Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary (33 years!).  We weren't actually snowed in but we stayed at home getting things ready for a family party today.  We usually have everyone over a couple of days after Christmas for an anniversary party for my husband's parents (yes, our anniversaries are one week apart!).  This year the party is a week later than usual but I still have holiday decorations up - it isn't Twelfth Night yet.

We were married while we were both in graduate school and somehow we never got around to ordering full wedding albums.  I just have the proofs (remember, this was in the dark ages before digital photography!).  Over the past few years I have been working on scanning and "cleaning up" the photos that I do have.  I thought I'd share a few with you today...

Here I am with my Dad, starting the walk down the aisle.  Since we were married during the Christmas season, my flowers included holly and evergreens.  My bouquet had white carnations (the flower of the month for January), the bridesmaids and flower girls had red carnations, and my maid of honor had the white carnations with the fine red lines - like peppermint.

We were married in the evening because I had always liked the idea of a candlelight wedding.  Our church used these candle holders to line the aisle for Christmas services and I added the red plaid bows to coordinate with the wedding colors (is plaid a color?).

We dressed at the church since it was in the evening and snowy.  These photos were taken in the church library.  I realized later that you could see all of the stickers on the spines.  When I look at this photo now, I wonder why the photographer used such a strong flash.  We did end up with some unflattering shadows.  Of course, he couldn't see how the photos looked instantly as we do now with digital equipment.

My best friend from college was my maid of honor.  Steve's three sisters and two brothers were all in the wedding party, along with my brother and two of our college friends.

My mother's gown had sparkly beading on the chiffon overlay and my mother-in-law's gown had a hand painted design.  My gown was lace and extremely covered up compared to today's wedding styles.

We were lucky to have two grandmothers at the wedding.  My grandmother (in the middle) was 88 when we were married and she passed away the following fall (by then she was "in her 89th year" as she would say).  Steve's grandmother was 71 so we were lucky to have many more years with her.

This photo is one of the "casual" photos - it always makes me laugh because it is so obviously posed!

Steve is the oldest of his generation so his youngest cousins, six and seven years old at the time, were the ring bearer and senior flower girl.  My niece was the three year old flower girl - I love seeing this photo of her having fun during the "formal" shots.

We posed for this photo with all of my family except my grandmother.  Rebecca was very good about posing for so many photos.

Here we are with Steve's family and grandparents.  Even after color correcting and cleaning up the scan there were a couple of things that bothered me about this photo - first the shadow behind Steve's Dad and Grandpa and the shadow line on the left side by my youngest brother-in-law.

I did some more editing and cloned away those distractions.

Next, I "erased" the man in the portrait behind my sister-in-law.  It looked like he was peering over her shoulder and made the photo confusing to look at (who is that behind Kimberley?).

Finally, I filled in the triangular gap between my father-in-law and his father.  The light color was distracting and, because Grandpa was leaning in a bit, it looks like my father-in-law is very wide (I think another flash shadow was the cause).  It is amazing how much you can do with older photos - it just takes time to make them look as perfect as possible.

Thanks for letting me share with you - looking back on these photos brings back so many memories.  I still have quite a few more to do but eventually we will have a wedding album - maybe for our 35th? 

We didn't end up with the huge amount of snow they had to the north of Boston but it is very cold  - definitely a good day to be home and enjoying family time!  I hope that you are staying inside or only going out with lots of layers and good protective gear if you are also in the path of this storm!

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