Evie and Jim's Wedding

Welcome to our wedding web page. This page includes some basic information about what took place before, during, and after our wedding. The major sections covered are: wedding preparation, the ceremony, the reception, and the honeymoon. Some closing notes are at the end.

Wedding Preparation

We began planning for our wedding close to one year in advance and did everything ourselves, so it was a lot of work and Evie took care of most of it. Some things were easy like the location (at Jim's alma mater), but as we soon found out, there were many, many things that had to be taken care of before we could get married. Some of it was religious in nature, some of it was just logistics (like arranging the reception), and the costs added up quickly. To help keep expenses down, we tried to do a lot of things ourselves, using VistaPrint to obtain low-cost and in some cases free stationary, printing up our own direction sheets, and preparing our invitations and programs ourselves (designed by Evie) using supplies from Michaels and Staples. When we had to buy things or pay for services, Evie did a lot of research and negotiating to get the best deal possible. A few of the items we designed and/or created are shown below.

The front of the wedding invitation, rotated (it's really a vertical style).	The front of the rehearsal dinner invitations; details are on the back. This dinner was held at Trattoria San Nicola in Berwyn, PA

The Ceremony

The wedding ceremony was held at the beautiful St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic Church on the campus of Villanova University, Jim's alma mater. The presider was Father Peter Donohue, requested because he was the resident priest in the dorm Jim lived in for his first two years of college. Father Donohue has since become the president of the university and always has a very busy schedule, so we are very grateful that he found the time to perform our ceremony. It was wonderful. Here are a few pictures at the church and of our wedding ceremony programs.

Villanova church	At the altar

The front (left) and back (right) of the ceremony programs given out at the church.
The "M" seal on the front was made using gold sealing wax.

The Rings

Choosing our wedding rings was an important part of the wedding, and we wanted something a little different than the often-used plain gold bands. After some thought and discussion, we chose Celtic wedding rings from ShanOre and ordered them directly from the company in Ireland. We both liked the symbolism of the Irish Claddagh ring, whose design is included in the center of our wedding rings. The image is of two hands holding a heart which has a crown over it. The hands represent friendship, the heart represents love, and the crown represents loyalty. The Celtic knots on either site of the Claddagh, according to ShanOre, represent eternal life.

Gent's ring, with Claddagh design and Celtic knotwork (image from ShanOre)	Both rings in the bride's bouquet.

The Reception

The wedding reception was held at the Gold Ballroom of the Concordville Inn. This is a lovely, large ballroom with a courtyard area adjoining it. The four-hour afternoon event included all of the traditional wedding reception activities, and ended early enough for the newlyweds to have some portrait photos taken at nearby Longwood Gardens. The wedding photography was done by D'Mont Reese Photography and videography was done by Christopher Rodgers of Xposedfilm.

The Music

Our music was done by Pam Moore from Moore Music, who played the music and helped coordinate everything during the reception. Songs from a wide variety of genres of music were played, from big band and swing through current popular/top 40. We received an outline of the reception program from Pam as well as a CD with a number of special songs on it. We ran a bit behind and didn't get to do everything we wanted to, but all of the most important parts were covered.

The Cake

We selected a red cake with gold accents, because red is the traditional color of celebrations in Evie's culture. The cake itself had alternating layers of chocolate and chocolate chip, and was topped with a dancing couple cake-topper. In the picture below that shows the cake, you can also see our sweetheart table and the little bride and groom Beanie Babies that we bought each other one Christmas.

The wedding cake

In these closer shots, you can see the cake, our cake topper, and the bride and groom Beanie Babies.

Close-up of the cake	The cake topper	Bride and groom Beanie Babies

The Favors

We looked at many options for wedding favors, keeping in mind that Evie preferred something practical that could be used/useful. In the end, we selected a few items. The main item was a large mug with the wedding information written on it. In the mug were a pair of stuffed hugging bears, a small bag of candy (Hershey's Kisses filled with Cherry Cordial Creme), and a little thank you card.

While not exactly a favor, we also put one disposable camera on each table at the reception so that guests could take their own candid photographs of everything going on. We did get a lot of pictures this way, but it looks like trouble with the flash caused many pictures to either be very dark and fuzzy or not come out at all. Still, it was a fun addition to the reception.

The Honeymoon

Many choices were considered for our honeymoon, but we eventually settled on Las Vegas, Nevada. Evie had never been there before, and Jim was only there once for a few days on a business trip. We stayed at Bally's on The Strip, and even got a one-night upgrade to a suite because there were no non-smoking king-size beds available when we checked in. In a packed few days, we saw many of the hotels on the strip, including some of their free shows/displays, such as:

The Venetian's gondolas	Paris Las Vegas Eiffel Tower
Pink flamingos at the Flamingo	The fountains at the Bellagio

went to three shows (Donn Arden's Jubilee! at Bally's, Stomp Out Loud at Planet Hollywood, and Tournament of Kings at Excalibur), took part in Star Trek: The Experience (Wikipedia link; original site gone/down) at the Las Vegas Hilton in its last month of existence (left picture below), visited Madame Tussauds (right picture below),

Statues of the Borg	The Rat Pack

toured the Atomic Testing Museum, dined at Emeril's New Orleans Fish House, and even did some indoor Skydiving and bought a DVD of our flights. We didn't do any gambling though.

Closing Notes

We hope you've enjoyed this brief look at our wedding from our point of view. If you're looking for more information, photos, etc., please contact us.

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This page was last updated on December 6, 2012.
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