Part 3...The celebration

This will be the wrap up of the whirlwind of events that surrounded Marisa and Jon's wedding! You can read about the rehearsal dinner and wedding here if you missed it. :)

After the wedding, we headed on the trolley to take pictures. There were lots(!), but here are a few....

I love that Jon's holding the bouquet lol

Kate made a very pretty flower girl:)

Marisa was a beautiful bride:)

Jon is ALWAYS teasing Marisa's sister Bridget! Turnaround if fair play...and made for a fun pic!

After pictures, it was time to celebrate. I owe an incredible about of thanks and appreciation to my friends, Carol and Mary, who helped me to design, decorate and pull off an amazing party! I wanted to create something really special to help make up for the disappointment of not being able to have a "real reception" with dancing and everyone we had hoped to celebrate with. Carol and Mary far exceeded anything I could have come up with on my own! 

A little side story before I get to the pics.....

During the pictures after the wedding, the skies looked pretty dark and ominous. I was nervous....we had done so much to create a beautiful backyard and our house couldn't really hold all the people waiting to celebrate. While Marisa's dad gave a toast before dinner, I heard a distant clap of thunder. Yet, the weather stayed clear despite the dark clouds. Later, we saw on the weather channel that all around us were bands of thunderstorms all evening, yet the clouds seem to part right over our town until they continued to the east of us.

There were so many struggles with planning a wedding during a pandemic. The several months leading up to the wedding were filled with discouragement, unwanted changes and tears. After lots of rescheduling and replanning, I gave everything over to Mary. I spent several weeks praying to Mary and thinking about the wedding feast at Cana. Mary interceded when there was a need, and her Son provided something better than the couple could have ever planned!

I didn't realize it, but Jon and Marisa had chosen the Wedding Feast at Cana as their Gospel reading for the wedding. When it was being read, I got a little teary eyed and felt very grateful for all the ways Mary helped us to pull everything together despite all the obstacles we had to face. She even provided for us to the very end of the celebration by giving us a summer night we could all enjoy!

And now onto the pictures.....:)

Here's what our guests experienced as they arrived at our home....

Even the septic cover got a pretty makeover!

The hearts were from the bridal shower and had advice from the guests for a happy marriage:)

After one of the tents was destroyed in the rain storm after the rehearsal dinner, I sent out an SOS text
to the company we rented our chairs and tables from. Thankfully they had a tent available last minute
and were willing to come by early Sunday morning to set it up! 

Our cool "lounge area" by the bar:)

The triumphant entrance!!!

I didn't get pictures of the food, but we had the event catered by On the Go. We enjoyed the food very much! Jon does not love cake, so we settled on ice cream sandwiches....bc Jon is an ice cream fanatic! Jon's close friend Amber, who he has known since tball when they were four!, recently purchased a local ice cream shop named Captain Bonney's. She gave us a very generous discount and we ordered three different ice cream sandwiches: vanilla, coffee oreo(Jon and Marisa's favorite), and cookie dough. They were enthusiastically enjoyed by everyone! Check out the cute labels Amber made!

Yum!

We strung lots of lights...which looked amazing after dark! The pictures don't really do it justice.

I should have shut off the spotlight before I took the picture...but it was the end of the night and I was tired! lol

Even the tomato stakes got lights:)

Since we couldn't have dancing, Andrew ran a marriage themed trivia game after dinner that was so much fun! Everyone got really into it and the friendly bantering between teams made the night extra special!

Jon and Marisa were supposed to go to Hawaii for their honeymoon, but, again, plans had to be changed. They ended up in California for 10 days, starting in San Diego and driving up some of the coast to visit many of the mission towns as far as San Jose. After everything they went through with the wedding, one more change didn't phase them. I sense a theme for their married life.....but God's plans tend to work out better than our's anyway.

Just ask the married couple from Cana;)

 

Part 2...The Rehearsal Dinner and the Wedding

This post is long overdue but continues Jon and Marisa's journey to their wedding!

Thankfully we had always planned to have the rehearsal dinner catered in our backyard since a restaurant would not have been possible because of Covid!

I had my design team dream team of my friends, Mary and Carol, helping me with design and decorations. The rehearsal dinner was actually a rehearsal luncheon. We planned it that way so that Jon and Marisa would have some time to relax and socialize in the later afternoon with their out of town friends. (And I'm SO glad we planned it that way because the weather in the late afternoon was horrible! More on that later!)

The rehearsal at the church went great and then we headed back to our house to celebrate. The rehearsal luncheon was laid back and fun. We enjoyed good food and each other's company. Jon's friends from New Hampshire played bartenders and helped to make some fun specialty drinks and made sure we had ice and drinks all set up for the party. (Which was super helpful and I appreciated so much!) Jay made a custom bar for the party that will double in the future as a generator cover. Jay had also made a special corn hole game and Marisa's parents bought a big Jenga game which was a lot of fun. The plan was for Jon, Marisa and the bridal party and NH friends to hang out for the afternoon; swim in the pool, enjoy the yard, and have smores later in the day. Unfortunately, by mid afternoon it started to rain a little so they decided to hang out at the apartment that Jon and Marisa would live in once they were married.

I got the special sticker off of Etsy and the beanbags from Amazon:)

The custom bar..Sarah painted the "H" for us.

That light rain turned into torrential downpours for hours and ended up collapsing and breaking one of the tents we had borrowed! I consulted my design crew and we came up with a couple of back up plans! Ironically, we had been in a drought and hadn't had rain in weeks!

WEDDING DAY!

Thankfully, the wedding day was filled with sunshine! The time passed quickly with the usual busyness of makeup, hair styling, and food to keep everyone going. Having the "after wedding party" at our house meant that there was lots(!) to do in the backyard. Because of Covid restrictions, Jon and Marisa moved the real reception to next year, and we hosted a legal outdoor gathering of less than 100 people.

