{"id":219,"date":"2015-02-10T09:56:01","date_gmt":"2015-02-10T17:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.WellSayIDo.com\/?p=219"},"modified":"2015-03-31T13:35:37","modified_gmt":"2015-03-31T20:35:37","slug":"every-wedding-has-a-story-damien-allison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wellsayido.com\/?p=219","title":{"rendered":"Not a Dry Eye in the House"},"content":{"rendered":"

[I often tell my couples, “Every wedding has a story. By the time your ceremony is over, I’ll know your<\/span> story, too!”\u00a0—\u00a0Welcome to the first in (what I hope is) a long series of those stories.]<\/em><\/p>\n

There are two things I’ll never forget about Damien and Allison getting married:\"RichAndUs\"<\/a><\/p>\n

– The Mission Inn <\/a>in Riverside is a fantastic wedding venue. The whole place is designed to look like an old Spanish mission, and its chapel is a beautiful place to get married.<\/p>\n

I remember the procession: the rear door opened, and the bridesmaids came in one by one.\u00a0 The doors closed, and Allison took her place for her appearance; once she was ready, the whole rear wall<\/em> opened up (parting in two, like a set of doors) for her and her father to come in – amazing!<\/em><\/p>\n

– Allison’s dad was one of those strong\/silent types.\u00a0 (You know the type; he’s\u00a0the kind of\u00a0guy that women instinctively like, and men take orders from.) At the rehearsal, I told him that Allison wanted me to start the ceremony with the traditional question, “Who gives this woman to this man?”, and\u00a0t<\/em>old him he could answer any way he liked: “I do”<\/em>, “Her mother and I do”<\/em>, “Her family<\/span> and I do”<\/em>, “She comes of her own free will”<\/em>, or anything else he wanted.\u00a0 He couldn’t decide right then and there which reply to use, so I told him, “No problem; take your time and think about it, and be ready on Saturday.”<\/em><\/p>\n

As the two of them walked down the aisle, his face was strong and stoic; no surprise there.\u00a0 When they stopped before me and I asked the question, he inhaled slowly and, with a clear, strong voice, said “She comes of her own free will.”\u00a0 I thought that was a great response, so I whispered to Damien that he could step forward and take Allison’s hand.\u00a0 BUT, Dad wasn’t done responding; as Damien stepped up, Dad inhaled again and said (with a now-shaky voice), “… but she comes with the blessing of her mother and me!”<\/em><\/p>\n

A closer look, and you could see tears running down both his cheeks!\u00a0\u00a0Once Damien saw that, he<\/span> started leaking, too; once Allison saw both her men in tears, she<\/span> joined in. Well, I wasn’t about to be left out, so I<\/span> started tearing up, too; within moments, the entire wedding party had to take a moment to dab away at their eyes…<\/p>\n

Unforgettable!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[I often tell my couples, “Every wedding has a story. By the time your ceremony is over, I’ll know your story, too!”\u00a0—\u00a0Welcome to the first in (what I hope is) a long series of those stories.] There are two things I’ll never forget about Damien and Allison getting married: – The Mission Inn in Riverside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-richs-blog","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellsayido.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellsayido.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellsayido.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellsayido.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellsayido.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/wellsayido.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281,"href":"https:\/\/wellsayido.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions\/281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellsayido.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellsayido.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellsayido.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}