A big fat Greek/Italian wedding

BRG was in the most incredible wedding this weekend. One of HIS groomsmen got married to his beautiful bride in Little Italy. The Cleveland weathermen, always known for their calm demeanor and accurate forecasts, were calling for severe storms starting around mid-morning and ending sometime around 3pm. Well, for once they were actually nearly accurate. This was one helluva storm, people! Here is a picture I took at around 10:30am. Yikes.

Luckily, by about noon I started seeing blue skies, and by the time we left for the church (around 1pm) we had sunny skies! The ceremony took place at Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Church (what a mouthful), located in Little Italy. Father Racco, who I'm sure is a lovely man, must have had a bit of a brain fart going on that day because he called the bride the WRONG NAME for nearly half of the ceremony. Her name is Rachel, he was calling her Rachelle. Close, but no cigar, Father. Other than that snafu, it was a beautiful and emotional (and LONG) ceremony.

The bride and groom invited the dates of the wedding party to accompany them on the party bus after the ceremony, which was incredibly nice of them. There was a 2.5 hour break between the ceremony and cocktail hour, so we drove around taking pictures during that time. Here is a picture of BRG and myself enjoying the luxurious leather seats on the bus.

The reception was held at the Intercontinental Hotel located in downtown Cleveland. It's actually the hotel for the Cleveland Clinic. Cocktail hour was beautiful, but I only ate one hors d'oeuvre! I was busy chatting with my FILs. I hadn't seen them in a few weeks, which is a lifetime in my world! I did manage to get a pic of this cool table decoration, though. That's dried pasta!

When the opened the doors to the ballroom, I gasped. It was perfection. Black linens, white napkins, black chair covers, and white sashes. Love. My tablemates probably thought I was crazy because I was taking pictures of everything, but I'm a bride, it's what I DO! Here is a picture of the amazing centerpieces. They were so fragrant, which I personally loved.

Funny story: My in-laws are big jokers, especially my FFIL. I've pretty much stopped believing most things that come out of his mouth because it's usually a big fat LIE. My FMIL, on the other hand, hardly ever pulls jokes. She'll get a small one in here or there, but for the most part she's a good woman. Well, after we sat down, my FMIL tells me "Did you know that there is a star on one of these chairs, and whoever has that star gets to take home the centerpiece?" My eyes lit up. "Are you serious?!?" I asked. I'm sure the look of pure joy and elation on my face was priceless. At this point, my inner dialogue was saying "I don't care who has that f*cking star, I'm taking that centerpiece home with me." My FSIL was actually lifting up her chair cover to see if she had the star! It was then that my FMIL started to die laughing. I looked around...what was so funny? Yeah, she was kidding about that whole star thing. I forgave her, of course.

Their favors were, get this, mini bottles of CHAMPAGNE!!! You better believe I took one of these suckers home with me. Their colors were black and white with touches of electric blue, I don't know where they found electric blue mini champagne bottles, but I think that is awesome.

After dinner was over, we danced the night away to a Jerry Bruno band. They kept people on the dance floor all night long.

I love the above picture so much! It's the bride (duh) and her handsome Daddio!!

The party continued well after the band ended their set. A good number of guests along with the bride and groom gathered in the hotel bar until nearly 2am! All in all, a fantastic wedding. We're going to another wedding next weekend and I'll be sure to blog the highlights of that one, too. Apparently the guest count is at 700. You read that right...700 people. It's gonna be a big one!

Are you going to many weddings this summer?