Dori's top 5 wedding moments

1. Seeing Tom for the first time in his suite. He looked so handsome, I was/am so excited to marry him. I cried, he cried, we laughed and cried at the same time. It was a good moment.

                                                    

2. Dancing with my dad  - its something we have done together very few times and it was one of the parts of our wedding i ws looking forward to the most. I chose the song "I Loved Her First." I knew the first time i heard that song it would be the one i used at my wedding if i ever met a man worth giving up singledom for. If you don't know the song or would like to hear it again, I haved added it to the blog, its located at the very bottom of the page in the form of a youtube video.

3. The old car - Initally I thought this was a silly idea, but that car was one of my favorite parts of the wedding, we rode from the church to the reception in it and i loved every mintue. It also looked amazing in the pictures. What a great time!

4.Wedding Reception - I loved the location of our reception, the food was great, the deserts were amazing and I had the opportunity to see so many of my friends and family. Tom and i chose to greet our guests at the reception by going from table to table and taking time to just sit down and chat. We had a wonderful time!

                                            

 

5. The Music - It was amazing and made our ceremony sacred and beautiful. Brandon and Marie guided the music and musicians that made for such a pretty ceremony. Left to my own devices i would have used more praise and worship and less traditional music BUT what Tom and I decided on together, with Brandon's help, fit both our preferences and personalities. And i got to walk out of the wedding to a very lively rendition of Blessed Be The Name. Yet another great wedding moment.

Ceremony Slideshow

I put together a short slideshop of the ceremony, I with you could hear the music, it was amazing.

Pre Wedding Pictures - Bride and Groom

Finally, i have taken some time to post some official wedding photos. Thank you to Accent Photography, Nappanee, IN for doing a wonderful job with out pictures! The following are pictures taken before the wedding. For this post i am covering only the bride and groom. I have over 400 pics taken by the professional photograher alone, so i thought i would break it up into several different posts.

Tom and I didn't want to keep our guests waiting at the reception, so we opted to take most of the photo's prior to the wedding. But we didn't want to lose the moment of seeing each other for the first time in out wedding finery... We will start there.

Groom. Inspecting the Unity Candles while waiting for his Bride

Bride. Stepping into the church, i can see my groom, but he has his back to me...

Psst... Right behind you!

Honey, we're gettting married today!

First official wedding picture as a couple... I think we're both still in shock, its out wedding day!!

love this picture

well, hello there handsome

More to come...

Wedding Set Up

We did a lot of set up for the wedding - The smartest thing we did was start on Thursday morning - it made for a much less stressful day prior to the wedding. I knew that it would take a lot of help from friends and family, but i was humbled by all the time and effort that others put into our wedding day. A special thanks to our family, friends and bridal party for making this day happen.

The wedding set up was quite extensive, especially at the reception hall. It started out with a trailor and two car loads full of supplies and decorations.

Then came the unloading of the car - here are the bridesmaid bags being taken upstairs

here we are with several bridesmaids, groomsmen, father of the bride - the topic of discussion: lighting!!

 

putting curtains onto rods - yes, mom made curtains for the windows!

hanging the curtains

Nolan and Kevin

I designed the programs and we put them together

here is the finished product - hand stamped and ribbon bound

taking a much needed break -  dad and the musicians

mom, begging me to let her do something i didn't like. Probably trying to convince me the pew bows were a good idea...

so as to not be confused by who sits where...

More to come, but probably not for a few days - we are off to a short honeymoon trip tomorrow followed by an open house/reception in my home town, Arthur IL on Saturday

Family Fun

I am now Mrs. Choy. The cards are still Schrock, the identification is still Schrock, the bank thinks i'm a Schrock, but really, I'm a Choy! This has been an amazing week, starting off with meeting Tom's immidiate family and then introducing them to some of my extended family. We all had a wonderful time and I was informed by more than one aunt that I am luck and blessed in my in-laws. I agree!!

There are wedding pictures on facebook and there will be more here, but this blog will focus on our families and the pre wedding family introduction... Jo & JD offered to host dinner for Tom's family when they came to Nappanee from Indianapolis on Wednesday - we had a wonderful time!

Introducing Tom's Parents to my Parents and Grandma

The Bachlor Beard became a Gotee - Dad and Tom had a bonding moment

Hahahaaa... We love to laugh!

Congradulating Randy on this Baseball talents

Showing off Aunt Jo's garden

Teaching Michelle to pick strawberry's

I think they got confused - we're the newlyweds!!

Dispite my threats of bodily harm to any groomsman who breaks a bone or has a visable bruise...

The ladies

Psst... "Dori, I put a fake turtle by your mom... do you think she'll scream?"

She screamed :)

Aunt Jo with Joe & Lena

PA trip

Last weekend Tom and i joined my mother in a trip to Guys Mill, PA to spend some time with Marie, Brandon, Patrick, Kipp, Stuart and Christopher. They boys have agreed to be our wedding musicians, and we are pretty excited about that. At this point we do not plan to have any "canned" (pre recorded) music. We are also having very little in the way of vocals, which is different than we had originally planned. I am finding that a lot of things about planning a wedding change and adjust as we go :)

We left on Friday evening, drove 6 hours (much longer with stops along the way!) and arrived in Guys Mill after 3 am. I had the privilege of sleeping on the top bunk, something I have not done since college.

Marie makes Apple Pie for Spoiled Tom

Tom repaid the favor by making Fried Rice

Christopher, Kipp & Stuart

Mom is making a table cloth for the guest book table

Stuart's hand

Brandon plays a little music

The ladies having some coffee

Note that my mom is still working on that tablecloth

Also note the leftover fried rice on the table :)

Stuart is an excellent pianist

Roadside Art in Meadeville

We had a great time in PA and it was great to spend some quality time with Marie and her family. She is a very special aunt! I haven't got to spend a lot of time with "the boys" over the last few years, its great to see them grow into young men. (I'm proud to call them family) 

The Dinner That Wasn't

This weeks goal is to try and use some of the food from our freezer - no need to purchase food when there is yummy stuff in the freezer waiting to be turned into dinner. SO... Monday was chicken ravioli with pesto sauce thanks to Tom. (very tastey) Tuesday was my turn. I decided on Crab Cakes with a sauce i concocted out of plain yogert, dijion mustard, white wine and dill. All leftovers or things we just had on hand. I added some butter, reisling, garlic and old bay seasoning to the frozen soup and preheated the oven. While the oven was heating I put some cloths away and watched some TV, thinking my timing was excellent as Tom was on his way over for dinner. *sniff* *sniff* What is that smell? The oven doesn't usually smell... I looked at the oven and realized there was smoke in my kitchen. But why?? Maybe I accidently turned on a burner and melted something? That seems to be where the smoke is coming from, the back of the stove. Nope, nothing. Stove is off, nothing is melting, flaming or otherwise burning.Theres nothing in the oven. Or is there? I opened the oven door and smoke billowed out. Just a word of wisdom - it is good practice to remove things like pans with drippings from the oven prior to preheating the oven. It was nasty smelling and the kitchen was cloudy. At this point I decided I could either get angry or I could see the humor. So, chuckling, I called Tom and sugested that maybe he would like to take his lovely wife to be out for dinner :)

We decided to try a sushi place just down the street -

Soft Shell Crab Roll

Taco Mexicano Roll

SOOO GOOOD

Eel

Always a favorite, but this was extra good

I was a little disappointed about dinner, but I did manage to make Tuesday's dinner tonight (Wednesday) and it worked out ok. The dijion sauce turned out really well. And since sushi is proabably my favorite food ever, I can't complain that I had to wait a day to serve my meal.

~Dori~