Here are the details of the wedding ceremony that I can remember. Unfortunately there was a problem with the video recorder so we do not have the ceremony on tape. I'm trying to go off of memory and remember everything. If anyone is reading this and remembers some details that I've left out please let me know so that I can update this blog. I re-read some of my blogs on occasion, and I feel like this blog is one that I will re-read for many years because eventually it will be the only "recording" that we have left of our wedding ceremony so I'd like it to be as detailed as possible. Unfortunately even a couple days later it's hard for me to remember exactly everything that was said/happened. I don't have my professional pictures yet from my photographer so this blog has been created through extreme Facebook stalking to get all of these pictures. I didn't take any pictures on the wedding day, but from Facebook I've collected approximately 470 pictures from the wedding from other people so far.
After getting our pictures taken the whole bridal party arrived to the church. To my relief, Laura didn't make any comments about us arriving together, but I might have snuck into the room past her before she noticed we had been together. After taking pictures for a couple of hours outside the curls in my hair were really starting to fall out. Luckily my cousin brought a curling iron and Sam was able to touch up all of my curls so that my hair looked good for the ceremony.
Aunt Karen and mom hung out with us for a while before the ceremony. Aunt Karen was taking a bunch of pictures and then we just hung out. I wish I would have thought to ask her if she knew how to work her video camera. I just assumed that she knew how to use it. We had all that time for me to figure it out and show her. Oh well... nothing we can do about it now.
Here is Hannah, me, and Steph hanging out.
The girls that were in the room. I'm glad that Sam got to hang out with us and be apart of the wedding. She was also the one that fixed my train after I was up at the alter. I don't have any pictures of that yet, but I'm hoping my photographer caught it.
Here is my mom and I. I thought that my mom looked really pretty with her dress, nails, hair, and makeup done up. Mom was hesitant to leave the dressing room right before the ceremony started. I told her that she only had 5 minutes left and that she needed to be seated. She said that she was supposed to be the last one seated as the mother of the bride and she thought she was supposed to be escorted in right before I came down the aisle. We went back and forth on whether or not she should be seated before the bridal party started to come down the aisle. In the end she realized I was right and went to be seated.
Cody came into our dressing room to hang out for a little bit before the ceremony. We were practicing our first kiss. I told him that we had to hold it for at least 5 seconds so that everyone could get the picture. In reality I guess I didn't even need to worry about our kiss being short, because when we actually kissed I didn't worry about any of that and it was a long kiss anyway. In the practice session he tried to dip me, but my shoes were slippery and I almost fell... so we didn't do that during the actual ceremony. Later on Cody told me that Laura saw him coming out of the bridal room and she gave him a dirty look and made a comment about how he already saw the bride... but whatever... I loved having him in the room with us and hanging out for a little while, and if I could go back and do it again I feel like we'd do the same thing again.
Here are the guys waiting for the girls to walk down the aisle.
Here are the bridesmaids after the procession. We were all scrambling in the back to make sure that we lined everyone up correctly. We didn't remember if Kelsie and Davey went ahead of the party or if they went right before me. Laura came over at the last minute and helped us all get arraigned, but we were all stressing for a few minutes trying to figure it out.
After the kids started walking up to the door it was just dad and I standing there. It was such an exciting feeling, and then we started walking towards the door. I had been really curious as to what the candle light procession would look like, but I honestly didn't even really get a chance to notice it. As soon as I walked in I looked quickly at the crowd and then I locked eyes with Cody towards the end and that's all that I saw coming down the aisle. Even though we did our pictures ahead of time, it was still the best seeing him down there waiting and I was still really excited. I was happy that I had already seen him, because I wasn't as emotional as the first time that I saw him. I was proud of myself for not crying during the ceremony and ruining my makeup.
Once dad and I were up the aisle Pastor Dave welcomed everybody and thanked them on our behalf for sharing this day with us. He talked about how love is the second greatest gift that a person can get. And then he said, if love is the second greatest gift that a person can have than he'd like to know what the first was. He said of course, it was Jesus Christ who died on the cross for us. Right when he said love was number two I was kind of groaning in my mind because I knew that he was going to say God or Jesus was number one haha. After that he had us bow our heads to pray and he said a prayer for Cody and my marriage.
