Happy Wednesday!

Not many people know this, but Tj and I actually got married twice haha. When we were planning our wedding, we really wanted to make it feel special and personalized for us. And one way we wanted to do this was by having someone we know perform the ceremony. We were honoured that one of Tj's cousins agreed to do it for us. And we loved the fact that she would be able to translate some parts of the ceremony to Vietnamese and incorporate some of Tj's culture.

All of this meant that we actually had to get married legally before the big day.

We didn't want it to be a big deal and we were hoping to sneak away to city hall or something and not tell anyone. But I quickly realised it was just as easy, if not easier to have someone marry us at home. We decided to do it in my mom's backyard, after work on a Wednesday, three days before the “real” wedding. It was special because we stood on the deck that my uncle built before he passed away. It meant a lot to me to incorporate him, even in such a small way. And my dogs were there. Jack even stood on the deck with us looking for a pat, which I loved.

It was just our parents and a few friends and family who were around that day. I think I called my maid of honour like an hour before the ceremony and asked if she could stop by and sign as our witness. She didn’t even realize we were getting married until she got there lol. The whole thing was short and sweet and over in a flash. And that's it. We were legally married. Crazy!

To be honest, we both couldn't remember if the backyard ceremony was on the Wednesday or Thursday, or what the date was. I had to pull out our marriage certificate haha. So I guess we succeeded in not thinking of it as our wedding day.

Big thanks to my mom and Auntie Roxanne and everyone else who ran around and got flowers and food and drinks. I kept insisting that it was no big deal, and I didn't want a lot of people there, and it wasn't the real wedding so we didn't need to do anything, but they knew better and added little touches to make it special and make sure we had some drinks flowing when we were all like “Crap, did that really just happen?” hahaha.

It was special because it was at home, and it was casual. I was way more nervous about our backyard wedding than the real one, which was nice in a way because it took the pressure off on the big day. Anything could go wrong and it didn't matter because we were already married.

In the end, it was a perfect way to make things legal and start our wedding festivities. We don't have a lot of pictures, again because I insisted it wasn't the real wedding. Also, my dad had two black eyes and a busted nose from a work accident so it's probably for the best lol.

Some of these photos I've shared before, but now you know that they were from our really important first wedding (I'm trying to convince Tj this means I should get two anniversary presents but it's not working).

Have a great week :)