Our Wedding Story

As I sit Here trying to figure out how I am going to use this blog for the benefit of all mankind. I see that there are many stories of myself and my family that have yet to be put here for all to see and read.

This story I am thinking of is the Wedding of Ilana and myself.

First of all, most people have to be divorced to have 2 weddings. That's not the case with us. We got married twice in one week. It's a fun story and quite amusing to say the least. Here it is... enjoy.

When Ilana and I decided that we wanted to get married, we did the most sensible thing we could think of. Decide on a place and time. Which I would think is normal. The place we decided was going to be the Emory Conference Center and Hotel and the time was going to be Saturday, May 26th around Noon (wedding never start on time so why bog you down with details).

We sent the date and time and place to our Jewish Cantor for approval and it was said that everything looked good. So we started running with this "full steam ahead." We were paying for reservations, and paying for food, and buying suits, and buying and making invitations, and mailing invitations, and recieving R.S.V.P.'s and everything. Everything was looking great.

and then....

We get a notice from our Cantor that the date and time was bad. Now, how this happened is still a topic of many heated conversations in the Garza household, needless to say that their was a misunderstanding about the date and time and it turns out that the date and time we wanted to get married falls on Shabbot (or the sabboth for all you non-jews). Now, just to put this in perspective, I'm not Jewish, my wife (then fiance) is. And after a few conversations she felt that she wanted a Traditional Jewish Ceremony and since I am not religious enough to come up with a good reason not to do it, we both agreed that would be fine.

Well, as you can imagine, tensions were high. But we came through it like troopers. Seeing as how we couldn't change the date or time of the ceremony we decided that we would have 2 ceremonies. A traditional jewish ceremony, and a "fake" ceremony (as my wife likes to call it) which would be the expensive one.

The traditional jewish ceremony (aka the "real" wedding) was held on May 24th at Ilana's Family's Temple. It was very small and presided over not by just the Cantor, but also the Rabbi as well. (We felt pretty special.)

The "Fake" Ceremony was a decent size and a lot of fun (not to say the other one wasn't fun). We also had a lot more people show up to celebrate with us.

[CLICK HERE] to see photos of the "fake" wedding.

The "fake" ceremony was presided over a very sweet Methodist Minister. It was very nice (with the minor exception that she called me Kevin instead of Kenneth during the reading of the vows... I mean seriously... I wrote it down for her in a script.... man!!!) Not that it was a big deal. Everyone thought it was funny and I am happy that they were happy.

Needless to say, My friends have started calling Kevin because of this incident. But I digress...

It was very nice. It turned out very beautiful and in no small part to some people who really went all out. For example, My (new) sister-in-law Nikki, Hand made EVERY SINGLE Boutineer (i cant spell) and coursage (again.. I cant spell) the night before the wedding. And Jamie, one of Ilana's closest friends, helped with the decorating on the morning of allowing myself and Ilana to get ready for the rest of our lives. And of course, Michelle, Ilana's Matron of Honor hand-made me and my son a Yamika to wear for the ceremony.

Overall it turned out real nice.

-- Kenneth