#MarriedMaitlands: Our Grand Exit

 
At the conclusion of our ceremony, we did something a little different before we left the church.  It was really important to me to be able to capture a photo of everyone that was there for our big day so we had the photographer stand in the balcony at the back of the church to take the photo just after we were announced husband and wife.  It didn't go as flawlessly as it could have, but we do have a photo with *almost* everyone in it.

After the photo, we headed out of the sanctuary to Stevie Wonder's Signed, Sealed, Delivered...I'm Yours!  It was fun to have a catchy, upbeat song for our departure from the ceremony.  We wanted to be able to have a few moments to ourselves after the wedding so we hustled over to the bridal suite to wait for the rest of the crowd to get in place for our grand exit from the building.  In the bridal suite, we snacked on pull and peel twizzlers and tried to let it all sink in that we were finally married!

It wasn't too long before our bridal party let us know that everyone was in place for our grand exit.  I debated on SO many different options for our exit.  I really wanted to do a sparkler send-off, but the reception venue didn't permit it and it wasn't going to be dark enough after the ceremony to do it then.  I thought about bubbles, but quickly pushed that aside.  And then one day, it just hit me.  We both love sports and cheering for our favorite teams.  Why don't we have our family and friends cheer us on to our married life together with pom poms as we exit?  A perfect solution to my exit dilemma!

We ordered grey and purple pom poms that our readers and ushers helped distribute as guests left the sanctuary.  Our bridal party directed our family and friends to the area where we would be exiting the church.  The church had these beautiful oversized blue doors with stairs leading down to the street so everyone just gathered in that area.  And eventually, we followed our bridal party out to the cheers of all our loved ones.  This was one of the most exciting and fun experiences of the whole day!  We felt so happy having everyone cheering us on as we came down the stairs!

After our exit, we followed the sidewalk around to the side entrance of the church and returned inside for a slew of family photos!  These took FAR longer than we anticipated.  In retrospect, I think we would have probably done this a bit differently and headed over to the reception earlier.  Lesson learned, I suppose!

We also made sure to have the marriage license signed and squared away before we FINALLY hopped in our limo and made our way to Churchill Downs for our reception.

Andrea :)