Our wedding: family/friend contributions and Ukrainian details
So many family members helped by contributing their talents. I’ll recap many of the tangible contributions below, but also wanted to take a moment to recognize all of the love, task-minding, emotional aid, and financial support provided to us by various guests:
Our parents listened to our ideas, never second-guessed out decisions, and helped pay for various aspects of the wedding
Our sisters-in-law acted as sounding boards as we planned and troubleshooted snags, and also rallied our young nieces in what could have been an overwhelming weekend for the littl’uns
Chris’s dad and brother offered discreet acts of service throughout the weekend, attending to bar tabs and tips
My brother made me feel like the coolest person in the room, and was a champ dad by keeping baby Teddy in good spirits throughout both nights of celebration
Our good friends Eggy and Kara were our ushers and gave out programs with aplomb. Both they and our friends Alex, Sam, and Deidre all kept us amped for the wedding weekend by arriving early to celebrate
Guests traveled from near and far (mostly far!) to celebrate with us, braving traffic and crowds on a holiday weekend while practicing safe travel strategies due to ongoing covid risks. My Aunt Mary even traveled from Fort Meyers, FL after over a week without power following severe hurricane damage.
Friends got people on the dance floor, belted out lyrics with us, cracked us up, and inspired great conversation. And our friend Ronnie shared his formal dancing skills with many partners throughout the night!
Overall, it meant so much to us to be surrounded by 60 of our close friends and family members. Watching people get to know each other and visit after years apart made us wish we could do it every weekend!
And now, onto these amazing details!
Ukrainian culture: Pysanky
Sharon Dunscombe
During the same trip, my mom volunteered to make pysanky for the favors! I’ve posted a good amount about the tradition of pysanky on this blog, but essentially they are used as gifts and tokens of good fortune. They are most often used during Easter, but can be given at any time of year. The insert we included with each egg is above with the other stationary designs. Believe it or not, she produced around 70 eggs, and each design was UNIQUE. How did she manage that??? How lucky are we??? She worked all spring and summer on these, and every single guest received one to take home, in it’s own carefully packaged box.
Ukrainian culture: Rushnyky
Sharon Dunscombe
We also had two rushnyky (embroidered cloths) used in the wedding ceremony. The wider one below is called a pidnozhnyk, which the couple stands on during the ceremony so that they never stand on a dirt floor. The narrower rushnyk is tied around the couple’s hands, which we did after the exchange of rings. My mom embroidered both and KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK. She casually offered to make them while we were traveling this past spring, and created this unique patterns that feature roses and traditional Ukie motifs, as well as small figures representing the purpose of each cloth: on the pidnozhnyk, they stand together on the cloth. On the hand rushnyk, their hands are bound and they are celebrating.
Emily during the rehearsal
Violin
Emily Misura
Not many people are lucky to know a 5-star classical and contemporary violinist who plays in music videos with Drake and performances with The Who and Dashboard Confessional (not to mention her countless studio credits). But we lucked out because Emily Misura (Stringing Him Along) is my cousin and like a sister to me. Emily has been doing wedding gigs for well over a decade and naturally we thought of her the instant we started wedding planning (though it took us a few months to work up the courage to ask her to share her talents). She has played with a long list of well-known musical acts (both in studio and on stage) and could probably perform at a wedding in her sleep. It was such a pleasure to work with her as a client. She is so talented and guided us on our song choices for the ceremony processional and exit, and we landed on “The Predatory Wasp” by Sufjan Stevens and “She’s a Rainbow” by The Rolling Stones. Again, I cannot wait to see the video footage, since I was tucked away in the building while she payed most of the processional and we had to scoot away during the recessional. An added bonus, Emily brought all of her own gear with her from Canada, and didn’t even need to plug into the DJ’s setup. Check out her carbon fiber violin!
Calligraphy
Mary Misura
The talent doesn’t stop there! We had more of an autumnal theme for the rehearsal dinner, and my Aunt Mary created around 50 placecards on differently colored leaf cutouts. Her design instincts are so refined, with durable ink choices and colors—making each name pop, while resistant to smearing— and she adjusted the orientation of the leaves to create variety. She even provided Chris and I with some extra options for our own place cards. We put the two we used in our wedding scrapbook, but one of the other options is hanging on our apartment door, and the other is on our fridge. Multiple guests thought they were printed because the script was so perfect.
