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Lindsay and I got married for a second a time last May. Well, it wasn’t a legitimate wedding, in that it held no legal power. We had already been married for nearly ten years. You see, back in 2004, we eloped at the county courthouse. Lindsay and I met in New Zealand and when you hold a different passport from the person you love, things can get very tricky in terms of actually staying in the same country. We hopped between countries for a few years. I spent a semester studying abroad there, he followed me here while I finished up my degree, we lived in London for a while, then back to New Zealand until they kicked me out, he came over here until they kicked him out, and so on. When we ran out of visa options, we decided to jump in feet first and get married. But, the way the Fiance Visa works, is that we had to get married within 60 days of him entering the United States. Who can plan a wedding in 60 days? And we didn’t have the money to fly him back to New Zealand and then back to The States. So - we went to the courthouse and promised our families that we would do a “real” (read: fake but feels real) wedding “soon.”
Well, you know how that goes. We started a business, we bought a home, we adopted a few monsters, and all along, that wedding was on the back burner. And then finally we set a date - May 31, 2014 for our “fake” wedding. It was everything we dreamed and more. Friends and family traveled from half way around the world to Philadelphia to celebrate ten years of marriage with us. And of course, our dogs were there. (What you can't hear in the photos is Lola yelping with pure glee as she made her way down the aisle. She could hardly contain herself over the fact that all of her favorite people were in one spot. She almost exploded with happiness and it all came out as yelps.)
For the record, we are total supporters of courthouse weddings followed by a big party. We had zero butterflies on our “wedding” day - it was truly just a celebration of our relationship. We were worried it wouldn’t feel “special.” It was the total opposite. It was downright beautiful.
Check out some of our favorite pics with Jax and Lola. (And yes, that is Minder Matty escorting them down the aisle. The pups were our ring bearers.) All photos by Wide Eyed Studios.
And if you head over to the Wide Eyed Studios website - you can check our more photos of our real-fake wedding on their Slideshow Page. ("Aroha Means Love - Carrie and Lindsay") We seriously adore these photographers.