Wedding Week : Part IV

The Wedding

December 27th, 2008

We've finally arrived to the wedding!  My theme was PURPLE! And boy did I get sick of that color haha.  I'm slowly making a recovery to re kindle my relationship with the color purple :-).

{Oh, and I'm warning you from now..this post has a million pictures...enjoy!}

From left to right :  Bridal Toss bouquet, Wedding dress, Wedding invitation and souvenir chocolate, my bouquet,  and table centerpieces.

Before meeting, Alaa and I each took separate photos.  Mine at my friends house, his at our apartment.

 Now, I have a little story to tell you.  I had reserved with the same woman who did my hair for the Khutbeh to come over and do my hair as well as my mom and sisters for the wedding.  A few weeks before the wedding she came over and saw the inspiration photo and said it would be so easy to achieve the look there wasn't even a need to do a hair preview.

This is the hairstyle I wanted.  Its so charming and elegant.

And for my make-up I showed her a photo and told her wanted neutral colors with touches of gold.  

Turns out...shes color blind!!

In the middle of her doing my make-up I was curious to see how I looked.  My hair looked like I ran  through a hurricane.  And my eyes?  I had silver and pink bling.  It was my worst nightmare.  I wanted to cry.  What a horrible feeling to feel ugly on your wedding day!  Did I mention she wanted to put glitter hairspray in my hair?  It was that bad!!

Okay I'll stop venting now.  :-)

Here's a picture of us getting dressed.  A family friend came and tried to fix my make- up.  The next picture is of my hubs and his brother.  They're precious.

Despite being December, it was a gorgeous day outside.  We took these pictures outside my friends house before the wedding.

Then I went back to my parents house and Alaa went to meet up with his side of the family.  The tradition is that the grooms family has to come to the brides parents home and formally greet his bride.  It's like the transition phase where the bride becomes part of the husbands family.

My gorgeous sisters and I.  My family + Great Uncle & Aunt + Teta.

The two most incredible people you will ever meet.

My mom & my uncle.

The only thing that made me cry was when I hugged my uncle.

As the bride & groom enter the reception they have a trail of family and close friends behind singing old songs.  Some people even played the "tableh" {Go to 0;44 secs in this video to see what I mean }

This was the reception hall.  The stage was completely DIY.

The first entrance was kind of a "fake " entrance.  Alaa and I went into hiding until all of the guests arrived and then we made our grand entrance.

And then as usual, we danced...a lot! Our D.J. was absolutely incredible and kept everyones feet on the dance floor and hands in the air (That sounds cheesy, I know haha).
One of the dances we do is called the debke {start 0:36}

Le Gateau

Another tradition is that the girl does a "candle dance".  Theres a specific song that is played and the brides goes around the room carrying the candles.  People usually pull up chairs and throw flower petals on the bride as she walks by.  It's kinda fun!

And ofcourse, the American tradition of the bouquet toss.  The second picture makes me laugh. :-)

 My incredible family and the most amazing woman I know.

And I'll close off with two funny photos.

I hope I didn't bore you with all of these photos!  I couldn't help myself, it was hard to narrow it down and believe it or not there are still so many things that happened that I didn't include.  ( I'll spare you the picture of my cute husband rocking an invisible guitar!)

If you have any questions about our wedding feel free to ask me!

Oh and I have one more surprise for you tomorrow!  Can you guess what it could be?