Knot-tying

Eight days ago, on February 15th, I married my best friend. Since last weekend, we have been quietly basking in and remembering just how amazing the whole thing was.

We chose to be married outside, on a pier in Key West.  If you read the blog, you know that El Hombre and I have a serious love affair with the keys.  It’s our escape when we need to decompress, and we have so many lovely memories we’ve built in the past 6.5 years that we’ve been together.  It seemed so obvious that we should get married there.  At first we were nervous that people wouldn’t come, but in the past year and half that we’ve been planning this wedding, we’ve gotten so much outpouring of love and excitement.

I don’t even know what to say. Our wedding weekend was amazing.  We drove down on Thursday, after I got an hour and a half massage, and we slowly made our way through oversees highway.  I admit, Thursday was the hardest day for me because many of my friends and family were traveling in, and several people’s flights got cancelled because of Winter Storm Pax.  My parents and siblings left Thursday morning and drove 14.5 hours because their flights got cancelled.  My oldest friend kept calling me to give me hope – her flight hadn’t been cancelled and the snow was melting.  Later she found out her flight was cancelled but she made it happen anyways.  I was stressed.  Marco went out and bought me flowers and let me chill with my friend for some girl time.

Friday was better. It was amazing in fact.  We woke up and had breakfast overlooking the ocean.  Met with our planner and photographer.  All of our vendors were amazing.  They were perfect personality matches and did such a phenomenal job.  Later on we skipped the traditional rehearsal dinner (who wants to sit down all night? I don’t) and we jumped on a sunset cruise instead.

What a great choice. It was so cool to see all our friends and family mingling and making new friendships.  The sea was calm and the sunset was stunning.  The sky lit up with oranges and reds, and the moon was completely full.  My brother and best friend both gave amazing toasts and I got toasty off mojitos.

We went out with our friends all together afterwards and barhopped.  Neither El Hombre or I wanted to do a bachelor/bachelorette party.  Instead we heard some music, sang some karaoke and ate some late-night pizza.

The next day we had lunch with my family and then went our separate ways to get ready.  I still can’t believe how relaxed I felt.  I never once got pre-wedding jitters.  Some of my friends stopped by with my mom to help me get ready, and then El Hombre and I did a first look.  I can’t wait for photos.  After that we did family pictures and split again.

I walked down the Aisle to “All You Need is Love” by the Vitamin String Quartet, and after what seemed like a split second, we were married!  I remember looking in to El Hombre’s eyes and giggling uncontrollably when our rings wouldn’t go over each other’s knuckles (we may have drank a bit too much the night before.) As we walked out, our friends were screaming, shouting and zagareeting in pure joy.  It was amazing.

We mixed, mingled and danced the night away and the whole time I just felt so close to everyone. It was like the air was  thick with love, joy and exuberance.  I honestly can’t even think to put it in to words how awesome it all was.

Once the reception was over, we rested for a few minutes and then ran down to the Green Parrot to meet our friends.  We had to go, no matter how tired we were, because the Spam Allstars were playing.  Spam was the band that was playing the first two times we met/saw each other.  It was providence that they were playing the same night we got married – and some of our friends had let them know so they gave us shout outs on our wedding during their sets.  So much fun!

I can’t wait to see the pics from our photographer. Until then – here are a few that we pulled off Facebook/Instagram.

I can’t say enough about how amazing our experience was.