Finally, I can talk about the show and not have to keep the secret that we won!
I want you guys to know that last night after watching the show, the 2nd time, I sat down quickly and signed on to the knot and saw there were 4 posts going on and I read all your comments and it honestly made me all warm and fuzzy inside, more than reading the comments from my friends and family on facebook. I guess I have been looking forward to knowing what all my Knotties thought about our wedding and the show.
I was really nervous about how they would edit and make me look and went into it thinking the worst and I honestly thought it turned out really great. I tried to be nice about my comments even when they were negative, and even the comment about "dipping an elephant in gold" was more of a wow of how fancy her wedding was and not mean. I will say that on Limor's facebook today (yes, I am friends with Lauren and Limor on facebook) her status was: "FYI Jason and I only dip elephants in gold on Wednesdays, on Sundays we light up the sky with fireworks."
Being on a reality show, like Amy has said, isn't always so reality. And they do try to get you to trash talk the other brides and even make suggestions of things to say or bring up very specific things for you to comment on. As far as the portrayal of the weddings and some behind the scenes info, there was a lot that wasn't shown or wasn't focused on. They played the weddings out of order, In real life, Selicia's wedding was first and then the order was right but I don't know if they were trying to make hers look even worse than it did by putting better weddings before hers or what.
So, Limor's wedding the "resort one" was at Doral Golf and Country Club and I referred to it as the platinum wedding. I think it cost way more than $100,000 but b/c her husband owns an event planning company, supposedly he traded his planning services for things like chivari chairs, linens, etc. The wedding started at 6pm on a Sunday and went until 2, yes we did not eat dinner until midnight but the 2nd cocktail hour had so much food that you weren't really that hungry for dinner. The food started off good but by dinner the food wasn't great and even her kosher cake to me was not good at all, even though it was more expensive than her dress.
Then there was my wedding, which was so awesome to see on tv, its kinda surreal, I wished they had focused a little more on Chris's sons, b/c they only showed them walk down the aisle, we did a sand ceremony with them which was a really special thing for us, but it seemed that the focus was on the firefighter thing. Which don't get me wrong, that was awesome and I loved it but its not all that I'm about. The firefighters surprised me by bringing our helmets so when they all of a sudden appeared on the dance floor, it was really cool. And our groomsman Eric was so excited his worm made it on tv. It was cool to see the cocktail hour b/c we pretty much missed it, but again a big focus was suppose to be that we had our Family Ceviche recipe as a station, thats what TLC had Chris and I make when they came to our house, and I would have thought they would have shown the brides trying it. What they didn't show was that Lauren and Limor pretty much kept to each other and left Selicia out. Now I didn't really see the unpleasant side of Selicia until the 4th wedding and even then it was never really directed towards me, more to the other 2 and even the show itself. By the end, Selicia would talk crap to me about the other 2 behind their backs and they would talk crap about her behind her back, so I just tried to be everyone's friend, which obviously paid off in the end.
Selicia's wedding...wow, poor Selicia, we really did not enjoy ourselves and didn't like a lot of things, in addition to what you all saw: Where do I start, the venues: the church was in a shopping center in Kendall and the decor wasn't too existent, the flowers were dying, there were no pews, just chairs. The reception was in a dumpy shopping center, with an awning that looked like it was from 1970, it was the Miami Banquet Hall and it was a one room venue that looked much better on tv, it was painted like a castle inside and the ceiling painted black with holes poked in it to look like stars, oh yea, dont let me forget no alcohol but there was a juice bar...which consisted of 2 liter bottles of soda, ice tea in a pitcher and plastic clear cups. The best part , you served yourself but there was a tip jar with a dollar in it, whoTF am I tipping? Her favors, which she kept a "surprise" from us was a glass mug with their names and wedding date on it, with candy in it: smarties, dum dum lollipops, etc. They didn't announce the cake cutting, all of a sudden we look across the room and they are cutting the cake with like 10 people around them. I could go on forever here.
Ok, so I'll start off by saying that out of the other 3 girls, Lauren's wedding was my favorite. She had a "white" wedding (or tan) which I thought was an interesting idea on the boat Tikki Beach, I would never do it but it looked pretty cool. She had the back Miami skyline as the backdrop and right after the ceremony we went down the intercoastal. She had a Hawaiin guy playing a yucalaylee(so dont know how to spell that) as you entered on the boat which was cool, the 2nd floor of the boat was covered in sand, so it was like you were on the beach, she hand made some things which I loved: invitations, cardbox, favors. And what I loved the most was that her and her husband were giddy and in love like Chris and I were, you totally felt how in love they were. The food was a buffet that was really good, the seating issue only happened b/c they were late bringing out the food and everyone ate at once.
I'm really glad you all watched it and I went into it saying I was doing the show b/c I loved the idea of a TLC wedding show and if I won it would just be an added bonus. Some of the other episodes I don't necesarily think the best wedding won so I was truly nervous that we had lost. But once my amazing husband stepped out that limo with his red socks from the wedding and realized we had won, it wasn't just an added bonus, it meant I had the best wedding and that KNOTTIES RULE! I don't know where I'd be without you guys! I'm so happy I could represent.
I don't have all the final details on the trip but I do know its 6/7 days flight and stay in Sugar Bay St Thomas, that we have a year to use it and that we get $5000 spending money (which some we'll have to use to pay taxes on the prize). We are totally stoked and are not sure when we'll go. We can't just turn around and jump on a plane (although I would love it) so fast after our honeymoon, so we'll see, we may save it for our 1 year anniversary, or sometime before, you never know what will happen this year
Cathy & Chris January 30, 2010
Isabella and Olivia