Writing and Reciting
Ed Dunscombe
My dad shared his creative talents with us as well. He recited a poem he wrote called “Life’s Sweet Dream” during our ceremony… FROM MEMORY. I was trying not to look at the audience during this moment because I knew I would start bawling, but I heard from so many people later that they teared up. He is so talented, both at writing and in his delivery. And not only that, but he volunteered to give a toast during the reception, which was a huge hit. I definitely teared up multiple times during it, as he did some light roasting of Chris and myself (Chris’s obsession with Liverpool, my vegetarianism), illustrated our family connection to 1754 House (going back centuries), sharing the ghost of Prudence who is said to haunt the inn, and connecting it to “Dear Prudence” by The Beatles. He painted a beautiful picture of Chris and I visiting for dinner in ten years and reflecting back to that moment and remembering all of our loved ones around us, wishing us well. I’m tearing up again just writing it down! Many people have come up to me since and shared how beautiful his poem and toast were. Because they really were everything you could ask for in both.
Life’s Sweet Dream, by Ed Dunscombe
Once off, it took on feathered wings
My heart let loose it’s tethered things
To seek and share that joyful gain
The sweet return of love’s refrain
Shed their knots the boats oft slip
On life’s tossed seas, to crest and dip
To live again that which might seem
The residue of life’s sweet dream
Offtimes, in corners, in creases they hide
These thoughts that I have, of you by my side
Though parted by time and by silence we be
I conjure you, beckon you, call you to me
We revel in times and in days that we’ve shared
In thoughts and in dreams and in hearts that we bared
Yet ends lead to starts, they send me anew
To morrow, eternity, spent just with you
Dawns and horizons, clear just ahead
Apart never more we will be
Together we’ll go, together instead
Sailing on life’s gentle sea
Officiant
Sam Hayes
Our friend Sam agreed to be our officiant and he did an excellent job. Sam has a PhD in political science and has been teaching at the college level for many years. During his introduction, he pointed out that he and Chris both met me on the same day in 2008. Chris has known him since elementary school, and just doing the math, I’ve known them both for fourteen years. Sam spent a lot of time with us as Chris and I grew closer in 2014/2015, including taking a road trip with us down to Richmond, VA. It meant a lot to us to have him make it all official!
Welcome Bags
Kathy Conway
Chris’s mom volunteered to create hospitality packages for all of our guests, and gathered together a collection of ingredients that would greet each guest at check-in: chocolate whoopie pies, peppermints, Advil and Pepto Bismol tablets, water and gatorade powder, and Andes chocolate mints. By the sounds of it, these were pretty helpful the morning after the wedding, if you know what I mean :)
Ukrainian culture: Korovai
Inspired by Emily Misura’s wedding / Made by Lisa McDonald
As stated before, Emily and her husband Derek’s wedding inspired a lot of our approaches to my Ukie heritage, such as the inclusion of a korovai. This one was created by Lisa McDonald. Korovai is a traditional Ukrainian wedding bread. Look at those birdies and pine cones, the braiding, and the myrtle leaves! We were even able to choose the colors on the mini rushnyk on the myrtle arch. We dried the myrtle arch in the fridge for one month and preserved it with a floral sealant. We’re also preserving all the little birdies and pine cones, though I’m not sure how to display them yet!
If you’ve never had korovai, it tastes kind of like brioche in that it has a soft interior and rather sweet taste.
Ukrainian culture: Vyshyvanky
The Misura Family
From L-R: Emily Misura, Ed Dunscombe, me, Chris, Sharon Dunscombe, Andy Dunscombe, Mary Misura, Derek Massey
I’ll get more into this in the post about our attire, but all of my mom’s family got together to wear our vyshyvanky, or traditional Ukrainian clothing typically made from linen, with iconic embroidery on the collar and sleeves. Again, another inspiration from my cousin Emily’s wedding! The night of her rehearsal, she and her mom and brother wore vyshyvanky, or traditional embroidered shirts/dresses. She also did a photoshoot in an ankle-length vyshyvanka shortly before our grandfather passed away (he and my grandmother were both first generation Americans descended from Ukrainian parents), and featured it in her engagement photos. A number of us also wore traditional Ukrainian accessories, including headpieces, namysto (a traditional necklace usually in red or coral), dukach (a necklace featuring coins), and delicate jewelry made of glass beads. For our niece and nephew, I found two vendors in Ukraine who sell kid-sized vyshyvanky, which they wore the day of the wedding.
