With the crazy-ness of this weekend, I didn't get a chance to blog, so I'll be playing catch up today.
Next up for wedding week is: Our Ceremony.
We held our ceremony at Gethsemane Lutheran church, a church that has been a part of my family for a very long time. My maternal grandma has been a member (with my late grandfather) for 60 years. My mom, aunts and uncles were all raised and married there. It meant a lot to me to be able to carry on that tradition and get married at Gethsemane as well. The church has an absolutely beautiful sanctuary surrounded with stained glass windows.
Another aspect of our ceremony that was extremely special to us was having my uncle David marry us. He has been a Lutheran pastor for many, many years (and actually just retired this past April) and was so touched to be asked. We were even more thrilled that he agreed. It made our ceremony seem so much more personal than hiring an officiant or using a pastor we didn't know. Since Gethsemane isn't David's home church, we also had their pastor, Pastor Nelson, preside over our ceremony as well.
As a musician myself, our ceremony music was of special interest to me. I really wanted something unique and different from the "tradition" wedding music you typically hear. One of my favorite pieces of all time is a Bach piece that was written for the cello, so I knew even before we were engaged that I wanted a solo cellist to play at our wedding. We used that song for the bridal party entrance. For my entrance, I had a hard time finding something that spoke to me at first. After a little more searching, I found something absolutely perfect. To tie in my Korean heritage, I decided to use a very traditional Korean folk song called, "Arirang." It is sometimes known as the 2nd Korean national anthem. My trouble was finding a good version for my cellist. I eventually found a great version on Youtube that was arranged by professional cellist, Julian Lloyd Webber-but of course there was no sheet music to go with the video. On a whim, I found his website and emailed him asking about where he found that version. To my surprise he emailed me back and let me know that he had arranged it himself and would be willing to send a copy of the sheet music for free! I couldn't believe it, what luck!!
As I think back to that day, walking down the aisle and the ceremony itself went by so fast, it all seems like such a blur to me. Walking down the aisle with my dad, all I did was focus on Jake and getting to the end of the aisle. Since Jake and I had already had our 1st look, so I wasn't sure if I'd cry or not….but I definitely did. And then once I took a deep breath, I was all smiles. I couldn't wait to say "I do".
During our ceremony, my uncle tied in our conversations during our pre-marital counseling and some other wonderful words about marriage. After we said our vows-which I barely got out through the tears-we had a sand ceremony, symbolizing our individuality and our intertwining as husband as wife. During our sand ceremony, we played a recording of "The Prayer" sung as a duet between Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion.
After the sand ceremony, we exchanged rings and then….
had our 1st kiss as husband and wife!!!!
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