Our Wedding Pt. 5

...and then we took pictures. :)

(We had some seriously cute kids in our wedding!)
At this point, one of the groomsmen's wives brought us all Pepsi...this picture cracks me up. :) It was the best Pepsi I had ever had. ;)

Our Wedding Pt. 4

Once we reached the ceremony site, I ducked into a tent. People were already milling about, and we were running a bit late. The guys were all ready to go, and the chairs were filling up (though we definitely had more than enough chairs! Everyone congregated under the trees or shade.)




Finally, it was time!

"Ode to Joy" began playing as our pianist entered, and then J and the ministers in our wedding.


Our mothers were escorted in, and then the music switched to "Canon in D" for the bridesmaids, maid of honor, flower girls, Bible Bearer, and miniature bride and groom.

Finally, the Bridal March sounded, and I walked out on the arm of my mom. She gave me to J, and the ceremony began.

My uncle welcomed the crowd and did a short exhortation, and then J's dad did the same. After that, one of J's groomsmen sang, "When God Made You" as we performed the sand ceremony, and then we listened to a recording of J singing, "Deeply in Love". During that song, we signed the marriage license and gave roses to both of our mothers and my grandmother.



After our pastor took the microphone, we prayed. Then, it was time for the vows...and then the kiss.







For our recessional, we did something a little different: we dismissed the rows. As we went to each row, one of our ushers cut the tulle, and we greeted each guest. I loved this, it gave us a chance to talk to every single person who had come to our wedding, and it was very special.

Our wedding Pt. 3

Getting ready was an adventure, for sure! The female members of the bridal party piled into my room, while my female family members met in my aunt's room. We flew around, doing hair and finishing up last minute bits and pieces....and we were running very, very late.

(I LOVED my flowers: purple and white roses w/white stephanotis. I picked out my bouquet when I was 15. I saved the picture on my computer for 8 years and brought that to the florist! I detest fake flowers/plants, so all of our flowers were real.)

Finally, when my hair was done, I ran to the other hotel room to get dressed and ended up FLYING into my dress, as the hotel workers were pounding on our door for us to check out! I had asked for a late check out due to the wedding, and they had agreed...but apparently that didn't work so well. =/ Our flower girl ended up getting dressed in the bathroom of the hotel as we all flew out the door and into the lobby just a few minutes before 3...when our wedding was supposed to start.
(Notice the Dr. Pepper? Lol! I am sad, though, that we don't have any really good pictures of me by myself without a Dr. Pepper. I guess it's true to life?)

Our Wedding Pt. 2

Our wedding day dawned....

...bright and sunny!

We all gathered in the hotel lobby for breakfast, and then we headed to the park to set up. I LOVED the way everything turned out. We were sad that the fountain in the pond we we were facing had broken, but the site set up just beautifully.

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(My mother-in-law made all of the bows from ribbon we snagged on clearance after Christmas. I loved them! We had them on the arches, on every other row, and on some of the tables at the reception)

After setting up, we all headed to get ready--the girls to the hotel, the guys to our small apartment.

Our wedding Pt. 1

The week before our wedding was CRAZY. My mom, Gram, and I were off of work, and we spent that week driving back and forth to the town I was moving to...trying to move and plan the wedding at the same time. So many things had been left to that week since I had been so busy with work and school...and we were all exhausted. And, of course, I couldn't do anything simply... :) We had to buy the food, put together the programs, tie ribbons on the bubbles, prepare the candy bar...and set up all the things for the reception for someone else to set up, since our reception hall didn't open up until 2 hours before the wedding. I had diagrams and lists.... ;)


We spent hours in our little apartment, tying endless bows, decorating jars, cutting paper, etc.

We were also VERY worried about the weather. The forecast was RAIN. And we were planning an outdoor wedding. Our church had been sold, and we were looking for a new building while having church in a funeral home. And our reception hall was not a very good backup plan. I was a wreck.

The day of our rehearsal made me even more nervous. As we left the park after the rehearsal, it began to rain. My mother-in-law had planned the rehearsal dinner to be in the yard of our apartment. Due to the rain, we ended up stuffing about 60 people in two 425 sq. feet apartments. It was...memorable.

With my mom






















With our best man and maid of honor











(I was making a list for our photographer.)

















