Married. Check.

Well, it's all over.  The wedding has passed, we returned from our honeymoon, our bags are unpacked (mostly...some...I'm going to finish today all right!).  The city of San Jose should have received our marriage license by now, so we are officially married.

We won't get our photos back for another few weeks, and I can't start recaps anyway until I fill you in on everything that you missed when I was too busy and stressed to post.  A lot of things happened in the final weeks before the wedding, and I was a complete wreck before the day rolled around.

But you know what?  It was awesome.  The wedding was better than I could have imagined, and Daniel and I had a fantastic time.

So too did our guests.  Most of them came up to us afterward and told us how amazing a time they had had, and many of them told us it was the best wedding they had ever been to.  After the months of toil we spent preparing for it, that was really good to hear.

But the most gratifying thing for me was our ceremony.  We wrote the entire thing ourselves and put a lot of work into its construction, and I'm so glad we did because it was perfect.  The ceremony will always stand out to us as the best part of the wedding and a true reflection of us.  It also provoked the most touching compliments we received on our wedding day.  Many, many people told us how much they liked it; several told us they cried during our vows even though they do not cry at weddings.  That really touched me because people often compliment the dress or the party, but they generally just tolerate the ceremony, and it meant so much to have so many people tell us that that was their favorite part of the wedding too.

Not everything was perfect, not by a long shot.  So much went wrong the day of the wedding that I doubt I even remember it all.  But our wedding was still amazing, and I managed to let the things that went wrong slide off and not ruin the day.  I don't know if I can call it the best day of my life, but it's certainly up there, and it was beyond any doubt the best party I will ever attend.

And I look forward to sharing it all with you...in a few weeks when I've recovered from jet lag and the general exhaustion that still hangs over me.

Until then, I leave you with this:

The Coolest RSVP EVER!

Soooooo, I may or may not have invited two of my favorite authors to my wedding.

I may or may not have written them notes with their invitations saying I wanted them to know that without their books, Daniel and I probably never would have met.

And I may or may not have received a response from one of them last week.

If I did, it would look like this:

Honestly, Who Better to Fill One of These in Than an Author?

Personal Photo

It also would have included a gift of an entire book series, signed to us specifically.

The Great Tree of Avalon

Personal Photo

If that had happened, I might say that the author was awfully kind and thoughtful.

So why would I invite two famous authors to my wedding?  Well, when I started middle school, I was kind of over reading.  I loved books when I was little, but I was a lot more interested in cheerleading, dance, and gymnastics by the ripe old age of 10.  It was not until I read The Seven Songs of Merlin by T.A. Barron that I regained the love I had once had for reading.  After that, I was unstoppable.  And when I finally gave in to the hoard's demands and saw Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in theaters, I was in love, and that love was slow to ebb.

We haven't been through Daniel's and my origin story in a while, so let's recap, shall we?  Berkeley has a program called Decal that allows undergrads to teach full-on courses to other undergrads, and everyone can get credit for it.  Within Decal is a club called BookWorlds which teaches exclusively on fantasy and sci-fi novels, specifically on worlds that exist only in books.  My freshman year, I searched obsessively for a class on Harry Potter and found one my second semester through BookWorlds.  Our officiant, Nicole, was the lead teacher for this class, and since she and Daniel were friends, Daniel hung out in our class a lot.  We'd noticed each other, but it wasn't until I decided I wanted to teach that we actually got to know each other.  Three days of obsessive facebooking, AIMing (yes, it was that long ago), and emailing later, we had our first date, and the rest is history (some of it fantastical).

So you see, if I hadn't read Harry Potter, we never would have met.  And if I hadn't read The Seven Songs of Merlin, I probably wouldn't have read Harry Potter.  I feel like I owe the authors something for that.  I probably owe as much to J.R.R. Tolkien since BookWorlds would not have happened without The Lord of the Rings, but he's dead, so getting him an invitation would be tricky, and honestly, who has the time for that kind of thing?

The response/gift I may or may not have received from T.A. Barron was not completely out of the blue.  We've met.  Actually, he's met Daniel too though he doesn't really remember.  The first class I taught was on his Lost Years of Merlin series, and I asked him to come and speak to our class.  He obliged by meeting with us privately before a talk at a book store (in San Jose, funnily enough), and we've been in loose contact ever since.  We met up when he had an event in San Francisco, I told him about my sorrow of never getting to see Stonehenge up close (damn preservation attempts!), and I spoke in a documentary he was doing about kids and books.  He's a very cool person, just the sort of man I expected from reading his books, and it is entirely possible that I am actually his biggest fan (family excluded of course).

Now if only J.K. Rowling would get back to me... .

Did you invite anyone famous or someone neither of you really knew to your wedding?

P.S.  Rahm Emanuel was so getting an invitation before he left the White House.  Daniel is actually related to him, and while he's not really close to the family anymore, I was hoping to get White House M&Ms out of the deal.

The ABC's of Blogging

I've been sick for a week and soooo have not spent that time working on the wedding.  So in the meantime, I entertain you with this.  Not that I don't talk about myself wayyyyy too much on here already.

A. Age: 23
B. Bed size:  Full, but believe me, I wish it was a king.
C. Chore you hate: Just one?  Really?  We'll go with dishes because they plague my everyday life.  And because Daniel and I used to have a deal where he would do the dishes because I hated them, and I would do the laundry because he hated it...until there became too many dishes for it to be fair.

D. Dogs: Sore subject still.  But someday, we'll get one together.

E. Essential start to your day: Waking up.
F. Favorite color:  Blue/pink.  Why yes, those are two of our wedding colors!
G. Gold or silver: I've made the switch from gold to silver though really I prefer white gold.
H. Height: 5' 4.5".  Yes, the extra half inch matters.
I. Instruments you play: I sing.  I played the flute for about 4 months when I was 9.
J. Job title: Oddly enough, I think the title of both of my jobs is instructor.
K. Kids: Love them, but not having any for a very, very long time.
L. Live: Today, San Jose.
M. Mom’s name: Yeah, that's where I draw the line on personal information.
N. Nicknames: NicoliOliHpf!  as said by Bridesmaid M.
O. Overnight hospital stays: You know, despite my all-too-frequent hospital visits during the last few years, none of them have turned into overnight stays.
P. Pet peeve: Idiots.
Q. Quote from a movie:  I cannot pick one, so I present you with these:

"Once upon a time..."
"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." - Albus Dumbledore
"Do you believe in magic?"
"Death cannot stop true love.  It can only delay it for a while." - Wesley
"Inconceivable!" - Vizzini
"Can you sing with all the voices of the mountain?  Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?" - Pocahontas
"When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true."

R. Right or left handed: Right
S. Siblings: Younger brother
T. Time you wake up: Ideally?  About 8am.  Realistically, earlier than I'd like.
U. Underwear: Wouldn't you like to know?
V. Vegetables you dislike: All.  Except corn.
W. What makes you run late: Refusing to get out of bed.  And traffic.  But mostly, I don't do late.
X. X-Rays you’ve had: I don't know if there's anything I haven't had x-rayed.
Y. Yummy food you make: I make a mean blackberry chocolate tart and have gained renown through LauHiLau cookies and gorgonzola gnocchi.  My white wine-soaked scrambled eggs with goat cheese toast are pretty cool too.

Z. Zoo- favorite animal:  Dolphins.  Though I also have a soft spot for sea lions, whales, deer, wolves, and large cats.

Care to share some of yours?

A Little Wedding Fun

A friend of mine sent me this:  http://wendylady2.livejournal.com/70426.html

It is hilarious!  A little fun to break the wedding/holiday stress.