Just in! Our wedding photos! Prepare your eye holes to be bombarded with all of my favorite moments, photos, and memories of this most perfect day! This is just a handful of snapshots that I had to share immediately, a mini wedding album, but don’t you worry- more to come! It was just so hard to pick my favorites, they’re all my favorites!
I had three dads walk me down the aisle, that’s right, THREE! I was so damn proud of that too because my birth father, step dad, and dad were all present to walk me, all drama free, and nothing but love. That’s my twin – my beautiful mom with my dad in his dress blues! And that’s THE kiss <3
My daughter Corrine was my Maid Of Honor, and my bridesmaids in order from left to right . . . my best friend from college Kiki (11 years of friendship!), my sister Maria (whom I hadn’t seen in 11 years!), Nikki- who easily became one of my favorite all time forever friends over all our wedding bonding, Corriney- my heart, and Miya who I traveled the world with! Joe’s Groomsmen were: Steve- (Nikki’s husband) one of the most genuine people you’ll ever meet, Mark- the Best Man who Joe grew up with, Michel and Bobby (Joe’s handsome brothers), and my brother Roger dawww <3 What a good looking group! I’ve never seen Joe so happy, so emotional, so serious, and so strikingly good looking than on the day of our wedding . . . just look at that face.
One of my favorite photos captured is that above, of our wedding party and parents greeting us as we were announced for the first time into our reception. Our first dance was to an acoustic version of Joe’s and my favorite karaoke songs! Right after the song played the DJ played the original version and those two songs will forever be special to me. Afterwards, I’d ran over to our “L.A. friends table” and that’s this picture with my babes Bailey, Linz, Ashlee, and Jamie and we’re probably giggling and oogling over Joe’s vows – these ladies are some of most closest friends in life and I was so happy to have them all there.
The Great Room at Savage Mill is where we had our reception held, 127 of some of the most important people in our lives were there to celebrate with us and it was a 3 part, 12 hour party! A chapel ceremony, Great Room reception, and an after party at Joe’s childhood home! I gotta tell ya, every single person rallied and partied until the very end. They ate, drank, and laughed with us from start to finish. It all began on Thursday June 29th with arrivals in Maryland and wrapped up on Monday the 3rd with the final departure of our friends Nikki and Steve back to L.A. To say that our wedding weekend was the most magnificent 4 days of our lives is an understatement yo. It’s become the most beautiful memory for us to reflect on and I’m so happy that we can relive that week through photography, video (coming soon!), and social media.
Of the many gifts that our friends and families gave us, two particularly remarkable items made me so very grateful. A beautiful girlfriend of mine, Michelle (and wife of Best Man Mark!) made our wedding cake! Like with her hands! And lots of love. She made enough cake for 127 people and I was blown away by how gorgeous and delicious (homemade marble!) that cake was. Like, how do you even. And then there was the ‘guest book’. My insanely talented sister in law, Emily (and parter to Groomsmen Michel!) hand painted that stunning bee with oil paints. Like staaaap. She painted it on vintage wall paper that I got to pick out, also in our wedding colors. It became our theme and our guest book that everyone left lil love notes for us on. “Meant to bee”. Get it 😀 Our wedding favors were jars of honey and jam, homemade in Virginia. “Meant to bee, so spread the love”. Yes we are cheesy and we love it.
That’s Mark giving his Best Man speech, making us all laugh and cry at the same time, and that’s Joe more than likely saying something surprising, hilarious, and inappropriate all at once to Fr. Leo. I thought those two photos represented the beauty of the room and the beauty of friendship. Leo and Joe have known each for years and he’s legit the coolest priest you’ll ever meet. Also, he beat Bobbly Flay making Bobby Flay’s famous fajitas – yea that guy, he married us!
Ugghhh I could go on and on and on. I’ll save it for next time. Thank you for sharing this day with us, you all made it so remarkably memorable and I can’t wait to share the video with you all! Now off I go to pressure Joe into editing it for me <333 #welcometomarriagejoe
P.S. if you want to see some of the photos from some of our guests, look up #exoticnationwedding #jessjoewed and #jjmarriedlife on Instagram xoxo
