Hello everyone!

Well the wait is over, you can now experience our wedding through photos and videos!

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July, Vinny and I did, we went to St. Paul for a festival called The Taste of Minnesota. And guess what? Minnesota tastes good and greasy! Mmmm

If you didn't check the website last month...send us your wedding pictures if you have them!

Please check the News section for wedding details and other news in our life!

Love you!!!

Allison

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Current news of the month. My Dad came to visit a couple weeks ago just for the weekend. We had a great time visiting Minneapolis sites, going to movies and being computer geeks. He surprised us HUGELY by purchasing us a MacBook. It's been tons of fun so far, I know why people love them. So easy...if I was to recommend a non-geek to buy a computer it would be a Mac. Also geeks too I'm sure....but since I'm not a geek I can't speak for them! Some of the new pages this update were made with the Mac using iWeb, let me know what you think!

Andrea and her friend Ally are our next visitors in August. We are excited to have them here, unfortunately we can't take a lot of time off of work but we figured the car keys and directions to the Mall of America should entertain them for at least two days! We do have plans to visit Duluth when they are here, Vinny and I have never been either. I cant' wait to see the girls and I'm super excited to say I've seen a Great Lake! Ok...maybe I am a geek?

My sister, Ashley, got a new job for the summer in Boise. I'm so excited for her. She is working with mentally challenged teens at Tomorrow's Hope. They take the kids out daily for activities around Boise, swimming, parks, the mall, etc. I'm so jealous! I would love to have a job that actually made a difference in someone's day. Anyways...proud of her and I foresee a career path change after this summer! Either way...being a Veterinary Technician and helping animals or helping kids is a great thing to do, we are very proud of her!

Other than that we are pretty boring over here in Minneapolis!

The Wedding. I will try to recap as best as possible, I did go through all of the pro pictures and added my comments but my PC crashed and it didn't save all my work. So needless to say that is why I started using iWeb and why you won't see any comments! So frustrating.

Tamika came to Minneapolis on Tuesday to help me prepare everything. We went shopping, of course, had my last dress fitting, pedicures, nails done, all sorts of good stuff. We all then headed to Boston on Thursday morning.

Thursday we had an appointment with the reception coordinator. After our meeting with her we checked into the hotel and took naps, at least I did anyways! Vinny went out with his boys and I waited for my family to arrive. Everyone finally arrived and got semi settled in, we then went out to dinner for my 'bachelorette party'! It was wild...let me tell you...

It was great seeing everyone, I was feeling a little overwhelmed by so many 'families' all at once and lack of sleep but I enjoyed dinner and finally seeing my 'peeps'. Thursday night I was waiting patiently for my soon to be husband...around 3am Anthony opens the hotel door and I hear Vinny say in a very loud whisper, "SHHHHHHH don't tell Allison." Hmmm...this is going to be an interesting evening. Then Anthony says, "Sorry, he puked on himself in the car" and pushes Vinny in the room and leaves. Hmmmm is right....So Vinny goes into the bathroom, comes out a few minutes later, plops onto the bed and passes out. Ok...glad I stayed up until 3am for this!

Friday we had big plans to do 'touristy' stuff. Duck Tours, Fenway Park, etc. I forgot to mention this earlier but its raining. It's been raining for the entire time we have been here so far, drizzle, but still, rain none the less. So we are all freezing, we head to the mall and buy every sweatshirt Macy's owned on the clearance rack. Vinny is still 'sleeping' and turns out doesn't feel well enough to come with us on the Duck Tour. We decided that we didn't have enough time at this point after the mall to go to the Duck Tour, get the guys their tuxes and be at rehearsal by 5pm. We headed to lunch instead.

After lunch we picked Vinny and his family up at the hotel, drove our caravan of 4 cars across the city of Boston at 5pm. Following people is hard enough but when only car #1 ,Vinny's dad, mom and sister, knows where we are going, car #2 has Anthony and Kathy, car #3 has Vinny, me and Ashley and Tamika, car #4 is my dad, mom, grandma, aunt, step sister and niece it was quite a ride! We made it safe and sound to Men's Wearhouse, took too long and got on our way to the ECC for rehearsal. We were supposed to be there at 5pm, we left Men's Wearhouse after 5pm.

6pm we arrive at the ECC for rehearsal, smooth as butter, no problems, all experts. Off we go to Johnny and Rynette's for our 'Night Before' celebration. The caravan arrives and the party starts! Their home was beautiful, the food was delicious, they had a custom slide show playing on their big screen TV, it was absolutely wonderful! A lot of the Maroun's came to meet my family, everyone ate, drank and socialized until late into the night. We cannot thank them enough for opening up their home to us for our special day!

We make it back to the hotel...its now P O U R I N G rain. Go to bed and wake up to guess what?

