So, here’s the story: that photo up there is of me and Dave with our goddaughter on our wedding day.

(I might have a bit more time for taking food photos and writing now that the wedding planning is over!)

(Also, before I forget to give this most important credit: the photos in this post are all from proofs by Annaliese Moyer unless otherwise indicated.)

Dave and I got married on August 29th, and promptly left for our honeymoon in Southeast Asia. Even catching up on things since getting back has been an adventure. We petted tigers, got sick, ate many tasty street foods, hiked around, visited five countries, and had an incredible trip. Now that I’m back, I’m working on some interesting cases for clients whom I am proud to represent, and really just luxuriating in having the extra energy to pour into all of my work and projects.

I’d like to take a moment to tell you a bit more about the wedding.

Our goddaughter was our bubble girl, you see.

We’d originally planned to hold the ceremony on the beach between the bridges, but when the rain started coming down harder, we gave up and sought shelter [under the chuppah] under the arch of the Manhattan Bridge in Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY (photo by our friend Laura, I believe).

Pausing for the noisy trains to pass was one of the many highlights of this decision. I think I laughed more during our ceremony than I ever have at anyone else’s wedding, which is a huge win in my book!

We asked our dear friend Cat Valente to officiate for us, along with the judge for whom I used to work as a court attorney, with help from a linguistics professor / cantor friend to sing the sheva brachot. Cat explained what the various symbols of the ceremony meant to us, and the judge discussed our commitment to marriage equality at our request and administered our vows.

Dave held my bouquet while I said my vows to him.

Scott Lefton made us the most amazing wedding rings (photo below taken by him).

Our rings each come with a custom-designed puzzle, that enables the ring to be worn as a bracelet or a pendant. Each puzzle has a labyrinth hidden within, which must be solved by rotating the outer body of the puzzle and moving the two arms which hold the ring in place. As Scott put it during our wedding ceremony, “this echoes how Danielle and Dave will work together to navigate the mazes of their joined lives, sometimes moving together and sometimes separately, but always with a common goal in mind.” When the puzzle is solved, the arms move inwards and the ring can be removed and worn traditionally instead.

Scott printed the solution to the puzzle on flash paper and lit it on fire during the ceremony, of course. Wouldn’t want to make things too easy on us.

He handed a second copy of the solution in a sealed envelope to my brother, who put it in a safe deposit box somewhere out on Long Island. When we got home from the honeymoon, we found the key and coordinates to the solution in a frame on the wall in our apartment.

We were rained out, but we didn’t let that stop us.

We had a reception filled with games, honey, and stories.

Our wedding favors were small jars filled with Zambian honey, with labels I made from the invitation art drawn by Lee Moyer.

My favorite is still the wall we set up with luggage tags. People wrote true and false stories about us on luggage tags and tacked them to the wall, then voted on stories others had written with little red and green stickers.

We brought our favorite cleaver from home to cut the wedding cake.

(This at least is bloggishly appropriate. I’ve used that cleaver to chop pumpkins for kaddo bourani and bones stewed garlicky black bean spare ribs. It is well loved and well utilized.)

Brooklyn’s Borough President, Marty Markowitz, issued a Proclamation for us. Dave’s mother baked the most delicious cookies for all of our guests. My brother found the Baby Soda Jazz Band for us just a few days before the event.

I can’t possibly recount all the details here. I’ll skip ahead to more appropriate posts soon, with photos of all the amazing foods we discovered on our honeymoon. But this is what’s been taking up so much of my time, and you deserve a glimpse of it.

Our wedding was ultimately a huge collaborative effort, and afterwards, a lot of people came up to us to say that they’d never had this much fun being part of a wedding before. We really stepped back and let people run wild with their creativity for us, loving what they had to give instead of telling them precisely what to do to build a very specific image for us. I absolutely treasure the brilliant, amazing people we have in our lives, whose wildest dreams created such a wonderment for us.

And now that all’s done and we’re home again, my blushing bride handsome husband partner (nothing else sounds quite right, still) and I are catching up on our lives (and our cooking) at last!

Posted by Danielle in Misc. on November 17th, 2009 | 8 Comments » | Permalink