Michaela and Josh's Beautiful Interfaith Wedding!

Mary Page Block who founded and operates Arioso Strings referred Michaela and Josh to me. Michaela's parents are neighbors of hers in Cary. Mary sat down with the couple in the Spring of 2010 and went through this blog to choose their venue and other wedding  vendors. I am really delighted that brides and grooms use this blog as a resource! I met with Michaela and Josh in May of 2010 to plan this wedding to take place on July 30, 2011. Michaela and Josh chose the beautiful Renaissance Hotel in North Hills. All the weddings I have done there have been done in the long narrow end of the ballroom. Michaela and Josh were expecting more guests than that could accommodate so they chose the wider configuration as shown below by opening up an additional segment of the ballroom: It is huge! 

The photo above shows the long narrow configuration for a wedding I did there on New Year's Eve. 

See how spacious this area is?

 

There was plenty of room for the Arioso Strings Trio headed up by May Page Block and our vocalists.

Valeri and Megan are relatives of Michaela and came down from Ohio to sing in the wedding. They sang "Hosea" which was sung at Michaela's parents' wedding. It was beautiful. I don't know which is which but the young lady on the left is also the mother of our flower girl, Lulani.

Josh is of Jewish heritage and Michaela was brought up Christian. They wanted to blend the two faiths in their wedding ceremony. We included the Chuppah under which we stood for the ceremony. Josh and Michaela constructed this lovely Chuppah and Michaela made the canopy covering the top of it. We had two prayers, the Wine and Seven Blessing Ceremony, scripture readings, and the breaking of the glass.

Behind the partition the band, Shine, was warming up when we arrived to set up my microphones. We also found the cupcake wedding cake by Cakes for a Cause.

Fresh Affairs did the lovely florals. Their theme was sunflowers. 

So, here we are standing around while the last guests took their seats. On the right is Josh's grandpa, Murray, who canted the first of the seven blessings in Hebrew. Josh and I are already in line and behind us are his best man, Justin, and his brothers, Dan and Adam.

Here come the bridesmaids: Anna, the maid of honor, is on the left and Michaela's sisters, Kateri and Lizzie, are on the right.

Okay....we are ready to go. Our director, Terry, a friend of Michaela's family, served as our wedding director and cued us in. In the front of the line are Grandpa Murray who graciously escorted in Michaela's Grandmother, Anne. Our ring bearer is Jacob, son of Josh's aunt and uncle.

Once the wedding party got inside, it was time for the bride and her parents and our flower girls to get in line to enter. Lulani did a great job walking down the aisle by herself and standing with the bridesmaids.

Terry is waiting for Lulani to make it all the way down the aisle before sending the bride and her parents, Denis and Connie.

 

And there they go! I was so delighted to see that Michaela had found a white carpet runner for the wedding. That is about the only type of runner that will work on carpet. It did tend to move a little bit with the nap of the carpet but it was not dangerous or wrinkled.

 

Michaela and Josh live in Atlanta. They met at Emory from where they did their undergraduate work. Josh is a teacher at a private school and Michaela is a speech therapist for the public school system. Theirs is a wonderful love story and I had the pleasure or sharing it with their guests during the ceremony.

These photos are really grainy. The room was darkened and the zoom feature left a lot of quality to be desired!

After the pronouncement, Josh stomped the glass breaking it the first time, we all shouted "Mazeltov," and then they kissed. Sorry, don't have a picture of the kiss! You can see David Teeter with Story Photographers zeroing in on the scene. Ashley Stephenson with Story Photographers was on the other side getting more good shots.

They were beaming as they recessed out into their new marriage!

Michaela and Josh, congratulations on your marriage and your wonderful wedding! Your hard work and diligent planning sure paid off. I wish you the best always!