He then went into the first set of vows for the father of the bride. He asked my dad if he was willing to give my hand in marriage and if he was he should say, "I am." Dad did and then he said do you approve of this man in front of you and are you satisfied with his intent and character, if so say "I am." My dad said that he was and then Pastor Dave said now you weren't bribed or tricked into saying that were you? It was funny and everyone laughed. Dad said no he wasn't and that he approved of Cody. Pastor Dave told dad that in that case he had the privilege of being the first one to kiss the bride before he gave my hand to Cody. Dad gave me a hug and a kiss and then put my hand into Cody's. The pastor then told dad that he could be seated and dad had to walk around to his seat. In hindsight I can't help but think what would happen to someone if their dad didn't necessarily like the person that they were marrying? Yikes! That could be awkward.
After dad left, Pastor Dave said that the bride and groom had gifts that we wanted to present to our mothers. So Cody and I walked up and grabbed two silk roses. We went to Cody's mom first. I handed her a red rose and gave her a hug and then Cody gave her one.
I then remembered to pivot towards my mother and Cody gave her a rose and hug. I gave her a hug too and told her that I loved her and then I remembered to turn around in a 360 and face Pastor Dave again. Sam came up and straightened out my dress.
We then proceeded to go into our vows. Cody said "I Do" first and then Pastor Dave turned to me and had me say it as well. I thought that we would have to repeat phrases to him like for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health and etc... but those weren't what he said in our vows and we only had to agree and say I do. I do know that part of the vows said to forsake all others for all of time, but that is the only part of the vows that I can remember for sure. I feel like he might have made a joke when he said this part to Cody and that's why I remember it but I can't recall the rest. I think that I might call the church and ask them if they know what the vows said so that we have them, because I'm sad that I can't remember them. I also felt so bad for Amber during our vows. She had been so worried that Eric was going to cry during the ceremony and he had done so well and was such a good baby all weekend long but for that 5 minutes during our vows the poor little guy was upset and crying throughout it. Cody and I weren't upset or anything... you can't control when a baby cries. When we were both talking later we both felt so bad for Amber because we knew she was probably frantically trying to keep him from crying and she eventually had to give up and take him out into the hall so she missed most of the wedding.
After we said our vows, Pastor Dave said we were marrying each other because we trust each other and have faith in another. He said that a marriage was full of trust, because you are trusting the other person with your hopes, dreams, future plans, body and soul, and all of your earthly possessions. This really resonated with me, because this statement couldn't be more true. I couldn't help but think as he was saying this that he nailed it because Cody and I are really trusting each other with everything that we have and hope to have in the future. In this day and age it takes a lot of faith and trust in someone to make this type of commitment. It's a big step join yourself emotionally, physically, and financially with another person and you really have to have a lot of hope and trust in that person that they are the right choice for you. I really liked the Pastor Dave said this. It was funny when he went on to say and speaking of trust to whom did you entrust your rings? Chance made a little show as if he couldn't find the rings, but he had them on his pinky finger all along.
Pastor Dave took the rings and say that love is invisible and that while we both might feel it and know it to be true that others do not know. He asked us if we would wear our rings as a visible sign of our love and dedication to each other. We both said yes and Cody went to put the ring on my finger first. Now I've tried on this ring so many times and its always slipped right on every time, but at the ceremony for some reason it wouldn't go past my knuckle. Cody had to grab my finger and really slam it on. For half a second I was really nervous that it wasn't going to fit onto my finger. The I went to put his ring on and the same thing happened! I could barely get it on him! And now a few days later it is so loose on him he's afraid he's going to lose it. Maybe it was the angle we were putting it on at or maybe our fingers were stiff or something... I don't know!
After we put the rings on each other he asked us to grab right hands. He said now we've had a verbal contract, we've placed rings onto each other as a visual symbol, and now we've shook on it so now our marriage was considered a legally binding contract that could only be reversed in a court of law with lawyers and attorneys. I got butterflies as he said that! The ceremony really wasn't that long and it just felt different to think that we were now legally married!
