End of Ceremony

Wedding Party + The Ceremony pt 1

I'll start this off with some fun group shots pre-ceremony. When it came down to it, we had to rework our groomsmen attire. We opted to go without jackets. Yaaaay for organization and sticking to the original plan! Lol. It still looked nice though.





I was happy with the way my bridesmaids looks all turned out. Remember they all got to choose their own black dress and shoes. I provided the jewelry.






Here is a close up of the bridesmaid's bouquet. A high school friend got some good shots so I will be intermingling some of those in with my actual photog's shots.



Guests started to arrive at around five.




And after I completely became a nervous wreck, and we thought about hiring a backup officiant, our officiant the groom's grandfather arrived.



And the ceremony began! Here is the group lined up:



And down the aisle (not pro-pics right here, and not pictured in the order they came down)





This is my little brother, can't you tell? Lol







And the kiddies





My groom waiting for me




Dad gave me a kiss good luck.



And then it was our turn



MIL crying.






And then we were seated. In case you forgot this was an Islamic ceremony and it is common practice for the bride and groom to be seated.


And the vows began while everyone looked on.



*There was a seating of the mothers. I have to find those pictures, the photographer didn't catch that because I told her to be back with me during that time.

The Details

If you remember, I made a list of things I wanted photographed for the photographer to go by. It helps. Now, because of the unpredictability of the day, all of my requirements were not met. I blame that on me. But as far as inatimate objects, she got photos of everything I wanted! I have more pictures than posted here, but these should give you a good idea. And also, keep in mind we only paid her for service of three hours. She offered to stay longer, but I wanted to respect her time and ushered her away once the three hours was up. So, we got quite the variety of pictures for such a short amount of time.

The Cake

This was a semi-DIY. We ordered the cake from the cake baker, and then bought items ourselves to decorate it with. We had a florist who agreed to fix it up himself. The butterflies and gems all came from Michael's. The florist supplied the flowers. We had the cake arrive at 3pm and when the baker showed up to deliver it, my first words were "It's three already?!"






Ring Shots











My Bouquet



Head Table Center Piece





Welcoming Table inside the Reception Hall

This was cute, and something I didn't have to stress about. There you will see a framed photo of the groom's parents at their wedding. And our quintessential prom picture, the photo that pretty much was famous in our families for representing us. Lol! It was housed in my mother-in-law's living room before using it the wedding day. I also had up there a miniature broom as homage to African American tradition, and our invitation, our guestbook, and a gift to us: a photo people could sign of us.



The Invitation, a DIY project:



The sand ceremony in place. I was at a loss for how to jazz this up, so, here it is. Lol:





The ceremony space (I made the pomanders you see hanging from the gazebo)





Reception Hall



The Food

Our friendor made tons and tons of Mexican food that we served buffet style. We got lots of rave reviews about the seasoned beef. I was too tense to taste anything, so I just believed everyone else when they said how good it was. Lol!




More to come later.