That night, I stayed in a local hotel with my maid of honor and two bridesmaids. We stayed up half the night talking and being silly. I couldn't sleep with excitement! :)

Gratitude

I don't load my dishwasher the same way anymore.

Gratitude. It changes your life.

Wait, you say...what on earth does gratitude have to do with a dishwasher? Well...I'm glad you asked. :)

I've never considered myself the ungrateful sort. I send thank-you notes, enjoy small pleasures, and try to say thank-you as much as possible. I don't demand much.

But this past year has taught me a lot about gratitude.

It was about this time last year when we were struggling significantly in our finances. My husband was working 2 or so shifts a week, and I was working part-time at H&R Block, making slightly over minimum wage. To say money was tight is...an understatement. I remember one day reaching to grab some soap to put in the dishwasher and realizing that that was my last load that I could do with the soap I had. I had never had to buy dishwasher soap; when we were married, my mother-in-law had given me four huge bottles, and I hadn't really put them to use until we moved into this particular house about six months prior.

For some reason, that was the final straw for me. I was frustrated; I had a master's degree, and I was answering phones. We had no money. We couldn't pay our bills or buy groceries; we were lucky we had managed to put gas in our car and pay the rent. And that was stretching it. And when I saw the last of the dishwasher soap pour out, I just...snapped. I remember saying to God in frustration, "WHAT am I going to do? I can't buy dishwasher soap! We can't even pay our basic bills. How are we going to keep going on like this? I can't keep doing this. God, WHAT are you doing?"

A little while later, while I was dutifully answering phones and sweeping carpet, my grandmother called me and asked if I was available to go to lunch with her, as she was in town. I agreed, and, while we were eating, she asked me, "Hey, do you need any dishwasher soap?"

I stared. "Um...yeah."

"Oh, good," she continued. "I have a whole box for you in the car."

A whole box. Yes. This box had about seven boxes of dishwasher soap--high quality dishwasher soap, to boot. And a few weeks later, she gave me another box.

I am STILL using that dishwasher soap. And every time I load my dishwasher, I smile and remember how God used dishwasher soap to reveal to me that He was still on the throne and had it all under control. And I think about how grateful I am for even the smallest of things. Over and over, God has shown us that He will really provide even the smallest of things. I remember running out of toiletries, and that same day having my mom hand us a bag full of brand new bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body soap. Another time, we had almost completely run out of food, and we didn't have another paycheck coming in for almost 3 weeks. That night, we went to church, and we came home with so many groceries that our cabinets literally could not hold it all. We're still eating some of that stuff, and it was months and months ago.

And I'm just so...grateful. Grateful for the little things...and grateful for a God who has blessed us far beyond what we deserve. Even during our hardest times...even when we were surviving on rice and hard-boiled eggs, we were still richer than a vast majority of the world. Who was I to complain about dishwasher soap when other people can barely find enough food to subsist on? Yet God used that to remind me that He cares and knows...and that we do have a High Priest who CAN be touched...

I don't freak out about big things as much anymore. My husband got a fantastic new job. He was supposed to start a month ago. Construction problems have interfered with that. I'm working for free for my teaching license, and he's supporting us with graphics work. Everyone around us is having heart failure about our situation, but we're just smiling and praying and moving on. "Why aren't you worried?" people ask. Well, you see...

I have dishwasher soap. And everything is going to be okay.

Our story Pt. 4

Turns out...J was right. I wasn't going anywhere.

Around November (we had been a couple for about two months or so), he disappeared into our pastor's office. I waited for a long time, and he came out, looking kind of dazed. "What happened?" I asked. "Well..." he said.

In a nutshell, he asked J if he loved me. And when he said yes, he encouraged him to move forward and not play with my heart.

A week later, J bought me a wedding planning book.

Three weeks later, he asked me if I would go on a walk at the Riverwalk after church. In Colorado. In December. I figured he was either going to propose, or he had fully lost it. As we walked around the park, clutching Starbucks and freezing to death, I looked up. We were passing underneath a bridge, and there stood J's brother and another friend....holding a poster with our picture and "K, will you marry me?" J then dropped to his knees and proposed. As I said yes, 15-20 friends and family burst out of the bushes, throwing rose petals, and he gave me a dozen long-stemmed roses.

We were married five months later.

Incidentally...

He was the guy in the suit.