First of all, thank you so much to everyone who sent good wishes! I caught most of the LJ entries with messages, and though I may have missed replying to a few this weekend, I was so happy to see those congratulatory posts. Thanks also to people who sent lovely, thoughtful emails (**smishes stoney321 and adis723**) and to those who took the time to send very happy-making ecards (mwah! to anelith & family, ladycat777, marenfic, and cordelianne & savoytruffle). And of course thank you to everyone who commented on my silly muppets Somebody's Getting Married! entry with squee and shared excitement. *blows kisses to everyone*

For those of you who thought up some great new words/meanings for the TFMN acronym, I don't want to rain on your parade...but I've asked the man in question which he might prefer, and he said that he'd most like to be called Mr. Nous from now on (even the enticements of Fantastic or Fabulous did not draw him in!). So that is what he will be known by around these parts.

The day of the wedding -- while he was still TFMN -- TFMN spent the early part of the morning drinking coffee, reading more of OotP (he's reading all the HP books! what a guy! <3), and then getting ready by putting on his suit, shirt, and tie. Pretty straightforward.

I, on the other hand, leapt out of bed, ran around frantically, painted my fingernails and toenails with a shaky hand, daubed nail polish remover on the obvious splotches that shouldn't have ended up on my hand, tried two different ways of wearing eye makeup, almost broke out base and blush (which I never, ever wear, and you know, the morning of getting married? probably not the time to start!), and hopped about making sure that my shoes and drapey shawl thing looked right (an obstructed full length mirror is not my friend), crumbled a piece of toast instead of eating it, put my hair up to put on eye makeup and forgot to change it to the way I'd planned to wear it (I think -- I hope! -- it looked fine. I'm fairly sure iit looked deliberate, that I was wearing it up that way, so there you go), and generally was a spazzy chicken.

We hopped into the car service we called (for lo, it was pouring like the dickens outside, which everyone and their brother assured me is supposed to be good luck), made it to Borough Hall in Brooklyn, and realized we'd forgotten the money order to the city clerk. TFMN waited until our friends acting as witnesses arrived, then skedaddled to find a money order place, though not before buying me a silk flowers bouquet from the hilariously good bouquet salesman outside of the city offices ("Oh, wonderful, joy, and now you just need to complete the occasion with these! You'll have these forever! You can put perfume on them and use them as a centerpiece! Look, the cream colored roses match your dress!").

Our witnesses, J&J, came upstairs with me so that we could wait on line, which we assumed could be long because it had taken nearly 2 1/2 hours to get the marriage license at the same location. But the weather was on our side -- the place was practically empty, except for a few couples getting licenses, though two of the women came up to tell me how nice I looked (let's hear it for bridal solidarity!). When J mentioned taking pictures, we all froze as we realized we didn't have a camera among the lot of us, so to the tune of me wailing, "My mom is going to kill me!" she dashed off to buy a disposable one, bless her heart.

TFMN arrived with the money order, J dashed back with the camera, and all of us got into the non-line, where the clerk giggled at how nervous we looked as we submitted ID and signed things and flailed.

About ten minutes after our information/license were processed, we were called into the Justice of the Peace's chambers. There was a sort of stained-glass screen a foot out from the wall (the room was...round, if I'm remembering right, so the standing screen was curved), and a wooden dias with three tiers - the top round the podium, next, the tier that the justice stood on, and finally, the tier that we stood on below. J&J were instructed where to stand (it's funny, but there were Particular Places we all had to stand -- sort of traditional of some kind of tradition I have no knowledge of), and we were off!

The words and ceremony were actually really lovely -- if only I could remember what they were! Seriously, I remember the opening lines being something like, "You have come together in friendship and understanding, which has grown into love," which is just right on for our whole relationship, so at that point I got kind of teary and missed the rest. We did exchange of rings, with vows that...I cannot remember at all besides "honor and cherish" and "for long as you both shall live", because my hands were shaking and I was trying to make sure I got the words right. But the Justice was really wonderful, very warm, even though the whole thing was extremely quick -- J&J argued later over whether it had lasted seven minutes or five. :D But TFMN became Mr. Nous at last! He is an honest man now! And my rl name is changed now. I said, "That's it??" I expected some kind of sword and dubbing, you know? Momentous stuff!

Let me interrupt myself (hee!) to say that I just love the wedding ring that Mr. Nous now wears -- I picked it out for him, but he really digs it as well, and it just fills me with joy to see him wearing it. I love that there are these concrete symbols we share that can remind us every day of what we mean to one another. <3 Of course, he was very calm when he slid my ring on as we exchanged vows, and I was all *tremble fumble shove* in my indelicate placing of the ring on his finger, but it really was moving to me, that element of the ceremony, and that small but significant symbol of change for our days going forward.

After the ceremony was over (complete with "You may now kiss your bride!" and lots of smooching), we wandered out in a daze, and took more pictures inside of the building. Then it was off to a brunch with J&J, complete with champagne and all the waiters cooing at me (it's hard to pretend you're there just for breakfast when you're wearing a fancy-ish ivory gown and carrying a bouquet of silk flowers, yo), and then we walked back in the rain, which was actually really silly and fun. One of our neighbors spotted me and scolded, "Did you just go and get married?" like we had done something very naughty indeed.

That night, we had a bunch of friends over, various people we know from grad school, from former living situations, just from life here in NYC, so it functioned a little as a kind of going away party as well as a wedding celebration/shindig. Among our wonderful guests was the lovely aimeelicious, who brought totally yummy bridal-looking cupcakes (gobs and gobs of white frosting!) and who didn't seem to mind that I increasingly called her aimeelicious as the party went on (the occurrences of that somehow went up in proportion to how many drinks I had, what?). Frankie made an occasional appearance, then dove under the bed so he could make his way to hide in my study, until Mr. Nous dragged him out yowling so that he could officially celebrate with all of us (I'm pretty sure Frankie needed the rest of that night and part of the morning to get over that trauma, hee).

Mr. Nous was in fine form -- he's great at parties generally, and things have been so freaking tense for both of us with the move, with money, with work, that it was such a wonderful occasion to just enjoy ourselves. Of course, there were hangovers the next day, but so worth it!

I'm so, so glad we took the time to do this at this time, to have the civil ceremony before we moved, because it truly feels like we're going into the change and transition together, that we've officially declared the alliance we've been building all along, and that we're really taking this step starting the rest of our lives together.

Whew! That was quite a long recap. I'm glad I have the occasion to write it here for my memories, and to share it with all of you. <3 <3 <3