Thankfully, my design team was in full swing with the help of Jon's NH friends and Jon's groomsmen. The to do list was long, but it all got done!(stay tuned for pictures in Part 3!)

the bridal party enjoying breakfast

Marisa and her sister, Bridget, facetiming their sister Ali and adorable niece, Zoe, 
who were unable to travel bc her husband is serving in the Air Force in Italy. :(

Kate being silly 

Sarah and my dil, Liz, sporting similar hairstyles:)

The bride revealing her dress for the first time!

The Bride's bouquet

The bridesmaid's bouquet

Marisa's parents rented a trolley to drive everyone to the church and then pictures afterwards. It was a lot of fun!

And then it was "go" time! Since I'm the mother of the groom, I snapped some pics of Jon watching Marisa come up the aisle.

Jon started smiling because Marisa started crying:)

The ceremony was beautiful. There was lots of emotion for a moment that had been in the planning stage for over two years and postponed briefly because of Coronavirus. The day might not have happened on the date they originally planned or in the way it originally planned, but it happened! And that was the most important thing. 

The newest Mr. and Mrs. Hamel

The Countdown to a Wedding...Finally!

There is a new Mr. and Mrs. in our family! The long awaited for, rescheduled, and worried over event finally arrived..and it was a beautiful day. The last week and a half has been a whirlwind with a to do list that seemed to stretch on forever. I had an entire notebook chock full of notes, reminders to myself, and covered in sticky notes for those last minute things I remembered but was afraid would get lost on a page that was already too filled up with words and directions. With lots of help from some amazing friends,(huge shout out to Carol and Mary!), our family, and lots of prayers, everything came together and made for some wonderful memories.

I'm going to break this post up into a mini series since there's just way too much to share at one time. There are way too many pictures, too!

First up is Marisa's shower....which was actually two showers. Marisa's shower was rescheduled twice from its original April date and landed on June 20th, which was only 8 days before the wedding. Two weeks before the shower, we still didn't have a whole lot of guidance about crowd sizes or restaurant reopening. Marisa's mom, Cathy, and I decided to split the shower list into her side/his side to keep the numbers down. Since it wasn't going to be able to be held at the hall like she originally planned, I decided to host our side at our house. A couple of Marisa's aunts offered to host the shower for her side of the family, and it ended up being at her Aunt Patti's house since she has a beautiful back yard. Keeping it outside would keep everyone safer in a crowd.

(Some of Marisa's bridesmaids, including her maid of honor and sister, Bridget(in blue).

I did not do a good job with photography and failed to get a group

shot with the whole crew which also included Sarah, Ellen, Liz, and Kate as the flower girl.

 Marisa's sister, Ali, is also a bridesmaid but was stuck in Italy where her husband is stationed.)

(Their wedding # was "Holding out for a Hamel"...

after all the delays we joked that they should change it to

#stillholdingoutforahamel!)

I was blessed to be able to borrow a tent from some parish friends. (They also let us borrow some cloth table cloths and champagne glasses for the reception which we appreciated so much!) I came up with a menu with covid in mind: I served individualized portions of potato salad(thanks mom), vegetables with dip, and taco salad in disposable cups, individual skewers with watermelon, more skewers with caprese chicken, and individual wrap sandwiches.(The sandwiches were from a local restaurant, On The Go, that make the best wraps!) There were also lots of yummy desserts! Jay's mom made her famous cupcakes as well as some delicious scones and some squares. Sarah made her amazing macaroons in chocolate and raspberry. I made chocolate chip cookie dough brownies and white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. My dil, Liz, made these super cute peanut butter smores blossoms and one of the bridesmaid's moms made miniature cheesecakes. (There was more than enough dessert:)

We didn't tell Marisa that she was getting two showers in the same day so that we could have a small element of surprise! I think she got a little worried when she arrived and didn't see any of her aunts...and no extra chairs to accommodate them. So we made sure to start the party with a little explanation. :)

The theme of the shower was "Favorite Things" after Marisa's favorite movie of all time, The Sound of Music. We tried to tie in elements of the song into the shower...we had roses, brown paper packages tied up with string(which held our hand sanitizer party favors(great idea by Cathy!), and snowflakes on a banner filled with Marisa's favorite things..(Jon, babies, our dog, Josie, and her aunt's dog, Holly). Cathy even got Marisa a copper kettle which we filled with wedding advice from all the guests. We had yellow tablecloths and flowers since yellow is Marisa's favorite color. 

(Note the copper kettle:)

Some of the bridesmaids put together a few fun games that everyone enjoyed. Marisa got lots of wonderful gifts to start their life together. And even though it happened to fall on the hottest day of the year(at least in June:), it was just so nice to actually be around people! There were a couple of months when we weren't even sure that a shower would be possible, so being able to celebrate Marisa just made us all appreciate the day so much more!

This was "guess Marisa's age in the photos" game

Photo spot

The moms wore the same color scheme...all unplanned:)

As the first shower wound down, we packed up many of the decorations and desserts and headed over to shower number two. Cathy had the party catered by a very good chef that she knows. They also had a choice of wraps which were very good! The mac and cheese she made was excellent as well! Marisa got to open more lovely gifts and spend time with her side of the family. After the gifts were open, the kids and young adults all got to swim in Aunt Patti's beautiful inground pool. (Kate loved it!)

I failed again in regards to picture at shower #2. I did get these cute shots of Kate with Aunt Patti's dog, Holly....

It was a very full day...but all very worth it to see Marisa so happy!

And then the real countdown began...it was only six days until "I do's"!

To be continued.....