P O U R I N G rain. :-(

I kiss my soon to be husband goodbye and tell him I'll see him at the alter and head out with Andrea, Andrea, Tamika and Ashley to get our hair done. After 20 minutes of trying to parallel park (lmao) we head into the Salon. We all get our girls and sit in our respective seats for some curling and spraying. I told the girls I didnt care how they wore their hair, turns out we all have very similar taste, we looked like quadruplets! The stylists were fantastic and we had a good time getting ready.

Back to the hotel to gather everyone else and off to the ECC we go..in the..POURING rain again. Luckily we had enough umbrellas to keep our hair semi safe but it was not at all good for my wedding weekend! I follow Vinny's dad to the ECC, no one was killed and that's all I have to say about that little road trip!

We arrive at the ECC, get dressed, everyone looked stunning I will add, and head down to start the ceremony. From about this point on I can't remember much details. I loved being walked down the aisle by my dad and seeing my family and my new family and feeling the love in the room. I had chosen the processional music of, Can You Feel The Love Tonight, from the Lion King Soundtrack. Boy was that a good choice, I definitely could. I tried so hard not to cry but holding it in only made the pictures bad! The ceremony was perfect for us, we were honored to be able to be married by Vinny's Dad. The ceremony consisted of a reading of Corinthians by Anthony, Crowning Ceremony, Hand Blessing and a presentation of a plaque that was given to us from a guest that came from the Pope. There was some humor involved that made us smile, Rayn's flowers falling completely apart, Chris leaning against the light switch and turning the lights off (twice!) and Vincent forgetting my sister's name! Amazing ceremony, couldn't have asked for anything different. Cannot wait for the video so I can re-live it.

After the ceremony there was supposed to be cocktail hour on the pier...but...it was POURING rain. So the guests headed to the now indoor cocktail hour while we headed to take our now indoor pictures. I won't complain about my pictures too much and I blame it mostly on the weather but our formal pictures honestly don't impress me at all. We had a good time taking pictures, especially just Vinny and I, I had missed him and we were husband and wife now! Turns out I don't love the pictures but owell..we enjoyed our time 'alone' as Mr. and Mrs. Maroun!

Our cocktail hour went over its scheduled time by almost an hour so we started the official reception a little later than we wanted. It was so much fun at that point, no more nervousness, no more fake smiles, just party time! We were all introduced and Vinny and I had our first dance. It was so exciting to see the room, candle lit, rose petals everywhere, and my black table cloths making a might fine atmosphere! We sat down for a blessing by Vincent, Vinny's dad, and a wonderful toast from Anthony, Vinny's brother and best man. We were so blessed to have Anthony at our wedding, he was deployed shortly after the wedding. Dinner was delicious, I even got to eat some of it! We walked around and greeted everyone at the table which was nice, I got to see everyone finally and meet a lot of Andrea, Vinny's Mom's family. Everyone was so nice and complimentary, being a bride definitely has its positives!

After dinner we cut the cake and then had our other special dances. I danced with my dad to My Girl and Vinny danced with his mom to Because You Loved Me. It was nice we chose to do these dances after dinner, there was no crying involved, we just genuinely got to enjoy a few minutes with each other. After those two dances we did a Mother's Day dance to honor the Moms in attendance, and since Mother's Day was the following day. It was great to see all those beautiful ladies out there being recognized for everything they do!

After all of the obligatory dances were over we got the party started, our DJ was great, the dance floor was packed. An hour or so into the reception we had the bouquet and garter toss, which was fun of course, the reception venue actually has a balcony and we were able to 'toss' from up there, it was great. Andrea caught the bouquet again but I have decided that means that they cancel each other out! Vinny's groomsman, Sean, caught the garter and he was so funny placing the garter on Andrea, what a hoot! After the garter/bouquet toss we had a fabulous time dancing the night away with our guests.

Sunday we had hoped to do the Duck Tour finally but it was still..POURING rain. We decided we would try to do as much touristy stuff as we could, weather permitting. We headed to Faneuil Hall and had lunch and did some shopping. We then took a Trolley Tour of Boston. It was a good tour but the windows were fogged up and we were all cold and wet, it was fun but the Duck Tours are much better and the stupid weather was wearing on everyone! It was memorable, but it definitely could've been a lot better! I felt so guilty having all of these people in Boston for the first and probably last time and we were not able to enjoy any of what the city offers. Except the rain!

Sunday night was of course filled with me bawling because I had to say goodbye to my Mom, Grandma, Tamika and Sister. I sure hope saying goodbye gets easier, I cried all the way until Monday night! My Dad, Hilary and Rayn left Monday afternoon and thank goodness I had the honeymoon to cheer me up, I was one sad cookie!

Our wedding all in all was fantastic. I wish the weather had cooperated a little more but it only made things more memorable I suppose. It truly meant the world to have my family and Tamika there with me. Out of the 103 guests we had, 7 of those people were 'my' family. I'm very blessed with my new family and could not ask for better relatives all around.

Phew..that was long...!...Until Next time...