Going to the chapel...

The second question everyone asked was "Where are you having the wedding?" For a long time I dreamed about having a small, intimate wedding with only our closest friends and family in a destination such as Italy. My parents even showed me a picture they took years prior on the beach of Positano and they said "This is where you should have your wedding!" and I was more than OK with that suggestion!

But John objected, saying that his family would never be able to, or want to, travel overseas. Boo!

So then I came back down to earth, and we realized we needed to find a local place to get hitched. My parents insisted that we have a Catholic ceremony in a church. But I hadn't been to church since being confirmed, and John is Russian Orthodox, so therefore neither of us had ties to a church that would have worked.

I started looking through wedding magazines trying to find a solution. In an issue of NJ Bride I saw a small black and white ad for Kirkpatrick Chapel at Rutgers University. The ad copy said that the chapel has been hosting both religious and non-denominational weddings for decades, and it looked very cute in the picture with its Gothic stone facade. Plus, John is an alumnus of Rutgers so it made sense to check it out. We decided to take a ride out to the chapel on a weekend in early December just to see what it was like.

It was GORGEOUS. The interior was bright red with dark wood everywhere and a beautiful slate floor. We liked it instantly, and it didn't hurt that it was decorated with Christmas poinsettias and pine garlands everywhere in preparation for a holiday concert by the Rutgers choir. We walked down the aisle and I got chills because I realized that this would definitely be the aisle I would walk down on our wedding day!

We took a bunch of pictures to show our families, but the photos didn't really do the chapel justice because it was just so impressive inside! Nevertheless, we contacted the chapel manager that week and booked the 2:00 timeslot for May 9, 2009.