Wedding Day Memories

Day Four of Mama M's Valentine's Day Extravaganza is here!  Today we are to share our favorite memory of our wedding day.

Just eleven months after meeting Russ, I was dressing in white and committing a lifetime to him.  We got married on August 16, 2003.  It was a great day.  I was sooo happy.  Some brides get really nervous; some get teary eyes; I got giggly!  I barely got any sleep the night before because of nerves & excitement.  When I couldn't sleep, I stuck in a Simpson's video and watched the "in the future" episode where Lisa was planning a wedding to 'Hugh'.  I was suppose to be at the park for pictures at noon but was running late because it took longer than expected to do my hair (mostly because I didn't end up liking how it looked and the girl spent some time trying to find a 'fix' for it.) We had pictures at the park; then at the church before the 2 o'clock ceremony.  It was a very Christ centered ceremony & I was very pleased with how it went.  After the ceremony we had a buffet meal in a building across town.  Around 6ish, Russ & I left to spend our first night together at a town an hour away.

I can't say that I have any favorite memories of that wonderful, life-changing day but there are a few things that I think of that stand out in my mind.

1)  After pictures at the park, Russ & his good friend (who was an usher at our very small wedding) spent several minutes hacky sacking at the park before we left to get photos at the church.  It was something they did a lot of together.  When I went with the two of them to Arizona in March of that year, they had insisted on hacky sacking at the Grand Canyon just so they could say they had.  Same principle applied for our wedding, I guess.  :)

2) I have especially fond memories of the music from our wedding.  My good friend, Melissa, sang the three songs I chose.  For the first song, she sang 'How Great Thou Art' and accompanied herself.  That meant a lot to me because up to that point she was very reluctant about playing the piano in public.  Her rendition of that song was very simple & simply gorgeous!  I wish I had an audio recording of it!  For the candle lighting ceremony, she sang the Keith Green song 'Make my life a prayer to you." which she had never heard before but sang beautifully!  Finally she sang, "I will be Here."  I was always so pleased that I had someone so talented & special sing all my wedding songs!

3) When we were leaving the church for the drive to the reception we had bird seed for the guests to throw at us as we left.  Big mistake!  I ended up getting a piece of bird seed thrown directly into my right ear and I couldn't get it out!  I spent my entire wedding night being annoyed by it.  We ended up pouring water in my ear the next day to get it to float out.  We should have gone with bubbles instead!

4) At one point during the reception I started wondering what happened to my new husband because Russ had disappeared.  It turned out that he had been "kidnapped" by his sister, my sister & my sister-in-law.  They took him to Walmart and put him (tux & all!) into a shopping cart and drove him around!  (Luckily they did bring him back.)

5) Once we got to the motel, we spent a half hour taking my hair out.  I think we counted 119 bobby pins!