Elijah and Neal's Wedding in Williamsburg, Virginia

The story of our wedding

We are a COVID couple, and so incredibly grateful to have been brought into each others lives a mere 6 weeks before the world shut down. We became engaged a year and a half later, and then a year after that, once the world was reapproaching normal, we began planning. Or I should say that I began planning, with Eli's help. He was active duty in the Navy and not always able to be present and hands on with me. But what I would do to simplify things, but still give him a say would be to choose certain things which I knew would appeal to him, his family, friends and co-workers, and then on other things, I'd give him my top 3 choices and have him choose from those if he weren't able. At other times I'd take someone with me to meet a vendor or tour a venue and they were then able to give him a 2nd opinion about what I was talking about. Our colors were merlot and silver and we had an accidental theme (thanks to an amazing florist) of turning the pavilion room at a local country club into a kind of sulty jazz cafe. We had readings from Oberfell v. Hodge (we are a same sex couple, and in our state of Virginia it was the Oberfell ruling from the Supreme Court which gave us the legal right to marry in 2015) and another from the movie Stardust. A friend of mine from high school is a New York City professional actor named Nick Sotack and he sang "I'll Cover You" from RENT. We walked up the aisle escorted by our mothers and 3 attendents to Chris Colfer singing "I want to hold your hand" from Glee. Our recessional was a cute song called "Perfect" by 11 Acorn Lane. Our reception was attended by 104 family, friends and co-workers who travelled from as far away as Utah, Texas and Iowa to be there. Everything was pretty much a fairy tale and the evening was as perfect as I could have hoped. The food was amazing, our DJ kept the party rolling, and then even after the reception ended, an after party at a local bar kept things going long into the night. This is not to say the day itself was without snafu. The airconditioning in the room where the ceremony took place broke 2 hours before we were supposed to begin. I popped all the buttons off my the vest of my tux bending over to tie my shoes. One of the groomsmen had to be put into his tux using the jaws of life because he didn't try it on after picking it up from the rental place. But, we managed to fix everything thanks to some amazing friends and an event coordinator named Natalie who had a magic wand that fixed everything. So those moments all made things all the sweeter and funnier in the aftermath of everything. Because now looking back, the things that had me laying on the floor drinking champagne before the ceremony, are some of the funniest stories and moments to talk about from the whole day. Our wedding was beautiful and imperfect, just like us. And I wouldn't have had it any other way!