting, and then a lot of socializing with friends, family, and new family! It was great and I think everyone had a good time.

I'm expecting a bunch more photos sometime this week and I'll post them once Julia and I have a chance to go through them. I'm excited to see them!

After the reception, Kerry, Amy, Julia, and I stopped for gas (see the photos) then went to Kubora Gardens in Seattle for a photo session. We wandered all over the gardens and found good spots for shots. I just spoke with Kerry earlier today and he said he has about 900 shots, about 500 of which he thinks are pretty good. Woot!

Once we were done with the photos at the park we went to Julia's parents' for a light dinner and gift opening. We were both pretty exhausted, so we were happy when we finally got to go home and relax, do some last-minute packing for Hawaii, and finally go to bed!

Monday morning we were up early and headed off to the airport for our honeymoon! More on that in the next post.