I like this idea for a photo, or even for part of the ceremony. Tunnel of love! Here's how Heather remembers it:

"Everyone says the day goes by sooo fast. And it really is true ... I'm really glad I took the time to stop every so often to really take it all in. We felt really lucky to have so many people there to celebrate with. The next morning, my husband woke up and said, 'Our wedding was pretty awesome.' And it was."
Heather's favorite unexpected moment, captured delightfully in the photo below: "Our friend--and officiant--started busting a move on the dance floor with my husband's grandmother. It was just a really fun and unexpected way to kick off the dancing part of the evening, and it got everyone into a dancing mood!"
Photography: Jeremy Lawson
Venue: The Newberry Library, Chicago*
Dress: Jim Hjelm
Cuff bracelet: The Left Bank
Flowers: Scarlet Petal
Day of Coordinator: Shannon Helmig of Shannon Gail Weddings
Caterer: Simply Elegant Catering
Makeup: Sonia Roselli
DJ: Toast & Jam
String Quartet: Quartet Parapluie
Videographer: David Clawson

* Heather and Andrew get 500 extra history nerd points for getting married where the rest of us merely research.

I will say this for the Windy City: we can rock the veil shot. And check out this cuff bracelet:
It's from The Left Bank in Chicago, by the way. Here it is again:
"The best advice I can offer is to research, research, research," Heather says. "I spent a lot of time reading reviews, checking wedding websites for vendor referrals, and e-mailing potential vendors before making final decisions. I truly feel that we had the most amazing vendors and I found almost all of them after doing a ridiculous amount of research before even meeting with anyone. We also DIY'd our invitations, programs, menus and placecards. It was a lot of work, but we got a lot of help from family and friends. It was amazing to see everything come together on our wedding day and feel like all of our hard work and time paid off."

(Photography by Jeremy Lawson.)

Micies, meet Heather and Andrew, who got married in Chicago's Newberry Library. I love this wedding--gorgeous modern aesthetic with a DIY core and plenty of poachable ideas. My favorite: orchid blossoms suspended on fishing line.
Heather and Andrew wrote the ceremony themselves, in order to make it personal. They drew inspiration from traditional and nontraditional sources--from other weddings to books to things they found online.

"From the very beginning we knew we wanted our ceremony to reflect who we really are and it was really important to us to achieve that," Heather says. "We asked one of our best friends from college to officiate and it felt so much more personal to have someone officiating who has known us since we became an 'us.'"
I like the bridesmaids in neutrals with the bright bouquets. I may end up doing something similar, if bright dresses cannot be found.

Heather says, "We also put a lot of thought into the music for the ceremony--my husband proposed using a flip book similar to the 'to me you are perfect' signs in Love Actually (my favorite movie)--so I walked down the aisle to the Glasgow Love Theme from the movie."
I love this canopy, with its floaty blossoms and its bundled fabric and light.

(Photography by Jeremy Lawson.)

Things that kick ass about Monday's wedding:
1. Possibly the world's greatest cuff bracelet (no, really).
2. Chicago love. Including skylines and our famous wind.*
3. Stunning use of orchid blossoms strung together on fishing line. Wait til you see.
4. The officiant getting down on the dance floor with the groom's grandma. Including booty shaking.

See you then. Happy weekend!

(Photography by Jeremy Lawson.)
* We are called the Windy City because of the highly developed BS-ing capabilities of our politicians, but we do have actual wind, too.

I've noticed a trend that really creeps me out: it goes way beyond the THIS IS MY DAY fetish, way past the I'M A PRINCESS crazies and targets the heart of our insecurities. It's the idea that whatever is "wrong" with you--be it fine lines, age spots, dull hair, a few extra pounds, bitten nails, not being able to dance--has to be fixed by your wedding day. It's as though there's a giant expiration date stamped on each of our foreheads. Meant to do crunches and tighten up your tummy, but didn't get to do it before your wedding day? Well, sorry, but time's up. You're married now, so you must 1. let yourself go and 2. deal with the fact that you aren't "perfect" in the wedding photos.

1. No.
2. None of us is ever going to be perfect in wedding photos. We are still going to be ourselves in the wedding photos. But we will look happy, and in love, and that's the point. (Plus, if we are struck by the zit that ate Manhattan on the night before the wedding, there is this wonderful thing called Photoshop...)

Anyway, this idea has to be the source of all the creepy wedding diet ads that suddenly popped up on my Facebook page when I changed my status to "engaged." I swear I saw one the other day that said "Liquid wedding diet: drop 50 pounds fast!" And let's not dismiss all this as superficial, because losing fifty pounds fast is dangerous and damaging. Also damaging is using our insecurities about being pretty on the day to peddle $300 face creams, heavily chemical treatments, and the whole boatload of other things on the "beauty" pages of wedding websites and magazines.

I want to try out a radically different way of thinking about this that follows along the lines of East Side Bride's wise observation that "Your wedding is not a photoshoot." Sure, I understand the primping--the wedding is probably the most-photographed day of my life, and I do want to look cute. But I also want to look like myself. And I encourage you to look like yourself. You know, the person your groom fell in love with.

And guess, what, wedding zeitgeist: if I don't get rid of one or the other age-spot-freckles, or tighten the tummy before the wedding,* I CAN STILL CHOOSE DO IT AFTERWARD IF I WANT TO, because I will still be a person, dammit.

* I hate crunches. So eff it. Plus, He-Mouse likes my little pillowy tummy. I'm not crunching for you, wedding. You are not in charge.

P.S. AND ANOTHER THING: I just got an email from one of those local wedding event places (you know--"Come have drinks at this hotel while we sell you stuff!!", "Come meet the areas greatest photogs!!", "Enter to win and also can we sell you stuff!") and it said "Your wedding dress is the most beautiful dress you'll ever wear!!"

How do you know, a$$holes? I might win an Oscar. Or model a designer gown. Or wear a reall bitchin Valentino to my 60th birthday party. My life doesn't end when I get married.