Just Married :)

On Saturday March 20th 2010 Greg and I woke up early and headed out to the beach. It was a warm and beautiful morning with a light breeze and light cloud cover. We took with us a broom and the several hundred white sea shells that he, I and Celia has spent much time collecting earlier in the week. Our mission- create a beautiful place to get married. Having scouted out a place earlier in the week, we commenced to clearing out all the ocean debris and smoothing out the sand. Then Greg drew out three circles in the sand which I traced with sea shells. While I laid out the sea shells, he inscribed the circle with stars of David, kaballah names and various other positive meaningful things. We had dreamed since becoming engaged of getting married in a meaningful way on a beach in the south pacific and that dream was finally becoming a reality. Once everything was in place Celia came out and watched over the ceremony site while we got ready.

I decided to wear the dress my now mother-in-law bought me for my birthday last year which I hadn't had a chance to wear and the diamond earrings my mother gave me so that both mother's were there in spirit. Once we were all ready to go the wedding celebrant arrived at our beach house. We had explored several options of how to get married here in New Zealand and decided a wedding celebrant on the beach was the best option to have just what we wanted. We decided to go with Ruth Gardner because her website showed her to be an open minded spiritual woman who we felt would be open to our more unusual requests and she was. Our ceremony incorporated various aspects of pagan, Native American, kaballah and Jewish beliefs. Once we arrived at the ceremony site Ruth opened by walking the circle with sage to purify it. Then she followed with prayers honoring the elements, ancestors, spirits of this beautiful land and most importantly G-d and his aspects under kaballah. We then took our vows and exchanged rings with traditional Jewish phrasing and were married. To close the ceremony Ruth spoke an native American blessing and then Greg and I took turns speaking traditional Jewish blessings, he in Hebrew and I in English. It was a lovely and beautiful ceremony filled with meaning and very personal to us. I had my bare toes in the sand and the ocean for music. It was perfect.

Unfortunately the camera was acting up a bit, so while we got some photos, we didn't get as many as we wanted and the actual ring exchange wasn't photographed. After the ceremony we headed out to Kaikoura for a mini-honeymoon. Kaikoura is a beautiful little seas side town with some amazing wildlife. We had a great time, ate some great food and completely enjoyed our time there. One of the highlights was going snorkeling with seals. Yes, we actually donned wetsuits and snorkel gear and went out to swim with seals. It was amazing. They have such individual characters and soulful eyes. Though the Pacific is really cold and while wetsuits help with that a bit, it sneaks in! Brrr! But once we got use to the gear and the water the seals were incredible. Seeing these amazing creatures in their natural habitat beats any zoo or aquarium ever. Over all it was an amazing weekend, a perfect wedding and we are all very happy! :) I would write more but I am soooooooooo tired..night!