Ceremony Refreshments

Our plan for an outdoor ceremony on the plaza of the Chicago History Museum sounds perfect...in principle. Yet Chicago weather is so unpredictable - especially in June, it is just as likely to be 50 degrees and raining as it is to be a sweltering 90 degrees. Selfishly I'm holding my breath for a hotter day because than it will hopefully be sunny and beautiful. So I've been brainstorming ideas for cool refreshments that our guests could enjoy on the plaza as they wait for the ceremony to begin.

source

I love these Izze Sodas. They are so cute and could provide a fantastic pop of color, when held at the end of the aisles in large silver buckets filled with ice. Or we could go really crazy and have servers pass them around on trays with bright straws. M is wary of both ideas and thinks that our guests can wait until cocktails after the ceremony. But I've become a bit obsessed with how cute it could look.

What do you think?

Wedding Reading: Pablo Neruda Edition

I really want to include a Pablo Neruda poem in our wedding ceremony. His love poetry is so beautiful and awe inspiring. I've been reading his work non-stop and have two in consideration at this point.

Option 1:

Sonnet LXIX

Maybe nothingness is to be without your presence,
without you moving, slicing the noon
like a blue flower, without you walking
later through the fog and the cobbles,

without the light you carry in your hand,
golden, which maybe others will not see,
which maybe no one knew was growing
like the red beginnings of a rose.

In short, without your presence: without your coming
suddenly, incitingly, to know my life,
gust of a rosebush, wheat of wind:

since then I am because you are,
since then you are, I am, we are,
and through love I will be, you will be, we'll be.

Option 2:

Sonnet 17

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

in which there is no I or you
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand
so intimate that when you fall asleep it is my eyes that close

What do you think? What are some unique wedding readings that you are including in your ceremony?

Ceremony Location in My Dreams

source

M and I are really struggling with our ceremony location (more on that later) but wouldn't it be delicious if we could just say our vows on the top stop of this beautiful stone building?