The Wedding!

It finally happened! After planning, waiting, rescheduling, re-planning and waiting some more, our wedding was October 7, 2012!!!! What a wonderful day it was, God truly blessed us. The ceremony was wonderful and just what we wanted. We had decided that we wanted the ceremony to be less about the two of us and more about the Gospel being reflected in marriage, and hope that that truly was the focus.

We do!

Photo by Heather Colt

Even almost a month later, I am still so overwhelmed with joy that I don't know exactly what to write. I'll start off by giving you a summary of the week leading up to the wedding. I flew up the week before the wedding to put the finishing touches on all of our planning while Brendan began out-processing at Fort Benning. I got the most stressful thing out of the way first... making sure the wedding dress fit, luckily it did.

The rest of the week was really just full of doing little things to put some personal touches on the wedding and waiting (im)patiently for Brendan to arrive on Friday.

Some of my favorites things that we decided to do were: having our guests sign a bench instead of having a guest book. We have the bench at the foot of our bed now! We also had flip flops for people to change into for dancing, and we made the groomsmen some baskets with some socks, an engraved lighter, a cigar, and a little bottle of Jameson.

These are some signs and the gift baskets we made!

The forecast for our day all week was pretty gross with a 90% chance of rain and temperatures around 50 degrees... I was feeling a little discouraged because our venue was so beautiful that I was afraid our guests wouldn't be able to enjoy the outdoor space of the grounds. Even the morning of the wedding, the forecast still said rain for most of the day.

But luckily it held off!!

The church after the ceremony (photo by Hunter Beless)

Saber Arch (Photo by Hunter Beless)

And we were even to take some photos outside at the reception venue!!

Photo by Heather Colt

Photo by Heather Colt

Except for having a small issue with one missing bridesmaid bouquet which we realized right before we were supposed to leave the house, the day went off without a hitch! Walking down the aisle and seeing Brendan at the end of it with all my family and friends in that church was more beautiful and meaningful than I ever could have imagined.

The reception was wonderful!!! but way too short... I felt like I didn't have time to see everyone, especially my friends who I don't get to see on a regular basis. Honestly though, I just miss some of these friendships so much. The hardest part of being on the move so much the past year is getting used to doing life with people and then not having them be close by (or in the next room) anymore. Luckily when I see them, it's like no time has passed at all!

From top left: My Friend Carolina from NYC, my roommates from NYC, my Army Friends from everywhere, and my roommate Nicole from NYC

the reception, I wouldn't have wanted it any different

we decided to do cupcakes instead of a cake, they were amazing!

Photo by Hunter Beless

Our wedding was the perfect way for us to begin our lives together surrounded and supported by our closest friends and family. Brendan had family who traveled all the way from Ireland, and his best man, Aaron traveled from Alaska. We had friends come from Maine, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, and everywhere in between. Every single person that was there is a blessing to us, and being able to have everyone that we hold so closely in our hearts together in the same room was amazing.

Our life together and marriage so far has been such a blessing, and my prayers are that we can continue to glorify God through our union.