He said now that we were married we could do our first act together by pouring our unity sand. We went up to pour the sand. I started and then Cody went. When I went again I noticed that my sand was covering up his color...
So I started to pour mine onto just one side so as to not cover up his sand. I don't think that Cody knew what I was doing because I could tell that he was frustrated that I wasn't pouring the sand evenly. For a second I thought he was going to yell at me to evenly distribute the sand, and later on he did comment on it and I told him why I did it. I guess I shouldn't have worried about it because all the sand got mixed up on the car ride home anyway. Luckily we have more than half the sand left so we will touch it up at home at some point.
After pouring the sand we came back to stand in front of the pastor. He said that we could now face each other, and he pronounced us husband and wife. He told Cody that the last thing to do was to seal the union with a kiss and that he now had the honor of kissing the bride. I had been worried before about whether or not our kiss would be long enough, but there was no need to worry! We kissed for quite a while "in the moment" and then we turned around and everyone cheered.
I like this picture of him right at after our kiss.
(He remember where to put his hand on the way out from the rehearsal.) We exited and turned to the left to wait for our receiving line. A receiving line was really important to us because we wanted to make sure that we got to see and talk to everyone that was at our wedding. I won't lie though... it was a long process and some people I had no clue who they were. I just assumed that they were someone that Cody knew. There were times when Cody and I both realized that we were saying the same things to people over and over again... but there were some heart felt moments with people and I wouldn't trade getting to thank people for coming to the wedding for anything. I also know a few people came to the wedding and didn't go to the reception so I'm glad that we didn't just wait to talk to people at the reception.
We walked outside and were greeted by everyone's cheers.
Our photographer told us to kiss outside. And then someone... I think the limo driver... told us to get into the limo for a lap around the parking lot. I'm honestly not sure why we did this.. and Cody and I were even confused in the limo as to what we were doing in there and why we were going around the parking lot. When it dropped us back off most of everyone scurried off or had gone into the church to take family pictures with us.
Taking the pictures in the church took a good amount of time. We started with shots of the bridal party.
Then we started with family pictures. We started with my parents, then added aunt and uncles, and then my cousins were added in. I could tell that my photographer was getting frazzled because the church was acting really weird about allowing her to use chairs for the pictures and she couldn't fit everyone into the shot. At first Laura said that we couldn't use anything at all, and eventually Carol asked her again if we could use a couple chair and Laura relently let us. Then she hoovered around and was like are you still using them? Do you still need them? How many did you take? My dad actually kind of yelled at her and said jeez they are just chairs lady we will put them back. She left us alone after that. But it was really bizarre. I don't know why church people have to be so strict and have such weird rules. I don't know what harm us using those chairs caused them and it just caused us more stress for having to worry about using them.
The funniest part of taking pictures was when we were with Cody's family. Eric was getting a little fussy and on que the entire remaining crowd started yelling his name and waving at him. No one asked them to, but everyone just did it on their own. He perked up and looked at them and it was super funny. The whole crowd did it for every picture haha. Towards the end of taking pictures it was seriously getting warm! Cody was sweating and I was hot too.
Overall... Pastor Dave was great. He was serious during the ceremony but added just enough comic relief to make it funny and interesting. I really enjoyed him being the pastor at our wedding and I would recommend him to anyone. His wife, Laura on the other hand was not that good to work with. I think that she made things unnecessarily difficult for us at several points during the whole wedding process. Since our wedding I've been reading reviews online and a LOT of people have said that she was rude or unhelpful... or that she's made typos on their programs and tried to change their handwriting to make it look like it was their fault. I know that she spelled Krista's name as Kirsta but we didn't confront her about it. On a positive note, I think that the church looked very nice and overall I think that everything went relatively smoothly despite Laura being strict and weird about some stuff. Their church is a business and I guess that's what you get when you go to a church to get married... you have to follow their rules. And that is exactly the reason why I'm not the least bit interested in ever joining a church. But oh well... alls well that ends well, and I think overall it was a nice ceremony and I'm happy with how it went.
